David Rothkopf writes on The Daily Beast that great national leaders dedicate their time in office to strengthening the countries they serve — the worst do the opposite. They suck the strength out of the institutions, economies and resources they have been entrusted with protecting and cultivating — and take the wealth, status and influence for themselves — which is exactly what Donald Trump is doing to the US. Rothkopf designates this as vampirism, a term he only wishes were an overstatement. Vampire Trump is sucking the blood out of our country, and if he continues at this pace, when he is done “there will be nothing left but the pale, lifeless husk of the America that was. He is using the office of the presidency to openly enrich himself as has no other president or public official in US history,” says the author. “He has created elaborate schemes by which they and others who seek his favor can purchase crypto currency in ways that have already made him billions of dollars richer this year alone.” He is demanding gifts from other nations, as we are witnessing in our government’s acceptance of the ‘flying golden palace‘ from the nation of Qatar, destined to become Air Force One after its multi-million-dollar refitting, then onward to Trump’s presidential library — between the Little Golden Books section and the Grimm’s Fairy Tales wing. This is burdening the taxpayer with more debt resulting from tax cuts and sweetheart deals for his rich donors and the corporate world, which will bring more environmental despoliation, and an increase in health and safety conditions. The president is using the power of the government and the court system to squeeze corporations and institutions to settle lawsuits in ways that don’t benefit the country, but serve to enrich his future library with millions of dollars. Resources sucked from governmental departments and agencies that once served the people, such as health care, health research, or offices that endeavored in various ways to keep us safe, are now diverted to those agencies that increase his power and that of his mushrooming police state.

The masked, militarized forces of Homeland Security, now heavily funded by former FEMA funds, only serve to target his enemies, and to support the cruel white supremacist agenda toward the satisfaction and glee of his MAGA reactionaries — the “invasion of illegals” ploy serving only to achieve Trump’s goals. The Department of Justice is now protecting Trump personally, as it targets his opponents, enabling his obvious corruption, and aids his patrons. The intelligence community has become so corrupted, our intel assets have lost trust among our allies, making it unlikely that they will cooperate with us in the future. “Every day our government’s purpose shrinks and the power within it is more concentrated in the hands of one man. Every day we are diminished. Every day the resistance of those with strength within our system and around the world appears to grow weaker. The only comfort we can take is from the knowledge that in the end, sunlight kills vampires. You know that’s true because Trump fights so hard to bury the truth and keep the country in the dark,” writes Rothkopf. He concludes that despite the mainstream media being muzzled, and complicit in some cases, new platforms are coming to life which will enable us to work toward overcoming the “blood-sucking regime,” and to reject all those complicit in bringing on the darkness in every election until they are banished.

Monitoring use of taxpayer funds is being done by The Dekleptocracy Alliance in an attempt to expose the illegal infrastructure Trump is building to reward his allies and normalize political alliance. Examples of such payoffs are the DOJ settlement of the lawsuit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt who was killed as she stormed the Capitol building during the January 6, 2021 insurrection; in June, five Proud Boys leaders filed a $100 million lawsuit against the DOJ and FBI for “violating their rights” while committing seditious conspiracy; and in May, Trump met with Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys, telling him he is “working to make things right.” The Alliance says it looks coordinated, raising the concern that the DOJ is being used to quietly funnel taxpayer money to convicted insurrectionists. In March, Trump floated the idea of a compensation fund for the J6 rioters, but asking Congress for that kind of funding would be a political nightmare, which leaves civil settlements as a workaround — fast, quiet, and no media headlines. Tom Manger, former Capitol Police Chief, points to the Babbitt settlement as sending a “chilling message” to law enforcement nationwide. If these actions are being encouraged or coordinated quietly, it could mean DOJ attorneys are participating in a scheme to pay off Trump’s white nationalist base using public funds. One unsettling occurrence that the Trump administration seems to take pride in, is the appointment of J6 rioter, Jared Wise, who had encouraged rioters to kill police. Wise, now a senior adviser in the office of the deputy attorney general, was videoed yelling at police, “You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo,” following up with admonitions to rioters, “Kill ‘em, yeah! Kill ‘em, kill ‘em!” The new appointee is described as “a valued member of the Justice Department and we appreciate his contributions to our team.” Go team, law and order, rah-rah!

Rolling Stone magazine has detailed a few of the flamboyant and opulent efforts Donald Trump has initiated at taxpayer expense to boost his ego and flatter his wonderfulness. The recent, awkward birthday/military parade in DC was laughable — and a drag on your 401k — earning Trump a double-cream-pie-in-his-clown-face, and a kick in JD Vance’s butt for failing to requisition gold-plated military vehicles, and preventing the troops from marching in Monty Pythonesque-silly-walks. Quatar’s golden, bedecked jumbo jet (for which only Trump will hold the gold library card) is being completely repurposed at our expense and that of descendants yet unborn. And now we have, following the destruction and paving of Jackie Kennedy’s rose garden, the promise of a $200 million ballroom in which even more invitees can watch the president boogie to ‘YMCA‘ or other pirated recordings during the long evening. Trump has promised to foot the bill for construction, but yet another contractor is likely to get stiffed — unless taxpayers or donors step up.

Jesse Mackinnon posts on Common Dreams that Trump’s new ballroom plan for the White House grounds is “not just a monument to narcissism, but is stagecraft by spectacle, financed by national rot.” Architectural self-glorification for the ruling executive, fiscal starvation for the governed after slashing Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, and climate programs, all while inflating the national deficit past $40 trillion, is a juxtaposition not of innovation, but a rerun of Versailles. “Louis XVI’s France operated on the principle of dépense utile, or ‘useful splendor’ — the idea that royal extravagance was a form of political investment. Gold leaf and crystal chandeliers weren’t indulgence. They were instruments of authority. Versailles was never merely a residence. It was theater. It showcased the king’s ability to dominate not only his nobles but the metaphysical order of the kingdom itself. Every garden vista, every mirrored hallway, whispered the same thing: Obedience is beautiful and beauty belongs to the crown. This logic broke the country. Charles-Alexandre Calonne, Louis XVI’s finance minister in the 1780s, argued with sincerity that royal pageantry had diplomatic utility. France, he said, could not afford to be poor. To reduce spending would be to lose face, both at home and abroad. It would risk undermining the delicate myth of royal omnipotence that kept the aristocracy groveling and foreign rivals guessing. So he doubled down. The state borrowed to cover Versailles’ operating costs. The result was a debt spiral so vast that it cracked the ancien régime wide open,” Mackinnon writes. The US, in 2025, now faces annual payments nearing $2 trillion, about a third of our federal revenue. 1789 France had a tax-exempt aristocracy — the US has tax-exempt billionaires; and instead of court ballet, we have cable news. But the fiscal structure is no less absurd — Trump’s budget performs the same dark magic: redirecting public funds toward elite vanity while accelerating structural collapse, maintains Mackinnon.

The ballroom is only a symptom. The marble-and-gold performance space, modeled loosely on Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors, will sit at the center of Trump’s renovated West Wing, hosting foreign dignitaries, Republican fundraisers, and presidential photo ops. This is how kleptocracy dresses itself — in borrowed grandeur, gilded walls, and florid illusions of permanence, designed to shrink the public sphere until only the strong, the connected, and the loyal remain. The money isn’t gone. It’s just moved — upwards. There is a bitter historical irony here, says Mackinnon — the French Revolution did not erupt because peasants lacked bread, because bread shortages had existed for centuries. What changed was the visibility of the farce. The illusion cracked. People saw a monarchy bleeding the treasury dry for glitter and pride, while demanding austerity from everyone else. The palace at Versailles, once a symbol of majesty, began to look grotesque. The line between luxury and insult collapsed. Americans are now watching that same shift in real time, with a president who calls himself ‘king’ on social media, while receiving thunderous applause from his MAGA base, as he throws gala dinners while food pantries are deprived of funds. Royal France justified its excess as necessary for order and prestige; Trump justifies it with the language of branding. Both are the same: obscene pageantry disguising political decay with the people footing the bill. The rituals of accountability have vanished — no one will explain why America can afford a golden ballroom, but not insulin. Only theater remains, with a lineage from the Roman circuses, to Versailles, to Trump’s ballroom — all psychological, with the same ending. The French monarchy failed because people eventually realized they were not guests at the party — they were the bill.

The glitziness and the glam is about more than simply placating the president, according to political scientists. Instead, the whole spectacle is attached to Trump’s authoritarian leanings. “They have to do with a president who needs to be not only at the center of the media circus, but who needs to be told ritualistically over and over how great he is,” Anthony DiMaggio, author of ‘Rising Fascism in America: It Can Happen Here,’ told Rolling Stone. “What’s interesting to me about this, as a political scientist, is that it’s not just a personality-based thing or a defect. It’s a broader pattern that has to do with behaviors that are overlapping with authoritarian politics and ideology.” At Cabinet meetings and press briefings, officials from across the political landscape are quick to puff up the president, and no none dares correct him if he presents something with flawed information. Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling of The New Republic says, “The result is a Trumpian loyalty more akin to a religion than a political ideology; even Congressional Republicans, who are supposed to be detached from Trump’s influence, have repeatedly kowtowed to the president’s will.” Virginia Canter of Democracy Defenders Fund told Rolling Stone, “The sycophantic displays between Trump and his advisers give off ‘Dear Leader’ vibes, similar to what you would see with Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin, noting that the president treats his Cabinet members as his ‘personal staff.’ They’re there to stroke his ego.”

President Trump turned up on the roof of the White House last week along with a gaggle of his entourage, and Seth Meyers on his NBC show found it hard to absorb, unable to even laugh at the situation. “This looks like one of those human-interest stories where firefighters have to rescue a dog that got stuck on the roof,” he offered. “If Joe Biden had been seen wandering around on the roof one day, all hell would have broken loose, even though we all know he insists he is capable of cleaning the gutters himself.” The president even tried to field questions from the reporters on the ground, but Meyers suggested he couldn’t answer them if he was unable to hear them on his rooftop perch, and if poll numbers worsen he may try press conferences from atop the Washington Monument. Meyers joked, “Trump did eventually come down, thanks to firefighters luring him with a Big Mac on a string.” On ‘The Tonight Show,’ Jimmy Fallon noted that Apple CEO Tim Cook “joined President Trump at the White House to announce another $100 billion investment in the US. Cook said they plan to make it all back by selling six iPhones.”

A Trump action that was expected for weeks finally came to pass when he announced the federalizing of Washington, DC’s police department, and the deployment of several hundred National Guard troops in his attempt to “liberate” the city from crime. It just happened to be the first day of arguments in California’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that the chief executive acted illegally when he commandeered California’s National Guard to conduct immigration raids. By law, this unilateral takeover of the DC forces will require Congressional approval to continue, so we can bet that Speaker Johnson is pedaling as fast as he can to come up with justification(s) for the move since data shows that violent crime in the capitol city is down dramatically. Trump’s targeting of a majority-Democratic led city, bypassing local leaders, and using federal troops as a show of force is just another step in his attempt to acclimate such actions to portray it as necessary and normal in the eyes of the public. His occupancy of an LA neighborhood with troops firmly under his belt, was only a prelude to a takeover of a whole city — a small one, but larger populations are on his list as he aspires to eradicate home rule in all our states as he doubles down. A normal Congress has the constitutional power AND the responsibility to check our lawless leader by holding oversight hearings, examining all subpoenaed documents, and pass legislation to strictly define domestic troop deployments, a line we cannot afford to let Trump cross. As Josh posts on Civic Shout, “It erodes the separation of powers, undermines local authority, and violates the principles behind the Posse Comitatus Act.”

The Sunday preceding his actions, Trump issued a warning to the unhoused in DC, telling them to “move out immediately,” even in light of an increased homeless population. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital (sic). The criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong,” Trump posted. Jesse Rabinowitz, spokesperson for the National Homelessness Law Center, wrote on Bluesky, “The billionaires at the Cicero Institute have their hands all over these shameful steps. Again, Republicans are using DC as a sandbox for their failed, racist and backwards policies. Pay attention to what happens here, because it will soon happen everywhere.” Steve Berg, chief policy officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, posted on LinkedIn, “I hardly see anybody on the streets in DC these days. If there are encampments, they’re hiding. Could it be somebody thinks he can prove how tough he is by threatening people who are homeless?” Melanie D’Arrigo of the Campaign for New York Health, wrote on X, “Trump is going to traffic homeless people. Many won’t have ID, and will likely end up incarcerated with immigrants who are being arrested, trafficked and detained, without due process.” The Washington Legal Clinic, also posted on X: “People are not criminals or dangerous, by virtue of their unhoused status. People are struggling to afford rent and food in an expensive city. We should not have homelessness in our nation’s capitol. But the path to ending homelessness is housing, not displacement.”

As the president rambled on about roving gangs of teens attacking locals and visitors, comparing crime in DC to cities around the globe, MSNBC posted a bright red graphic next to him that proved his numbers incorrect, that he was making things up on the fly — lies #4501? or #5501?, for his second-term quota — based on the former Washington Post’s lie count of 21 or so lies per day from his first term. CNN also displayed a graph during Trump’s presentation, showing a 35% drop in DC violent crimes — a blatant put-down of the president’s “bloodthirsty criminals, drugged out maniacs and homeless people” claim. Trump raged on with, “We’re not going to let it happen. It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness. And we’re getting rid of slums, too. We have slums here. We’re getting rid of them. I know it’s not politically correct. You’ll say, oh, so terrible. No, we’re getting rid of the slums where they live.” Got that? He’s getting rid of slums! Yes, slums! Trump had posted on Truth Social on Friday preceding his formal takeover announcement, “Washington DC will be LIBERATED today! Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER! I quickly fixed the Border (ZERO ILLEGALS in the last 3 months!), DC is next!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT” Tom Boggioni of Raw Story wrote: “Trump’s latest post follows a Truth Social flurry on Monday morning where, in one, he raged at the New York Times, and in another attacked the intelligence of female Democrats while boasting about the cognitive tests he has “aced” — both at a time when he is being scrutinized over his friendship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.” Just another Epstein cover-up distraction? Plus, he’s getting rid of slums!

Curiously, as we all remember, Mr. Trump refused to call up the National Guard in DC on January 6, 2021, when the rioting was completely out of control, blaming it on Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s failure to do so, because he “didn’t have the power.” And, as we have seen the president has pardoned those convicted of violent crimes during that insurrection. Former DC police officer, Daniel Hodges, who was present on that fateful day says, “As a former National Guard member and of the DC police, if Trump’s edict comes to pass, the vast majority of the troops are just going to stand around. They are not trained law enforcement. Extremely expensive photo op, and you’re paying for it.”

ECONOMIC FABULISM, ORWELLIAN EXERCISE, PETULANT CHILD

If you’ve been paying attention, by now you know that all future jobs numbers will be coming from the guy who says he’s 6’3″ tall and weighs 215 pounds…oh, and is a complete master at the game of golf — with a proper caddy. George Stephanopolous on ABC’s This Week said President Trump’s administration resembles the authoritarian regimes of Venezuela and Turkey after he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for releasing a “RIGGED” report for July. BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer’s report showed only 73,000 jobs were added to the employment rolls, after the White House had estimated 109,000 jobs would be added, with Trump claiming it was meant “to make Republicans, and ME, look bad. I’ve had issues with numbers for a long time, but today’s — we’re doing so well. I believe the numbers were phony just like they were before the election, and there were other times. So you know what I did, I fired her.” Stephanopolous said, “Suppressing statisticians is a time-honored tool for leaders trying to solidify their power and stifle dissent. It’s happened throughout history. Most recently in Venezuela and Turkey, where presidents punished officials and economists who do not toe the party line.” McEntarfer was appointed by Joe Biden in 2023 to compile the closely watched employment report, as well as consumer and producer price data, and the Democrats were quick to criticize the firing as an attempt by the administration to manipulate data, warning of lasting damage to the economy. The BLS also revised sharply downward the data from May and June, showing 258,000 fewer jobs were created than had previously been reported. Economists attributed the sharply slower job growth to Trump’s trade and immigration policies, saying uncertainty about tariff levels had made it difficult for businesses to plan for the future according to Reuters.

The satirical Borowitz Report disclosed that the president had found a replacement for Commissioner McEntarfer: “In one of the most stunning political comebacks in American history, on Monday Donald J. Trump picked the disgraced former congressman George Santos to lead the Department of Labor Statistics. ‘This is such an honor,’ Santos told reporters. ‘I really didn’t think I’d get pardoned before Ghislaine.’ The new DLS chief hit the ground running, revising the job figures from every month of Trump’s presidency. ‘The American economy added a million new jobs in May and a billion new jobs in June,’ Santos declared. ‘President Trump is creating jobs like crazy — he even gave on to Pete Hegseth.’ The unprecedented job growth has boosted Trump’s approval rating, which Santos said currently stands at 140 percent.”

Mike Nellis writes on Endless Urgency, “It’s the mistake of thinking you can spin people out of their own lived experience. That you can gaslight the country into believing the economy is strong…when it’s clearly, tangibly not.” He recalls an interview on Fox News when the host and another guest laughed at his statement that everything is more expensive under Trump, only a few days later to have a Fox poll showing Trump with a -30% rating on inflation. Nellis says, “People aren’t stupid. Prices are still high and they’re getting more expensive, not less — largely because of Trump’s own tariffs. Americans aren’t buying the spin. They’re living the struggle. And now, Trump has fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics — not because the numbers were wrong, but because they didn’t flatter him. He wants a ‘single source of truth,’ and that source is him. His ‘truth’ is whatever serves his ego. Even when it’s a lie. This is more that authoritarian fluff. It’s economic gaslighting. Just like claiming there have been ‘zero border crossing’ in the last three months. It’s not even a good lie. It’s just lazy. You can get away with gaslighting people on stuff they don’t track. But you can’t tell them they’ve ‘beaten inflation’ while their rent’s going up, their groceries cost more, and their credit card balance is rising. And it’s not just working-class families feeling the squeeze. A recent report from VantageScore found that even people making $150,000 a year are falling behind on their bills. And yet, the GOP and their media echo chamber keep pushing this fantasy that Trump fixed the economy. Two weeks ago, he said it from the White House lawn. It’s nonsense — and it’s not going to work.”

CNN’s Stephen Collinson says, “One big danger now is that Trump’s economic fabulism will gather its own momentum and infect confidence in government statistics that will long outlive his presidency. If Trump appoints a politicized official to head the BLS with an incentive to please him, the pressure on officials to produce corrupted data would be intense. If job numbers are worse next month, will he fire someone else? And if the numbers improve, will anyone believe in their integrity?” Collinson wrote that Trump infamously told supporters, “Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.” This was the mantra that guided his COVID-19 response and culminated in his ‘Big Lie‘ about the 2020 election, and many observers call Trump’s actions an ‘Orwellian‘ exercise in rewriting reality. Former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, called President Trump a “petulant child” upon his firing of Commissioner McEntarfer. “When he gets news he doesn’t like, he needs someone to blame because he won’t take the responsibility himself,” Christie said on ABC. “It seems to me from everything I learned over my years as governor, that it would be almost impossible for anyone to try to rig these numbers because so many people are involved in putting them together, and in the end, when it comes to the director of BLS, all she’s doing is being a conduit of the information.”

