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Wednesday, July 01, 2026

GOP freaks out over the Constitution

First up, Katie Phang.



Second, Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson.  Johnson's grunting response to the ruling on citizenship has gone and he's now ready to take it on. Nicole LaFond (TALKING POINTS MEMO) reports:

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) agreed to try to find a congressional path forward for the right-wing’s fever dream of ending birthright citizenship after a divided Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to do so by executive order. Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh, in particular, left open the door for Congress to act in his concurrence — and Johnson suggested he would, before he even had a chance to read it.
Reacting to the news in real time moments after the Supreme Court knocked down Trump’s order based on the Constitution’s birthright citizenship clause, Johnson agreed that Congress should correct what the high court did not.

“Well, I need to read the opinion, okay? But I — obviously you can say that’s a textualist, originalist view, however, I do think this has been grossly abused in recent years,” he said, elevating popular right-wing birthright citizenship grievances about “birth tourism” and suspicions about the allegiances of children of non-citizens, which Justice Sam Alito also aired in his dissent.

“Birthing tourism, they call it: a trend where people come and you just come on to the soil and have your child and then they’re able to avail themselves of the welfare state and everything else,” he said. “It’s been abused. It’s one of those things that was intended to serve a noble and important purpose and has been thwarted and overused and abused, and so I’m sure that we’ll continue to look at that.

He is such a loser.  He's not the only Republican losing it over that decision.  Ed Mazza (HUFFINGTON POST) reports:

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) on Tuesday proposed a 10-year moratorium on immigration ― then suggested covering up the Statue of Liberty to block its immigrant-friendly message. 

“We gotta put a bed sheet ― a big bed sheet ― over the Statue of Liberty,” he told journalist Pablo Manríquez. “She’s gotta go to sleep for a while ’cuz we’re not letting anybody in anymore.” 
Nehls’ proposal came after the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship.

That’s the constitutional guarantee that children born in this country are automatically citizens. 

The ruling effectively blocks an executive order issued by President Donald Trump insisting otherwise. 

Nehls ― a staunch Trump ally who even wore a necktie with the president’s face all over it to the State of the Union speech earlier this year ― seemed to be offering a much more extreme alternative to that executive order.

His proposal didn’t stop with a sheet over the Statue of Liberty’s head. 

“Instead of having a torch, maybe it needs a stop sign,” he suggested, miming the statue’s torch-hoisting arm. 
 


A leading MAGA mouthpiece has responded to Donald Trump’s Supreme Court defeat on birthright citizenship by suggesting the U.S. forcibly sterilize foreign visitors before letting them in.

Sean Davis, the CEO and co-founder of conservative outlet The Federalist, unloaded on social media after the court ruled 6-3 on Tuesday that Trump’s executive order stripping citizenship from the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants was unconstitutional.
The justices held in Trump v. Barbara that children born on American soil to parents unlawfully or temporarily in the country are citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment, a principle the U.S. has honored for more than a century.

Davis was not happy—and that’s an understatement. In a lengthy X post, he accused Chief Justice John Roberts and Trump-appointee Amy Coney Barrett of choosing to “nullify the 14th Amendment and extra-constitutionally replace it with their own language.”

Poor whiney crybaby.  Sarah Rumpf (MEDIAITE) notes:

And for Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, lobbying Congress to pass legislation is an insufficient response to the Supreme Court’s ruling. In a long social media post, Davis accused Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett of having made the “choice” to “nullify the 14th amendment and extra-constitutionally replace it with their own language,” and he offered several “ways forward” from the court’s ruling. Among the ideas he shared were having red states refuse to issue birth certificates to “non-citizens,” packing the court with additional justices, denying entry to all pregnant foreigners, denying entry to all pregnant foreigners, sterilization of all foreign visitors, and even “[d]issolution of the Union,” because “[a] nation which can’t even restrict who gets to be a citizen isn’t a nation.”


A CNN anchor was shocked by a montage of Republican outrage over the Supreme Court rebuffing their immigration demands.

Kasie Hunt opened her Tuesday episode of The Arena with a segment about the Supreme Court's 6-3 vote to block Trump from unilaterally ending birthright citizenship. The segment featured a clip with GOP reactions to the "stinging loss," as Hunt described it.
[. . .]
After that series of reactions, Hunt said, "Wow, on a number of levels," and later added while speaking to CNN legal analyst Elie Honig that it was "fairly remarkable to hear the Dred Scott case referenced in any positive way anywhere."

The GOP is insane.  Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Wednesday, July 1, 2026.  Chump's grift brings in over two billion dollas for himself, the wr in Irn continues, Chump's state fair continues to be n embarrassment, Clarence Thomas attacks trns people, and much more. 



Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes how Chump has enriched himself while being president.  Ben Protess, Andrea Fuller, Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

President Trump reaped a stunning windfall in his first year back in the White House, including about $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses, a new filing shows.

All told, the president pulled in at least $2.2 billion, a figure that includes other parts of his vast holdings, such as his real estate assets. That compares to a minimum of $622 million his enterprises pulled in for all of 2024, before he returned to the presidency.

One of his biggest hauls in 2025 came when an investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates bought nearly half of the Trump family’s main crypto company, World Liberty Financial, a transaction that blurred the line between foreign policy and private enterprise.



President Lyndon B. Johnson’s wife owned a profitable radio station. George W. Bush was on the board of an oil company while his father was in the White House. And Hunter Biden was paid by a Ukrainian natural gas company while his father was vice president.

But never before in American history has there been anything like Donald J. Trump, a president who in his first year back in office has collected about $1.4 billion in new revenues from cryptocurrency businesses that directly benefited from his actions as president, a financial disclosure report made public on Tuesday shows.

Overall, Mr. Trump’s revenue in 2025 jumped to at least $2.2 billion, compared with a minimum of $622 million in 2024 before he returned to office.

“It is completely unprecedented,” said Megan Gorman, a tax attorney and the author of a recent book, “All the Presidents’ Money,” that studied the history of presidential wealth dating back 250 years.

Generally, throughout history, Ms. Gorman and other historians said, American presidents have taken actions to try to separate themselves from corporate entanglements that might create conflicts.

“Public office, if anything, was a source of debt, not a source of revenue,” said Lindsay M. Chervinsky, a historian and the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon.

Mr. Trump and his family have done the opposite, creating new business ventures that are profiting from actions Mr. Trump has taken since he returned to the White House.

Those include the pardon Mr. Trump issued in October to Changpeng Zhao, the richest man in crypto, who founded the company Binance, which has been a critical business partner to the Trump family’s own crypto venture. They also include legislation that Mr. Trump signed last July to promote a form of cryptocurrency called stablecoins, four months after his family-backed firm introduced its own stablecoin.


Let's move over to the ongoing war in Iran.  Brandon Weichert (NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL) notes:

The Strait of Hormuz is without a doubt one of the world’s most important waterways. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s oil flows through there, another nearly 20 percent of the world’s natural gas, one-third of the world’s agricultural goods, and countless critical industrial inputs that make the modern world work every day.
Since US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started their regime change war of choice against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Strait has been closed. Each day–every hour–that the Strait remains obstructed due to the war, the world comes closer to economic ruin.
There have, throughout the more than 120-day war, been instances where the Iranians allowed ships to pass through the Strait.

The United States and Iran have attempted to create some off-ramps to the war in the form of temporary ceasefires. But those ceasefires have been fleeting.
Because of the untenable nature of those ceasefires, the Iranians have generally kept the flow of ships and their goods tamped down well below the prewar average of trade through the Strait.
Contrary to what many believe, this reality does not harm the Iranians as much as it hurts the United States and the rest of the world. After all, Iran is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world. Due to this, the Iranians have been made to become increasingly self-reliant–and to establish alternative modes of trade (via Chinese-run Belt-and-Road railways and Russian routes in the Caspian Sea).

