Sunday, July 27, 2025

Trump’s plan to DESTROY OBAMA BLOWS UP in his FACE

BREAKING: HORRIFIC GHISLAINE MAXWELL NEWS, TRUMP RUNS AWAY!

Trump BLOWS UP his OWN DOJ to DEEP SIX his DARK SECRETS

Eric Holder raises concern over Trump’s DOJ, warns officials will ‘put l...

Trump literally RUNS AWAY in Scotland on DISASTER SUNDAY

HIDDEN Epstein PAYMENTS Resurface... Trump is SCREWED!

WHO’S REALLY STEALING? POOR PEOPLE OR CORPORATIONS?

In the wake of U.S. aid cut, a pastor remembers the impact of AIDS

Malcolm Nance’s SICKENING Prediction That SHOCKS Stephanie Miller

Not even snake lady can help Trump shake Epstein scandal

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN RIGHT WING MEDIA FAILS YOU!

Trump's Power & the Rule of Law: Jane Mayer (interview) | FRONTLINE

Speaking on MAGA media vs. Black media w/Roland Martin

How NOT To Raise Trump-Loving Incels That Hate Women

Trump's Power & the Rule of Law: David French (interview) | FRONTLINE

Tim Miller: Epstein Outrage Is Breaking Through!

All HELL BREAKS LOOSE as Trump’s Plan CAUGHT ON TAPE

WHOA! FURIOUS World Leaders STICK the DAGGER in Trump

Is Trump RESPONSIBLE for Colbert's Cancellation?

‘Throw the punch first and throw it harder’: Beto O’Rourke urges Dems to...

Trump IN TERROR in Scotland as Trip gets INSTANTLY RUINED

Anonymous Reveals Trump's Secret Pardon Plot for Ghislaine Just Leaked

Bridesmaids (Outtakes) | Annie Vs. Helen: Battle Of The Comebacks | Bonu...

Tragedy Strikes at an Aerobics Competition - Key & Peele

What Really Happened in the Trump and Epstein Lawsuit? | Titus Podcast Clip

Best of Brian Jordan Alvarez (Estefan) on Will & Grace! | Comedy Bites V...

Will Ghislaine Pardon Trump? | The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

Victims STRIKE BACK as Trump RUSHES to Hide DARK PAST

Full Remarks: AOC in Plattsburgh, New York | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

‘He’s crazy’: Florida official offers to deport your ex through ICE hotline

Despicable War On The Poor Erupts As Executive Order Targets Homeless, S...

Philomena Cunk vs Prof. Jim Al Khalili CBE (2025 Edition)

South Bay company outraged over employee being detained by ICE

Trump leaving door open to Maxwell pardon is a ‘betrayal’ to survivors: ...

Rosario having the most epic one liners | Will & Grace

Trump RUNS OFF as Protests SUDDENLY ERUPT

Trump LOSES IT with late night Epstein FREAKOUT

Saturday, July 26, 2025

The whiny cry babies of ICE and Chump's war on immigrants

Starting with a gripe.  YOUTUBERS, do the work required.  That's not just turn on your camera and start talking.  You have to know what you're talking about.

"Memory" sung by Barbra Streisand.


Judy Collins doing the same song.



Pop culture fact, Judy's version is why Barbra destroyed her pop career.  "Comin' In and Out of Your Life" was climbing the charts about to become another top ten pop hit for Barbra but she blew it because she wanted to have the hit with "Memory" and Judy's label (ELEKTRA) was going to release her version.  Barbra hit the roof, told COLUMBIA to stop promoting "Comin' In and Out of Your Life" which was at number 11 and promote the awful "Memory" instead.  At best, it's album filler.  At best.  It was never going to be a pop hit.  And it wasn't for Judy who didn't even chart with it.  And it wasn't for Barbra who only took it to number 52 on the pop chart.  It made her a joke and that's why she had to do THE BROADWAY album -- because even two years after her cover of that bloated nonsense it wasn't forgotten and no programmers for pop radio wanted to hear from her anymore and wouldn't program songs from EMOTION as a result.  (She had only one more top twenty pop hit her entire career -- when she teamed with Bryan Adams for "I Finally Found Someone" and they made it to number eight.)

Donald Chump, in Scotland, was blasting the song today from golf carts.

Donald was blasting the bombastic and bathos ridden song -- does that give you an idea of how bad the song truly is?