To back up Christie’s summation, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told George Stephanopolous, “This is way beyond anything that Richard Nixon ever did. I’m surprised that other officials have not responded by resigning themselves, as took place when Nixon fired people lawlessly. This is a preposterous charge. These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals. There is no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number. This is the stuff of democracy giving way to authoritarianism. Firing statisticians goes with threatening the heads of newspapers. It goes with launching assaults on universities. It goes with launching assaults on law firms.” Stephanopolous disclosed that the White House had declined to provide a guest for his Sunday show to respond to the firing and the “rigged jobs report,” even as Trump’s cronies scrambled to defend the situation. White House Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said, “The president wants to see his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they’re more transparent and more reliable.” Senator Elizabeth Warren told CNBC in an interview, “Well, look, you know, you get bad data, you kill the messenger, right? And that’s Donald Trump because he thinks he can bend reality. If he can just tell a different story, then everyone will have to believe his story.”

The New York Times’ Zolan Kanno-Youngs believes that Trump’s knee-jerk firing of McEntarfer is a sign of his increasing agitation when things don’t go his way. Trump was relatively buoyed by his recent trip abroad, only to return home to be “confronted with foes and facts the he could not easily control, displaying another side of himself, responding with disproportionate intensity and a distinct impatience,” along with saber-rattling volatility over comments made by Russia’s Dmitri Medvedev. Former Trump administration official John Bolton said no one should be surprised at this uglier turn with Trump no longer able to tolerate facts and people refusing to “bend to his will.” Bolton told The Times, “I think he deliberately surrounded himself with ‘yes’ men and ‘yes’ women. It’s more evidence he’s not fit to be president. This is not the way a president responds to either one of these situations.” About Trump’s increased agitation with Russia, which Bolton believes Trump hasn’t thought through, he says, “He many not even understand what he’s doing. It’s so natural to him to say outrageous things that he’s incapable of thinking about the strategic consequences. Trump is not deterred by reality. He just says what the wants to say.” “You can wear a mask and paint your face; You can call yourself the human race; You can wear a collar and a tie; One thing you can’t hide, is when you’re crippled inside,” — John Lennon said that.

Donald Trump’s frequent bizarre public appearances, which have seen him claim that his uncle knew the Unabomber, or that windmills cause a litany of health problems — not to mention a plethora of problems for the petroleum industry, of course, raising questions about his mental acuity. His odd behaviors at campaign events, during interviews, and spontaneous remarks at press conferences, or drifting off-topic as he did at a cabinet meeting last month when he spent fifteen minutes talking about decorating; and, we are all familiar with his misremembering facts about government and his own life. Trump has been excused from the same scrutiny received by Joe Biden despite bouts of confusion and unusual behavior as seen in his recent meeting with European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, when he sidestepped from their immigration discussion to ranting about windmills for two minutes. Harry Segal, lecturer at Cornell University’s psychiatry department, and at Weill Cornell Medicine, calls the abrupt changes in conversation an example of Trump’s “digressing without thinking — he’ll just switch topics without self-regulation, without having a coherent narrative.” A questioner approached him regarding aid toward the famine in Gaza, with his response being that the US gave $60 million “two weeks ago — no other country gave anything,” not realizing or remembering that the UK allocated $80 million, and the European Union allocated $195 million, the Guardian finding no evidence that the US had given anything in the past two weeks. Last month the US State Department approved a $30 million grant to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a group backed by Israeli and US interests which has been criticized by Democrats as “connected to deadly violence against starving people seeking food in Gaza.” No response from the White House questioning the claimed $60 million donation!

Harry Segal brought up another characteristic of Trump’s questionable mental acuity — confabulation. “It’s where he takes an idea or something that’s happened and he adds to it things that have not happened,” — the Unabomber story. Aside from the confabulation, there have been times when Trump seems unable to focus, such as during the 2024 campaign when he spent 40 minutes swaying to the music after a medical emergency occurred at the rally, and he called a ‘timeout’. His rambling speeches, drifting between topics, which he terms “the weave,” also draws scrutiny. Segal adds, “If a patient presented me with the verbal incoherence, tangential thinking, and repetitive speech that Trump regularly demonstrates, I would almost certainly refer them for a rigorous neuropsychiatric evaluation to rule out a cognitive illness.” John Gartner, psychologist and author who was an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School for 28 years said, “What we see are the classic signs of dementia, which is gross deterioration from someone’s baseline and function. If you go back and look at film from the 1980s, Trump actually was extremely articulate. He was still a jerk, but he was able to express himself in polished paragraphs, and now he really has trouble completing a thought and that is a huge deterioration. I predicted before the election that he would probably fall off the cliff before the end of his term. And at the rate he is deteriorating, you know…we’ll see. But the point is that it’s going to get worse. That’s my prediction.”

Travis Gettys on Raw Story reports that there may be good news about drug prices!: “The president sent letters last week to the heads of 17 major pharmaceutical companies demanding they cut prices to levels paid by other countries, but he repeated a claim last week to reporters that he would reduce the cost for prescription medications by a whopping 1,500 percent — which many social media users pointed out was absurd.” Health policy professor Miranda Yaver posted: “The thing about lying about cutting prescription drug prices is that while a lot of economic policy is too complicated for the average American to understand, Americans know whether they’re paying more/less for their prescriptions when they go to the pharmacy.” Don Moynihan mockingly posted: “We are going to cut prices by 1500% and I fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because she is incompetent.” Child psychologist and professor Ellen Braaten wrote: “Today’s best confabulation by our esteemed president.” HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte posted: “This is how this works: The prescription costs $100. You go to the drug store to pick it up, and instead of paying the pharmacist, the pharmacist gives you the medicine AND $1,400! Why didn’t any previous president think of this!?” “Tomorrow, it’ll be eleventy thousand percent, and the media will report it without question, and we’ll all shake our heads and move along, and it’ll be just another day of reality eroding before our eyes,” posted author Jennifer Erin Valent.

A few weeks ago, on ‘The Jim Acosta Show,’ Democratic strategist James Carville was asked whether he was worried about potential vote tampering from President Trump and senior aide, Stephen Miller. Carville said he wouldn’t “put anything past” Trump to prevent Democrats from taking back Congress, perhaps going so far as to cancel elections entirely to retain power for himself and MAGA. He feels that Trump fears what may happen in Virginia and New Jersey, and with retirements, or office holders distancing themselves from him, he will panic, and in Carville’s words “try to steal another one,” especially in light of possible impeachment proceedings being launched by a Democratic Congress. Acosta was taken aback by Carville’s predictions, but agreed that Trump has determination to stay in power. “He can think of things like that, that we can’t, because we’re not accustomed to thinking like that. We always assume there’s going to be an election, in your case, ‘How do I cover the election?’ My case, ‘How do I affect the election?‘ said Carville. “This is a whole new thing. You have every reason to be scared. Don’t kid yourself,” he warned.

Mike Nellis provides further insight into Trump’s furtiveness: “When gaslighting stops working, Republicans reach for their favorite tool — rigging the rules. Texas Republicans introduced a radically gerrymandered congressional map designed to hand them five more House seats in 2026. It’s not subtle. It’s not legal (yet). But it is strategic. Why? Because Donald Trump asked for it. And today’s GOP doesn’t resist Trump — they obey him. Let’s be clear: this map isn’t about governing or fairness. It’s about fear. Fear of a changing electorate. Fear of suburban voters, young people, and Black and brown Texans. Fear of competition. And above all — fear of losing. So instead of trying to win votes, they’re trying to erase them. They’re cracking and packing districts, slicing up communities of color, and drawing lines so surgically partisan it would make a corrupt Tammany Hall boss blush. This isn’t confidence. It’s cowardice. Texas Republicans are trying to redraw reality to protect themselves from accountability. Because they know they’re losing — and instead of improving, they’re cheating. And if that weren’t authoritarian enough? When Democratic legislators fled the state to block the vote, Republicans didn’t stop to reflect what they were doing to democracy. They threatened legal action. Floated arrests. Anything to force a vote on a map that serves Trump — not Texans. That’s not democracy. That’s hostage politics.”

Nellis says the map is being dictated straight from Mar-a-Lago, a national redistricting scheme orchestrated by a man who couldn’t name a Texas county if his life depended on it — this isn’t conservatism. It’s autocracy with a Southern accent. This tactic is being taken to other states, because the way to hold onto power is by rigging the system — redraw the map, change the rules. Nellis believes the GOP can’t be saved this way — gerrymandering doesn’t pay the grocery bill, doesn’t make one forget that the monthly paycheck is depleted by mid-month, doesn’t reduce the rent, or get proper meals at school for the kids. Kicking 20 million off health care and cutting food assistance for 18 million kids simply to give billionaires yet another tax cut shows Americans that the Republicans don’t care. It’s not leadership — it’s theft. Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security aren’t handouts if we all pay into it. Our contributions to our economy, paid with taxes from our hard work is part of the deal — we are supposed to get some payback, but Republicans have once again broken their part of this agreement, and are digging their own political graves. The GOP isn’t governing. They’re not planning. They’re not solving. They’re lying, cheating, and redrawing the board. Tariffs are wrecking the economy, and Trump has no plan to fix it — only looking after himself and his inner circle with ill-gotten riches.

Satirist Andy Borowitz has posted a fictitious letter that Texas Governor Abbott MAY have sent to his fellow Americans (read Republicans): “My fellow Americans: As you may know, 51 cowardly Democrat legislators are on the run from Texas. They are shirking their duty to rid our glorious state of the representative government that has plagued us for far too long. These Democrats could be anywhere. They could be in your town. They could be hiding under your bed. More likely, they are at a farmer’s market, selecting artisanal pickles. The following tips to help you identify Democrats in your midst: 1) Democrats are often seen carrying tote bags featuring the logos of PBS, NPR, Doctors Without Borders and other subversive organizations. 2) Democrats do not eat cats and dogs, but they do rescue them. 3) Someone driving a car with a bumper sticker that says ‘RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES’ could be a Democrat, but it could also be a member of QAnon. If the car stereo is playing Bruce Springsteen, it’s a Democrat. If you see someone with any of these identifying characteristics, remember: Democrats are dangerous. Some may be armed with concealed pocket Constitutions. To help bring these fugitives to justice, immediately report your sighting to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. He will be standing by at one of his three primary residences. God Bless America, Gov. Greg Abbott.”

The fallout from the Paramount/CBS News settlement with Donald Trump still echoes with the charges of bribery since most legal experts termed Trump’s lawsuit as baseless, succeeding only because a merger with Skydance Media was dependent on the FCC, a la the Trump administration, resulting in final approval of the $16 million payoff. That money won’t go directly to Trump, but to his future presidential library — a political monument touting his name, and forever to be recognized as part of his legacy, and his ability to shakedown his victims. As Michael Cohen writes on MeidasTouch, “If American democracy were a deer, it would be standing in the middle of the highway trying to reason with an oncoming semi. That semi, of course, is President Trump. And the Democrats? They’re standing on the shoulder with a clipboard, giving speeches about traffic safety. It’s been a decade since Trump first took a wrecking ball to our political institutions, and still — still — Democrats haven’t figured out how to contend with a president who doesn’t break rules so much as bend them until they no longer resemble anything that could be called a law.” Thus, we have the $16 million payoff by Paramount Global to Trump over a ‘60 Minutes‘ interview with Kamala Harris that was edited much like any other television interview — no “deliberate manipulation,” no “election interference,” and hardly “the biggest scandal in broadcast history.” Cohen reminds us that Trump’s original demand was for $10 billion before bumping it to $20 billion — not being one to allow reality to get in the way of leverage.

Press freedom groups called the suit “beyond frivolous,” and the CBS/60 Minutes release of raw footage and transcripts showed nothing diabolical was afoot. Cohen says the finality achieved its purpose: intimidation, silence, and compliance. A similar shakedown was paid by Disney/ABC after Trump sued George Stephanopoulos for defamation which resulted in a payout to avoid political and regulatory aggravation — no apology required, no admission of guilt sought, just the money will do! Cohen sees this as a new model of media control, which is not about censorship, but consequence. Trump won’t have to muzzle the press if he makes it expensive, risky, and exhausting to be truthful, with valid journalism becoming a liability. And those Democrats with the clipboards find they are no match for Trump’s second term, with no strategy to parry with a president who views the law as a tool, using litigation not as a means to justice, but as a tool to jimmy the works for political power and monetary benefit. Victims of the fallout brought the resignations of ’60 Minutes’ executive producer Bill Owens, and CBS News President Wendy McMahon. Owens cited loss of editorial independence, and McMahon said she disagrees on “the path forward,” — a path of compliance, timidity, and self-censorship facing legal intimidation and regulatory blackmail. Cohen says we are watching not only the erosion of the First Amendment coupled with monetization of fear, but Trump’s proving our guardrails are only as strong as the will to defend them. That will is lacking in media companies, law firms and the Democratic Party, allowing setting of the precedent that a president can and will sue the media into silence, funneling the proceeds into a personal monument, and skate away sans inquiry, with the opposition stumbling over whether to resist or concede. Cohen concludes that though Democrats are writing letters, making speeches, and asking America to believe that norms and decency are enough — not so, not anymore, and perhaps never again. The most noteworthy monument standing at present is the one to Paramount’s surrender.

As reported on The Hartmann Report, in the wake of the Paramount/CBS payoff, CBS is installing a ‘monitor‘ to look for ‘leftwing bias.’ Such as facts. Hartmann writes, “Reality has a well-known leftwing bias because much of the rightwing ideology out there is based, simply, in lies. Trickle-down economics benefits working class people. Immigrants are more likely to be criminals. Women lover getting abortions, particularly late-term. Unions steal from their workers to make ‘union bosses’ rich. Global warming is a hoax. The fossil fuel and chemical industry aren’t poisoning us and our environment. Green energy is more expensive than gas, oil, or coal. People on Medicaid and food stamps are lazy. Unemployment insurance discourages work. Raising the minimum wage increases unemployment. People only value a college education if they go into debt to get it. Healthcare for all Americans is too complicated for any government to create and administer. America was created as a Christian nation. Every single one of those statements is a demonstrable lie, but when they pop up on CBS News going forward don’t expect any push-back. As part of Skydance’s deal with Trump and the FCC, they not only gave the president a personal $16 million bribe (and apparently also offered a similar amount in free advertising) but also agreed to install in the CBS operations a ‘monitor’ to catch and kill any semblance of ‘leftwing bias.’ This is the sort of thing that routinely happens when nations lose their democracy, and is a flashing red sign that we’re in the actual process of losing ours.”

Joyce Vance writes on Civil Discourse that the CBS ‘bias monitor‘ prompts her to comment on George Orwell’s novel, ‘1984,’ which she quotes from in her upcoming book, ‘Giving Up Is Unforgivable.’ She calls Orwell’s novel ‘illuminating‘ as it looks at the risks of succumbing to fascism. “It underscores the vital role of open, truthful dialogues. It’s about the protection of democratic institutions against the corrosive effects of misinformation and attempts to rewrite history. A bias monitor. Accepted by a major news network. Not a huge public outcry as Trump brings the thought police of fiction into fact. We are overdue to read, or reread, 1984.” In the words of George Orwell: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” In July of 2024, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that spawned Project 2025, and one of that document’s chief architects, said on Steve Bannon’s podcast, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” Vance tells us that after that announcement, Trump disclaimed all knowledge of Project 2025, and most people moved on. Four months later, Americans returned Donald Trump to office, and now we’re living under Project 2025 — lots of parallels to 1984. FBI deputy director, Dan Bongino tweeted that he knows things that you don’t — a dark brooding vibe, insinuating that there’s more, enflaming any conspiracy theory MAGA may wish to revisit.

In this same vein, Steven Asarch writes on MSNBC, “Franklin Roosevelt mastered the use of radio. John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were top of the game on TV. And Donald Trump is the first AI slop president. Since January, Trump’s administration has used artificial intelligence to churn out a steady stream of fake images on social media, from alligators in ICE hats to crying members of Congress, while the official White House account on X has used it to portray the president as Superman, the pope and a villain from ‘Star Wars.'” Asarch brings up the AI-generated clip showing President Obama being forcibly detained by the FBI, and another showing various Democrats in orange prison jumpsuits tagged as the ‘Shady Bunch.’ He says it’s not harmless, necessarily, but it’s mostly just lame trolling usually done by a 14-year old boy, or someone who acts like one. It becomes another thing entirely when Trump does it, as he muddies the waters of reality, encouraging his MAGA horde to believe everything and nothing — to a Trumper steeped in these memes, the answer may not even matter. Past presidents may have lied or presented false evidence on occasion, but Trump at this stage of his political presence, has made us all so tired of his commonplace mission to blame everyone else for the problems he’s created, that it’s easily overlooked. Two risks: One is that malevolent forces disseminate a fake video that is widely believed, leading to real-world consequences. The other is that people stop believing video entirely — the next video leak of prisoners being tortured or a presidential candidate bragging about his sexual assaults, may lead Americans to shrug it off, saying it’s fake. Trump is creating a world in which you can’t trust anyone, facts are fungible and the truth is whatever your political team says it is.

MSNBC’s columnist, Michael A Cohen, writes that the biggest political story in the country is the Jeffrey Epstein saga, but that the hidden story is the cratering popularity of President Trump, with Real Clear Politics, Nate Silver, and Elliott Morris all agreeing that Trump has fallen to the lowest point in his tenure, and that the numbers are still in free fall. The populace is souring on his campaign promises, the very issues his zealotry has visited upon the country. Seeing and hearing stories about his ICE secret police and their unmerciful tactics, the construction of Alligator Alcatraz and a promise to build many more, and most of all, the economy and the threat of even higher prices with his new tariffs aren’t passing muster. If we are fortunate enough to hold midterm elections next year, and the president can’t move the needle into a more favorable position in the interim, the GOP could be in a world of trouble — and it’s difficult to see him dramatically changing his mind about any of his agenda items. In MAGA’s realm, the Epstein situation weakens Trump, and even if he can somehow maintain support in this area, he is taking his party into treacherous political waters. With his Big Beautiful Bill, Immigration and Customs gets a huge infusion of money with which he has promised to double down on mass deportation cruelty, and the tariffs have become his mantra, so voters can expect more Republican trickle-down in the form of pain. If Democrats can get it together, they should have an easier chore at recruiting viable candidates to pit against Republicans, while raising the money to compete successfully. Even the campaign slogan, ‘We’re not President Donald Trump,’ which was a midterm success during Trump’s first term, might work for them again.

It’s the Epstein files that are driving Washington, DC’s Republicans and the MAGA bunch, into insanity, prompting the House Speaker to call for the August recess despite unfinished business. And Trump took a cue from Johnson’s action, hotfooting it to Scotland on a business/pleasure trip — the business part being a combination of Trump Golf course business and US government business, all courtesy of the US taxpayer, of course. Scotland’s newspaper, ‘The National‘, greeted him with the headline: ‘CONVICTED US FELON TO ARRIVE IN SCOTLAND.’ Hordes of demonstrators with appropriate signs are welcoming him as well, so he will do his utmost to avoid them, but the Scottish press hasn’t let him forget about his pedo-buddy Epstein. It would probably be his preference to remain on his golf courses until September when Washington comes back to life. Nobody seems to know where JD Vance is hiding out, but he’s saying very little about Jeffrey Epstein in an effort to salvage his political future according to Trump biographer, Michael Wolff. Wolff says, “JD Vance cannot, for his own political future, lose the MAGA base, but at the same time he cannot lose Donald Trump. Go figure.” Some see Vance as the heir apparent to Trump, but the president may have a different view — “We’ll see,” he has said. JD hasn’t been in the White House spotlight lately, which some see as a diminished role in Trump’s hierarchy, with New York Times columnist, Jamelle Bouie describing his function as the ‘president’s official fanboy,’ able to effectively communicate his leader’s vile messages to the base. “And in addition to acting as cheer captain for his boss, Vance also works to give the administration a veneer of intellectualism to cover its cruelty, corruption, and incompetence — a spokesman for the president’s brand of national populism,” Bouie argues.