Meanwhile, ironically, it is the Americans and their allies globally who are disproportionately suffering through the lockdown.
[. . .]
Even if we do somehow succeed in maintaining the MoU ceasefire, there will be serious second-order inflationary effects. Whereas before the war began, roughly 120 to 140 ships passed through the Strait per day, little more than 100 have been allowed to pass since the MoU was signed a week ago. There has simply been too much time that has been allowed to pass since the volume of the flow of goods was far greater than what it is now.
In other words, inflation is coming. And with inflation will necessarily come increased interest rates. That will, in turn, lead to a deteriorating economic situation. If we’re lucky and the ceasefire holds beyond what it has so far, the Iranians might let more ships out, and we can ameliorate this crisis over time.
At this rate, though, it does look as though the US president cannot accept the conditions of a longer-term ceasefire with Iran, and Iran fully understands how vulnerable the Americans are to the disruptions occurring in the Strait.


Fear of a big energy market disruption, when daily oil demand increasingly exceeds available supply, was a main reason Trump surrendered to Iran in the first place. At the G7 summit on June 17, Trump said, “We run out of reserves at about four weeks.” That would put the deadline in mid-July.

Maybe it’s more like August or September, but whatever the deadline, big economic problems will come if oil reserves run out and ships from the Gulf aren’t on the way bringing more. The markets did react positively when shipping began to pick up after the MOU, with oil futures dropping to around pre-war levels. But that won’t last if conditions stagnate or worsen.

Either way, Trump messed up this war so badly that the U.S. aim now is just to get back to something like the pre-war status quo. And at this point, even that looks unachievable.


Oman has proposed a joint mechanism with Iran to collect fees from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, opening a new chapter in negotiations over one of the world's most strategically important waterways.

According to The New York Times report, Oman submitted a formal proposal to the US and other Western partners outlining a framework under which Iran and Oman would jointly collect payments from ships using the Strait of Hormuz.
Before the conflict, commercial vessels transited the strait without paying any charges. That changed after Iran effectively blockaded the route during the war, sending crude oil prices sharply higher and disrupting global shipping.

Since then, Iranian officials have repeatedly signalled that they intend to introduce a payment mechanism for ships using the passage.

Diplomatic sources cited in the report say Oman's proposal attempts to create a structured arrangement rather than allowing unilateral Iranian action.

Sasha Rogelberg (FORTUNE) explains the impact this is having on Americans:


A summer travel paradox has emerged: Even though international flights use considerably more jet fuel than domestic travel, the cost to fly within the U.S. has skyrocketed at rates far beyond that of flying abroad.

According to data from airfare search engine Skiplagged, domestic flight price growth has increased 23.2% from March 2025 to this month, while international flight costs have increased 11.5% in the same time period. This summer marks the highest domestic passenger prices for the season since 2022.
Compared to international flights, which consume 15,000 to 30,000 gallons of fuel—about 1,500 to 3,000 per hour as a result of larger aircraft and long-haul routes—domestic flights use about 1,800 to 2,7000 gallons per trip, or about 750 to 900 gallons per hour.

Jet fuel costs nearly doubled during the Iran war, with supplies dwindling in some parts of the world as a result of halted traffic at the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which 20% of global oil usually flows. Rising fuel costs caused panic in the airline industry: Willie Walsh, the outgoing director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), warned this month the global airline industry’s profits would be cut in half as a result of tepid demand, culminating in the worst financial year for aviation since the pandemic.

The anxieties, however, did not meaningfully materialize. Instead, the rising airfare costs indicate high demand for summer travel, combined with airlines successfully making a series of moves that effectively protected them from supply chain uncertainty from the war, such as leaning into premiumization and slashing certain routes. 
“It’s kind of a glass half full kind of scenario, where I think the outcome was not as bad as many predicted,” Christopher Anderson, a Cornell University professor of services management who studies the airline industry, told Fortune. “Because it wasn’t as bad, and the capacity is not there…we’re seeing elevated prices.”

The resilience is good news for the airline industry—but the pattern of increased prices ahead of a busy summer travel season also exposes the large portion of the American population who is now facing high travel costs, even to fly within the country. It’s yet another example of the K-shaped economy in action, where the wealthy can splurge on expensive airfare while most other households weigh tough travel decisions.

“Here in the U.S., we have a very bifurcated economy,” Anderson said. “And a lot of this turmoil that we’re seeing is the effects more on one segment of that economy than the other.”


While Chump's corruption brought him 2.2 billion last year, Aimee Picchi (CBS NEWS)  notes the average worker is doing worse in 2026 than they did in 2025:

American workers' share of the economic pie has fallen to its lowest level since at least 1947, when the federal government began tracking the data, according to an analysis by Federal Reserve economists. 

The measure, known as "labor share of income," tracks how much of the nation's economic output flows to workers in the form of wages and salaries, as opposed to the share that goes to investors and corporations through profits, dividends and other capital income. A shrinking labor share of income indicates that more economic gains are flowing to shareholders and business owners, rather than to workers.

As of early 2026, American workers received 54.1% of national income, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. By comparison, that figure topped 65% almost 80 years ago, when the government began tracking the data following World War II. In early 2020, it stood at 57.7%, indicating that workers have continued to lose ground since the pandemic. 

Roughly 48% of Americans said their financial situation was worse in May than a year ago, the highest share since January 2023, according to a recent survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Three-quarters of Americans said their incomes aren't keeping up with inflation, according to a May CBS News poll. Roughly 29% of respondents said the economy was in good shape.





Meanwhile Chump's American state fair remains a failure.  John Casey (DAILY BEAST) notes:


A 110-foot Ferris wheel is the centerpiece of the Great American State Fair currently come to town in our nation’s capital, which is not a state the last time I checked. It is the brainchild of Freedom 250, an organization overseeing—or, rather, botching—the president’s $60 million marquee celebration of America’s 250th birthday.
On opening day, the Ferris wheel stalled. It lurched. It stopped. It started. Then stopped again. Freedom 250’s spokesperson Julia Friedland called it a “power hiccup.”

She didn’t know how right she was.

You could not have planned this level of epic and symbolic failure if you tried.
On opening night, Trump told another truly Trumpian whopper, claiming the fair drew 45,000 people. He also said everybody stayed until the end of his speech and “loved hearing about a truly successful America,” even as photographs showed dozens of attendees walking out while he was still talking.
Independent estimates placed opening night attendance at somewhere just north of 1,000, and days later, even the most frothy MAGA-loyal coverage from the scene couldn’t obscure the fact that crowds simply have not materialized.

When critical coverage rolled in, Trump did what Trump does: He woke up at 6:27 a.m. (likely, earlier still; it’ll surely take some time to massage those bruised sausage fingers into a state ready to rage-tweet) and fired off a Truth Social meltdown. “Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it?” he wrote, before questioning, in full caps, whether Obama or Biden could have pulled it off.

The answer, Donald, is that they probably could have kept the lights on.
Because, you see, there has been dairy drama. On the fair’s first full operating day, its food hall lost power. Must have been another hiccup? Vendors stood in the dark. The entire ice cream supply melted. Would this have been an issue with raw milk? Raw milk from Melania the cow, perhaps? Well, it was MAHA day at the fair yesterday, so maybe RFK found out.
Workers were still waiting for a replacement shipment of the sweet treat the following morning. This is not a minor logistical calamity since ice cream, along with butter sculptures and dunk tanks, is at the heart of state fairs nationwide. Has anyone signed up for the Natalie Harp butter sculpture contest? And has anyone confirmed what hours the Don Jr. dunk tank will be operating?







Donald Chump and Jeffrey Epstein were best buddies from the late 80s going forward.  They were two of a kind.  Which is why Ewan Palmer's reporting for THE DAILY BEAST isn't surprising:

A woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump when she was 13 years old has gone into hiding over fears of retaliation.

A family member of the woman, identified only as Jane Doe 4, told The Guardian that she is “staying off the grid” and away from the Trump administration amid the fallout from allegations that resurfaced in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Jane Doe 4 alleges she was abused and trafficked by Epstein, and that the disgraced financier took her to New York or New Jersey and introduced her to Trump when she was about 13 years old in 1984. The White House has described the allegations as “total baselessness,” a view it says is supported by the fact that the Biden administration was aware of the claims but did “nothing with them.”