I believe he was blasting the version by Elaine Paige, but it's not loud enough in the video for me to say that with 100% confidence (the music is the same arrangement).  He wouldn't blast Barbra who's probably on his enemies list and he wouldn't blast Judy's version because she's a Democrat like Barbra.  "Memory" is from the musical CATS.  

CATS is not an opera.

But a YOUTUBER -- who's usually fairly smart -- is commenting on it tonight in relation to Donald blasting it and says Donald is blasting opera.

How stupid are you?

Does it sound like it's Italian being sung?  What is it that confuses you?  

I'm sick of the stupidity.  This nonsense that you can gas bag without first doing the work required.  It's like Donald's continued efforts to destroy The Kennedy Center by turning it into Branson on the Potomac.  (See Elaine's "Poor Melania, tramps used to know their place" and "Branson on the Potomac just got trashier" for Chump and the GOP's most recent attacks on The Kennedy Center.)


I didn't like CATS when I first saw it and I haven't grown to appreciate it since but we're talking about a musical which ran on Broadway for 18 years -- I'm not talking revivals.  The original production ran for 18 years.  It's the fifth-longest run of a Broadway show in history -- putting it directly behind WICKED and directly ahead of LES MISERABLES

You don't know the song?

Okay, that's fine.  

But don't try to pass it off as opera because it isn't.  When you don't know what you're talking about, just don't weigh in.  It's not that hard.  I'm not the only one that's going to catch your video and groan over your gross stupidity. 

And to be clear, not knowing "Memory" is not a gross stupidity.  Trying to talk about it without doing any research is a gross stupidity.

It's like last weekend when someone wanted to talk PARAMOUNT-CBS financials and dismissed PLUTO TV with the comment that they had never heard of it.

I'm sorry, lazy ass.  You want to talk financials, then do the damn work.  There are 68 million people in the world that stream PLUTO TV.  You haven't heard of it?  Well you're not very smart are you because PLUTO TV has a streaming audience almost as large as PARAMOUNT+. (79 million).

There are eight million things I don't know on any given day.  Maybe I shouldn't do any work either and instead just plow on through with bulls**t?  Would certainly free up a lot of my time.


In Scotland, they're rejecting Chump.  All around the world, people reject Chump's war on immigrants.  Hugo Casares (GALICIA LIBERAL) reports:

California-born designer Willy Chavarria used his Spring/Summer 2026 show at Paris Men’s Fashion Week last month as a powerful protest against the dehumanizing treatment and forced deportation of immigrants in his home state and beyond.

Held at the historic Salle Pleyel, the show opened with 35 men in stark white T-shirts — created in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)— a reference to mass incarceration and recent ICE raids under Trump-era immigration rhetoric.

The tees were not just symbolic. They were a direct statement against the dehumanization of immigrants in the U.S., with tags that read: “The ACLU dares to create a more perfect union – beyond one person, party, or side.” Chavarria, who has long worked with the ACLU, used the platform to amplify the organization’s message and spotlight the communities most under threat.

Known for blending activism and elegance, Chavarria called the collection “HURON” — a nod to his hometown in California’s Central Valley, where many immigrant laborers live and work. “I’m not interested in luxury as a symbol of privilege,” he said of the move. “I’m interested in luxury as a symbol of truth in one’s own character.”

 

For more on Willy Chavarria's fashion, visit his site and check out the video below.




Horror stories.  In Houston, US citizen Miguel Angel Ponce Jr. is attempting to drive from his home to work when ICE assaults him. 



Anayeli Ruiz (KHOU) reports:


"He says, 'I need to see your ID.' I gave him the ID. When I went back down, he said, 'Get out of the car,'" Ponce said.

"For what?" Ponce said he asked. "'Get out.'"

He says officers then handcuffed him and took him away.

"I pretty much felt kidnapped. [They] told me I have a deportation order, put me in handcuffs, took me to another location. I couldn't call my wife — locked up in the back seat."

Despite showing his ID and insisting he was born in the U.S., Ponce says the officers continued to insist he was someone with immigration violations.

"[He] said, 'You've had an encounter with ICE.' I said, 'No, I've never...' At that point, he slapped handcuffs on me. They're like, 'You have an order of deportation.' That is crazy — because I was born here. I was born in College Station. 'No, you're the one I'm looking for.'"


Mistakes happen?  Mistakes happen a lot with ICE and that's because (a) they don't know their job and (b) they don't the law -- which is also part of their job. Margaret Kadifa (MOTHER JONES) reports another horror story:


Three asylum seekers leaving routine court hearings at San Francisco immigration court Thursday morning were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, including one man who a judge had just said might be mentally impaired.