Even the First Lady is in the middle of the Epstein drama according to Michael Wolff, being “very involved” he commented to Joanna Coles of The Daily Beast. “She was very involved in this Epstein relationship,” Wolff says, adding that Melania was introduced to Trump through model agent, Paolo Zampolli, who had a relationship with both Trump and Epstein. “This is another complicated issue in this — where does she fit into all this? Where does she fit in the Epstein story? Into the whole culture of models of indeterminate age?” asks Wolff. The president has frantically tried to cast off the Epstein tie, trying to blame the Democrats, Obama and Biden, calling it a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.” But with the numerous stories in magazines, tabloids, and the shoeboxes full of photos online, Musk’s revenge won’t be an easy one to turn aside. If doing humiliating and irreparable damage to his former Oval Office buddy was the point with his infamous X post — “Trump is in the Epstein files” — Musk has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The Washington Post’s Cat Zakrzewski wrote, “If Musk’s goal was merely to stoke the controversy without necessarily settling it, his mission has been accomplished — and then some.” Musk has danced around the periphery of the hidden files, and while not directly attacking Trump since then, he has lent no support either, simply remaining a potent political risk with his reaping of the spoils of his DOGE gleanings. Zakrzewski notes that the X hashtag ‘#TrumpIsAPedoRapist,’ has been popular, and that, “Allies of Musk serving in the Trump administration have had to tread carefully, largely declining to comment on the feud between the president and one of the world’s most powerful business leaders.” Trump posted on Truth Social that he wishes Elon and all US businesses well, for the good of the country, but Elon chose to ignore the post since he still carries a grudge toward the president and the administration for slashing tax credits for electric vehicle purchases, yet retaining subsidies for the petroleum industries.

The House Republican proposal that The Kennedy Center opera house should be renamed to honor Melania Trump— ‘First Lady Melania Trump Opera House‘ — may be on tenterhooks as the Epstein revelations come to light. A House panel voted 33-25 to approve the push to pay homage to the first lady, following President Trump’s takeover of the ‘woke’ institution and naming himself as board chairman. It’s unknown at this time when the GOP plans to bring the legislation to the House floor for a vote by the full chamber, and it’s also unknown if Melania is in rehearsals for the role of Floria Tosca to headline a premiere performance.

Satirist Andy Borowitz writes of his own take on the opera house action in ‘The Borowitz Report‘: “Millions of Americans support renaming of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after the writer E. Jean Carroll, according to a poll released on Wednesday. Conversely, poll respondents opposed naming the venue after First Lady Melania Trump, strongly agreeing with the statement, ‘An arts center should not be named after someone who finds blood-red Christmas trees aesthetically pleasing.’ At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the decision to rename the Kennedy Center after Mrs. Trump, stating, ‘Since President Trump took it over, the Kennedy Center has been just like the First Lady: renovated and vacant.'”

Broadcast TV’s late night hosts were quick to jump on Trump and his Jeffrey Epstein troubles. The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert began his monologue with, “It’s a great day to be me, because I’m not Donald Trump. That guy has got a lot of problems…the Epstein scandal just won’t kill itself.” About the thousand FBI agents who scoured approximately 100,000 records related to Epstein in order to flag any mentions of Trump, Colbert said, “That is a suspiciously Herculean effort. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t hide who Dumpty humped with his friend. You cannot blame Trump and his allies for being scared here, because the more we know about Trump’s relationship to Epstein, the more WE wish we didn’t.” Court records show that Trump flew on Epstein’s plane, the ‘Lolita Express‘, at least seven times, about which Colbert commented, “That doesn’t mean he did anything illegal, but it’s not a great look when you fly on the pedophile’s plane enough times to earn Diamond Pervert status.” ‘Late Night‘ host Seth Meyers referenced Trump’s Truth Social post about hitting the six months mark of his second term, “Wow, time flies.” “Does it though? Its’ been six months of this term, but we already did four years of you, and even when Biden was president, you were still the president of every news cycle. It feels like you’ve been president forever. I think it goes Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and then you,” Meyers responded. Meyers also quipped that Trump has finally named First Lady Melania as his emergency contact.

Speculation is high that a pardon for Jeffrey Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in the works, with Trump’s former personal attorney, Todd Blanche — now his personal attorney AND now deputy attorney general of the US — has been assigned the task of ‘interviewing‘ Maxwell to ‘garner more information‘ about the Epstein files. A former official who worked with Attorney General Pammy Ann Bondi in Florida predicted that Blanche would work out a “hidden pardon,” and in light of the firing of Maurene Comey who was handling the case for DOJ, it seems that any obstructions are being cleared. Dave Aronberg, Bondi’s former border czar, called this move “extraordinary” leading him to believe a lot of politics is involved, which might get Maxwell some immunity now and a pardon of sorts in the future — if she claims that Trump is innocent of any wrongdoing in the whole mess. Senator Adam Schiff says, “Clearly, this errand that Todd Blanche, the number-two at the Justice Department, is going on now is in his capacity as Trump’s defense attorney. He wants to know what this convicted child sex trafficker has to say about Donald Trump. And, certainly, she wants a pardon. This whole thing stinks to high heaven.” Attorney Ben Meiselas of ‘MeidasTouch‘ believes Trump is giving Ghislaine a golden ticket for a retrial.

With all this activity, Andy Borowitz has a hit upon where VP JD Vance might be found, his theory datelined from Edinburgh, Scotland: “Donald J Trump revealed on Monday that JD Vance has agreed to serve the remainder of Ghislaiine Maxwell’s prison sentence for her. ‘JD wasn’t thrilled about it, quite frankly,’ Trump told reporters. ‘He was crying like a dog. I told him to be a man. It’s only 20 years.’ As for Maxwell, Trump said, ‘I wish her well,’ adding that he expects her to be a ‘terrific vice president’.”

CASE CLOSED, LOYALTIES LIE, SCHLEMIEL, SCHLIMAZEL, SCIENCE

President Trump is probably hoping his new addition to his line of fragrances — ‘Victory 45-47’ — will cover the stench of the rebirth of the Jeffrey Epstein imbroglio into his existence. The Don has a long history of pushing fragrances, introducing ‘Donald Trump, The Fragrance’ in 2004, in a partnership with Estée Lauder. ‘Empire by Trump’ came along in 2015, and ‘Victory 47’ cologne and perfume was offered in 2024, as well as ‘Fight, Fight, Fight,’ which encompassed scents for both sexes. Promos for the latest addition read, “Trump Fragrances are here. They’re called ‘Victory 45-47’ because they’re all about Winning, Strength, and Success — For men and women. Get yourself a bottle, and don’t forget to get one for your loved ones too. Enjoy, have fun, and keep winning!” The announcement quickly brought forth comments on social media sites: Burt on X joked, “Just spent my entire life savings on his new phone service. Going to take a few payday loans to get this new fragrance;” Drew warned potential buyers, “You are a complete loser if you buy this;” Aaron wrote, “New frontiers of grifting;” former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan questioned, “How is this legal?” And on X, Jeff remarked, “Trump launching fragrance line called ‘Victory 45-47’ for $199 a bottle. Rumored to be made from ‘essence’ of his ‘precious bodily fluids.’ Appropriate warnings may or may not be listed on label. Use with extreme caution and ideally in the presence of a medical professional.”

Of course, we know Trump has an even longer history as a sexual predator, which led him and Epstein to become ‘best friends for ten or fifteen years,’ documented in interviews, nearly 300 photos and videos posted online, all verified by his many friends and associates. Trump’s promises, during the 2024 presidential campaign, to MAGA and potential voters included his plan to release all files related to the Epstein investigation, his arrest and conviction, and his subsequent prison cell suicide — which the hordes demanded — with the icing on the cake being the rumored ‘client list.’ Asked about it several weeks ago, Secretary Pammy Ann Bondi told the press “everything is sitting on my desk, awaiting review,” with an expected release to follow. It all hit the fan, when at a recent Cabinet meeting, she proclaimed that the files didn’t exist, causing a complete uproar among the MAGAt faithful, and a stream of excuses and what-aboutisms from the panic-stricken White House. Trump had already used one of his highest attention-grabbing Wag-The-Dog diversions by dropping bunker busters on Iran — where could he go from here without starting WWIII? Of course — he could revert to his old tried and true attack of — name calling! That’s the ticket, simply disown the GOP and MAGAts who were calling him out as a liar about the Epstein situation; besides, Elon Musk doesn’t have anything since he didn’t release any details along with his dubious threat, and the fact that his DOGE crew ransacked or copied all the files they got their hands on means nothing — just “don’t believe your lying eyes and ears, only believe what I tell you.” Case closed!

Marc Elias wrote on Democracy Docket that Conspiracy-In-Chief leader Trump has let his self-inflicted crisis on the Epstein Files get out of control and in his attempt to control the debacle he is reduced to expressing his anger in gibberish-filled posts on Truth Social. He has lost control of his narrative, and for the time being, a huge swath of his MAGA base, on an issue of great importance to both Republicans and Democrats, who failed to communicate with voters in 2024. Elias points out that the cultural influencers and podcasters who pushed their audiences into the Trump camp are making their angry voices heard — the most alienated in Trump’s about-face. Should an election actually happen in 2026, the GOP stands to lose many of the current officeholders whose names will be on the ballot once again. The unpopular legislation that Congress is pressured to enact is already the albatross on their shoulders, and the Epstein episode will only add to their burden. Despite Trump’s weakness of his hold on his base, “the elections of 2018 and 2022 are a reminder of how badly the GOP fared in those midterms, with Trump’s attracting and endorsing the worst candidates while offering no increase in voter turnout or enthusiasm,” asserts Elias. Roiling the waters with dismissal of Epstein as unimportant, Trump has brought on the wrath of his former supporters, while bringing momentum to the Democrats who hope that GOPers in both the House and Senate will bear the brunt of the president’s lies and idiocy next year.

Elias urges caution as we watch the impotence of the Congressional Republicans toward this scandal — they call for the release of the files, yet cast votes for the exact opposite. To Elias, “It seems clear that the overwhelming majority of House and Senate Republicans will end up voting to protect Trump and the secrets contained in those files. It’s clear where their loyalties lie — and it’s not with the American people. Finally, the biggest difference is Trump himself. He is selfish and does not care about any of the Republicans serving in Congress. Even as they hav become more obsequious — perhaps because of it — he holds them in contempt. We know — and they know — that Trump will do whatever he deems is in his best interest and will sacrifice any or all of them without a second thought.” Elias recounts the words of his grandmother who taught him, “Learn manners because when you grow up, you don’t want to be a schlemiel — a person who, at a nice dinner party, spills the soup. But even more important, never be the schlimazel — the chronically unlucky person onto whose lap the soup is spilled.” He then concludes, “When it comes to congressional politics, Trump may be a vulgar schlemiel, but congressional Republicans are always the schlimazels.”

At the recent Hill Nation Summit, some Democrats grudgingly complimented Trump’s strategies as they attempt to learn from the November losses as they move toward 2026, attempting to narrow the Republican majorities. California’s Ro Khanna believes Democrats have been “way too judgmental” of Americans who voted for Donald Trump. “We acted as if the problem was the voters; the problem was the party, and we acted with a condescension and a judgment on voters,” he said to NewsNation’s Chris Cillizza. With the Democratic Party showing its lowest favorability ratings in years, and struggling to redefine its image, many are calling for a new generation of leaders, which is adding fuel to intra-party frustrations. Democratic strategist, Fred Hicks said, “You can’t understand how to win by repeating losing behavior; you have to study winners. And the reality is that Trump has won two of his three elections. I think it’s prudent to understand how Republicans have earned the votes of so many people.” Khanna criticized his party for not having a compelling economic vision for years, but suggested he could bring a better economic vision forward, with many speculating he has his eye on a presidential run. Hicks disparages our system in saying, “The problem in American politics right now is that if your team runs the play, then it’s OK; if the other team does it, then it’s not. What that has done is that’s created a deficit of trust in our system, amongst voters, everyday people.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that no vote on a resolution calling for the release of Epstein-related documents will be held before the August recess, despite the growing outcry over the Trump administration’s handling of the case. Johnson says he wants the administration to have time to act on the matter before going ahead with congressional action, though Trump is urging the GOP to just drop the issue. AG Pam Bondi has requested release of grand jury transcripts, with Johnson claiming there is no argument over the need for maximum transparency. “My belief is we need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing and if further Congressional action is necessary or appropriate, then we’ll look at that. But I don’t think we are at that point right now because we agree with the president,” Johnson replied to reporters. Latching on to the frustrations in the Epstein case, Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna have joined forces on a resolution to release the files — a discharge petition for the legislation in an attempt to force it to the floor, which has at least ten GOP co-sponsors. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the critics of Trump’s foot-dragging, said, “Dangling bits of red meat no longer satisfies. They want the whole steak dinner and will accept nothing else — the base will turn and there’s no going back.”

Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright believes there’s “a lot” for Democrats to learn from Trump’s approach to politics, which has allowed him to “hypnotize his base” along the campaign trail and in office. “Two things happen with elections: You win or you learn. I think there’s certainly a lot to learn from Trump’s political career and his style, and I think more than anything, to learn that we don’t have to continue this idea of doing business as usual, but we must master doing unusual business,” he contends. Maryland Representative Glenn Ivey stressed that his party’s need to keep up with the changing media landscape, which the GOP dominated so effectively in the last election, is a top priority. Ivey feels optimistic about the midterms next year, pointing to President Trump’s falling poll numbers. “He’s hurting himself a lot. If we later on — we being the Democrats — layer on top of that an affirmative message…we could really have very strong gains.” Polls put Trump’s disapproval rating at its highest since the beginning of his second term, and Ivey says, “If you want to turn voters out, get ’em angry, get ’em excited. We’ll see if we can sustain it, but it’s certainly heading in the right direction for us at this point.”

Salon.com has presented why many Americans are put off by the Trump administration’s policies — MAGA hates science! The ongoing destruction of stormy weather wreaking havoc in our communities isn’t convincing enough for them to even consider that climate change is nothing more than a hoax. Measles? Meh, no biggie — shut down research, clinics, and ban vaccines — all medical research, while we’re at it! Salon’s article speculates that it’s because scientific advances don’t discriminate between the ‘worthy’ and those considered ‘unworthy,’ and because some in the billionaire class think they deserve to live much longer than you do. “But it’s not just the small — and small-minded, and small-hearted — wealthy libertarian or right-wing elite. Working people who choose to wear MAGA red caps hate science for their own reasons: It tells them things about disease and environmental destruction and, say, women’s reproductive health that they cannot bear to face. Scientific findings often do not jibe with their religious beliefs. If you believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, were never taught how to distinguish between faith and knowledge, you’re naturally going to have a testy relationship with science,” Salon declares.

The article continues: “By its nature of openness to new ideas, scientific inquiry exemplifies the secular worldview of liberals. Science levels the playing field. It’s woke. Scientists discriminate about the significance of evidence, but they do no discriminate about the significance of different human beings. (That is what the MAGA faithful think their religion is for —because Republicans have spent a long time perverting Christianity, too, to justify their greed and bigotry.) There’s the danger to those who consider themselves superior — by race, color, creed or position on the Forbes list — to the mass of men and women. Scientific advancements make us ever more aware that we are all the same and should enjoy the same basic rights to education, health care, civil liberties like voting, freedom of and freedom from religion, and the freedom to read or otherwise consume whatever opinions or cultural works we choose — the very things that the current occupant of the White House and his MAGA followers are working to take away from us.” History tells us that friction between science and religion could bring imprisonment or death to scientists, and now we see our president calling global warming “a hoax,” as he takes down NOAA and FEMA, while defunding climate research and green technology. What Trump and his party of grifters and religious zealots are accomplishing in taking down universities funding for research will be economically devastating, not only to those now directly involved, but to future generations who could receive advantages from any developments. Make COVID great again!

What our felonious leader wants to see is the destruction of all expertise, as all autocrats are inclined to accomplish. He wishes to be respected for any idiotic public health proposals, or for changing the weather by unleashing nuclear bombs inside a developing hurricane, or simply changing the name of a geographical location to satisfy his delicate ego — or demanding that professional sports organizations change their team’s names. He doesn’t wish to have some Pulitzer Prize-winning economist or historian tell him and his base that his Big Beautiful Bill is a failure, or that he isn’t the greatest president — or the greatest world leader — in all of history. Hating to be questioned, he despises journalists, scientists, or anyone educated enough to be critically challenging; hence, his “Cabinet of white nationalist frat boys, shameless sycophants, and fellow grifters — not to mention a supermajority of right-wing Supreme Court justices who appear ready to hand him absolute power,” the Salon article charges.

A notable President Trump story resulting from his attendance at an energy and technology summit in Pittsburgh, has him claiming that his uncle, John Trump, taught the Unabomber. Uncle John was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who Nephew Donald calls “one of the great professors, longest-serving professor in MIT history, with three degrees in nuclear, chemical and math — that’s a smart man.” The ‘longest-serving’ lie has been debunked numerous times over the years, but what can we expect from the least honest president in American history? He asked his audience, “Do you know who Ted Kaczynski was? There’s very little difference between a madman and a genius.” Trump then regaled the assembled with a supposed ‘conversation’ he had with Uncle John, who told him all about student Kaczynski, none of it, however, being true — a complete fabrication. To begin with, Kaczynski attended Harvard, not MIT, and the most damning fact is that John Trump died in 1985, with Kaczynski not being identified and arrested until 1986. MSNBC says that if both Trumps knew of Kaczynski’s role as the Unabomber a decade before his apprehension, that would be quite a newsworthy story. White House press secretary, Katherine Leavitt, was asked about Trump’s whopper, and as usual admonished the reporter who dared to ask such a question “with so many issues going on in the world.” A good follow-up question would have been, “Then why isn’t the president dealing with THOSE issues?”

The Unabomber story bomb seems just another sad event that the mainstream media is ignoring is Trump’s increasing disconnect from reality. One day after he graced the Pittsburgh audience with the story, he again complained about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, saying, “I was surprised he was appointed,” obviously forgetting he had made the appointment himself in 2017? Or trying to pass the buck? He resumed his attack on Powell at a White House Faith Office summit, calling the chairman “a knucklehead” and “a stupid guy,” as he went on to deride the intelligence of his former energy secretary Rick Perry, and telling the assembled that President Biden “wasn’t faithful enough and sought to persecute religious leaders.” Those gathered heard his claim that gasoline prices are priced at the lowest level in decades — under $2 per gallon — a claim he has repeated for weeks, while everyone knows the per gallon price has not fallen below the nationwide average of $3 since his inauguration. It seems that most of the time he has no idea what is going on in his own bailiwick, telling House Republicans not to touch Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security if they want to keep winning elections. This admonition just days before he actually signed the Big Beautiful Bill which did those very things, prompting one GOPer to tell him,“But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill.” Surprise, surprise, Donny! Another incident, when asked by a reporter why military aid shipments to Ukraine had been placed on hold, he turned the question to ask if SHE knew who had ordered the halt — “You tell me!” Making up stories, making false claims, attacking other public officials — seems the stuff for a good in-depth story, perhaps? So, where are the reports connecting these incidents? Why only tossed off comments that hardly equate to the “aggressive reporting on President Biden’s cognitive decline,” which won Axios reporter Alex Thompson the Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Thompson, who teamed up with CNN’s Jake Tapper to write a best-seller that delved into Biden’s alleged decline and the White House’s attempt to cover his difficulties, said in his acceptance speech, “President Biden’s decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception. But being truth-tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves. We, myself included, missed a lot of this story, and some people trusted us less because of it. We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows.” So, he admits the media dropped the ball back then. Where is the media NOW? Where is the team of Thompson/Tapper? Are they resting on their laurels, gloating over their ‘success’? The truth-tellers have chickened out!