A federal judge has put the Justice Department on a deadline in the latest fight over the Epstein files, ordering the agency to release unredacted records tied to FBI interviews with a woman who accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was 13, or explain why the documents should remain withheld.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with investigative journalist Katie Phang, who sued acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and accused him of violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act by failing to publish all government-held documents related to Jeffrey Epstein and by improperly redacting released material.

The order gives the DOJ until July 2 to comply.
Sullivan’s decision covers FBI notes from interviews with a South Carolina woman who said Epstein introduced her to Trump in 1984, when she was about 13, and that Trump forced her to perform a sexual act. Trump has denied the allegation, and the White House has denied the woman’s story.

The woman’s claims surfaced in documents released as part of the DOJ’s Epstein files disclosure, including redacted FBI interview summaries, but dozens of pages related to the interviews have reportedly not yet been released.






Mayukh Saha (HEARTY SOUL) notes a recent witness who appeared before the House Oversight Committee:

Lesley Groff’s name appears more than 160,000 times in the Epstein files released by the Justice Department. For comparison, most people who crossed Epstein’s social orbit show up in tens of thousands of mentions, if at all. Groff shows up everywhere because for 18 years, she was everywhere. She booked the calls, scheduled the massages, and kept the calendar of one of the most prolific sex offenders in modern American history.
On June 9, 2026, that woman sat down for a transcribed interview behind closed doors before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistant said she personally arranged multiple phone calls between the disgraced financier and Donald Trump in the years before he became president. According to a transcript released by the House Oversight Committee, Groff told lawmakers she set up phone calls between her boss and President Donald Trump several times a year for at least a decade.

The Epstein Trump secretary connection raised immediate questions on Capitol Hill – and put a specific, calendar-level detail onto a relationship the White House has consistently described as brief and long-dead.
Groff, who worked for Epstein in New York for more than 18 years, was previously described by her boss as an “extension of my brain.” She appeared voluntarily for the June 9 interview, which was not under oath and not recorded. It marked the first time she faced questions since speaking to the FBI in New York in 2021, two years after Epstein’s death.


The Supreme Court revealed decisions yesterday and on Monday.  Of the really bad ones, one of the worst is the attack on transgender people.  At THE CUT, Becky Pepper-Jackson tells her story:


I first realized my participation in athletics as a trans girl was a question when I was going into sixth grade, at 11 years old. I was getting ready to sign up for my first season of track when my mom told me a West Virginia bill could mean I wouldn’t be allowed to play. I’m from a family of runners, but in junior high, my track coach encouraged me to try shot put and discus. She brought me over to the practice area and everybody was just super-friendly. It felt like a really nice community.
It’s very hard to learn that some people think it’s wrong for you to do the things you love. When the legislation passed, I instantly wanted to know what I could do. I wanted to keep playing, so it was a relief when we decided to take legal action. Now, I’ve been a part of this case for five years, and there have been some definite lows and highs. Ahead of my seventh-grade season, the initial injunction that let me play was dissolved by a district court. At that time, track was starting in two weeks. I was worried. I couldn’t miss tryouts, or I wouldn’t be on the team. Luckily, an emergency appeal was granted. When I found out, my mom and I hugged, and I gave my three dogs some love. We celebrated with mint chocolate-chip ice cream and rainbow sprinkles. I was ecstatic because I knew I could play with my friends again.
The 2024 Harrison County Middle School Championship was also a tough moment. Some girls from another school protested my participation in the event by scratching, or refusing to throw the shot put. It felt weird to know that people I’ve never met, who are my age, are protesting me when all I’m trying to do is have fun with my teammates — to be a kid like them. It feels targeted, because it is. My teammates were what helped me that day. They wanted to make sure it didn’t get to my head and affect my throwing or affect me on a deeper level. Everybody is really supportive; we want to see each other succeed. All the throwers stay close. At practice, we share tips. On the bus, we’ll double up in the seats. We’ll try to keep each other’s spirits up and beat the nerves. We talk and talk to take our minds off of the competition.





Yesterday's ruling attacks her rights.  And Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY notes that (In)Justice Clarence Thomas howled one filthy attack on trans people after another in his concurrence and that Thomas was being (rightly) called out:


According to Balls & Strikes Editor in Chief Jay Willis, Thomas' comments are reprehensible.

The legal analyst wrote on Bluesky, “Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion in the trans sports ban case in West Virginia contains some of the ugliest transphobic stuff I have ever seen in a legal opinion. Straight-up gleeful. Vile man.”

“Thomas simply couldn't join the opinion, this corrupt, misanthropic bigot had to throw in his two cents and put his bigotry into the record,” New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie concurred.

He elaborated, “… also this is a great example of how Clarence Thomas's self-satisfaction cannot hide the fact that he is not that bright. ‘man and woman,’ ‘boy and girl’ are social terms that categorize gender presentation, not descriptions of ‘biological’ sex. nor are they binary! this guy has spent the last 30 years of his life huffing his own farts and being surrounded by people who tell him that his farts smell like chanel #5 and it shows.”



The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state bans on transgender girls and women competing in girls’ and women’s school sports, delivering a major victory to Republican-led states and a devastating defeat to trans students who had asked the justices to let them participate in public school life as themselves.

In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court ruled that Idaho and West Virginia’s laws do not violate the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX. The cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., centered on two transgender students: Lindsay Hecox, who sought to run track and cross country at Boise State University, and Becky Pepper-Jackson, a West Virginia girl who wanted to compete on girls’ teams at school.

For years, conservative lawmakers have positioned transgender girls’ participation in sports as an emergency, even as the number of students affected remains small. But the legal campaign was never only about who gets to run a race or join a team. It was about whether transgender people can be carved out of public life by category.

The majority rejected arguments that the laws discriminate against transgender students, relying on the court’s recent decision in United States v. Skrmetti to say the bans classify students by sex, not by gender identity or transgender status. Writing for the majority, Kavanaugh said the court would not require states or schools to make athlete-by-athlete determinations about whether a transgender girl who has taken puberty blockers or hormones has retained any athletic advantage.

“Particularly in the sports context, determining the effects of the puberty blockers and hormones taken by transgender athletes — and then comparing each of those transgender athletes’ abilities to those of other individual biological males and individual biological females in the relevant sport — would be an almost impossible task for a judge to perform on an equitable basis,” Kavanaugh wrote.




Let's note the sexism that's been involved in this issue from day one.  "Protect girls and women!"  From?  Males?  No.  That's not it at all.  Read the decisions from the Court which reflect the narrow and perverse stance of transphobes.  A trans girl born male is the transgressor.  And that's because society disowns and attacks males who do not live up to the notion of manly.   There's no concern about protecting those born girls who are trans boys.  No where in the ruling am I seeing anything about that.  'It's unfair!' I hear that from transphobes -- unfair for girls to compete against trans girls.  But no where in the verdicts did I see anything about trans boys -- born female -- being not allowed to compete on boys teams. 
 
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:


As part of Trump Admin’s push to shut down the Department of Education, Trump is illegally kicking out special education programs, civil rights enforcement from Department

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee; Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations; and Bernie Sanders, Ranking Member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, led the entire Senate Democratic Caucus in demanding the Trump administration put students first, follow the law, and immediately reverse course on transferring special education programs and civil rights enforcement out of the Department of Education (ED). These latest moves are part of the Trump administration’s explicit effort to dismantle ED, threatening key funding, support and services for students, schools, and families nationwide.

“The administration’s latest attempts to dismantle the Department of Education through the four Interagency Agreements (IAA) announced June 16, 2026 are outrageous and put the educational outcomes of students and their rights in the classroom at risk,” wrote the senators in a letter to Education Secretary McMahon.