They’re the latest in a series of ICE actions, where over 30 immigrants have been arrested by federal agents while leaving San Francisco immigration court, at 100 Montgomery Street or 630 Sansome Street—which also has an ICE field office and is where Thursday’s arrests took place.

After a Department of Homeland Security attorney on Thursday moved to dismiss the case of the man, a strategy federal attorneys have recently been using to make asylum seekers easier to remove, immigration judge Patrick O’Brien raised doubts over his mental ability, saying, “it’s obvious to me that there are competency issues.” 

The man—who was only fluent in Mam, a Mayan language primarily spoken in Guatemala—had been muttering to himself throughout the morning, O’Brien said.

Later in court, the man was unable to tell O’Brien his address. O’Brien even asked the man at one point if he was on medication.

There appear to be competency issues beyond just a language barrier, O’Brien said. (After a few hours of requesting one, the court had been able to find a remote Mam interpreter to help with the man’s hearing.)

O’Brien then proceeded to ask the Department of Homeland Security attorney for a continuance of the case, rather than a dismissal, due to the man’s possible mental incompetence. The man needed time to find a lawyer and other support, O’Brien said. “He’s clearly not understanding the questions,” O’Brien said. “Is this someone the department really wants to move to dismiss a motion to appear on?”

The DHS attorney agreed, and allowed for a continuance of the case, which essentially means the man will come back for another hearing in a few months. The DHS attorney said she could “renew” the motion to dismiss another time.

But as the man left the hearing room, Mission Local observed about five ICE officers stopping the man and then leading him out a side door. The man’s arrest was the third over the course of three hours Thursday morning.


Arrested on the way out of the court house?  It's happening over and over across the country.  Alexandra Villarreal (GUARDIAN) reports:


Jerome traveled a thousand miles from California to El Paso, Texas, so he could accompany Jenny to her immigration hearing. He and his wife had promised to take her after she had fled Cuba last December, after the government there had targeted her because she had reported on the country’s deplorable conditions for her college radio station.

Everything should have been fine. Jenny, 25, had entered the United States legally under one of Joe Biden’s now-defunct programs, CBP One. By the end of the year, she could apply for a green card.

But a few days before her hearing, Jerome started to feel like something was off. Jenny’s court date had been abruptly moved from May to June with no explanation. Arrests at immigration courthouses peppered the news.

And when Jenny went before the court, the government attorney assigned to try to deport her asked the judge to dismiss her case, arguing vaguely that circumstances had changed.

Instead, the judge noted that Jenny was pursuing an asylum claim and scheduled her for another court date in August 2026 – the best possible outcome.

“She turned around and looked at me and smiled. And I smiled back, because she understood that she was free to go home,” Jerome said.

But as Jenny left the courtroom and approached the elevator to leave, a crowd of government agents in masks converged on her and demanded she go with them. Just before she disappeared down a corridor with the phalanx of officers, she turned back to look at Jerome, her face stricken, silently pleading with him to do something.

“I said, ‘She’s legal. She’s here legally. And you guys just don’t care, do you? Nobody cares about this. You guys just like pulling people away like this,’” Jerome recalled telling the agents. “And nobody said a word. They couldn’t even look me in the eye,” he told the Guardian.


No, they couldn't look anyone in the eye.  They're cowards who are breaking the law and they live in shame so they hide behind masks.  PASADENA NOW covers yet another one:


Federal immigration officials have detained the husband of Huntington Hospital’s Chief of Medical Staff in downtown Los Angeles, where he has allegedly endured nearly two weeks of harsh treatment and insufficient medical care, according to a civil rights group’s statement released Thursday evening.

Tunisian immigrant Rami Othmane was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on July 13 while driving to a grocery store, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network said. His wife, Dr. Wafaa Alrashid, who oversees more than 1,000 physicians associated with Huntington Hospital, claims immigration officers blocked her husband’s car, did not present a warrant, and failed to identify themselves during the encounter.

Othmane suffers from chronic pain and an untreated tumor and is reportedly being held under inhumane conditions at a federal facility in downtown Los Angeles, NDLON said.

“He is not a criminal,” Alrashid was quoted in the group’s statement as saying. “He is a kind, peaceful man with an open immigration petition. He should be with his family, not sleeping on a concrete floor without medical care.”

The family filed an I-130 Petition for Alien Relative on June 12, initiating a legal pathway toward permanent residency. The petition remains pending, according to the advocacy group.