A truth-teller who crossed Trump and corporate America last week — Stephen Colbert — learned a hard lesson, which we should all take as a warning. His show was cancelled, and will no longer be in the CBS lineup after May 2026, at the end of his current contract. This has brought forth a cacophony of voices and a few offers, he will surely land in a good spot to continue his pointed commentary — more on this later to be sure. In the meantime send your best wishes to the Trumps, CBS, Skydance, the Redstones, and the Ellisons to let them know how we feel.

Its title had been staring out from the bedside table for some time, a bookmark jutting out from pages closed years ago — ‘How to Overthrow the Government’ by Arianna Huffington, released in 2000, in retrospect a much simpler time. Pre-9/11, pre-Iraq War, pre-COVID19, pre-internet as we know it today — ancient history almost. Despite its sinister-sounding title, the book is hardly a ‘Mein Kampf,’ or even a ‘Project 2025’ manifesto. All those years ago, Huffington wrote, “Entering the political field has become less appealing than visiting a proctologist with a hangnail,” and citing Sean Connery’s character’s line from the movie ‘The Untouchables’: “The other guy pulls a knife, you pull a gun…he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send two of his to the morgue. That’s how you win an election. That’s the American Way!” She termed it the “survival of the unfittest,” as we are subjected to political ads that “are styled as Early Sledgehammer,” which is clearly where we are today, only much more so with the advent of the internet with innumerable podcasts, social media, texts and emails…all of which the GOP/MAGA forces used to their distinct advantage over the Democrats in the last presidential election. In that period when Huffington wrote her book, ‘Campaigns and Elections’ magazine said that 81% of political candidates surveyed believed that press scrutiny keeps qualified people from running for office. Huffington said, “By spotlighting our political leaders’ private weaknesses, we’re in danger of limiting our pool of potential leaders to a group of men and women with no private weaknesses — or, indeed private thoughts or ideas. We’ll eliminate any number of potential Jeffersons or Lincolns and what we’ll get instead will be a parade of smiling, handshaking automatons, programmed with the requisite poll-tested policies and focus group-approved sound bites…personally, I’m willing to countenance a little infidelity in order to expand the field.” And a veritable cornucopia in her wished-for expansion is exactly what we’ve experienced over the past several years!

Huffington laments, “Just as our two-party system is showing unmistakable signs of exhaustion, and the public’s suppressed discontent is ready to be tapped, a disaster in reform’s clothing stands poised to take advantage. Like the townsfolk in an old Western, the millions who feel shut out of our ‘unprecedented prosperity’ may thrill at the sight of a masked man riding to our rescue — until it turns out he isn’t the Lone Ranger, but a racist gunslinger bent on turning them against one another.” Yikes! The racist gunslinger we ended up with is doing his utmost to divide us along racial lines, but also politically as seen by his diatribe in Iowa against Democrats who voted against his ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ and who don’t really count, being the minority in the chamber — in his estimation. He claims they didn’t support his bill because they hate him, but he hates them right back “because they hate our country!” We must remember  that candidate Trump described Americans he disagreed with as “evil…the enemy within.” His Independence Day comments are worth noting because past elected leaders have never voiced public “hatred” for those who dare disagree with them. Steve Benen of MSNBC writes, “There’s another angle to this that arguably matters more. Different political scientists define the nuances of authoritarianism in different ways, but I think most would agree that a hallmark of any despotic regime is the delegitimization of political opposition. It’s against this backdrop that the incumbent president, using language foreign to American ears, wants the public to believe that his partisan opponents literally don’t count, are inherently unpatriotic, and are worthy of hatred.” Trump may view himself as the Lone Ranger riding to the rescue, but he is unmasked, telling us exactly who he is and how he wants to remake the US into the dream of every tinhorn dictator who ever lived. The masking duties he has left to his Homeland Security Barbie to see that her ICE secret police are outfitted properly to not only hide their faces, but to instill fear in those who are victimized by the un-American raids and kidnappings — los desaparecidos.

President Trump is thrilled at the new facility in Florida being built with $450 million in FEMA funds to imprison more than 3000 immigrants, in reality a concentration camp meant to frighten fearful immigrants into self-deporting to their countries of origin. Ahead of a visit to the detention camp by Trump and Kristi Noem, the Florida Republican Party gave the place the nickname of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ and began merchandising t-shirts and other items to capitalize on the Everglades location among the “gators and pythons” (“The moral bankruptcy knows no bounds,” – Emily Singer’s Daily Kos post) which supposedly will thwart any attempted escape by prisoners. The name was soon corrupted to ‘Alligator Auschwitz’ by those who see it bearing a resemblance to the Nazi detention centers of WWII. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt touted the facility as, “An efficient and low-cost way to help carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in American history. The only way out is a one-way flight. It is isolated and surrounded by dangerous wildlife.” Trump is known to love inhumane prisons and has a fantasy about using wildlife to dissuade immigrants from entering this country, and as he showed his excitement during a Fox News interview, he said of the possibility that immigrants might be eaten by alligators, “I guess that’s the concept. This is not a nice business. I guess that’s the concept.” Many experts are at odds with Leavitt’s summation of the camp being cost effective. “As someone who has studied the costs of detention centers, I can tell you for a fact that this facility will run at a cost substantially higher than average,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick posted on X. The senior fellow at the American Immigration Council wrote, “Detention tent camps are always more expensive to operate than brick and mortar facilities with permanent infrastructure.” Trump’s deportation agenda is unpopular with voters, who view him as being too harsh, but ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ fills the bill for the president and his MAGA gang as they seek to be even more cruel to immigrants with their torture tactics.

Inaccurately, concentration camps are compared to prisons but in the US, inmates arrive in penitentiaries after being convicted of serious crimes, under processes determined by the US Constitution. Cases begin with probable cause, not skin tone, followed by an arrest during which one has a right to remain silent. Actual voluntary pleading…no coercion…leads to a formal trial with defendant choosing a bench trial or a jury trial, based only on admissible evidence, all stages under Constitutional constraints. If a court falters, appellate courts stand to intervene. Prior to Donald Trump, wrongful, sloppy, or vengeance-driven criminal convictions of the innocent were the product of flawed men, not a flawed system. Establishment of concentration camps is a reflection of an illegal system — detainment is independent of judicial review — no conviction of any crime, simply pointing to incarceration for political reasons. A human roundup based on maniacal whims doesn’t represent the rule of law, only an autocrat’s lust for power. Father Federico Capdepón, a retired priest from the Miami Archdiocese who has been watching this development, describes both the camp and the inhumanity it reflects as, quite simply, “Sinful.” But hey, Father, what do you say of the six Roman Catholic Supreme Court Justices who paved the way for the Trumpian cruelty with their complicity? Those six justices are aware of the statistics that show immigrants account for low crime rates, comprising 14% of the non-US citizen population with data showing only 3% being jailed. The six are also aware of the sinister methods Trump has devised to dismantle the US Constitution; yet, on June 27, the court outlawed nationwide injunctive relief, removing people’s protection from the president’s lawlessness. So whaddya know…hard to believe that three days later, Trump visited the completed ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ with more on the way?

Andrea Pitzer, author of ‘One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps,’ writes, “the words ‘concentration camp’ evokes another country, another time, describing a facility operating in the dark of night, away from the prying eyes of an outraged public,” but we now have a camp in Florida’s Everglades that’s hardly a secret. We’ve all seen the video of Trump, Noem, and Ron DeSantis laughing in front of the cages which will hold human beings; and, Pitzer relates that she visited four continents in writing her history — and this one fits the purpose of the classic model for holding masses of civilian detainees. Detainees consisting of vulnerable groups for political gain based on ethnicity, race, religion or political affiliation rather than for crimes committed, all without trials as it points to serious dangers ahead for the country. Projected capacity of 5,000 beds is several times the average detention center occupancy, though billed as a ‘temporary’ camp theorized as a seamless processing center with rapid-fire judicial hearings conducted by National Guardsmen performing as immigration judges — an unlikely fluid process. Some defenders of Trump’s policy claim that arbitrary detention or abuse of foreigners doesn’t resemble Hitler’s treatment of citizens, but the Fuehrer’s goal of stripping Jews of legal protections and having no more rights than aliens, and therefore eligible for his encampments, echo an uneasy refrain from our current administration. The Nazis imagined their targets would self-deport with the tighter restrictions, but when that myth dissolved, their uglier and more punitive measures were initiated. And Kristi Noem said it out loud, if immigrants aren’t frightened enough to self-deport, “You may end up here.”

So, what can we expect? Already, aggressive moves against those residing legally in the US are seen, with legal status of half a million Haitians in the crosshairs. The Department of Justice is fast-tracking cases involving possible revocation of citizenship, working to undo birthright citizenship, and earmarking the citizenship of political enemies. MAGA wants to define who can be an American in ways that appear profoundly racist, with immigrants the most politically advantageous large population to target. US history has precedents and parallels for such abuse of populations not viewed as citizens, as we examine centuries of Native American removal and genocide, or courts wielding the weight of law or executive authority to prop up slavery, allowing cross-border trafficking and detention of humans who are denied lawful rights. The confiscation of property and removal of Japanese Americans to concentration facilities at the outbreak of WWII is just one of the most egregious of such actions, with Trump himself praising the ‘Operation Wetback’ deportations of the Eisenhower years, which included camps noted for their abuse and lethality. As the administration looks toward expanding its concentration camp legacy, we are seeing police-state tactics on our streets, as masked agents who refuse to show their IDs, travel in unmarked cars to sweep people from churches, their homes, their work places, from schools, and Home Depot parking lots — some reemerging after their ordeal, others simply ‘disappeared.’

MSNBC reports that the American Immigration Council believes the budget reconciliation bill is likely to make Immigration and Customs Enforcement “the largest investment in detention and deportation in US history,” an expansion which makes ICE the center of gravity for state overreach. And, Trump seems to lean in that direction as he espouses a multi-state network of sites like ‘Alligator Auschwitz,’ having already sent detainees to El Salvador, Panama, Rwanda, and Libya, with deals in-the-making with other countries — the imposition of a global concentration camp network. Members of the Seminole Tribe of Florida have opposed and are protesting the Everglades camp as a threat to their sacred lands, but five Democratic state lawmakers were turned away recently as they tried to inspect the facility. The MSNBC report neatly sums up an untidy situation: “The history of this kind of detention camp underlines that it would be a mistake to think the current cruelties are the endpoint. America is likely just getting started.”

That starting point is seen by Hayes Brown, MSNBC writer and editor, as the $150 billion cash infusion toward immigration enforcement which Republicans handed Trump in last week’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ which he needs to carry out his mass deportation policy. Brown writes, “The intended result is as aggressive as it is likely transformative: Immigration and Customs Enforcement is slated to become the largest law enforcement agency in the country as dozens of new detention centers spring up to hold hundreds of thousands of immigrants awaiting expulsion.” Despite all the arrests from the sweeps, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is still unsatisfied, insisting that he needs more resources to meet his goal of 3,000 arrests per day. To put this into perspective, the budget reconciliation bill funds $45 billion EACH toward the southern border wall, and expansion of immigration detention capacity — thirteen times the current annual ICE budget for detention, and five times more than the entire annual budget of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The American Immigration Council estimates the money allocation would be enough for ICE to maintain 116,000 beds annually, compared to current support for 41,000 detainees — if one is lucky enough to get a bed. As of June 15, reported inhumane conditions at detention centers now holding around 56,000 immigrants, show the need for rapid escalation in building more facilities — monies which will be spent as quickly as possible with little oversight. Already, ICE has asked contractors for “proposals to provide new detention facilities, transportation, security guards, medical support and other administrative services over the next two years.” Full well we know, that much of that money will go to private companies which have been major political backers of Trump and the MAGA/GOP.

Travis Gettys writes on Raw Story that even though Stephen Miller has become a powerful, and empowered, adviser in Trump’s second term, his ambitions to become national security adviser may be jeopardizing his place in his current lofty position. He has remained in Trump’s inner circle by casting aside former allies like Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions as they have fallen into the president’s disfavor, while striking up new alliances, as he attempts turning the president against others in his orbit, according to The New York Times’ Jason Zengerle. “At the same time, Mr. Miller is a world-class brown-noser. In an administration that puts a premium on sycophancy, he stands out for just how much he sucks up to his boss,” reports Zengerle. “And yet, Mr. Miller’s power could ultimately unravel because of something far more profound than office politics. Translating Trumpism into a coherent ideological doctrine can be a vexing proposition, as MAGA’s isolationist wing recently experienced with the US airstrikes on Iran,” writes Zengerle. Miller has translated Trumpism into public policy as well as anyone by showing a willingness to embrace the president’s contradictions and reversals, yet he isn’t viewed as indispensable because no one his circle ever was, but Trump can’t imagine Miller not working for him at present. Zengerle concludes, “For the moment, though, it seems Mr. Miller and Mr. Trump are aligned — and that means Mr. Miller has achieved a level of success, and satisfaction, that he never dreamed of during Mr. Trump’s first term.”

This week:

Several weeks ago following President Trump’s deportations of planeloads of ICE victims, Stephen Miller called on Congress to impose upon and abolish the Washington, DC federal court district after it blocked Trump’s actions of sending the “violent criminals” to El Salvador’s mega prison. Miller’s guest appearance on Fox News’ Life, Liberty and Levin, with host Mark Levin, Levin suggested the Republican Congress should scrap the DC court by eliminating the federal funding during the budget reconciliation process. Miller concurred with: “Congress has the authority to create the inferior courts. They have the authority to fund or not fund these courts. So yes, Congress has to step up here.” House Speaker Mike Johnson had previously threatened to eliminate entire district courts if judges issued rulings against the Trump administration, saying, “As you know, we can eliminate an entire district court. We have power over funding, over the courts, and all these other things. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.” Judges across the nation have issued temporary orders to block many of Trump’s 100+ executive orders, many of which are seen to exceed his presidential authority, and angering the GOP in the process. Trump’s justification to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang by using the Alien Enemies Act was temporarily blocked by Judge James Boasberg as he pointed out that our country is not at war. True to form, the administration ignored the ruling and sent more than 250 men to El Salvador without their required court hearings. A CBS ’60 Minutes’ investigation found at least one deportee had legal protective status, one had been granted refugee status, and several were all formally seeking asylum — and 75% did not have criminal records.

Stephen Miller is hoping that Republicans won’t need to fly in the face of court orders or eliminate any federal courts, as the administration sought relief from the Supreme Court to overturn any deportation bans, allowing it to send individuals to foreign prisons sans legal proceedings. “We would just implore the Supreme Court to do the right thing and protect our democracy. President Trump will not be bowed, will not be swayed, and will not be deterred,” he told Levin. Miller has taken much criticism for his past remarks — one notable one: “Children will be taught to love America. Children will be taught to be patriots. Children will be taught civic values for schools that want federal taxpayer funding. So as we close the Department of Education and provide funding to states, we’re going to make sure these funds are not being used to promote communist ideology.” Political analyst Jose Larky says, “Miller is afraid of a problem that doesn’t exist. America is the furthest thing from a communist society.” He cites the Gini Coefficient, the primary measure of wealth inequality within a population, which shows that the US has much more inequality than at least 22 other nations. Zaid Jilani writes, “Does Stephen Miller love America as it exists today? His goal seems to be to return it to 1925.”

Dr. David S Glosser writes in POLITICO Magazine, that Stephen Miller is an immigration hypocrite, and he should know since he is Miller’s uncle, being the brother of Miller’s mother. Glosser details the beginnings of the family’s migration account from Belarus at the turn of the 20th century, fleeing from anti-Jewish persecution, individuals arriving on these shores and sending for other family members as they were able to afford passage. Uncle David says he has “watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, an educated man who is well aware of this heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country. These facts are important not only for their grim historical irony but because vulnerable people are being hurt. They are real people, not the ghoulish caricatures portrayed by Trump. When confronted by the deaths and suffering of thousands, our senses are overwhelmed, and the victims become statistics rather than people. Immigration reform is a complex issue that will require compassion and wisdom to bring the nation to a just solution, but the politicians who have based their political and professional identity on ethnic demonization and exclusion cannot be trusted to do so. As free Americans, and descendants of immigrants and refugees, we have the obligation to exercise our conscience by voting for candidates who will stand up for our highest national values and not succumb to our lowest fears.”

“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him, because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats hate,” wrote Terry Moran, late of ABC News. Moran was dumped by ABC after tweeting those words, which prompted a pressure campaign by the White House despite Donald Trump’s campaign support for free speech. ABC was bullied by the president’s threatened media persecution encompassing frivolous lawsuits and threats of punitive regulation, so Moran’s contract was not renewed because the network felt their standards of objectivity and professionalism were violated. The administration was already steaming at Moran’s earlier exposé of Trump’s belief that the M-S-1-3 labels on a photo of Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s fingers were actual tattoos, and not Photoshopped as was readily apparent. John Stoehr of The Editorial Board writes that Miller is, objectively, a hater. The mainstream media says so all the time. “Miller is extremely hostile to immigrants. He has always, as far back as high school, rejected the idea that immigration is a net positive for America, and he’s been very consistent in that,” says Jonathan Swan, a White House reporter for The New York Times. “This is all I care about. I don’t have a family. I don’t have anything else. This is my life,” Miller said during Trump’s first term. Stoehr writes that Trump reportedly said that if Miller had his way, there’d only be 100 million Americans and they’d all look like Stephen. “It’s hard to think of a human being whose hateration is better documented than Miller’s. It’s a cornerstone of his public image. The MAGA loves his PeeWee German persona,” according to Stoehr. Stoehr maintains that the vast body of literature documenting Miller’s hatefulness being disallowed only reduces journalists to stenographers who merely transcribe what powerful people say; Moran’s only error was in taking down his tweet in the end.

Editor Michael Tomasky of The New Republic writes that “madness is everywhere” if the headlines of The New York Times or The Washington Post are read, and it barely scratches the surface. “Across human history, fascism has been imposed upon democracy mostly in one of two ways. First, by brute force — a military coup; second, a bit more stealthily, and legally — through legislation, executive decrees, and court decisions that hand more power to the leader. Donald Trump is inventing a new way. Call it chaos fascism. Destroy the institutions of democracy until they’re so disfigured or dysfunctional that a majority no longer cares about them. That’s exactly what’s happening with Social Security…wreck the agency so that its service becomes crap. Let public anger build. And in time, they can just dismantle it and privatize the greatest social insurance system ever devised by this government and put people’s financial fate in the hands of the rich cronies,” he writes. He says Trump probably doesn’t have some secret plan — he doesn’t think far enough ahead, as he and DOGE destroy the government. Trump has contempt for rules and procedures, so he appoints unqualified stooges who share his contempt, to run his government by thinking that being tough means showing the world that they can do anything they want with no consequences. “Again, ignore the law, trash the rules, establish that procedure is whatever you say it is. Chaos fascism. Trump will orchestrate no military coup. The Republican Congress will probably pass no law that makes Trump president for life. That would be too obvious. What they’ll do is make stealthier moves across the board that discredit and destroy our democratic institutions until he and his billionaire friends can strip them for parts. Chaos fascism is here to stay,” Tomasky concludes.