On June 16, 2026, the Trump administration announced four Interagency Agreements (IAA) that would illegally move the administration of special education programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and vocational rehabilitation programs authorized under the Rehabilitation Act from the ED to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). They also transfer fundamental civil rights enforcement responsibility away from ED to the Department of Justice (DOJ). In their letter to ED Secretary Linda McMahon, Senators Murray, Baldwin, and Sanders demand that the Trump administration follow the law in which Congress authorized these programs to be carried out by ED, including most recently in annual bipartisan funding legislation for Fiscal Year 2026. 

Despite announcing this illegal transfer of programs, this Administration has refused to provide information regarding what office within HHS will carry out special education programs, leaving teachers, students, and families with even greater uncertainty about where to turn to ensure their rights are protected. Burying special education programs in a sprawling HHS with significant other responsibilities, instead of at a Department of Education a fraction of the size solely focused on education, will jeopardize outcomes for students with disabilities.

The most recent reauthorization of IDEA passed by Congress reiterates that the responsibility for administering the law is clearly vested with ED, along with various duties vested in the Secretary of Education, including allotting funds to States and carrying out oversight among other activities. However, the law does not contain any provisions that would permit ED to offload its responsibilities for special education or vocational rehabilitation programs to another agency.

“Special education and vocational rehabilitation are education programs. Any attempt to move these programs to HHS would fundamentally alter the purposes of these services, upending fifty years of work that took place at the federal, state, and local level to improve educational and employment outcomes for people with disabilities,” wrote the senators. “It appears the administration values its backward goal of dismantling ED over the faithful execution of the law and improving opportunities and outcomes for children, youth, and students with disabilities.”

These transfers come as the administration has successfully worked to undermine core functions and statutory responsibilities of ED, following sweeping and unlawful firings, workforce reductions, and reorganization last year that have already undermined the very goals of the Education Department. At the same time, ED moved almost all programs supporting elementary and secondary education to multiple agencies with limited capacity and expertise administering similar programs. Wasting time and resources to scatter education programs all over the federal government does nothing to help children and families while only making it more complicated for states and school districts to administer important federal funding. Further, isolating special education programs away from all other federal K-12 programs risks isolating students with disabilities themselves.

Meanwhile, the transfer of the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) out of ED also comes as the Trump Administration has failed to uphold the federal government’s obligations to protect students from unlawful discrimination. In 2025, ED’s OCR reached the fewest resolution agreements in over 12 years and failed to reach a single resolution agreement related to sexual harassment, sexual violence, racial harassment, discriminatory school discipline, or the seclusion and restraint of children with disabilities, with over 12,000 pending cases that were under investigation by OCR at the start of this Administration.

Despite this backlog, the administration is attempting to illegally transfer OCR’s functions to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division (CRT), which has lost an estimated 75% of its civil rights staff attorneys since January 2025, making it wholly unequipped to handle the over 23,000 complaints OCR receives and evaluates annually. The Senators also raised concerns that while OCR is currently required to evaluate every single complaint it receives, DOJ CRT can pick and choose the cases it takes to court. Under this IAA, students whose complaints are not prioritized by DOJ CRT may never see their rights vindicated.

The senators reiterated that Congress appropriates annual funding to ED to help States and local educational agencies carry out programs and ensure children, youth, students, and families are served in accordance with federal law. The annual bipartisan appropriation bills approved by Congress do not provide affirmative authority to ED to transfer special education funding or vocational rehabilitation services to HHS, nor ED’s civil rights enforcement responsibilities to DOJ CRT.

“We have a simple demand: follow our nation’s education and appropriations laws as Congress wrote them to protect students’ most basic right to a quality education. More than 80 education, disability, parent, and civil rights groups have vocally opposed the recent IAAs and other departmental changes. We call on this administration to immediately cease implementing these IAAs, fully implement IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act as Congressionally directed, and take immediate action to strengthen civil rights enforcement—instead of burying students’ cases behind more bureaucracy. Our students and their families deserve nothing less,” concluded the senators.

This letter was led by Senators Murray, Baldwin, and Sanders and co-signed by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Angus King (I-ME), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Chris Coons (D-DE), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Mark Warner (D-VA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Peter Welch (D-VT), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Tina Smith (D-MN), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), John Fetterman (D-PA), Gary Peters (D-MI), and Michael Bennet (D-CO).

The full letter is available HERE and below:

Dear Secretary McMahon:

The administration’s latest attempts to dismantle the Department of Education (“ED”) through the four Interagency Agreements (IAA) announced June 16, 2026 are outrageous and put the educational outcomes of students and their rights in the classroom at risk. These actions illegally move the administration of special education programs authorized under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), vocational rehabilitation programs authorized under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Rehabilitation Act), and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) from ED to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). They also transfer fundamental civil rights enforcement responsibility away from ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division (DOJ CRT). Congress authorized these programs to be carried out by ED, and Congress annually appropriates funding to ED to carry out these authorized programs, including most recently in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026. The administration’s actions fly in the face of what Congress has required, directly undermine every child’s right to a quality public education in this country, and must be immediately reversed.

Since ED was established, Congress charged it with the responsibility of carrying out special education and vocational rehabilitation programs and authorized the administration of these programs under the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). Similarly, Congress assigned civil rights enforcement responsibilities to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at OCR. The Department of Education Organization Act of 1979 explicitly prohibits the Secretary from abolishing any offices established under ED and from altering any assigned delegation of functions. You have also acknowledged in congressional testimony that only Congress can determine whether to dismantle ED and its programs. Make no mistake – the IAAs rolled out by this administration dismantle ED and illegally circumvent Congress. While ED’s purported position is that these are “proofs of concept” for Congress to codify, other statements from ED and White House staff contradict the alleged “temporary” nature of these moves. Last year, the White House even claimed that ED was “abolished.” ED has not been abolished, and it is not within the administration’s authority to move the administration of these programs to any other agency. In fact, Congress affirmed on a bipartisan, bicameral basis earlier this year, “that no authorities exist for the Department of Education to transfer its fundamental responsibilities under numerous authorizing and appropriations laws, including through procuring services from other Federal agencies…” and that these agreements will “create inefficiencies, result in additional costs to the American taxpayer, and cause delays and administration challenges in Federal funding reaching States, school districts, and schools.”

Special education and vocational rehabilitation are education programs. Any attempt to move these programs to HHS would fundamentally alter the purposes of these services, upending fifty years of work that took place at the federal, state, and local level to improve educational and employment outcomes for people with disabilities. It appears the administration values its backward goal of dismantling ED over the faithful execution of the law and improving opportunities and outcomes for children, youth, and students with disabilities. This administration has refused to provide information regarding what office within HHS will carry out these weighty responsibilities under this agreement because it has not been determined. This lack of forethought demonstrates how little concern it has for students with disabilities and their learning. The administration couldn’t possibly know that this will be in the best interest of children and families because it doesn’t even know where and how these programs will be administered in the future.

The most recent reauthorization of IDEA passed by Congress, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, reiterates that the responsibility for administering the law is clearly vested with ED. The law also vests the Secretary of Education with various duties, including allotting funds to States; carrying out monitoring and oversight of States’ implementation; reviewing and approving State performance plans required under the law; subsequently reviewing and making annual determinations of State compliance under law; and furnishing technical assistance to States; among other activities. However, the law does not contain any provisions that would permit ED to offload its responsibilities to another agency.

Congress created a clear federal oversight role for ED because of our nation’s ugly history of denying children with disabilities a free appropriate public education. This critical federal enforcement has allowed ED to maintain accountability and find States in violation of IDEA, such as when Texas set an illegal cap on special education identification leading to a deliberate under-identification of children with disabilities and when New Mexico failed to maintain appropriate state special education funding. Clearly, federal oversight is a necessary component of our nation’s special education system. Without it, families and children with disabilities are left to fight alone to secure services they are entitled to when schools and states fail to meet their obligations.

Additionally, Congress authorized the Secretary of Education to carry out vocational rehabilitation programs in Titles I, III, V, and VI of the Rehabilitation Act. Congress directed the Secretary to undertake various responsibilities in administering the vocational rehabilitation programs, including awarding grants to designated State agencies; approving unified State plans; establishing performance standards and indicators required under the law; and supporting designated State agencies in the provision of preemployment transition services including highlighting best state practices and consulting with other federal agencies; among other activities. Unsurprisingly, the Rehabilitation Act does not contain any provisions that would permit ED to offload its responsibilities to another agency.