 

Jasmine Mendez (LOS ANGELES TIMES) adds:

Rami Othmane was held July 13 while driving to the grocery store. His wife, Dr. Wafaa Alrashid, said agents blocked Othmane’s car and did not identify themselves or present a warrant before detaining him.

Alrashid, chief of medical staff at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, was on FaceTime with her husband during the incident. The couple married on March 5, 2024, and filed an I-130 petition last month to qualify their relationship status to obtain Orthmane’s green card.

[. . .]

“This is not just an immigration issue — this is a human rights crisis,” Alrashid said in a statement. “My husband has been subjected to 12 days of inhumane treatment in a federal building. He is not a criminal. He is a kind, peaceful man with an open immigration petition.”


Remember when the big lie was told that only violent criminals would be targeted?  Alicia Victoria Lozano (NBC NEWS) notes:

 

Immigration officials have been repeatedly spotted outside a Hollywood homeless shelter since May, leading staff to accompany residents from war-torn countries to work, errands and court.

An executive at the shelter that serves people ages 18 to 24 said she saw two Venezuelan men handcuffed and arrested by ICE agents after they returned to the shelter from work.

“There was no conversation,” said the employee, Lailanie, who asked that her last name not be used because she feared retribution from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

She said about half a dozen immigration officers went up to the residents “and put their hands behind their backs right away.”

Homeless shelters appear to be another target in the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown, which has resulted in nearly 3,000 arrests in the Los Angeles area. They now join Home Depots, 7-Elevens and cannabis farms as locations where the federal government is carrying out its mass deportation effort.

In addition to the Hollywood shelter, service providers have reported seeing immigration enforcement at shelters in North Hollywood and San Diego, according to local media.


Chump Land is one horror story after another.  And it's tanking him in the polls.  Diamond Walker and Valentina Palm (PALM BEACH POST) report:


 Kenny Laynez's cellphone camera captured every undocumented immigrant’s nightmare on video when it happened to him on the morning of May 2. One problem: He is a U.S. citizen. Here's more to know about what happened.

Kenny Laynez, a U.S. citizen, was driving with his mother and coworkers to their landscaping jobs when they were pulled over on Singer Island by Florida Highway Patrol and Border Patrol agents. Officers dragged them from the car, grabbing necks, twisting arms, using a Taser, and later joked about raises and promotions.

Laynez, who was born and raised in West Palm Beach, was held for six hours at a federal facility in Riviera Beach before being released. His mom, who is Guatemalan and has legal status in this country, was not detained. His coworkers were taken to the Krome Detention Center in Miami and later released on bail.

“I have rights. I was born and raised here," Laynez told the officers, according to a copy of the video shared by the Guatemalan-Maya Center of Lake Worth Beach.

"You don’t have any rights here. You are a ‘Migo,’ brother,” said the officer, who hurried him into a van. "Migo" is short for "amigo," the Spanish word for "friend, " an apparent reference to Laynez's ethnicity.


You don't have any rights here?

At POLITICO, Joshua Zeitz contributes an essay which opens:


President Donald Trump and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller set a goal of deporting 1 million undocumented immigrants each year — a staggering number that would require a massive expansion of immigration enforcement. Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” delivered just that, throwing roughly $170 billion to the administration’s immigration restriction program, including $45 billion for new detention centers and $30 billion to hire 10,000 new ICE officers. ICE will now become the largest law enforcement agency in the country.

Anti-immigration hardliners view it as a major victory. But as ICE transforms into a massive, un-uniformed, masked domestic army — one that critics fear will have carte blanche to arrest, detain and deport persons without cause or due process, whether they enjoy legal status or not — there’s reason to believe it could backfire.

Think what you will of the administration’s immigration agenda, but there is little denying that mass deportations on the scale that Trump and Miller envision will necessarily require brute displays of force that may shock the public conscience, even among people who theoretically support the broader goals.

We’ve already seen signs of what’s to come. Like when, according to eyewitness accounts, around 30 heavily armed ICE agents raided Buona Forchetta, a family-owned Italian restaurant in San Diego’s South Park, handcuffing four immigrant workers and using flash‑bang grenades against civilians. Or the scene in Los Angeles earlier this summer, where the administration deployed guardsmen and active-duty military and ICE arrested over 1,600 persons, including workers at car washes and farms — even people making lawful appearances in immigration court. Or the case of Carol Mayorga, a Hong Kong-born waitress and mother of three whom ICE seized during what she believed was a routine document renewal appointment in late April, triggering her rural Missouri community, largely supportive of Trump, to rally with petitions, fundraisers and public protests that ultimately led to her release in early June.