Last week the US Supreme Court issued a decision in Trump v. CASA that made nationwide injunctions illegal — the high court said such provisions amounted to judicial overreach should lower courts prevent a government entity from enforcing a law or policy. Of course, the ruling sparked outrage from legal experts and court watchers, with one analyst calling it a ‘trap’ that the court willingly walked through. Slate Senior Writer Mark Stern said, “There are some technical maneuvers lawyers can make to force the Supreme Court to reconsider the issue, like certifying a class action lawsuit. However, there are still some big issues left on the table for the court to sort through. Those issues range from the merits of the case they just decided and the practicality of President Donal d Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship altogether.” Stern continued: “This is a fundamental problem. No one can explain how Trump’s order would work in practice. No one. Because the only reason that the vast majority of us have citizenship is because we were born here. When a child is born in America, the doctor doesn’t demand the papers of their parents to ensure they are citizens or a green card holder.” He says that Trump’s order would create a situation where everyone’s citizenship is called into question, and that could have massive legal implications going forward. “This is going to destabilize the fundamental right of citizenship for everybody. It is going to have massive downstream consequences in a really horrible and unworkable way…It’s chaos all the way down,” Stern fears.

On MSNBC’s ‘The Weekend,’ Stern called Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s thin-skinned attack on Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissenting opinion “arrogant and out of bounds.” Barrett criticized Jackson for “decrying an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,” which Stern saw as “a far too personal retort that accuses Jackson of not really being smart enough to levy a strong criticism of her opinion. That’s totally out of bounds, it’s highly unusual, even when justices disagree, they usually do so respectfully.” He continued, “And here Barrett is going much further and I think the reason is really obvious, right? Justice Jackson’s dissent if one the sharpest, fiercest, most blunt dissents we’ve ever seen. She is taking on the Supreme Court as an institution and the conservative super majority. It’s one of several dissents she published this term where she accused the super majority on the right of bias toward the Trump administration, of surrendering the rule of law so that Trump can rule like a king. This is how the majority sees the country, that they really believe Trump should rule it with no limits and, you know, I think after this decision, it’s kind of hard to argue with that. The majority sees a policy that is so patently unconstitutional and rather than understand that that’s the emergency that courts need to address, it turns around and smacks down the lower courts and says, ‘You went too far.'”

Satirist Andy Borowitz weighed in on the high court’s decision in his ‘The Borowitz Report’: “In a stunning case of unintended consequences, the six conservative Supreme Court justices inadvertently ruled that their jobs no longer exist, legal experts revealed on Monday. By virtually eliminating the role of the nation’s judicial branch last Friday, the Republican justices unwittingly downsized themselves, Constitutional scholars said. ‘I’m sure they’re having second thoughts now that they’re unemployed, but it’s too late for them to reverse their ruling,’ said Professor Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota Law School. ‘The Constitution explicitly says, ‘No backsies.’ On Monday morning, a shell-shocked Brett Kavanaugh was seen clearing out his office, lugging an unwieldy beer keg down the Supreme Court’s fabled front steps. Meanwhile, the sudden demise of the Court has alarmed ex-justices Thomas and Alito, who reportedly asked, ‘Will this affect our yacht cruises?'”

Robert Reich writes that the hardest part of his nights hit at about 3am when he starts obsessing about upsetting things, such as what Trump is doing to America. On a recent night he couldn’t ignore the distraction that Trump is intent on abolishing the two branches of government that historically constrain the executive office — no more checks and balances as established by the Constitution, as Trump and his henchmen/women continue to usurp congressional authority, and war against the judiciary. The president and his lackeys wish to have only one branch of government led by Executive Trump, which is coming to pass as the Congress has all but disappeared, being controlled by Republican zombies who will say and do whatever Trump wants, maintains Reich. One down, and one to go! The federal judiciary was faintly seen as the only remaining check on the president, as they paused about 80 of Trump’s executive orders to await arguments and presentation of evidence at full trials. “But even this is too much for the ‘Dictator-In-Chief,'” says Reich. So, a majority of the Supreme Court, urged by the Justice Department, ruled that federal judges could pause executive actions only for the specific plaintiffs that bring the case — not a nationwide injunction which would immediately halt government policies. Previously, the Trump Gang had filed a lawsuit against 15 federal judges in Maryland, seeking a court order that would block them from making any ruling that might “interfere” in “the president’s powers to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.” Trump has previously launched personal attacks against federal judges after they rule against him, calling them “monsters” who want America to “go to hell,” and “radical left lunatics,” demanding their impeachment.

Trump’s actions and verbal attacks have incited some of his more rabid followers to threaten the lives of judges and their families, threats which have seen an increase of late to include bomb threats and swatting incidents. All those who push back on the administration’s actions are seen as the “opposition,” which has prompted Attorney General Pam Bondi to accuse federal judges of “meddling in our government,” rather than viewing the federal judiciary as an inherent part of the government. Reich says that Trump and his followers failed to learn that lesson in school, or they have conveniently forgotten it as they sit in the seat of power. He says our pessimism is understandable, and warns against cynicism which dooms any positive outcome — exactly where MAGA wishes us to be. “It looks dark today, but it will not remain dark. The Caligula-on-the-Potomac is getting nowhere on tariffs. Inflation threatens. The vast majority of Americans oppose his plan to cut Medicaid and give the rich a huge tax cut. His popularity continues to plummet. He is facing mounting opposition from the rest of the world,” concludes Reich. The road to fascism is lined with people telling us to stop overreacting, so, we have to do our best to shove that 3am monster back under the bed — and remember Reich’s encouragement!

Last week:

INSANA, HISTORY IS OVER, ONLY WHEN WE WIN, SCARED ENOUGH

We’ve been hearing it since 1995 — ‘Iran is just two weeks away from having nuclear weapons!’ Then, last week President Trump announced that he could wait two weeks before deciding whether the US would get directly involved in the Israel-Iran hostilities. His statement spotlighted his favorite measure of time, with late-night hosts showing clips of his ten-years of kicking the can down the road as he promised a healthcare plan or a tariff plan —just  two weeks until decision time. As The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon commented, “Today, the White House said Trump will make a decision on the US involvement in Iran within the next two weeks. All good, no rush, just take your time. If Trump thinks about his decision for two weeks, it’ll beat his previous thinking record by two weeks.” Stephen Colbert jumped on the bandwagon with, “America stands on the brink of the precipice of the edge of possibly finding out if Donald Trump is going to bomb Iran. We’ve all been desperately trying to read Trump’s tea leaves. His type of tea? Insana! ‘Two weeks notice’ is so important. Trump understands starting a war in the Middle East is a lot like quitting your sales job at Best Buy. It’s just polite.” Jimmy Kimmel, calling Trump “Two Week POTUS,” joked, “Obviously, a decision to attack Iran directly would have very serious implications that would put US troops in that region at risk and could ignite a bigger war. He enjoys making threats, and he loves attaching them to timelines. Two weeks. It’s always two weeks. For a guy whose catchphrase was “You’re fired,” no one has ever given more two weeks’ notices than Donald J. Trump.”

Following Trump’s statement, Steve Schmidt wrote on his The Warning blog, “It has been 22 years and 93 days since President George W. Bush addressed the American people, and announced the commencement of the Iraq war. Lest there be any historical revisionism the record shows that the war resolution was passed in Congress with 81 Democratic votes. The point of mentioning this is not to judge or recriminate, but rather to remind all of you that it is the nation — not the party — that goes to war, and that beginning a war is a different project than ending one.” He questions how an Iran conflict might end by saying, “The American military is powerful, but led by imbeciles starting with Trump, but including Hegseth. They are as unfit as two people can possibly be to lead this nation into conflict. Trump, full of bluster and threats, cannot be trusted to tell the truth, or hold the course when times get tough. He exists in a world of make-believe and pretend. The war that he commences will be real.” Schmidt then lays out the Iraq war casualties, which he says the Fox News field marshals like Sean Hannity and Mark Levin continue to cheerlead because they failed to learn a single lesson: 4,419 Americans killed; 31,993 Americans wounded; 30,000+ post-9/11 wars veteran suicides; $1.79 trillion to include future obligations for veterans’ care. As the war drums sounded, Schmidt asked, “What is the plan, when do we leave, what is winning, what is the strategy?” As a former GOP team member, Schmidt feels that President Bush is an honorable man who made a colossal mistake amid the profound misjudgments in an effort to defend the country from a follow-up attack after 9/11.

In the lead up to his decision, Trump sidestepped Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, depending upon a couple of four-star generals for guidance on whether to join Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to an unnamed White House official, “Nobody is talking to Hegseth. There is no interface operationally between Hegseth and the White House at all.” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said claims that Hegseth has been frozen out are “totally false.” CBS News reported that speculation indicated that Trump was willing to escalate the hostilities, having signed off on on attack plans which lacked only his final go-ahead for execution, with Trump’s response being, “I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I will do.” Truer words were never spoken! Hegseth isn’t the only senior official reported to have been snubbed by Trump during the Iran situation — he has also taken issue with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, over comments she had made, particularly her criticism of “political elite warmongers.” A spokesperson spoke in her defense, saying, “Gabbard remains focused on her mission: providing accurate and actionable intelligence to the President, cleaning up the Deep State, and keeping the American people safe, secure, and free.” Trump seemed to be closely involved with what was termed his ‘tier one’ advisory group, which included VP Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, CIA Director Ratcliffe and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Caine, which many see as a troubling level of internal discord and disunity, just a few short months into his second presidency.

Democratic strategist James Carville saw any Iran involvement from the self-proclaimed “peacemaker” president who vowed to end “forever wars,” could signal the “end of global stability and MAGA as we know it.” Carville, on The Daily Beast Podcast, commented that the rift within MAGA resulting from Israel’s June 12 incursion into Iran had become very public in nature. Trump, Hegseth, and Fox News host Mark Levin were notable for favoring US intervention, while Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Tulsi Gabbard wanted to stay out of the fray, though according to Carville, “This rift has always existed below the surface” in MAGA world. “Trump has no idea what he’s doing. I guarantee you that Tucker Carlson or Steve Bannon or any of these people believe that if you pointed to a globe and said, ‘Point to the Middle East,’ Trump would have no idea what it is. The president has never given an iota of thought to this. He knows not one piece of history about the region, about the adversaries, he’s just massively ignorant.” Tulsi Gabbard testified before a Senate Intelligence Committee in March that her agency felt Iran was not building nuclear weapons; yet, Trump was quick to dispel that notion before the press on Air Force One by saying, “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having them.” Referring to this rift, Carville said, “And you know what I say? You’re not scared enough. If you knew more, you would be even more scared than you are.”

In a phone call between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, China and Russia tried to position themselves as a voice of reason, calling for easing of tensions between Israel and Iran, and encouraging Trump to use his influence “to cool the situation, not the opposite.” Middle East expert, Liu Zhongmin of the Shanghai International Studies University, attributed the flareup to the uncertainty created by Trump’s return to the White House and his chaotic, opportunistic and transactional nature of Middle East policies. Beijing has viewed the US as being a source of instability and tensions in the Middle East, and now that point is being underscored by Chinese scholars, with an erosion of America’s leadership among its allies while weakening its ability to threaten and deter regional adversaries. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran was favored by Beijing, being a formidable power in the region and an important counterweight to US influence, allowing China to expand its own diplomatic and economic footprint in the area. As China and Iran strengthened ties over the years, the two countries held joint naval exercises along with Russia, and both Beijing and Moscow have offered to mediate the Iran-Israel conflict as an alternative to the US. Whether or not the two countries wield any leverage in the situation, they stand to gain in the eyes of the world as the US continues to lose respect and influence under Trump.

A Meidas Touch Podcast last week featured an interview with Congressman Seth Moulton –  a decorated Marine vet willing to speak bluntly about the authoritarian threat posed by Trump. Discussed was the president’s drop-in appearance at the G7 in Alberta where he bailed after just 12 hours to avoid meeting up with President Zelensky, and instead of coordinating with leaders about critical global issues, Trump became a full-blown Kremlin mouthpiece, rambling about how the G7 should “really be the G8,” praising Putin as he had been instructed to do. Moulton said, “Trump sounded like a Kremlin spokesman. He genuinely prefers the company of dictators to our allies.” Trump and Putin spoke on a call, after which the Russian strongman launched another attack on Ukraine’s energy grid, with Trump posting his unhinged “orders” telling the 9 million inhabitants of Tehran to evacuate as he played a wannabe general on Truth Social. Moulton discussed Trump’s embarrassing “dictator parade” in DC, which soaked taxpayers for $40+ million for his egotistical glorification, replete with bitcoin advertising, and ignoring the US Army’s 250th anniversary celebration. Moulton was outspoken in his criticism, saying, “The military hates parades. If one leader, one political party controls the military, then you don’t have a fair and equal democracy anymore.” He finds it alarming that many of his active-duty Marine acquaintances are quietly discussing their commissions because Trump’s latest actions are unconstitutional. He advises: “Remember your oath.” This isn’t a hypothetical anymore — Trump is using the military as a political weapon, threatening American cities, spreading conspiracy-laced nonsense, pushing the nation to the brink. One subject was the hope seen in the ‘No Kings’ protests consisting of millions across the country, a moment that demands all of us to have courage, to insist on clarity, and the need to speak out every single day.

John Stoehr of The Editorial Board quotes Will Stancil: “Politics is a schoolyard. Dems gotta speak up.” Stancil points out that as Trump and the drum beaters of war against Iran, US Senators Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders were quite vocal about the need for Congress to be involved for any declaration of war — anything short of that would be illegal. Where were the party’s leaders, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, who did next to nothing? Stancil asks, “How did this happen?” Stancil’s opinion is that it’s about Schumer’s and Jeffries’ view of politics. “Iran shows what the mindset if really about — all the pretexts about distractions really break down when the thing under discussion is what could easily become a generation-defining war, bigger than Iraq. But Democrats can’t seem to shake themselves out of their policy-wonk stupor here either. And it shows how what really underlies the ‘distraction’ rhetoric is a desire to focus on issues where the stakes are low and conflict is muted. It’s an evidence mechanism.” He says, “Democrats don’t want to fight, not openly, because combat is risky, which is something to dodge. Ironically, dodging is what’s preventing the Democrats from earning public trust. Party leaders tend to believe that the Democrats can win back trust by compromising — by moving to the middle on things like trans right. But if they won’t fight for the authority of Congress, which is the only authority they have, why would anyone trust them to fight for them?”

Stancil continues: “Liberals have trained themselves to see the world through this very particular end-of-history lens, where the ‘stuff that matters’ is inevitably wonky policy questions, the day-to-day of taxes and government, who gets subsidies, what healthcare policy looks like. The stuff that feels bigger and traditionally historical — scandal, social movements, violence, power and authoritarianism — that’s all assumed to be silly TV drama. That stuff belongs to history, and history is over! But it’s ridiculous. History isn’t over, the future will contain events as dramatic and horrible as the events of the past, and this stuff is just what it looks like: an assault on the foundations of our government, with all the terrifying and weighty implications that it seems to have.” Stoehr says, “I would suggest that liberals have a reading of history in which certain things are inevitable, like justice for all. It whitewashes the fact that people made moral choices and that moral choices have consequences. I suppose we could blame Obama for some of that.” Stancil answers, “I don’t know if they think these things are inevitable, but  they certainly think these fights are over. I’m not sure I’d blame Obama, but I think people are used to living in a relatively stable era and have come to believe that stability is normal. You see it in news coverage, where dramatic pronouncements are treated as hysterical or hyperbolic. It’s a little better now, but for the most of Trump’s first term, the consensus was that he was functionally a normal Republican with an uncouth demeanor. This was, in my view, insane — you could tell the guy was corrupt and unbalanced in an unprecedented way, openly supportive of authoritarianism. But in the view of a lot of liberals, it was just a gloss on an underlying normality. When Joe Biden won, people scoffed at the idea that Trump might try to stay in power, even though you had to examine the guy for 10 seconds to realize he was capable of doing something dramatic. If you thought about why it seemed ridiculous, it was because they implicitly assumed that here are just some sort of guardrails on modern affairs — that we stay in the Normal Zone because the Danger Zone was something that happens in other countries and in history, not to us.”

Donald Trump is quoted on November 12, 2015, saying, “This is the Trump theory on war. But I’m good at war. I’ve had lots of wars of my own. I’m really good at war. I love war, in a certain way, but only when we win.” As Brad Harrison of Newsflanks.com says, “The genie is out of the bottle now. Like Iraq, it’s easy to get into war but hard to get out of it. Trump and Project 2025 have turned America into a far-right, nationalist, white Judeo-Christian theocracy, now officially a war with Islam. Didn’t the Book of Revelations predict this? Hey, you never know. We’re returning to religiosity of the Dark Ages. The Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Reason are distant dreams now. This has been in the cards since his first term, but during his first term he had some experienced and seasoned people in his cabinet who kept it from happening. But they allowed him to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Agreement, which the rest of the world was solidly behind, and now we can see how horrible a mistake that was. That was the beginning of Iran’s return to enriching uranium for a bomb, and the precursor to this mess. Plus, now we have him taking war into space with the ‘Golden Dome’ and heavy funding for his Space Force and space tech like Musk’s. As he widens his wars, we’ll need a golden dome. But this dome is impractical from a physics point of view, and will just be a big waste of money, like Reagan’s Star Wars dome.” Harrison says Trump has only informed the House and Senate Republicans of his plans, which clearly shows he is in the process of a full-on domestic war on the Dems and is attempting to eliminate the party as a political force in America. He wants one MAGA party running everything, like the Nazis. He has already started this with his deployment of the National Guard and the military in LA. We know the same deployments are planned for at least 15 other Blue cities.

Harrison points out that Tulsi Gabbard testified before Congress that Iran was nowhere near a nuclear weapon, but Trump straight-up ignored her and the American national intelligence apparatus. He’s entirely out of control. He really does believe he is on some sort of mission from God. The military budget is going to a trillion dollars under the reconciliation bill, and we are currently paying nearly a trillion dollars per year in interest on the national debt, most of which was due to military overspending — especially during the Bush era, most of which didn’t even go through Congress. Harrison points to right-wingers blaming ‘entitlement programs,’ but Social Security now pays for itself, with Medicare being half funded from general tax revenues. The Feds give about $600 billion to the states for Medicaid, now looking at a trillion dollar cut over the next ten years with the reconciliation bill. If we had stuck with the pre-Reagan tax brackets and not spent so much on the military starting with Reagan, our debt would be tiny compared to what it is now. America is now just an over-militarized, debt-laden giant under total control of an out-of-control dictator. Harrison calls it correctly: “What a mess.”

Simon Rosenberg on his Substack blog, Hopium Chronicles says, “Trump’s presidency is failing and unpopular, and he had to do something. Elon attacked and emasculated him, and made him weak and stupid. Global leaders are not bending the knee, and there has been no ’90 trade deals in 90 days’ [as he predicted]. Putin is treating him like a coffee boy, and Zelensky has made him look like a clown. His economic policy is slowing the economy down in every country in the world including the US, has caused our credit to go through an unprecedented downgrade, and the American people have figured out this budget bill will make their lives worse (as it will). All across the country news organizations are reporting on how his cuts and plans will do harm to their communities. He keeps losing in court, badly. The Vatican elected an American cardinal who has been very critical of his Administration. He had to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home. No one showed up for his sad birthday parade. His ugliness has spawned what appears to be the biggest protest movement in American history. His immigration enforcement escalation has backfired. His intel community has called b.s. on his claims of Iran’s nuclear progress.” Other than that, how did you enjoy the play at the Lincoln Center, Mrs. Trump?