These important responsibilities support nearly ten million individuals with disabilities and their families throughout our nation. ED’s actions have already caused them significant harm and uncertainty. This arrangement is the latest callous attack on Americans with disabilities who need quality services and rely on federal support. It follows the sweeping and unlawful firing of 121 employees at OSERS during the government shutdown—an action Congress ultimately had to reverse. This administration’s workforce reductions and reorganization last year also eviscerated ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), costing taxpayers up to $38 million, as mounting backlogs in OCR’s critical work left parents of students with disabilities in the dark about the status of their civil rights complaints. At the same time, ED moved almost all programs supporting elementary and secondary education to multiple agencies with limited capacity and expertise administering similar programs, segregating these programs from those supporting our youth with disabilities and compromising decades of progress toward inclusive education. Each of these actions has undermined ED’s ability to fulfill its obligations under IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act. ED is now illegally transferring responsibilities to HHS—an agency undergoing major disruptions and whose principal subagency charged with supporting individuals with disabilities was proposed for elimination by the administration—and DOJ—an agency that this administration is weaponizing against the American people. This is in addition to the responsibilities unlawfully assigned to other agencies through interagency agreements for which this administration still has not explained full costs, potential benefits, and operational details.

Under this administration, OCR has failed to uphold the federal government’s obligations to protect students from unlawful discrimination. ED’s decision to transfer fundamental civil rights enforcement responsibilities to DOJ CRT will only make things worse. In 2025, ED’s OCR reached the fewest resolution agreements in over 12 years and failed to reach a single resolution agreement related to sexual harassment, sexual violence, racial harassment, discriminatory school discipline, or the seclusion and restraint of children with disabilities. ED has repeatedly refused to answer basic questions regarding the status of over 12,000 pending cases that were under investigation by OCR at the start of this Administration.

Instead of correcting OCR’s disastrous track record under this administration and working to rebuild OCR after taking a hatchet to it, this administration has chosen to waste taxpayer funds attempting to illegally transfer OCR’s functions to DOJ CRT. Under this administration, DOJ CRT has lost an estimated 75% of its civil rights staff attorneys since January 2025. DOJ CRT is not equipped nor designed to handle the over 23,000 complaints OCR receives and evaluates annually. While OCR is required to evaluate every single complaint it receives, DOJ CRT uses prosecutorial discretion to pick and choose the cases it takes to court. Under this IAA, students whose complaints are not prioritized by DOJ CRT may never see their rights vindicated, meaning thousands of students facing discrimination are likely to be ignored by the federal government. This is an unacceptable outcome for the millions of students and families across the country.

Congress appropriates annual funding to ED to help States and local educational agencies carry out programs and ensure children, youth, students, and families are served in accordance with federal law. The annual bipartisan appropriation bills approved by Congress do not provide affirmative authority to ED to transfer special education funding or vocational rehabilitation services to HHS, nor ED’s civil rights enforcement responsibilities to DOJ CRT. In fact, the only transfer authority provided to ED by the annual appropriations bill is the authority to transfer one percent of discretionary funds between education appropriations accounts, so long as no such appropriation is increased by more than three percent by any such transfer. Such a limited transfer within ED is not what is contemplated here. Moreover, transfers of any other type, including the type contemplated by this IAA, are prohibited by section 512 of Division B of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, which states, “None of the funds made available in this Act may be transferred to any department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States Government, except pursuant to a transfer made by, or transfer authority provided in, this Act or any other appropriation Act.”

As with the authorizing statutes, the annual appropriations process clearly requires ED to carry out both IDEA and Rehabilitation Act programs and to operate OCR at ED. ED has the expertise in working with state educational agencies, state vocational rehabilitation agencies, and local school districts in the administration of special education and vocational rehabilitation programs and for resources and oversight in complying with federal civil rights laws. Schools in local communities and state educational agencies rely on the guidance and technical expertise from the educational experts at ED to carry out these programs. Congress recognizes the expertise that specific agencies provide and deliberately decides which agency to vest authority with when passing laws. Congress was clear when it vested ED with the authority to carry out special education programs in 2004, and vocational rehabilitation programs in 2014, and did not provide any mechanism in the law for ED to transfer that authority to another agency. The June 16th IAAs fly in the face of laws enacted by Congress, annual appropriations requirements, and practice in states.

We have a simple demand: follow our nation’s education and appropriations laws as Congress wrote them to protect students’ most basic right to a quality education. More than 80 education, disability, parent, and civil rights groups have vocally opposed the recent IAAs and other departmental changes. We call on this administration to immediately cease implementing these IAAs, fully implement IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act as Congressionally directed, and take immediate action to strengthen civil rights enforcement—instead of burying students’ cases behind more bureaucracy. Our students and their families deserve nothing less.

###










Posted by at

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Mike Johnson's scared of the Constitution


First up, Katie Phang. 


Next up?  Convicted Felon Chump and his preening ego.  ATLANTA BLACK STAR NEWS reports:

President Donald Trump has yet another vanity project planned for Washington, D.C. 

Since returning to the White House in 2025, the 80-year-old MAGA leader’s mind has been preoccupied with leaving a lasting physical impression on the nation’s capital.

Trump’s latest self-aggrandizing vision for Washington involves a location that made headlines in his first term back in 2020 amid the social justice protests launched after the police killing of George Floyd.
According to The Washington Post, the president is planning a new layout for Lafayette Square, a section of a seven-acre public park across the street from the White House.

Unnamed sources told the outlet that Trump wants to plant 47 maple trees in Lafayette Square, a reference to the former reality television star becoming the 47th POTUS.
The insider could not confirm how many of the several dozen trees currently at the site workers will remove, or when contractors will begin the expected overhaul.

On June 28, Trump’s official communications advisor, Margo Martin, shared a video of the president and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum at Lafayette Square supposedly viewing “recent renovations.” 


His preening ego took a hit today.  The Supreme Court overruled him on birthright citizenship.  Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson was weeping for his love master Chump.  Nicole Charky-Chami (RAW STORY) reports:

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) let out a growling sound when a reporter told him in real-time that the Supreme Court had rejected President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship executive order.

Johnson was attending a House Republican Caucus meeting and spoke to reporters when he was told about the high court's decision to uphold birthright citizenship.
"Oh dear, what'd they rule?" Johnson asked.

A reporter read the high court's decision — and Johnson let out an audible groaning sound.



Being born in a specific place usually comes with a guaranteed set of rules.

For over a century, a single document has defined exactly who gets to call America home just by taking their first breath there.

Now, the highest court in the land is protecting that exact tradition.
The US Supreme Court officially struck down President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship.

In a landmark 6-3 decision, the justices completely blocked his executive order from ever taking effect. The ruling represents a massive blow to the administration’s strict immigration agenda.
Trump originally signed the controversial directive on Inauguration Day in 2025. Soon after, it faced severe legal challenges from various civil rights groups across the country.

The Daily Mail reported that the case centered entirely around the 14th Amendment. This specific constitutional rule grants automatic citizenship to anyone born on American soil, which impacts roughly 150,000 children born to noncitizens every single year.

Poor Mike Johnson, scared of the Constitution.  Johnson is going to go down as the worst Speaker ever.  We'll remember how he called breaks to avoid allowing reps from voting on Epstein issues, how he refused to seat a rep elected in an Arizona special election for over a month (because she was a Democrat) and all the other garbage he pulled.  He's feckless. 

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


Tuesday, June 30, 2026.  Chump tries to low profile it as the war with Iran continues and his state fair turned out to be a disaster, the electorate appears to be rejecting Republicans, Pete Hegseth attempts to destroy the military, and much more. 


Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes Donald Chump will not be available to the press again today.  