These displays of force and excess help explain why the American public, which broadly approved of Trump’s tough stance on immigration during the 2024 election, is shifting the other way. A recent CNN poll shows 55 percent think Trump has gone too far in his pursuit of undocumented immigrants, up 10 percent since February. And as raids ramp up across the country, the gap between Trump’s rhetoric about rounding up “terrorists” and “gang members” and the reality of deporting normal, everyday people who are upstanding members of their communities will only grow starker.


As the truth grows starker, the candy asses of ICE get ever more precious.  Beau Yarbrough (INLAND VALLEY DAILY BULLTIN) reports the Baby Girls of ICE called the police because someone poured a coffee on their windshield -- and to make sure the police would come quick, they lied about coffee also being thrown in their face:


Ontario police officers who were at the scene of an immigration enforcement operation at a local grocery store this week were responding to a call for help from federal agents, the department explained in a video released days after the incident.

The assault on the agents, according to a video released by the department Thursday, July 24, appears to have been someone pouring a cup of coffee on an unmarked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle.

Oh, the horror!  No wonder the little ICE agents wet their panties and called the cops.  Coffee on a windshield!!!!  The horror.  Have you ever seen a a bigger group of candy asses in your lives?

Jacob Crosse (WSWS) notes Chump's crimes and his War Crimes:


Far from arresting “bad guys,” the Trump administration and the immigration police have overwhelmingly targeted immigrants whose only “crime” was applying for asylum in the US. One of the more criminal acts carried out by the second Trump administration was the deportation of roughly 250 Venezuelan men and dozens of Salvadorans without due process to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in mid-March.

Trump illegally invoked the Aliens Enemies Act to deny the men their rights and falsely claimed they were members of the gang “Tren de Aragua.” On July 18, four months after the men were sent to the notorious prison in violation of court orders, a prisoner exchange took place between the US government and Venezuela which saw the release of 10 Americans or US permanent residents and the release to Venezuela of the Venezuelan migrants sent to CECOT.

Now that the men have been released, many are speaking out on the horrific treatment they received. Andry Hernández Romero, 32, a gay makeup artist sent to CECOT for having tattoos that paid tribute to his mother and father, told local outlets in Venezuela, “It was an encounter with torture and death.”

Romero legally entered the US in 2024 and had already passed a credible fear interview when he was detained by ICE. Despite having no criminal record, Romero was deported to CECOT.

“Many of our fellows have wounds from the nightsticks; they have fractured ribs, fractured fingers and toes, marks from the handcuffs,” Romero said in a report from Reuters.

Jerce Reyes Barrios, 36, a former professional soccer player, was also illegally detained and deported to CECOT under false charges that he was a gang member under the Alien Enemies Act. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Barrios said guards greeted him and others: “Welcome to El Salvador, you sons of bitches. You’ve arrived at the Terrorist Confinement Center. Hell on earth.”

Food and bedding was insufficient, and the water was contaminated, Barrios told the paper. He said he and others were regularly beaten. “There was blood, vomit and people passed out on the floor.”

As was the case with Romero, Barrios has never been charged with a crime. He was “identified” as a gang member because he had a tattoo, but the tattoo celebrated his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid.

The US government has yet to provide a comprehensive list of everyone it illegally deported to CECOT, but Bloomberg reported in April that as many as 90 percent of those deported to the torture prison had no criminal record. 


The following sites updated:





 

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The Snapshot

Friday, July 25, 2025.  Chump's Justice  Dept plays footsie with a convicted pedophile, victims come forward to speak of how they are being effected, pieces of the late Epstein's past continue to float to the surface, Chump's war on immigrant is a war on all of us, and much more.


Ben and MEIDASTOUCH NEWS get us up to speed on Donald Chump and his circle jerk buddy dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 



Alison Durkee (FORBES) offers these bullet points:

*DOJ officials are interviewing Maxwell at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida, on Thursday, with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Maxwell’s attorneys reportedly arriving around 9 a.m. EDT on Thursday morning.

*Blanche previously said the agency wanted to speak with her to find out “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims.”

*The interview comes as the DOJ has controversially refused to otherwise release documents about its investigation into Epstein, and as Maxwell serves a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted on charges of sex trafficking and transporting minors to participate in illegal sex acts.