On June 21, The Onion website reminded us that Trump’s campaign statement: “No new wars,” was eclipsed by his latest, “No, new wars.” As satirist Andy Borowitz wrote: “In a nationally televised address Saturday night, Donald J. Trump announced he had ordered his son Barron to visit a podiatrist. ‘My fellow Americans, earlier this evening, at my command, Barron saw a podiatrist,’ said Trump, flanked by JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth. ‘I am pleased to announce that he has returned home safely. Barron’s mission was to obtain a note from the doctor,’ Trump added. ‘Mission accomplished.’ Minutes after the speech, a new poll showed a majority of Americans favor dropping Donald Trump on Iran.” As we know, Trump actually compressed his “two weeks” on this Saturday to wag the dog, by unilaterally ordering strikes on Iran’s three key nuclear facilities, declaring the move a “spectacular military success,” with a warning that further action might follow if Tehran doesn’t come to the peace table. Khamenei will surely respond — anywhere, at any time, and in any form, with their options of missiles — already sent to a US base in Qatar, militias, oil supply disruption, or hostage-taking, only marking a new chapter in this history, rather than a conclusion. We must remember that the 9/11 plot was ten years in the making. As Trump made the televised announcement, standing behind him were his ill-suited, glum-looking hostages Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, and Marco Rubio — not necessarily proud of the sequence of events — with the notable absence of Tulsi Gabbard. Trump needed his yes-men to back him up, to share the blame for a situation that will likely get worse, as they look for another dog to wag.

When compared to the Trump administration’s mass firings at the federal level, his massive, expensive military parade in the nation’s capitol seemed a harebrained plan, especially when further cuts to federal programs are coming. The price tag on the day’s events have been bandied about in the $45 million range, but is likely to creep higher…which taxpayers will never gain knowledge about. Trump explained to NBC News’ Kristen Welker the cost will be “peanuts compared to the value of doing it,” but Ja’han Jones of MSNBC says that claim is debatable at best, the actual value of hosting such a parade, is more reminiscent of dictatorships as it features dozens of military vehicles and thousands of service members. Or as Adam Kinzinger says, the waste and corruption of the Trump administration, and the president wanting a military themed 79th birthday party, has more to do with Trump’s disinterest in being president and his desire to be worshipped, and his interest in entertaining. Submitted cartoon captions on Robert Reich’s blog read: “It’s not just a birthday — it’s a national emergency in red, white and ego,” and “They’re marching to the beat of a draft dodger!” and “It’s my birthday too, but all I got was 1 doll.”

Last week satirist Andy Borowitz wrote his version of the impending parade: “Donald J. Trump’s long-wished-for military parade was abruptly cancelled on Saturday after it emerged that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had inadvertently invited the Houthi rebels. Though Hegseth defiantly told reporters, ‘I did not text parade plans,’ a mass invite from his Signal account was sent to the Houthis, Iran’s Supreme Leader, and The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. In an official statement, the Houthis said they were ‘saddened’ to lose the chance to show off their military hardware, adding, ‘We already packed our drones.'” Not attending the actual festivities were many GOP lawmakers who were heading home for the weekend for personal reasons, not enticed by Trump’s promise of an “incredible” display.” Louisiana Senator John Kennedy said, “The United States of America is the most powerful country in all of human history. We’re a lion, and a lion doesn’t have to tell you it’s a lion. I would save the money, but if the president wants to have a parade, he’s the president, and I’m not.” Senator Rand Paul said he has “never been a fan of goose-stepping soldiers in big tanks and missiles rolling down the street” and likened the expected imagery to the Soviet Union and North Korea, adding, “So if you asked me, I wouldn’t have done it.” A Politico survey found only seven out of fifty lawmakers on the House side who would attend. Threatening weather may have accounted for a low turnout, but Trump wasn’t discouraged — “tanks won’t be affected. It doesn’t affect the soldiers. They’re used to it. They’re tough,” said Cadet Bone Spurs.

Regrettably, after months of planning, and public ballyhoo, the event came to fruition, and was ruled a whopping belly flop — the ballyhoo becoming a bally-boo-hoo for Trump and his hangers-on who were coerced into sitting on the viewing stand with him. The tiny crowd size, bored and uncoordinated marchers, rusty and clunky machinery, and the humiliation for the crypto sponsors whose logos were prominently displayed, all provided ammo for social media to explode with ridicule. It was far from being a feather in the cap of America’s would-be dictator as he looked bored, disinterested, and appearing to nod off a few times. Ditto for Melania and the MAGA hostages. For the president to know that his grand parade was sharing TV screens with the massive ‘No Kings’ protest rallies across the nation and the world only emphasized his desperation and weakness in a country that was forcefully objecting to the moral squalor of his leadership. Andy Borowitz says the short version of the D.C. event is a ‘sad trombone’: wah-wah-wah-wah! Maybe next time Trump wants to celebrate himself with an ostentatious display of military hardware, he should hire a consultant who knows how to produce this kind of show: Kim Jong-Un. A joke on X: “MAGA estimates that 51 million to 1.2 billion people attended Trump’s parade.”

The MoveOn website reported: “Two very different visions of America were on display. In Washington, D.C., Donald Trump staged a grossly expensive and ‘profoundly low energy’ military parade — a spectacle featuring squeaky tanks, troops, and weapons rolling through our nation’s capitol on his 79th birthday. It was a sparsely attended, and ultimately, empty attempt to show force by a historically weak president who governs through fear because he cannot lead through trust.” It is estimated that as many as five million people were in the streets in 2,100 peaceful ‘No Kings‘ protests — “a massive display of the power we hold when we stand together for democracy, dignity, and hope,” says MoveOn. In April three million protesters attended 1,300 ‘Hands Off’ rallies, and with last week’s five million, the movement is obviously growing, but it’s only the beginning and we have to keep the energy flowing. Historians who study social movements worldwide have coined the ‘3.5% rule,’ which says historically few authoritarian governments have withstood 3.5% of their population peacefully mobilized against them in a sustained show of solidarity. Today’s movement will have to grow to around eleven million people who remain steadfast in protesting the MAGA regime, so the momentum is moving toward reaching that goal.

Alix Bedeen writes on Daily Kos of Florida’s Governor DeSantis making a statement that “vehicular manslaughter is morally okay, as long as you’re hitting a dirty, ICE-hating liberal.” He is quoted as saying, “If you’re driving down one of those streets and a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a right to flee for your safety, and so if you drive off and you hit one of those people, that’s their fault for impinging on you.” After chaos ensued when President Trump sent in troops to quell protests in Los Angeles, inspiring protesters in other states to do likewise, DeSantis took the opportunity to take advantage of the chaos in an attempt to bury his own family scandals which have been jeopardizing the political futures of he and his wife. The governor was called out by the Orlando Sentinel for omitting “LGBTQ and Hispanic communities” from the annual Pulse nightclub shootings statement honoring those victims, as a flagrant display of racism and homophobia. Bredeen concludes with, “Then again, DeSantis’ idea of protecting his constituents is arming daycare workers, so what’s running over a protester every now and then?”

MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart and authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat discussed Florida’s Brevard County sheriff, Wayne Ivey, after his press conference threatening ‘No Kings’ protesters in his jurisdiction. Ivey said, “If you throw a brick, a firebomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains because we will kill you, graveyard dead. We’re not going to play. If you try to mob rule a car in Brevard County, gathering around it, refusing to let the driver leave, you’re most likely going to get run over and dragged across the street. If you spit on us, you’re going to the hospital, then jail. If you hit one of us, you’re going to the hospital, jail, and most likely get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs.” As Ben-Ghiat shook her head in amazement, Capehart asked her to comment. She said, “Unfortunately, what happens when you have a culture of institutionalized lawlessness, and where the head of our government tried to overthrow the government, and is calling protesters insurrectionists, having incited a violent insurrection of his own, there’s a kind of encouragement for all kinds of broad state security forces, including law enforcement, state militias, and the military to feel empowered to be lawless themselves, and to speak like that.”

Lisa Needham writes on The Daily Beast that Senator Jeff Hawley wants an investigation into ‘The Insurrection’ — not the January 6, 2021 affair, the 2025 protests in Los Angeles to be more exact. The Missouri Senator is going to blow this whole criminal conspiracy wide open, using the same old, tired GOP delusion that left wing demonstrators are not spontaneous or authentic but are instead paid puppets funded by dark money masters led by George Soros. Hawley has sent letters to groups he alleges are funding the protests, demanding their donor lists, which Needham finds just a touch McCarthy-ish. She writes that sending letters to organizations disfavored by the government, asserting that participation in that group is criminal, and demanding donor names is pretty much an accurate shorthand description of the McCarthy era. The groups Hawley has singled out are the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which is actually a communist group. The New York Post has reported that, “The radical group, CHILRA, had received around $450,000 in grants for ‘citizenship education and training’ between October 2021 and September 2024 from DHS — the very agency the group was protesting.” Needham snarks, “Ah, yes. The well-known ‘you can’t protest the government if you ever got money from the government’ exception to the First Amendment.” Hawley, in his letters, says, “Bankrolling civil unrest is not protected speech. It is aiding and abetting criminal conduct.” Hmmm — must not pertain to January 6? He doesn’t stop at donor lists — he also wants all internal communications related to protest planning, coordination, or funding; all financial documents related to protests over immigration enforcement; all contracts and grant applications related to immigration enforcement; travel records for anyone supported or reimbursed for protests activities; and all media strategies. Seems that he has forgotten the well-known photo of him raising his fist in support of the gathered January 6 insurrectionists who were poised for the Capitol onslaught, and his answer that, “Trump keeps his campaign promises” when asked about the president’s blanket pardon for his horde of lawbreakers.

We’ve all seen the powerful, yet horrifying, images on TV or social media from the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles with the escalation of law enforcement and police violence, but the citizens are not letting up in defense of their neighborhoods. One protestor’s confrontation with California National Guard officers at the Los Angeles VA Clinic has gone viral as he stands his ground, bravely addressing the armed, uniformed unit. “You’re tough with your assault rifles and your sticks. You should be standing here with us. You’re on the wrong side of history,” he begins. His diatribe continues: “We know you got a job to do. But you took an oath to the Constitution, not to the fascists in the White House. Think about what you’re doing now. Think about what this means, coming into our community. Peaceful community…people working their jobs. They send men in military fatigues. Weapons of war in our communities, and you stand here and you allow it. I am sick and tired of it. You should be sick and tired of it.” Then asking the officers, “You think any of these people in the White House sending you these commands care about you? Not one of them do. They laugh at you. Our president laughs at you. He called you fools. He said the people who died overseas in the military were chumps. That’s who you’re defending right now.” As the video continues he says, “Think about your place in history, ladies and gentlemen. Ask yourself when you wake up tomorrow. I don’t know if you have kids. Ask yourself the future you want for your children. Is it this? You can answer me. Is it this? Do you feel good about this? You’re tough looking behind your masks and your fatigues with your weapons, but how do you feel on the inside? This is our community, and we will fight for it if we have to.” The protester’s video has been seen over 350,000 times, being reposted by countless news media outlets and social media users, viewers being moved by his courage and his potent message. Many called his accomplishment true patriotism, the sign of a leader who should be running for political office, and one Tiktok poster felt it gave all on the sidelines a great reminder: “You can always be the hero.”

Satirist Andy Borowitz reveals that the president had arrived at what he felt was a great solution: “In what critics are calling an inflammatory move, Donald J. Trump announced on Tuesday that he was sending Stephen Miller to Los Angeles to act as a human repellant. ‘No one empties a room faster than Stephen,’ Trump said. ‘He’s better than teargas.’ But Trump’s plan faces a stiff legal challenge from human rights lawyers, who argue that the use of Stephen Miller violates the Geneva Convention.”

A couple of years ago, Trump was interviewed by Fox News’ Bret Baier, who asked The Don what he considered the most important issue for the country, which brought up the usual suspects — the economy, border security, ‘woke,’ but his main concern was “respect.” “Basically, respect all over the world. We don’t have it anymore. We had tremendous respect in 2020. We don’t have respect anymore. We have to get that respect back. And if we don’t, we have some big problems,” he opined. MSNBC’s Steve Benen writes, “This has been a rhetorical staple for the Republicans for quite a while. In fact, on the campaign trail last year, the told a Pennsylvania audience, referring to his White House tenure: ‘We were the most respected country in the world. We were the most respected that we were ever respected. We were never more respected than we were four years ago.'” Of course, Benen calls this statement “utterly bonkers,” but now that the president has returned to the Oval Office, it’s suddenly even worse. The Pew Research Center released the results of international surveys measuring Trump’s support in 24 nations across the globe, making it clear that results were awful. Majorities express little or no confidence in Trump’s ability to handle specific issues, and when asked about Trump’s personal characteristics, most describe him as arrogant and dangerous, while relatively few see him as honest. Benen writes that broadly speaking, good news for the White House was hard to find in the data, much of the world holding Trump in low regard, his unpopularity tarnishing the stature of the country, with favorable ratings dropping by double digits in several countries. The PRC showed George W. Bush unpopular, with Barack Obama’s support high; followed by Trump’s first term numbers awful, then bouncing upward under <b>Biden</b> — now, the numbers are continuing to slide downward.

While some argue that the new numbers are irrelevant, since Trump has prioritized an ‘America First’ theme, the lack of international backing shouldn’t matter — the problem being that Trump has invested enormous amounts of time and energy to make the opposite argument. Most will remember that the Republican worldview is that the USA has been an international laughingstock for decades, but Trump has argued that thanks to how awesome his awesomeness is, he has restored the nation’s global stature, seeing it as one of his most important accomplishments. As Trump ended his first term, in his farewell address he told the country, “The world respects us again. Please don’t lose that respect.” However, the Pew research from September 2020 notes, “In several countries, the share of the public with a favorable view of the US is as low as it has been at any point since the Center began polling on this topic nearly two decades ago.” Benen concludes, “And yet, the president can’t let go of this lie. A few weeks ago, by way of his social media platform, Trump wrote: ‘Our Nation is staging one of the greatest and fastest comebacks in history. In just 4 short months, we are respected again, respected like never before.’ He similarly added in February, just a couple of weeks after his second inaugural, ‘We are respected all over the world, like never before.’ All of this was the opposite of the truth. It also reinforces the fact that Trump is failing, not by some random metric, but by one of the standards that he personally elevated above all others.”

After the president and the First Lady made a rare public appearance at the new and MAGA-friendly Kennedy Center for the presentation of ‘Les Misérables,’ Jimmy Kimmel on his show, expressed concern about the state of their marriage. “It was the opening night, led by their self-appointed chairman of the board,” he said in his opening monologue, as he showed a photo of their appearance, joking, “There he is, Don Valjean and Lady Misérable.” Kimmel surmised, noting their body language, “That is the look of a couple that just realized they have to sit next to each other for three hours. Napoleon Bone-a-Spurs was accompanied by Melania as required under Section B, Subsection 3 of their prenup, which states, ‘Mrs. Trump shall accompany her husband to no fewer that two public appearances per calendar year, during which she shall refrain from open displays of revulsion, disgust, and or hatred, regardless of current mood or events.” Kimmel who has always used the cold, distant relationship of the couple, continued it throughout his monologue. “But Melania, from all accounts, she loved this show. Her favorite song was ‘On My Own.” “They really do seem so close, closer than ever, the way they were holding hands on the way in…,” — as he showed a photo of Trump holding Melania’s thumb as they entered the theater — “…in karate that’s known as a ‘thumb lock.'” Some performers in the play refused to appear knowing that the Trumps would be in the audience, and news reports indicate that loud boos were heard as the First Couple entered, soon to be overshadowed by cheers and clapping from the MAGA attendees. Trump was probably echoing the words of Groucho Marx: “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”

B.B.B., SPEEDING TO THE CLIFF, POPCORN, BRAINS, BILE, HATE

It appears that the honeymoon is over — they’ve made the break-up official — Trump and Musk are kaput! For a few hours there was talk of a reconciliation of sorts, but the president seemed to enjoy the attention he was getting followed by the uptick in his favorability ratings. Plus, Musk was accusing his ex-pal of associating with the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, claiming that Pam Bondi is withholding portions of the Epstein Report because Trump is featured prominently throughout. Despite his denials of any hanky-panky or criminality, the many photographs, news items and his own earlier comments regarding Epstein still cast a cloud of suspicion over his past. Trump obviously was fed up with the most insufferable person in the universe stealing the show from him, so his responses to Musk’s attacks on the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ brought threats of cancellation of SpaceX and Tesla contracts with the government, prompting Musk’s call for impeachment and elevation of JD Vance to the presidency. The spark for the feud began with Musk decrying passage of the pending budget which increases the federal deficit to an insane figure, as well as the proposed bill not codifying his DOGE tax cuts after he and his team of marauders whacked government agencies to death. Though Musk has suggested starting a third political party to attract “the 80% of the center-leaning voters,” most think that action would be disastrous.

Many Democrats, Ro Khanna in particular, have brought up the notion that their party should reach out to the billionaire to counter Trump and his minions — or maybe it’s the money? But as Mike Nellis writes on his Endless Urgency blog on Substack, “There’s a massive difference between someone who’s genuinely trying to figure out which party will help them feed their family or retire with dignity, and a corrupt billionaire who dropped $300 million to elect Trump and the Republican Congress simply to buy influence, expand his government contracts, and clear out officials who stand in his way. This isn’t some redemption arc. A ketamine-fueled Twitter meltdown is not a moral awakening. And more importantly, Elon Musk has done real, lasting damage. He’s spread lies that have weakened this country and eroded public trust in its institutions. He’s destroyed lives through reckless DOGE cuts. He’s exposed our private data to God knows who. He is not an ally.” Nellis says he should be nowhere near the Democratic tent, that he doesn’t get to flip sides like a typical opportunistic billionaire anymore, because he’s operated way beyond the pale and would only turn against the party if he doesn’t get his way. Justifiably, Americans complain of the entrenched corruption in Washington which existed before Trump, which he has only been able to amp up with nothing of importance getting accomplished — and nobody being held accountable for rigging the system. So the Democrats should be wary of a driverless Trojan Tesla!

Tesla’s stock price managed to rebound on the Friday following the initial heated online skirmishes, even with the president making known his intention to sell or give away the bright red Tesla he bought (?) from Elon after their White House Car Lot promotion a couple of weeks ago. Politico reported that Trump aides scheduled a call with Musk to cool off the rhetoric, and Trump claimed, “It’s going very well, never done better,” yet the president says he has no plans to speak to Musk himself — too busy with more important things, Bibles to sell, meme coins to promote, planes to refurbish. One Trump aide said, “The president is making it clear: this White House is not beholden to Elon Musk on policy. By attacking the bill the way he did, Musk has clearly picked a side.” Stephen Colbert on ‘The Late Show,’ told his audience that “the thinkable happened” between Musk and Trump, saying, “In an interview on CBS This Sunday, Musk tried to distance himself from Trump,” as he played a video clip of the billionaire saying, “It’s not like I agree with everything the administration does.” Colbert countered with, “Yeah, Musk doesn’t think Trump was right about everything — his hat does,” as he showed the familiar photo of Musk wearing the baseball cap imprinted with ‘Trump Was Right About Everything’ on it. “Now Donald Trump is a Tesla owner who hates Elon Musk? He’s never been more relatable,” Colbert said. Continuing, Colbert speculates, “Apparently, the ketamine has worn off. That’s got to be a hell of a hangover.” Colbert visualizes Musk coming down from his hangover, realizing, “Oh my God, I spent $288 million to elect who? I have how many children?”