Iranian and U.S. negotiators were gearing up for meetings on Tuesday in Qatar, a key mediator between the two countries, days after a surge of attacks cast a pall over efforts to reach a lasting peace deal.

A spokesman for Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that there were no plans for high-level meetings or direct talks between the United States and Iran, adding that the American delegation would meet with Qatari officials. 



What might the current war on Iran be without Senator Lindsey Graham who has pimped it non-stop?  Who knows but we might find out in Chump's next war.  Fernando Alba (THE MIRROR) reports:

Lindsey Graham's seat in ruby red South Carolina could be at risk.

According to a new poll by Impact Research, the four-term U.S. senator, is near neck-and-neck with his Democratic opponent, Dr. Annie Andrews.

The 70-year-old is polling just three points ahead of Andrews, 48% to 45%, and scored just a 40% approval rating.
Andrews, 45, is framing her race to unseat the longtime senator as a changing of the guard. Graham was first elected to Congress in 1994 and later to the senate in 2002.
“Lindsey Graham has been in politics since I was in the eighth grade, and people are sick of these career politicians,” she told the Daily Beast, arguing his MAGA stance has alienated voters by prioritizing war and cuts to Medicaid.
“Casual observers are pretty disgusted by Lindsey Graham’s behavior. Imagine how South Carolinians feel. That’s exactly what this poll reflects.”


Old man Graham could get kicked out of the Senate. On GOP chances in the November midterms,  Will Neal (DAILY BEAST) notes:

CNN’s resident numbers wizard has cast President Donald Trump’s thoroughly debunked claims of election rigging in 2020 as a losing strategy ahead of the November midterms.

“It is a losing message!” data guru Harry Enten, 38, told network viewers Monday, framing the divide it casts among the voting public as near-total. “The Republican Party is in one camp all the way over here on the right, and the rest of the American public is in the same camp.”
The claim still sells with the base, which is why, Enten went on, Republicans keep making it. About 60 percent of GOP voters called the 2020 contest stolen, a share that has since climbed to 63 percent, even though “there is no proof of that whatsoever!” He was blunter about the conviction itself, scoffing that Republicans “just believe this garbage.”
The trouble, as the polling analyst put it, is everyone else. Among Americans overall, 64 percent now call the 2020 result legitimate, up from 59 percent in 2021—a majority moving the opposite way from the voters the party is courting. That, Enten argued, is the trap: a message that wins a primary and loses a general election.






Other problems facing the Republicans in the lead up to the midterms?  Thomas Kika notes:

Republicans are "bracing for a tough election season" heading into the 2026 midterms, according to a new report from The Hill, expressing concerns that President Donald Trump remains "out of sync" with the main issues concerning voters.

GOP lawmakers are eager to try and get legislation passed that could address affordability concerns that are weighing heavily on voters' minds, but Trump has continually made their prospects more difficult. In recent months, lawmakers have been frustrated by his remarks about not caring that Americans are struggling against rising costs, as well as his recent insistence that he will not sign a bipartisan affordable housing bill unless Congress passes new voter registration restrictions.
"Trump’s refusal to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is the latest troubling sign for GOP senators, who have pressed Trump for weeks to pay more personal attention to voters’ concerns about rising costs," The Hill detailed in a Monday morning report. "Instead, Trump’s off-the-cuff statements professing 'love' for higher inflation numbers and declaring he’s not thinking about the financial situations of American families while negotiating an end to the conflict with Iran have GOP candidates bracing for a tough election season."


Moving over to Chump's failed fair. 









The launch of President Donald Trump’s Freedom250 group last year has led to a fierce rivalry with America250, the nonpartisan Congressional commission that has been planning the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations for a decade, according to a report.

America250 is the organization created by Congress in 2016 to lead the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The idea behind the group was to put on events across the country that everyone could enjoy.
But since Trump launched Freedom250 in January 2025, the group behind the Great American State Fair, a violent UFC fight on the White House South Lawn and an exhibition curated by a right-wing educational organization PragerU, a “feud” has broken out between the two organizations, according to a report by TIME.

America250, made up of lawmakers, private citizens and cabinet officials, as a result, “does not want to be affiliated with the kind of celebrations that Freedom 250 has set up,” according to TIME, citing internal documents and conversations with people working closely on the events.

Freedom250’s 16-day Great American State Fair, which kicked off last week, failed to attract large crowds on the National Mall this weekend. Organizers promoted the fair as a patriotic showcase featuring all 50 states, family attractions, live entertainment, and exhibits celebrating the country's history and culture.
Despite photographs of sparse crowds, Trump claimed the event was “packed with happy people” and touted his team for a “fantastic job” in a Truth Social post Monday.

The groups are reportedly butting heads over similar programming, budget and vying over major marketing campaigns that have led to confusion among the public. Freedom250 reportedly sends a representative to America250’s meetings, but “there is no sense of collaboration between the two groups.”

It was a bust and a waste of tax payer money (it received tax payer money and donations).  Olivia Ralph (DAILY BEAST) notes:

MAGA lawmakers accidentally posted the receipts for President Donald Trump’s underwhelming Great American State Fair.

A string of Republican selfies, reels, and promotional posts from the National Mall show exactly what the White House-backed bash has been accused of becoming: a sparse, strangely empty celebration of America’s 250th birthday.
Rep. Blake Moore of Utah posted an Instagram reel from the fairgrounds, urging visitors to check out his state’s booth. But the sales pitch came with the unfortunate visual aid of Moore standing in an almost empty park, with an empty Ferris wheel turning behind him.

“Down here at the Great American State Fair—it’s gonna be open for two weeks. So if you’re here traveling in Washington, D.C. at all over the 4th, make sure to come check out the Utah booth,” Moore said.

He then seemed to all but beg people to let his office help them get there.
“Contact our office if there’s any help that you need to organize things or tours or get more information,” he added.

“Please, please reach out. We’d love to help out in that way.”

Rep. French Hill of Arkansas posted his own reel from the top of the Ferris wheel, where the view behind him showed the vast, empty National Mall grass stretching toward the Capitol.

“I hope if you have any plans to visit Washington for the 4th of July that you let us know,” Hill said from the ride.
Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas also shared a montage of himself and his wife walking around the fair, riding the Ferris wheel, inspecting an agriculture display, and visiting the Kansas state booth.

But the cheery video appeared to show mostly empty grounds as they moved through the event.


Chump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are 'celebrating' the country's 250th anniversary by attempting to destroy the Pentagon.  Alex Henderson reports:

Prominent military experts, from retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling to retired U.S. Navy Adm. William H. McRaven, are sounding the alarm about the Trump administration forcing Gen. Chris Donahue to step down from his role as commander of U.S. Army Europe. The departures of Donahue and other military leaders, according to Hertling and McRaven, are making the military dangerously unstable. Similarly, legal scholars Michael N. Schmitt and Ryan Goodman are warning that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are robbing the military of a wealth of expertise.
Writing for Just Security, Schmitt (a law professor at New York University) emphasizes that nothing good can come of the Trump/Hegseth purges at the Pentagon — especially in light of the caliber of military leaders being forced out.

"Since January 2025," the legal scholar explains, "the Defense Department has removed, replaced, or forced the early retirement of a remarkable concentration of operationally experienced senior officers. Among them are the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the Army, and the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, who concurrently serves as director of the National Security Agency. Most recently, Gen. Christopher Donahue, one of the most decorated and combat-experienced officers of his generation, has been forced out as commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and, in his NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) role, as commander of Allied Land Command. Public explanations have been sparse and, to the extent they have been offered, largely general."
Schmitt continues, "The question regarding these departures is not whether the president and secretary of defense have broad lawful authority to reshape the senior officer corps. They unequivocally do. Nor is it a question of whether personnel decisions of this kind are ever warranted. Sometimes, they certainly are. Instead, at its core, a central question is their impact on the combat effectiveness, indeed the lethality, of our armed forces."

Schmitt, in his article, lists 25 U.S. military leaders who have been forced out during Trump's second presidency and notes that collectively, they had a combined 901 and one-half years of experience.