*Maxwell is also still in the process of appealing her conviction, most recently asking the Supreme Court to take it up, and critics and legal experts have expressed concern she could use the interview to her own benefit to get a more lenient sentence from the federal government.

*Those fears have been amplified by Maxwell’s history of alleged perjury, as the socialite was charged with perjury in 2020 based on allegedly lying during a 2016 deposition in a civil lawsuit about Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse.

*Maxwell was never tried or convicted of perjury: The charges were separated from her other counts prior to her 2021 trial, and when she sought a retrial of her sex trafficking charges, prosecutors offered to drop the perjury charges as long as her conviction on the other, more serious, counts was allowed to stand.


Chump still has his lawsuit filed against THE WALL STREET JOURNAL over their report on his birthday greeting to Epstein two decades ago, insisting it wasn't him.  On MSNBC this week. Lawrence O'Donnell broke the news that the birthday book still exists -- as do copies of it -- and he continued to report about it on his show last night.



While Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche disgraced himself, his position and the US government yesterday supplicating himself before convicted pedophile Jizzy Pants Maxwell, yesterday Jen Psaki used her time to instead speak with and focus on the women and girls exploited by Epstein and Maxwell.




As Maria Farmer asked last night on MSNBC, "Why would Maxwell be given a voice when she is a convicted pedophile?"  

Todd Blanche disgraced everyone yesterday as he rushed to a prison to meet with the convicted pedophile Maxwell -- to meet with her and her attorneys.  

As Lawrence has pointed out, Maxwell had plenty of times to speak.  She chose not to.  When she was on trial, she refused to take the stand.  But she'll talk to a Deputy Attorney General now?  When her testimony is apparently needed to protect Chump and back up his lies?


At NPR, Domenico Montanaro surveys the terrain:


Where do things stand and what's the latest?

Justice Department interview of Ghislaine Maxwell: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal attorney of President Trump's, interviewed Ghislane Maxwell in prison on Thursday. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors. What new information the DOJ is seeking or what it would learn — and what Maxwell could get out of it, if anything, is unclear.

Whether anyone can believe what Maxwell winds up sharing is another question. Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig told NPR's Morning Edition that if he were Maxwell's lawyer he'd advise her to share nothing and invoke the Fifth Amendment, which gives people the right to not self-incriminate.

"Even though she's already been tried and convicted and sentenced, she still could at least theoretically have other exposure to additional crimes," Honig said.

Grand jury transcripts: The government, encouraged by Trump, also sought to release grand jury transcripts from the Epstein case. A federal judge denied one of those requests. Two others are pending.

Getting out of Dodge: In Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson had Congress get out of town early for its August recess rather than take a vote aiming to force the Trump administration to release the Epstein files.

House Oversight Committee seeks Maxwell interview, too: After a subcommittee vote in which Republicans joined Democrats to approve a subpoena to compel Maxwell to speak to the committee, committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican, issued a subpoena for an interview to occur Aug. 11.

"While the Justice Department undertakes efforts to uncover and publicly disclose additional information related to your and Mr. Epstein's cases, it is imperative that Congress conduct oversight of the federal government's enforcement of sex trafficking laws generally and specifically its handling of the investigation and prosecution of you and Mr. Epstein," Comer wrote in a letter to Maxwell released by the committee. "In particular, the Committee seeks your testimony to inform the consideration of potential legislative solutions to improve federal efforts to combat sex trafficking and reform the use of non-prosecution agreements and/or plea agreements in sex-crime investigations."

Trump knew his name was in the files in May, according to the Wall Street Journal and others: The Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy briefed Trump two months ago, letting him know that his name appeared in the Epstein files.

NPR has not confirmed that reporting, and the appearance of Trump's name alone is not an indication of wrongdoing. He and Epstein were friends for years; they were seen on video partying together; and Trump was even on flight logs for Epstein's plane before a falling out over a property dispute.

Honig told Morning Edition that it was highly unusual for an attorney general in the modern era to tell a president the details of an investigation it is conducting, particularly when it involves the president himself.

"Not at all," it's not normal for an attorney general to do so, Honig said. "And the question that this begs to me is, why? Why would the attorney general go and tip off the president — 'Hey, you're named in these criminal, closed criminal investigative files,' whatever 'named' may mean. That is highly abnormal, and if we look back at the history of attorneys general, through both parties, that would be seen as a breach of the attorney general's independence."