Jimmy Kimmel reported that things were quickly turning ugly between ‘the girls,’ as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez termed the participants of the Trump-Musk fight. “On Friday, Trump gave Elon Musk the key to the White House. And I guess he better change the locks, because today Musk had something very nasty to say about Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill. Boy, when he’s off ketamine, he is a lot less fun.” To Musk’s complaint that Congress would ‘bankrupt’ the country, Kimmel reality checked Elon with, “Elon, bro, were you not paying attention when Trump said he was gonna run the country like one of his businesses? I’m not sure who to root for. It’s like Diddy versus R. Kelly. For Elon Musk to call this a disgusting abomination is really saying something, because this is the man who created this disgusting abomination,” as he showed a photo of a Tesla Cybertruck. Kimmel says Trump was managing to restrain himself, without lashing out at Musk — probably for 288 million reasons, but it’s only a matter of time. “Between Elon and Melania, Trump now has two foreigners who won’t sleep with him,” he cracked. Jimmy Fallon on ‘The Tonight Show,’ sees the relationship going “off a cliff faster than a self-driving Tesla.”

Seth Meyers on ‘The Late Show,’ pondered why Musk waited so long to make the explosive claim that the Trump/Epstein Files rumors are true, and why he chose to associate with the president if he is a reprehensible pedophile. “Also, if we are to take you at your word Elon: You already knew that and it wasn’t a dealbreaker?” he asks. “Musk thought he was in control, now he’s realizing he’s not and he’s pretty bummed. Man, it’s all so sad. Just last week, Trump gave him a ceremonial golden key he stole from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.” On The Street Roundtable, investor Mark Cuban commented on the Musk/Trump feud writing, “All I’ll say is that I bought a bunch of popcorn.” Asked if he saw this split coming, he bluntly replied, “Yes.” Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer, put out the word that Musk needs to be alert about incoming retribution from the Trump camp following their bitter exchange of words. “They are going to drop the hammer on him out of nowhere, when he least expects it. That’s the playbook. And, again, this is political guerrilla warfare at the highest level.” From his own experience, he predicts that retaliation will be in the form of personal smears, weaponization of the Justice Department, and targeting the Musk businesses. Cohen believes the clash was inevitable because of the outsized egos of the two. “Elon Musk has massive power, and here’s the problem with that: Trump craves relevance, Musk craves dominance — very big difference — an immovable force trying to smash into something that’s indestructible. This is going to be a war like nobody has seen, maybe in all of history.” The Fixer suggests that Musk is only the latest in a long list of men who wanted to influence Trump by “whispering in his ear,” pointing to Rudy Giuliani and Jared Kushner. “It doesn’t end well for anybody. And it’s not going to end well for Elon Musk. You’re never more powerful than the President of the United States. And you’re never richer than the country.”

Podcast co-hosts Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer, on Pod Save America, are speculating that the leak behind the story printed in The New York Times regarding Elon Musk’s drug use may have been initiated by none other than Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff. The writing style and a photo of a pillbox with which Musk travels seem to incriminate Miller in the podcasters’ eyes, along with other White House rumors. The relationship between Musk and Miller has always been tense, and with Miller’s wife leaving DOGE to go to work for Musk full-time, along with the Trump/Musk split, it seems a perfect revenge factor for the occasion. Also suspicious is Musk’s unfollowing of Miller on X, at the outset of the big blowup. Pfeiffer joked that perhaps Katie Miller “drafted some of these tweets” for Musk in his battle with the president. ABC News correspondent, Terry Moran, who recently interviewed President Trump in the White House with a heated sit-down conversation, has been suspended by his network for criticizing Stephen Miller in a social media post. “The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism. Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy. But that’s not what’s interesting about Miller. It’s not the brains. It’s bile. Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him because you can see his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate. Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred is only a means to an end, and that end is his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.”

Moran’s post was immediately followed by posts from White House Secretary Karoline ‘Creepy’ Leavitt and Vice President JD Vance, urging ABC News to hold Moran accountable. So, in a statement to TVLine, a spokesperson said: “ABC News stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others. The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards — as a result, Terry Moran has been suspended pending further evaluation.” A 28-year veteran of ABC, Moran is the network’s senior national correspondent, an anchor for ABC’s live streaming service, and is lead for the network coverage of the Supreme Court.

The Washington Post has revealed that during Musk’s time in the White House he was busy laying siege to sensitive government databases, including the ones that handle Social Security. IT staffer, Daniel Berulis, recalls that he detected large data transfers, accompanied by sign-in attempts from Russia, after DOGE took control of the agency’s systems. The DOGE staff insisted that their actions in the system not be tracked, as they chain-sawed their way to slash government jobs and budgets, a request that was supported by both the president and his administration. Musk and his goons transmitted massive amounts of undetected data using a Starlink Wi-Fi terminal that was installed atop the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which raised concerns of security officials, yet installation was approved and completed with Trump’s blessing. Communicatons officials within the White House were kept out of the loop initially, with DOGEers only intending to “address dead zones” in the White House environs; however, the insiders saw the move as intentionally bypassing systems that track the transmission of data which normally provide names and time stamps. “Starlink doesn’t require anything. It allows you to transmit data without any kind of record or tracking,” said a White House insider. “White House IT systems had very strong controls on network access. You had to be on a full-tunnel VPN at all times. If you are not on the VPN, White House-issued devices can’t connect to the outside. With a Starlink connection, that means White House devices could leave the network and go out through gateways — bypassing security.” Sources are uncertain if the Starlink terminal remains, or if Musk took back all his marbles when he exited the capitol.

MSNBC political analyst, Steve Benen, writes on the MaddowBlog of the East Coast/West Coast militaristic events set in motion by President Trump, the first being the much-criticized parade to fill the streets of DC with military hardware and US Army troops on June 14 — a birthday party for the Army AND Donny. Then, there’s the Trump-ordered California National Guard presence in Los Angeles which Benen’s report prefaces with The Associated Press summary: “Tensions in LA escalated Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to President Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard, blocking off a major freeway and setting self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. In recent months, federal officials, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, have engaged in overly aggressive and legally dubious tactics while executing the White House’s deportation agenda, sparking a predictable public backlash. As NBC News reported, it was against this backdrop that ICE officers on Friday carried out raids in three locations across the city, where dozens of people were taken into custody.” Governor Newsom condemned the raids, saying, “These are chaotic federal sweeps aiming to fill an arbitrary arrest quota,” and after protests erupted, Trump made his announcement that 2,000 National Guard troops would be called in to quell the protesters. The New York Times reported, “Governors almost always control the deployment of National Guard troops in their states, this being the first time since 1965 that a president has activated a state’s NG force without a request from that state’s governor,” and reminding us that Lyndon Johnson had sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators.

Despite Governor Newsom’s objections to the president’s order, Trump celebrated the “great job” the troops were doing — before the guardsmen had even arrived on the scene, being consistent with The Don’s general approach to reality and truth. Both Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass joined in, accusing Trump of “inciting and provoking violence, creating mass chaos, and militarizing cities — the acts of a dictator, not a president.” Border Czar Tom Homan threatened to arrest state and local elected officials, prompting Newsom to dare the czar to give that a try, and signaling that California would be filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration for activating the state’s National Guard. Benen says there’s no reason to believe the situation will improve quickly, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatens to raise the bar by throwing US Marines into fray. House Speaker Mike Johnson, with his Cheshire Cat smile, opined that active-duty Marines shouldn’t be seen as “heavy-handed.” Trump told reporters that he’s meeting with US military leaders regarding the LA “invasion and occupation,” renewing speculation that the MAGA pack might be preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act. The president also disclosed that he was directing Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “to take all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion.” Kristi Noem has changed her tune from her time as South Dakota governor, when she announced that if President Biden tried to federalize National Guard troops, it would constitute a “direct attack on states’ rights” and spark a “war” between Washington and GOP-led state governments. Trump’s posted online, “Looking really bad in L.A. BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” and he later told reporters that he expects to have US troops “everywhere.”

In his New York Times column, David French wrote, “It’s too early to declare a constitutional crisis, and in any case, debating the label we attach to any new event can distract us from focusing fully on the event itself. But each new day brings us fresh evidence of a deeply troubling trend: America is no longer a stable country, and it is growing less stable by the day.” Steve Benen reminds us that presidential candidate Trump in 2024 referred to Americans he disagreed with as “scum,” as he talked about possible deployment of the National Guard or the US military on American soil against those he labeled “the enemy from within.” Benen says, “At the time, it led many to wonder whether Trump, if returned to power, might be will to use — or in this case, abuse — military resources to stifle dissent. Republicans characterized such concerns as hysterical and paranoid. Eight months later, those fears are suddenly relevant anew.”

For the past three months, Andy Borowitz in his The Borowitz Report, has profiled in his Sunday columns ‘Traitor of the Week’ — “snakes who are enabling the fascist Trump regime,” he writes. In a “free and fair election” his subscribers have named Mitch McConnell as ‘America’s Top Traitor,’ and as Andy says, “It was a tough competition,” with Stephen Miller ending up in second place. Mitch McConnell’s disgraceful behavior during the Trump era, “also known as the Fourth Reich,” confirms that Moscow Mitch “would indeed be a worthy replacement for ‘quisling’ in the dictionary.” Borowitz continues: “Before Trump was elected, McConnell had already spent decades doing everything in his power to make the United States unfit for human habitation. Specifically, he worked tirelessly to ensure that as many Americans as possible were killed by guns.” The aftermath of a mass shooting was never the right time to discuss gun legislation — or threaten the profits of the NRA overlords! Andy says, “It was his behavior during Trump’s second impeachment trial clinched his place in the pantheon of American quislings. After Trump incited the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, McConnell said, ‘If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.’ The House of Representatives heartily agreed, voting to impeach Trump for a historic second time.” McConnell declined to work toward securing votes to convict Trump in the Senate, and even voted to acquit, yet he continued to excoriate the president for being practically and morally responsible for his provocations that day. But Mitch wasn’t done — he endorsed Trump for president in 2024! Borotwitz sees Mitch now being worried about his place in history — “snugly between Benedict Arnold and Judas Iscariot” — so in trying to redeem himself, he voted against Trump cabinet nominees Hegseth, RFK Jr., and Gabbard, votes which are totally meaningless in light of his vote to acquit Trump. Get your popcorn ready for the eventual tribunal!

The date’s just around the corner in case you need to mark your calendars — June 14, which is Trump’s birthday — plus the massive DC military parade he has scheduled in his own honor to mark his 79th year. Oh sure, it’s the 250th anniversary of the US Army but it won’t be about honoring the values that define that branch of service — it’s simply about glorifying The Man in the gold lamé uniform. Trump attempted a similar display in 2018, supposedly to honor Veteran’s Day, but forceful public backlash swamped that effort when cooler heads in the administration prevailed. Sunny Hostin on The View expressed his opinion against our Bone Spur Dictator, saying, “I don’t think people are going to be supportive of this…I think it’s a distasteful display for our armed services because they aren’t about pomp and circumstance. They’re about discipline, pride, service, things like that.” Co-host Whoopi Goldberg spoke against the frivolous, internationally provocative, waste of taxpayer money, adding, “Are you still taking my tax money? If you’re gonna take my tax money, throw my money towards the veterans, rehiring them, I don’t want to pay for your birthday party.” A display of military might to recognize a would-be king is a sure hallmark of an autocratic regime, not a democracy showing respect to those in uniform, where we stand up for the principles they defend, and their loyalty toward the Constitution, not to a narcissistic man-child who deserves total disdain.
Satirist Andy Borowitz wrote his ambitious scenario for the birthday parade: “Donald J Trump’s plan to hold a military parade on his birthday imploded on Thursday when he was unable to produce an authentic birth certificate. Though White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the missing document as an ‘administrative error,’ the Joint Chiefs of Staff disagreed, stating, ‘Without a birth certificate, we have no evidence of when or where President Trump was born.’ Trump reportedly begged his wife, Melania, to swear under oath that he was born on June 14, but she refused, telling him, ‘You never remember my birthday.’ The birth certificate controversy drew strong reactions across the political spectrum, including former President Barack Obama, who exclaimed, ‘I knew it.'”

Press secretary Leavitt was given a new monicker last week, ‘Creepy Karoline,’ by a former Trump White House lawyer, when she accused the three judges on the Court of International Trade of “undermining the US on the world stage,” as the court dismissed Trump’s illegal tariff rulings. Lawyer Ty Cobb, on CNN, took a jab at “Creepy” and let fly at the president, calling him a “ranting wounded narcissist.” Congress has had the tariff power for almost fifty years, with the seated president being able to exercise that duty only in a national emergency, therefore the three-member court ruled unanimously that Trump had exceeded his authority in levying tariffs — the first to attempt this. This action, of course, riled the president and his MAGA team, sending “Creepy” to the briefing room to attack the “activist judges” who “railroaded sensitive diplomatic or trade negotiations.” Cobb responded to the on/off tariff policies against random countries that the president has no clue about, by saying, “I don’t think “Creepy Karoline”, when she speaks…I don’t think anybody in America takes her seriously on a matter of substance. She is not learned by any imagination.” He also pointed out that one of the judges, conservative Tim Reif, is a Trump appointee, a highly regarded expert on trade law, who likely is respected by several on the Supreme Court, where the ruling may end up. Conservative activist Leonard Leo, formerly head of the Federalist Society, and a sugar-daddy to a couple of unnamed Supreme Court justices, was instrumental in recommending Reif and other judges who Trump appointed to their posts. But now, Leo is in Trump’s view, “a sleazebag, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America,” as he posted to Truth Social. Didn’t we try to tell him that very thing, many bribes ago? Trump had best watch his step, since Leo is also close with Supreme Court Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, and Cavanaugh, so his mouth, and his tiny typing fingers, will only make for a rockier path.

As Michael Tomasky writes in The New Republic, Trump was given a temporary win when a federal appeals court stayed the International Court of Trade’s decision regarding his illegal imposition of tariffs, a stay granted on an administrative basis only. Another Trump setback resulted when a federal judge ruled that Harvard University can continue admitting foreign students for now, in overruling yet another of the administration’s efforts to derail the university by forbidding foreign enrollees, a nakedly ideological, authoritarian attack. Tomasky says, “The administration is losing these cases for a simple reason: They’re breaking the damn law. They’re invoking old and obscure laws and insisting that they confer upon them the authority to do things they don’t have the authority to do. They’re trying to stretch other laws and regulations to suit their authoritarian purposes. In other words, these initiatives and the way the Trump administration is going about them — using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act as ostensible legal cover for obviously illegal deportations — are part of a larger plan…they’re all just smaller parts of a broader assault on the rule of law itself. They’re pieces of a puzzle, and the puzzle, once filled in, will show a Republican-dominated legislative branch that has willingly conceded most of its authority, a judicial branch that has been stripped of its own, and a unitary executive — King Donald — with all the power in his hands. So Stephen Miller is right, in a way. There is a judicial coup going on in this country. It’s just that it’s being waged by Trump, Miller, and their gang of rogues against the judges, not the other way around.”

The People for the American Way website says that Federal courts have been doing what they are supposed to do: interpreting the law, enforcing the Constitution, and acting as a check on presidential power — which isn’t going over well with Trump. A study for the month of May reveals rulings against the Trump administration stand at a 96% loss rate — 26 out of 27 cases, the rule of law in action! The opposition to administration positions came roughly equally from judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents, exhibiting the extremes and the unlawfulness of the Trump agenda. Rather than adjusting course, the MAGA crowd in Congress are attempting to break the courts entirely as seen in the latest version of the House budget bill, by slipping in a provision to limit judges’ ability to hold administration officials in contempt when they violate court orders, a direct, calculated attack on judicial independence. Trump has even reposted someone’s suggestion that he release terrorists near the homes of Supreme Court justices who have ruled against him. Not merely rhetoric, but a coordinated attempt to delegitimize and intimidate any court that refuses to rubber stamp his pronouncements. He doesn’t want impartial legal minds — only legal enforcers, collaborators to advance his agenda and shield him from accountability. No guardians of justice needed for the gates!

NBC is reporting that National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard is asking for help from Trump’s staff and from former intel officials, about how to get the president’s attention directed towards weighty matters. He is well-known for delving into inconsequential subjects that grate on him, quick to criticize and insult others on trivia that shouldn’t concern the ‘leader’ of the free world, and to divert the attention of the electorate from the destructiveness of the administration. One insider admits that not only is Trump disinterested in the President’s Daily Brief — “he doesn’t read. He’s on broadcast all the time.” Gabbard wants to take steps to tailor the briefing, which is a written digital document with photos, to the presidents’s interests and habits, some suggesting that it look and feel like a Fox News broadcast! Should this plan be implemented, a Fox News producer would be brought in with a network personality’s presentation, which could include graphics, pictures, and maps, and animated features similar to a video game. And perhaps, a pacifier, bunny slippers, a Happy Meal, and a blankie?

With his time in Washington drawing to a close, Elon Musk played his incredibly pathetic victim card, by lashing out at President Trump’s attempt to make him the administration’s go-to-scapegoat, saying, “DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything.” As Musk told The Washington Post, “So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.” As if ketamine-cavorting on the stage with a chain saw is viewed as a completely normal, adult action, Elon? As asked on the odactionnews.com website, “If he really believed bankrolling Trump’s return to the White House would buy him the wannabe dictator’s loyalty, then perhaps he’s not nearly the genius he desperately wants us all to think he is?” This shift in the billionaire’s tone follows the backlash over the massive federal layoffs and firings, and a disastrous first quarter for Tesla sales, as he retreats from his West Wing post. Though Musk has seemingly exited as a DOGE honcho, he says he would like to modernize the broken computer systems within the federal government. In a CBS Sunday Morning interview, he told David Pogue he was disappointed in Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ which saw narrow approval in the House. He whined, “You know, I was like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not decrease it, and undermines the work the DOGE team is doing,” adding, “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.” No mention of his vanity project in  SpaceX’s Starship rocket which blew up in flight on the third attempt to achieve orbit, showering the debris of Musk’s ego over the Caribbean — the “rapid unscheduled disassembly” termed “an improvement” to sate the US taxpayers whose wallets are being depleted.

As Dan Rather writes on his ‘Steady’ blog, “All the money in the world couldn’t rescue Elon Musk from Washington politics. The Beltway bunch made their decision: ‘Enough!’ they said. And just like that, Musk is relegated to the end of the receiving line. As Harry Truman once quipped of Washington, ‘If you want a friend, get a dog.'” Rather says that all that cash to help elect the president, yet the MAGA faithful can’t hide the most important numbers: approval ratings. Musk’s are terrible — worse than Trump’s, if you can believe that — and Musk’s stench is rubbing off on his former “first buddy.” During his four-month tenure, Musk quickly became one of the most disliked unelected officials ever, but the nail in his political coffin was hammered in earlier April after he had invested $20 million in the campaign to elect a Republican-backed Wisconsin Supreme Court judge who lost by double digits. MAGA will take his money, but now he’s a loser in Trump World who, as Rather says, “…is devoting his time and money to keeping his rockets in the air and his car business afloat.” Sure! With the $38 billion in US government funding toward his contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits, according to The Washington Post. Rather concludes with, “You’re welcome, Elon.”