Schmitt argues that the military purges that occurred in the Soviet under Josef Stalin during the 1930s offer a sobering history less for the U.S., as Stalin's Red Army purges made the Soviet Union more "vulnerable" to Adolf Hitler's aggression.


Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth just hijacked more promotions of high-ranking service members, this time blocking career professionals with exemplary records who were on track to become one-star generals and admirals. Not only is Hegseth’s behavior unusual, there is no clear legal authority for what he is doing.
Congress entrusted military promotions largely to the respective promotion boards and Secretaries of the Military Departments, not the Secretary of Defense. Although 10 U.S.C. § 629 empowers the President with removal authority, a longstanding executive order limits the Secretary of Defense’s removal authority to grades below colonel or captain, not the general or admiral promotions Hegseth has blocked. The Pentagon’s own regulations restrict grounds for removing an officer from a promotions list to specific circumstances like moral, mental, or professional deficiencies, none of which were present in Hegseth’s removals.

It’s obvious that a disproportionate number of Hegseth’s blocked, delayed, or demoted officers are women and people of color. However, while mainstream headlines suggest Hegseth is motivated by race and gender animus, an even worse—and more dangerous— likelihood is that he is weeding out those he deems “ideologically incompatible” with how he and Trump plan to use the military.
Hegseth likes to emphasize that “every officer serves at the pleasure of the president,” arguing that Trump’s policy goals require removing commanders “tied to the culture” of previous administrations. He argues that past promotions were based on race and gender instead of qualifications, but military records dispute those claims, and there is no evidence that any promotions he blocked were attributable to anything other than merit.
Hegseth, a former Fox News bobble head, is notoriously unqualified to serve as Secretary of Defense, which seems to have been Trump’s point in naming him. He was a mid-level National Guard officer, had no senior leadership role in the military, and had no experience anywhere that qualified him to oversee three million personnel and an annual budget of $800 billion.

More dangerous than his lack of qualifications is his bloodlust. As a media commentator, he lobbied aggressively for presidential pardons for service members convicted or accused of notorious war crimes, including Army Lt. Clint Lorance, convicted of murdering two Afghan civilians, and Maj. Matt Golsteyn, who admitted during an interview for the CIA that he and another soldier took an alleged Taliban bomb-maker off base in 2010, shot him, and buried his remains. Trump granted full pardons to both.

Which is perfectly in keeping with the War Crime that Hegseth and Chump committed.  Jon Duffy (LOS ANGELES TIMES) notes, "It has been more than 100 days since the United States struck an elementary school in Minab, Iran, and killed at least 175 people, most of them children."  They are not governing, they are murdering.  Hegseth was confirmed via JD Vance offering the tie breaking vote.  He was not a good nominee and shame on those who supported him by voting for him.  John Bowden (INDEPENDENT) reports:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing heat from a key House Republican as he continues reshaping the Pentagon to fit Donald Trump’s agenda.

Rep. Don Bacon, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN on Sunday that the firings at the Pentagon and the reported campaign of Hegseth slow-walking or denying promotions to senior officers, disproportionately women and people of color, was harming America’s fighting forces.
[. . .]

In his CNN interview, Bacon added that he’d known some of the dismissed commanders personally, and vouched for their credentials and professionalism.

“He’s fired about 20 admirals and generals. I’ve worked with some of them personally...these are great people. We had the head of U.S. Cyber Command fired for no reason,” said Bacon.

In June, it was reported by CNN that a sense of paranoia and fear was gripping the top ranks at the Pentagon, a direct result of the firings and interference in promotions. The atmosphere was so intense that troops were being forced to submit to polygraph tests and nondisclosure agreements to be read in on sensitive topics, potentially adversely affecting readiness.

Senior officials told the outlet that decisions were now being made with the constant undertone of fear about job security.


On FACE THE NATION (CBS) Sunday morning, Senator Tim Kaine spoke with moderator Margaret Brennan about Hegseth:


MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who joins us from Brussels.

Good morning to you, Senator.

SENATOR TIM KAINE (D-Virginia): Great to be with you, Margaret. Thanks.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Because you are in Europe, I want to ask you about exactly what is going on with the U.S. Army Europe General Chris Donahue. We know he was ordered by Secretary Hegseth to turn in his retirement papers. He's going to relinquish command July 2, relinquish NATO command July 9.

Do you have any indication why this very well-respected general is getting pushed out the door?

SENATOR TIM KAINE: Margaret, I am in Europe with a bipartisan delegation of senators visiting NATO allies and our troops, talking primarily about NATO summit next week and support for Ukraine.

I will say, on General Donahue, a lot of questions and very few answers. He was very well regarded in the Armed Services Committee, where I sit. Both sides of the aisle thought really highly of him. And so the news that he was being ushered out caught us all by surprise, and we don't yet have good answers from the Pentagon.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, it's part of a bigger question as to the changes Secretary Hegseth is making at the Pentagon.

Retired Admiral Bill McRaven, people know him from commanding the raid to take out Osama bin Laden. He wrote a piece in "The Atlantic" raising concerns about the exit and the firing of at least 12 other high-ranking military officials.

He explained officers need to be brutally candid in order to give good advice. He said: "These recent firings raise a real risk senior officers will be overly cautious about providing their best advice, and therefore the chance for military miscalculation will grow dramatically."

How concerned are you? Can Congress intervene and do anything here?

SENATOR TIM KAINE: Well, I don't think that concern is misplaced. We're worried about the same thing.

Are you – are you pushing out the truth-tellers to surround yourself by yes-men? And, in particular, it looks like the secretary is coming down hardest, coming down hardest on the Army. He served in the Army. He felt like he wasn't treated well by the Army. That's a grudge he's carried that he's described publicly.

And so, when you see Army officers forced out, you got to wonder, is this a personal thing, or is it really what's best for the nation? So we are working on the defense bill right now. We've – we voted it out of the Senate Armed Services Committee. There's nothing in the bill at this point that would address this situation.

But, when we bring it up on the floor, I think by then, we'll have some of our questions answered. And if we need to go farther to put some guardrails in place, you'll probably find bipartisan support to do that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: What are you hearing from your NATO partners there about the American plans to reduce the presence in Europe?

SENATOR TIM KAINE: So the – it would be difficult to reduce the presence in Europe, based upon some NDAA provisions that we have put in place that kind of set a floor in terms of U.S. troop strength.

And here's the good news, Margaret. Both because of President Trump, but also, frankly, because the actions of Vladimir Putin, European nations are really stepping up their investment in their collective defense. They see the need to do it, and they understand that the United States is right there with them.

There's some political churn. No doubt about it. European nations are not only concerned about rhetoric coming out of the White House. They see a chaotic tariff policy as hurting their economies. But they also see the U.S. continuing to make sizable investments in European defense, troop presence.




Turning to Chump's buddy Jeffrey Epstein, Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) reports: 

A woman who alleges Donald Trump sexually assaulted her more than 30 years ago says she believes the network of people connected to Jeffrey Epstein is on the verge of being fully exposed as more survivors will come forward this year to detail their experiences.

Beatrice Keul, a former Miss Switzerland and Miss Europe contestant, made the prediction in a recent interview, telling PunchUp that "the dam is about to burst." Keul, now 55, has previously alleged that Trump assaulted her in 1993 at the Plaza Hotel during his "American Dream Pageant" in New York when she was 23, and that Epstein separately approached her the same day, introducing himself as "Don's best friend."
Keul's renewed prediction comes alongside new claims about ongoing intimidation she says she's faced since going public with her allegations in October 2024. She told PunchUp she received an AI-generated audio message on her personal cellphone from an anonymous number around the time of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre's death in April 2025.

"We know where you are, and we will get you," the message repeatedly warned.
Keul says similar messages have continued since, with the most recent arriving about a month ago. She says she doesn't know who is behind them but believes they were designed to frighten her into silence.

Powerful figures connected to Epstein, Keul says, have strong incentives to keep survivors from speaking, and she believes some women have stayed quiet after watching others get targeted or publicly discredited. She also rejected the official finding that Epstein died by suicide in 2019, telling PunchUp, "This is not a guy who would commit suicide."