We're going to move over to the topic of Chump's War on Immigrants because we've got a lot there to cover.  I hope there will be time and space after that for Loose Lips Hegseth but we may have to put Pete on hold for next week's snapshot.  Chump's war on immigrants never ends.  Priscilla Alvarez (CNN) reports:


The Trump administration is moving to rapidly deport some migrant children who arrived in the US without a parent or guardian by having federal agents ask teens whether they want to voluntarily depart the country, according to two Homeland Security officials and a source familiar with the discussions.

The latest directive, which comes as the administration seeks to ramp up deportations, marks a departure from long-standing protocol which required that federal authorities turn over most unaccompanied children to the Health and Human Services Department, the agency charged with their care. Up until now, federal authorities didn’t ask unaccompanied kids from countries other than Mexico and Canada if they wanted to self deport.

This week, US Customs and Border Protection personnel were directed to ask children they encounter in immigration enforcement operations across the country whether they want to voluntarily depart the United States, the officials said. If the child agrees, agents will turn that child over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation. But if ICE doesn’t pick them up from CBP custody within 72 hours, agents will refer them to HHS.


[. . .]

While existing policy generally allows for the swift removal of children arriving from Mexico and Canada because they’re contiguous countries, that’s not true for children of other nationalities. And the targeting of those kids from other countries — many of whom are living in the US with family — marks an escalation of the administration’s deportation efforts.

“A child is in no position to understand the consequences of self-deporting, particularly without the guidance of an attorney,” said Neha Desai, managing director of Children’s Human Rights at the National Center for Youth Law. “Unaccompanied children are being used as pawns in an effort to deport as many people as possible, regardless of the human toll it takes on the most vulnerable members of our community.”


The question for Chump remains: Have you no shame?  Grasp that there's not even a pretense here, when it comes to deporting children, that the deported are criminals.  He uses that lie over and over to cover up deporting innocent adults.  But he offers no justirication for deporting children.  He's just cruel and fat headed.  Robert Davis notes DHS is insisting this is "fake news."
\
Chump's administration really has become the little boy that cried wolf, haven't they?  At this point, "Fake news!" from the Chump administration is basically a confirmation that the report is true.

Esteban L. Hernandez (AXIOS) notes ICE is bragging over an 8-day operation in Denver where they claim to have arrested 243 immigrants. ICE insists that they are all criminals but ICE tends to lie.  Back in March, for example, Chump was bragging about the 230 'violent criminal' immigrants that they were sending to the concentration camp in El Salvador.  However, yesterday a joint-investigation by PROPUBLICA, THE TEXAS TRIBUNE and ALIANZA REBELDE INVESTIGA revealed, "We obtained internal data showing that the Trump administration knew that at least 197 of the men had not been convicted of crimes in the U.S. — and that only six had been convicted of violent offenses. We identified fewer than a dozen additional convictions, both for crimes committed in the U.S. and abroad, that were not reflected in the government data."  And remember this month's  California operation that led to them beating Iraq War veteran and American citizen George Retes and ICE  holding him for three days?   Julie Watson, Amy Taxin and Olga R. Rodriguez (AP) note, "The government said four of the 361 arrested had prior criminal records, including convictions for rape and kidnapping."  The government says they nabbed 361 people.  And the government says four "had prior criminal records."

Again, they lie.  Over and over, they lie. George shared the details of ICE's assault on him to CBS EVENING NEWS this week.
 
 
 


ICE officials live to lie.  Sabrina Moreno (AXIOS) reports:

ICE agents are increasingly showing up at Richmond-area courthouses and arresting immigrants at routine check-ins once considered safe, local immigration lawyers tell Axios.

The big picture: ICE arrests at the Chesterfield courthouse have put a spotlight on the county in the past month, sparking concerns from some county leaders and conservative Sheriff Karl Leonard, who told WTVR it's straining efforts to build trust with immigrant communities.

But it's not happening only in Chesterfield. Henrico's Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor told Axios there have been three instances since June where federal agents showed up at Henrico's courthouse.
While Richmond's Commonwealth's Attorney Colette McEachin told Axios that ICE hasn't been spotted at city courthouses yet, "victims have expressed concerns about coming to court."
McEachin also says defense attorneys have begun calling her office asking if there are any ICE agents "in or near Richmond's three courthouses."
Zoom in: Then there are the arrests happening at routine check-ins in ICE's Midlothian field office — something Richmond-based immigration attorney Miriam Airington-Fisher says she hadn't seen before in her 16 years of practice.