Steve Schmidt continues his barrage on ‘The Warning’ against the MAGA regime, picking up Senator Elizabeth Warren’s phrase “orgy of corruption” to describe Trump’s Bitcoin dinner at his Virginia golf club a couple of weeks ago. Schmidt adds to her context by describing Trump as America’s Nero merged with Caligula, as King Donald expands his belief that he and his cronies have a license to break the law and steal. Business Insider reports: The official backers of Trump’s meme coin, $Trump, are hosting a gala at the president’s DC-area private golf club. The top 220 holders of the digital token were invited to join the president. On average they spent over $1 million on the coin to secure a seat according to NBC News, and the lucky ones spent $394 million on the coin, per research conducted by blockchain analytics company Nansen. Criticism from congressional Democrats and government ethics organizations clashed with White House defense spokesperson Anna Kelly who said, “The president is working to secure GOOD deals for the American people, not for himself. President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media.” Cost for each attendee varies, with each of the top seven spending more than $10 million and those spending less than $100,000 filling the 24 cheap seats. With his $20 million investment, Chinese billionaire Justin Sun, is the top holder of Trump’s meme coin, and he was “awarded” a Trump Golden Tourbillon watch by the president, valued at $100,000. Sun founded the cryptocurrency, Tron, and also has some investments in the Trump Crime Family’s crypto project, World Liberty Financial. Under President Biden, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Sun with fraud and market manipulation, but last February after his investing in WLF, the SEC miraculously asked the court to pause the lawsuit.

Schmidt says, “Donald Trump is engorging himself like a locust. He is selling out America to a bevy of Arab and Chinese billionaires, while chaining America’s billionaires to his throne with leashes that let them partake in the taking — so long as they stay quiet and in line. The appeasement of Trump’s corruption and aggressions has become table stakes in the new American economy, where the free enterprise system is being replace by a gangster economy where the rule of law and transparency fade to black. There is economic misery ahead for the American people, and crazy Donald doesn’t care.” Schmidt points out the sad truth, writing that after over 120 days of chaos, incompetence, corruption, cruelty, betrayal and idiocies of unprecedented magnitude, MAGA and Trump remain more trusted than Democrats; nothing seems like it is on the level because nothing is — the great tragedy of 21st century America. “Donald Trump is a rotten man who leads a rotten movement that has assembled a rotten government that practices arson by day and malice by night. The simple truth of this moment is clear as day. We live in the age of the taker, and soon there won’t be much left to take,” he concludes.

Odactionnews.com reports that “the hallowed halls of Congress will soon have a new World’s Dumbest American Senator as Alabama knuckle dragger and man who once argued white nationalism isn’t actually racist at all really,” formally announced his plans to leave the upper chamber and run for governor of his state. Tommy Tuberville as a governor represents “one small step for a simpleton, one giant leap backwards for Alabamakind.” He declared on Fox News, “Today, I announce that I will be the future Governor of the great state of Alabama,” which was quickly followed by the launch of his campaign website. One complication he will have to overcome is his state of Florida residency, requiring that he move back home. Tuberville said, “I’ve still got eighteen months to go with President Trump to make America great again. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but I’m going to help this country and help the great state of Alabama. I’m a football coach. I’m a leader. I’m a builder. I’m a recruiter and we’re going to grow Alabama.” A first-term senator, and a longtime college football coach for Auburn University, Tuberville remarked, “Either way, I’m looking at where I can help the people of Alabama the most. At the end of the day, a job’s a job. It’s like coaching — I always looked at the job as what does it need? Can you help fix it? Can you make it better? It’s a different level, with Trump sending more money and more power back to the states. It gives you a better advantage.” The dim-witted senator will be remembered for placing a hold on all 450 military promotions in 2023 over the Pentagon’s previous policy of allowing service members to be reimbursed for travel to receive abortion care following the Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v. Wade. He finally relented after holding out for ten months due to political pressure from his own party, though nothing changed at the time in the Defense Department. The New Republic reminds us that he lied about his father getting five bronze stars in WW1, and tried to goad Trump into taking back the Panama Canal, as well as spreading vaccine misinformation in defense of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As Malcolm Ferguson writes, “The upcoming gubernatorial campaign is sure to provide more classic, alarmingly ignorant moments from Coach Tuberville.”

Talk about shameless, gaffe-ridden loyalty to Trump and the MAGA horde, Dan Rather says Senator Joni Ernst must have missed the memo from above that GOP lawmakers should avoid holding town hall meetings only to get taken down by the electorate who won’t bend to politicians trying to spin the unspinnable. Ernst likely thought a 7:30 a.m. scheduling would be too early for her constituents to show up, but that was only her first mistake. As she tried to explain the cuts to Medicaid from Trumps ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ one attendee yelled, “People will die!” The senator dismissed the declaration with, “Well, we are all going to die,” prompting a loud chorus of jeering. Trying to settle the crowd, her folksy, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, folks,” not only didn’t work, her original repudiation toward the audience member grew legs and spurred commentary across the country. The Des Moines Register, hardly a liberal publication, printed her “Well, we are all going to die,” quote as a large font, all-caps headline after her town hall. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said that her constituents would rather die in old age, instead of dying at 40, because losing health care risks an early death. Nathan Sage, a former Marine who served two tours in Iraq, said, “It was a jaw-dropping moment. How the hell can you say something like that? The crowd was already hot. She was there to answer questions and get out. It showed she doesn’t care about us.” Rather says it appears she just cares about Trump. She initially opposed the nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, but eventually caved to the president’s pressure campaign; otherwise, she has been lockstep loyal to Trump — which is not playing well currently in deep-red Iowa.

GIVING NOTHING, WHO’S ON FIRST, WINGED PALACE, TROPHIES

For a short time it was nice for followers of President Trump’s Truth Social media platform, when they read his simple message, “`HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!” However, his short wish was actually a temporary replacement for an earlier, typical, Trumpian all-caps, ugly screed unleashed upon the opposition, which was full of typos that needed corrections by his handlers. Upon reposting the edited original, Trump added more all-caps sentences, perhaps toning it down only marginally, with praise for himself and his administration’s “great progress.” A post on Sunday night found The Don going after Vladimir Putin for escalating Russian attacks on Kyiv, Ukraine, dubbing him as “absolutely crazy,” rebuking the largest drone attack in the three-year war. The month of May marks the bombardments on Ukraine as record-setting, with Russia breaking its record on aerial attacks three times, as it assembles forces for a summer offensive according to analysts. Trump has threatened more sanctions for Russia as he loses patience with Vlad, but he also is critical of Ukraine’s Zelensky who is being too verbose in his criticism of lack of global support, in Trump’s view. So, Putin needs to back off, Zelensky needs to shut his mouth, or Trump’s coveted Nobel Peace Prize fades to black — a trophy that holds the highest significance in settling the war to our dear leader.

Satirist Andy Borowitz writes in The Borowitz Report of Trump’s Memorial Day activity: “In what has become a Memorial Day tradition for him, on Monday Donald J. Trump laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Podiatrist. Trump made his annual pilgrimage to pay homage to the heroic doctors who issued bogus diagnoses to ensure that their privileged patients never answered the call of duty. In an emotional tribute, Trump thanked the fallen foot specialists who bravely risked their medical licenses so that others facing military service could be free. Choking back tears, he said, “They gave everything so people like me could give nothing.”

Observers are being wary about who is actually in charge in the Oval Office, with the president signing over 150 executive orders in the same ritualized event — cameras present, staff standing by along with invited guests — and the chief executive appearing to barely know what he is signing. Trump is marginally attentive as the White House Staff Secretary reads a brief summary of the order, as the president interjects with a question or two which may indicate he hasn’t read it or is unfamiliar with it, whether only a few pages or many. The Daily Beast reports of one instance when Trump asked, “Are we doing something about the regulatory here?” Answering were several businessmen who were in attendance, and Interior Secretary Burgum, with a “you are sir,” followed by Trump asking, “Is that it?” “That’s all we have for you now, sir,” came the answer, as Trump then invited questions about the orders to be addressed to the “brilliant” experts, rather than toward him. Critic Fred Wellman, a graduate of West Point (and an Army vet of 22 years service), political consultant, and graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, simply says, “He is not in charge.” Investment banker Evaristus Odinikaeze, remarked, “‘Is that it?’ while signing orders he doesn’t understand, parroting talking points he didn’t write, and pretending it’s leadership — peak performative confusion.”

Former running mate of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Nicole Shanahan, recently speculated that somebody is “controlling” Kennedy’s decisions in his role at the Department of Health and Human Services, following the announcement that Dr. Casey Means was named to become the next Surgeon General. Shanahan says she was promised that neither Casey nor her brother, Calley, would be working in HHS, if she gave her support toward Kennedy’s Senate confirmation, being assured that much more qualified people would be considered. She said, “I don’t know if RFK lied to me, or what is going on. It has been clear in recent conversations that he is reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions — and it isn’t President Trump.” Could it be the infamous brain worm?

Politico reports that after the DOGE/Elon Musk destruction of government agencies, Trump and his gang “have gone awfully quiet on the world’s richest man.” Musk was a constant at the White House, always given space on the president’s social media posts and in his fundraising email grifts, the Tesla/X-world CEO has fallen into disfavor, hardly mentioned in briefings, with only quietude among congressional members. Musk could only serve as a special government employee for 130 days, ending in late May, but he leaves in his wake the DOGE staff who will continue to work with Trump’s cabinet “to make our government more efficient,” says Press Secretary Leavitt. It has become apparent that the $2 trillion savings promised will not come about. It also seems that Trump started a Truth Social blackout of Musk after he experienced a 10 point, humiliating loss in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race after plunking down $21 million for Trump’s preferred candidate in a low-profile, non-partisan judicial contest. Without a doubt, Wisconsin’s electorate found Musk’s onstage cheesehead antics, and his handing out checks for a million bucks to some voters to be over the top. “He’s finished, done, gone. He polls terrible. People hate him. He’d go to Wisconsin thinking he can buy people’s votes, wear the cheese hat, act like a 9-year old…it doesn’t work. It’s offensive to people,” said an anonymous GOP operative. A Marquette University Law School poll found that 58% of respondents disapproved of Musk and his DOGE-boys secretive task force, and 60% disapproved of Musk personally. Musk himself is likely pulling away due to his personal business downturns, with Tesla profits plummeting 71% in the first quarter, and with grumblings emanating from the board members in all his holdings. He and Trump don’t see eye to eye on the new tariffs, with Trump continuing to stir up more confusion globally.

Politico sees Republicans still are attempting to stay in the good graces of Musk, hoping his massive fortune and X social media platform continue to support their campaigns, even as he signals that he might wind down his political activity which would be a big blow after his massive support in 2024. GOP strategist Alex Conant said, “Anytime the biggest donor says he’s going to pull back, that’s a concern for the party. These megadonors, you have to earn their support every cycle. He says he’s planning to pull back, but if we have a presidential nominee in ’28 that excites Musk, you can see him doubling down.” Musk was asked if his decision was because of blowback, saying, “If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I do not currently see a reason. In terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future. I think I’ve done enough.” Republican strategist Brian Seitchik argues, “Musk has the luxury of changing his mind at a moment’s notice. He has the luxury of being angry, irritated or inspired in the coming months and will decide how to spend. It would simply mean that Republicans have less money. It’s not as though they have no money.” Democratic Representative Greg Casar of Texas pointed out that Musk was recently on Capitol Hill, meeting with Republicans on energy and artificial intelligence, saying on X, “Elon Musk isn’t gone, and we can’t let Republicans pretend he is, just because he’s unpopular now. We have to keep the pressure until we actually Fire Elon Musk.” “Anyone actually believe he’s stepping back?” asks Representative Mark Pocan. “Musk is just hiding in the closet, but he’s still in the room.”

Musk’s troubles were exacerbated this past weekend, when social media platform X went down temporarily, along with other glitches, resulting in a multitude of complaints and comments by users. He posted that, “I’m back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms. I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch), as we have critical technologies rolling out. As evidenced by the X uptime issues this week, major operational improvements need to be made.” One commenter posted, “And, this was the guy Trump brought in to make government more efficient?” The Washington Post wrote, “Politics has been central to Musk’s identity over much of the past year, but his latest obsession has faded into disenchantment over the personal costs and difficulties in producing results. Musk has also become deeply concerned for the personal safety of his family. He also did not anticipate the level of backlash against him personally or against his companies, including incidents of violence at Tesla facilities.” Musk was present at a Cabinet meeting on April 30, where President Trump told him, “We all want to thank you for your help. You really have sacrificed a lot.” But as Janna Brancolini wrote on The Daily Beast, “Everyone knows, though, how strongly Trump feels about losers.”

Andy Borowitz found another topic that deserves one of his satirical treatments: “Vowing to usher in a ‘golden age of chocolate,’ on Wednesday Donald J. Trump called for Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory to be reopened. ‘I saw a show about it on TV, and it never should have been allowed to close down,’ he said. ‘It never would have happened if I was president. What was done to Willy Wonka was a disgrace,’ he said, adding that the chocolatier had been ‘treated very unfairly.’ We used to make beautiful chocolate in this country,’ he said. ‘We’re not winning at chocolate anymore.'” Anybody? Mary Rose and Ian Mackenzie?

One thing — for real — that Trump sees as a winning move is acceptance of the Boeing 747 ‘Flying Palace’ luxury jet from Qatar that he insists will be converted into Air Force One — after taxpayers foot the bill for a $1 billion+ makeover to meet security regulations for a US president. The bribe was formally confirmed by NewsNation as the Defense Department and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took possession “in accordance with all federal rules and regulations” this past week. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in his statement, “The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the President of the United States,” referring further questions to the US Air Force. The $400 million bribe for the 13 year-old jet is akin to accepting the castoff socks and underwear for an item that is no longer good enough for the royal family of Qatar, but our orange-hued president sees the gold fixtures and trappings to be fit for his kingly aspirations. The upgrade to the ‘Flying Palace’ is estimated to be a three- or four-year project, ready for use about the same time as the two new Boeing jets that have been on order since the first Oval Office desecration of Trump Inc. Boeing attributes their three-year production delay to a worker’s strike, complicated nature of new upgrades such as enhanced self-defense systems, and completing security clearances of the various contractors.

According to a Civiqs poll for Daily Kos, 55% of registered voters believe it to be unethical for Trump to accept the plane, which he claims will temporarily serve as the new Air Force One, which would then be transferred into the ownership of his future presidential library, BUT made available for his private use after leaving office! Only 19% of voters believe the bribe to be ethical, and another 22% don’t see it as an ethics issue, but Democrats are overwhelmingly critical — 92% saying it’s unethical, and even 55% of independents agree it crosses the line. Trump defends the ‘transferral,’ saying it would be “stupid” not to accept the “gift,” but he insists upon ignoring the emoluments clause of the Constitution which bans federal officials from accepting gifts, payments, or favors from foreign powers without Congressional approval. The White House and Department of Justice argue that the gift was not unconstitutional because it was not given to an individual — so it becomes a gift to an individual when the taxpayers GIVE it to an ex-president? King Donald is the only modern US president to challenge the restrictions, but then he’s been allowed to profit from all his side hustles of Bibles, guitars, meme coins, and taking advantage of that official presidential seal. Democratic voters refuse to let this slide, and if the rest of the electorate can catch up, the Trump Crime Family may find the ConGame to be nearing a finale. Andy Borowitz writes that, “Qatar inked a historic agreement to acquire a president of the United States, but critics argued that the president it bought was in poor condition and not fully functional. Additionally, the critics noted, he was preowned, having previously been purchased by Vladimir Putin, Elon Musk, and dozens of others. For his part, the emir brushed off such criticism, telling reporters,’He can’t possibly be worth less than that [crappy] old 747.'” One critic commented, “This is like a combination of ‘Fixer Upper’ and ‘Pimp My Ride.’ It’s going to cost a lot of money.” Considering that the aircraft will need to be stripped of its interior, its outer skin and down to the airframe for retrofitting and reassembly of the gold toilets, who wants to place bets on the timeline?

NBC News reports that “the White House has scrubbed its website of transcripts from President Trump’s speeches and appearances, hiding his lies, unhinged comments, and even moments when world leaders have rebuked his statements.” Those transcripts were on the website as recently as last week, but a shift in the administration’s communications policy, leaving only videos of those moments with no accompanying transcripts. While the transcripts exist, with official government stenographers recording Trump’s public appearances, nothing appears on the website. So, the question is — what is being hidden? Does this further tighten control over Trump’s image, even with mainstream media declining to report stories that may be critical of him? Or are larger issues concerning the president’s mental and physical health prompting the White House to obscure his blathering from the public? Aren’t we entitled to see the colorful rant about washing his hair, as he signed an executive order on water pressure? How about the one closer to home, when he raved about “invading Los Angeles to open up the water”? Or the one about his promise to bring down the price of eggs, which he said he accomplished with a 93% reduction? Know anybody out there who bought eggs for $0.13 per dozen? And of course, who wouldn’t want to read the transcript of his discourse on the word ‘groceries‘? Also missing is the recent Oval Office ambush of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, when Trump presented his “white genocide” diatribe with fake web pages to embarrass his guest, who was obviously taken aback. Those transcript omissions make it perfectly clear that the White House wants to hide the president from his critics.

One recent appearance that Trump’s handlers would like to be erased completely is his speech to the West Point graduates last weekend, a speech that appropriately fell on its face with the audience. Again, the president tried to make his attendance into a political rally, airing grievances, drifting off-script into the brambles, bragging about his election victory in November and whining about being investigated. He had to be thoroughly disappointed in the response, which resulted in his leaving the event quickly without shaking the hands of the graduates, to get to the golf course. Wearing his red MAGA cap, Trump delivered what strategist and lawyer Aaron Parnas called a “‘strikingly unconventional’ school address, blending political rhetoric, off-the-cuff remarks, and personal anecdotes, deviating sharply from the traditional tone of such events.” The Don made headlines with his ‘trophy wives’ comments, one observer calling it a complete lack of presidential decorum. His opinion given to the grads on marrying “trophy wives,” when he advised them, “A lot of trophy wives doesn’t (sic) work out,” raised not a few eyebrows. Minor league baseball franchise owner, Lou DiBella, posted on X, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States! A lesson on trophy wives; how inspiring for our future Army officers at their commencement. Nice MAGA hat…how appropriate! Consider this one instead on next graduation day.” Economist Patrick Chovanec suggested, “The only difference between a MAGA hat and KKK hood is that the KKK were ashamed to show their faces.” Veteran Daniel Larsen added, “Orange blob menace psychopath convicted felon MAGA cult leader rambled and dissembled. Wearing that hat to a West Point commencement is high crimes and misdemeanors. Impeach this idiot.”

And speaking of Melania, sources say that she has spent fewer than two weeks at the White House since inauguration day in January, appearing with the president at the Pope’s funeral and at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. Some sources say that her fourteen day presence might be a generous estimate, but is discounted by Paolo Zampolli, a modeling agent, who says, “She loves the White House and loves her role of serving as our First Lady.” Just not living there full time? Even regulars at Mar-a-Lago say she is scarce around the Florida resort. Melania just announced she is releasing a new audiobook in a few months — to be narrated in an artificial intelligence version of her voice — not a new offering, only her 2024 memoir which was entitled ‘Melania.’ The English version is on sale for $25, a seven hour slog, with various foreign language versions expected in the future. Admirers have written, “Thanks for making America elegant again!” Something’s missing there!

Writer Fran Lebowitz doesn’t mention anything about the term ‘First Lady,’ but in the Fran Lebowitz Reader, she says, “Lest you get the impression that I am totally opposed to the word ‘lady,’ I rush to assure you that I think it is a perfectly nice word when used correctly. The word ‘lady’ is used correctly only as follows: a) To refer to certain female members of the English aristocracy. b) In reference to girls who stand behind lingerie counters in department stores, but only when preceded by the word ‘sales.’ c) To alert a member of the gentle sex to the fact that she is no longer playing with a full deck. As in, ‘Lady, what are you — nuts or something?’ d) To differentiate between girls who [are ‘easy’] and girls who [aren’t]. Girls who are ‘easy’ are tramps. Girls who aren’t are ladies. This is, however, an archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who [isn’t ‘easy’], do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.” A favorite Fran quote: “Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not possibly have met.” Fran gets the last word.