Keul first came forward in October 2024, alleging that Trump—then 47, while she was a 23-year-old banking executive and part-time model—lured her to his Donald J. Trump American Dream Pageant in New York. She says an aide then asked her to join the property developer for a “private meeting” before he allegedly groped her in a suite at the Plaza Hotel.
Her allegations prompted author and Daily Beast Inside Trump’s Head podcast co-host Michael Wolff to release some of the 100 hours of interviews he conducted with Jeffrey Epstein, including a recording of Epstein describing himself as Trump’s “closest friend.”

Last December, multiple women came forward with similar accounts in a New York Times investigation, in which Keul further detailed the alleged assault.
Keul is one of at least 28 women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, including writer E. Jean Carroll, whose sexual abuse claims a New York jury found credible. The Supreme Court rejected his push to throw out that jury’s finding on Monday. Trump, 80, has denied all allegations, calling them “unequivocally false” and insisting he has “never met” some of his accusers. He has not taken legal action.

(White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, then serving as press secretary for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, also said in October 2024 that Keul’s claims were “fake allegations.”)




Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

Brokers have been caught selling the location data of people visiting abortion clinics, risking the safety and security of women seeking basic health care

Updated bill would protect Americans’ privacy and ban brokers from selling Americans’ health and location data

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) announced that they will reintroduce the Health and Location Data Protection Act, legislation banning data brokers from selling Americans’ sensitive personal information. 

“It’s more important than ever that we crack down on data brokers that are raking in giant profits from selling Americans’ most sensitive information,” said Senator Warren. “Especially as more people enter their private health data into AI systems, we need to make sure that information isn’t exploited by the highest bidder.”

Data gathered by brokers has been used to circumvent the Fourth Amendment, out LGBTQ+ Americans, and stalk and harass individuals. Data brokers’ unfettered access to people’s health and location data has become increasingly dire as states continue to ban abortion care and law enforcement agencies may attempt to use this data to criminalize abortion seekers and providers.

The $300 billion data broker industry is largely unregulated by federal law. Data brokers gather personal data, such as location data from weather or prayer apps, often without consumers’ consent or knowledge. Brokers sell this data in bulk to virtually any willing buyer, reaping massive profits. These predatory and invasive practices pose real dangers to Americans’ privacy and safety. 

The Health and Location Data Protection Act would: 

  • Ban data brokers from collecting, selling, or transferring location data and health data, including data entered into AI systems. 
  • Empower the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general, and injured persons to sue to enforce the provisions of the law, allowing for remedies such as damages and injunctions to stop any illegal practices.
  • Provide $1 billion to the Federal Trade Commission over the next decade to carry out its work, including the enforcement of this law.

This bill is cosponsored by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Representatives Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).

The bill is endorsed by the National Partnership for Women & Families, All* Above All, the Guttmacher Institute, the National Network of Abortion Funds, and the National Council of Jewish Women.

Senator Warren has fought to protect the sensitive data of American consumers from Big Tech companies and data brokers: 

  • In May 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and U.S. Representative Pat Harrigan (R-N.C.) in releasing information confirming for the first time that hostile foreign adversaries are using commercial location data to target American servicemembers in active war zones.
  • In October 2024, Senators Warren, Ron Wyden, and Richard Blumenthal, along with Representative Katie Porter, wrote to the Department of Justice (DOJ) urging the investigation and prosecution of major tax preparation companies for illegally sharing protected and sensitive taxpayer information with Big Tech firms.
  • In May 2024, Senators Warren, Ron Wyden, and Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Representative Katie Porter, sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, among others, calling on them to investigate use and disclosures of legally protected and sensitive taxpayer information by tax prep companies.
  • In April 2024, Senators Warren, Bill Cassidy, and Richard Blumenthal wrote to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) urging an assessment of the cybersecurity landscape leading up to, and after, the Change Healthcare cyberattack.
  • In April 2024, at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, Senator Warren pushed back on Big Tech’s misleading claims that “free data flows” provisions in trade agreements will help combat China’s digital authoritarianism, when the opposite in fact is true.
  • In January 2024, at a hearing of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Senator Elizabeth Warren questioned Emily Kilcrease, Senior Fellow and Director of the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, on the national security risks posed by digital trade rules that allow tech companies to collect, sell, and store Americans’ data wherever is cheapest, including China.
  • In November 2023, Senators Warren, Ed Markey, John Kennedy, and Jeff Merkley joined their colleagues in introducing the bipartisan Traveler Privacy Protection Act, which would ban the use of facial recognition technology and the collection of facial biometric data by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in U.S. airports.
  • In November 2023, Senators Warren and Bill Cassidy, M.D. released statements after Duke University published a report highlighting the detail, ease, and volume at which data brokers are selling the personal data of U.S. service members to web addresses located both in the United States and abroad.
  • In September 2023, Senators Warren and Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, expressing concerns about the implementation of the contract the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded to Leidos Partnership for Defense Health (Leidos) for the Military Health System (MHS) Genesis electronic health record system after reports that the use of MHS Genesis may be contributing to delays in military recruiting, creating barriers to accessing benefits information, and invading the privacy of service members and military recruits. 
  • In July 2023, Senators Warren and Lindsey Graham unveiled comprehensive legislation that would rein in Big Tech by establishing a new commission to regulate online platforms. The commission would have concurrent jurisdiction with FTC and DOJ, and would be responsible for overseeing and enforcing the new statutory provisions in the bill and implementing rules to promote competition, protect privacy, protect consumers, and strengthen our national security.
  • In July 2023, Senator Warren opened an investigation into a disturbing report on Google’s confidential effort to secure exclusive access to millions of tissue samples held at the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint Pathology Center (JPC).
  • In March 2023, Senators Warren, Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) introduced the Upholding Protections for Health and Online Location Data (UPHOLD) Privacy Act, legislation that would expand protections for Americans’ personal health data by preventing companies from profiting off of personally identifiable health data for advertising purposes, allow consumers greater access to and ownership over their personal health information, restrict companies’ ability to collect or use information about personal health without user consent, and ban data brokers from selling location data.
  • In March 2023, Senators Warren, Cassidy, and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) reintroduced the Protecting Military Service Members’ Data Act of 2023, a bipartisan bill that would protect the data of U.S. service members by preventing data brokers from selling lists of military personnel to adversarial nations, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. They first introduced the bill in May 2022. 
  • In June 2022, Senators Warren, Cory Booker, and Ron Wyden sent letters to two leading mental health apps, expressing deep concerns about the companies’ use of patients’ personal health data.
  • In June 2022, Senators Warren, Wyden, Patty Murray, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Bernie Sanders introduced the Health and Location Data Protection Act, sweeping legislation that bans data brokers from selling some of the most sensitive data available about everyday Americans: their health and location data.
  • In May 2022, Senators Warren; Bill Cassidy, M.D.; and Marco Rubio introduced the Protecting Military Service Members’ Data Act of 2022 to protect the data of U.S. service members by preventing data brokers from selling lists of military personnel to adversarial nations, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
  • In May 2022, Senator Warren led thirteen of her Senate colleagues in letters to two data brokers demanding answers regarding their collection and sale of the cellphone-based location data of people who visit abortion clinics such as Planned Parenthood.
  • In December 2021, at a hearing of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth, Senator Warren called on Congress and regulators to pass stronger antitrust laws, ban mergers involving huge companies, and encourage robust enforcement to protect the economy, consumers, workers, and data.
  • In March 2020, Senators Warren; Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.); and Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.) sent a letter to Ascension, the second-largest health systems provider in the United States, regarding the company’s information-sharing partnership with Google—also known as Project Nightingale—that provides Google with the health records of tens of millions of Americans.
  • In November 2019, following alarming reports of Google’s efforts to obtain the health records of millions of Americans without their awareness or consent, Senators Warren, Blumenthal, and Cassidy sent a bipartisan letter to Google demanding answers to the serious questions and concerns raised by “Project Nightingale.”

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