These required check-ins are scheduled appointments for people with pending immigration cases where officers confirm their address and that they haven't had any criminal charges.
Airington-Fisher says even people with no criminal history who have "done everything right" are getting detained.
She's now advising clients to not attend these check-ins without an attorney.


You are not safe taking care of a legal matter in a court.  In America, you are no longer safe doing that.  Grasp that.  Grasp the black eye our legal system has now.
 
This is not protecting anyone.  This is destroying communities and families, inflicting unnecessary pain.  Horror story?  Rosanne Skirble (MARYLAND MATTERS) reports:


Daniel Fuentes Espinal has been pastor of Iglesia del Nazareno in Easton since 2015 — he is also an undocumented immigrant who fled the violence in his native Honduras in 2001 and put down roots on the Eastern Shore where he has ministered and raised a family.

Fuentes Espinal has no criminal record and has been trying to get approval to become a U.S. citizen, said his daughter, Clarissa Fuentes Diaz.

The unpaid pastor works construction to support his family, Fuentes Diaz said Wednesday. She said her father was on a routine errand to the hardware store for building materials when he was arrested by unidentified agents Monday.

“I’ve heard stories about [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] at Lowe’s in the morning, picking up whoever seems to fit their narrative or racial profiling,” she said.

[. . .]

Len Foxwell, a longtime Easton resident and family friend, said the pastor led his congregation as a volunteer and regularly provided food, shelter, clothing and toys to those who needed help.

“He is known for his unconditional generosity to those who are the most vulnerable,” he said.

“It’s personal for me. Our sons were best friends,” Foxwell said, in the wake of his 18-year-old son’s death last month in a car accident. “Pastor [Fuentes] Espinal was at my son’s deathbed and spoke at his funeral.”



Horror stories like that emerging day after day.  And most are not covered on the news.  But though these stories may fall through the media cracks, in the neighborhoods and communities impacted, the horror stories are known.  Americans feel revulsion over what Chump is doing, over the innocents being kidnapped, over the assault on our freedoms and on our legal system. 

Yet all Chump wants to do is increase the miseries he's inflicting.  Lauren Villagran (USA TODAY) reports:


The U.S. Army has hired a contractor to build the nation's largest ICE detention center, the latest move by President Donald Trump to use the military to deliver his promised mass deportations.

Virginia-based Acquisition Logistics LLC will erect a temporary immigration detention center on Fort Bliss, in El Paso, Texas, near the southern border, with 5,000 beds, under a $232 million contract, according to the Department of Defense.
The cost will likely rise. A similar tent city built to house unaccompanied migrant children on Fort Bliss in 2021 during the Biden administration ballooned within months to nearly $1 billion.

Think about that.  And think about this from USAFacts:

Around 23 out of every 10,000 Americans -- 771,480 people --experienced homelessness in January 2024 according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) annual point-in-time report, which measures homelessness across the US on a single night each winter. That’s an 18% increase from the same report in 2023.

He's never been motivated to help the homeless.  He's never given a damn.  But he'll build bigger prisons for immigrants.  

He is divorced from reality and refuses to grasp how he is repeatedly harming this country.  We started noting months ago that his actions were going to impact tourism.  

We've been noting for some time how Chump has destroyed tourism to the US.  He's fat and ugly and hated around the world and that's enough to stop some from visiting.  He's also cheap and common and people don't spend money to travel to a country run by trash.  Then we get into all of his attacks on various counties and nationalities, his war on immigrants, his was on the LGBTQ+ population, every repulsive thing about him and people don't want to come.


That is a huge financial blow to this country.  Tourism generates so much money -- travel, lodging, food, souvenirs, etc.   At the start of this month, Bailey Schulz (USA TODAY) reported:


Las Vegas’ hotel-casino operators are all about the deals this summer.

Resorts World is offering up to 40% off room rates and a $75 daily resort credit, plus free self-parking through Aug. 28. The Strat's summer value package includes room rates starting at $49, plus a $25 daily dining credit. Other operators are dropping prices for locals to boost staycations.

The discounts come at a time when international and budget-conscious travelers are hesitating to book their next trip to the Strip.

May was the fifth consecutive month Las Vegas has seen a year-over-year decline in tourism traffic, with visitor volume down 6.5% to just under 3.5 million people for the month, according to figures from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

“I think there’s an uptick (in deals) due to the environment we’re in,” said Steve Hill, president and CEO of the LVCVA. "The operators here have the ability to turn a number of dials based on demand, and we’re – like the rest of the United States – down a little bit from where we were the past couple of years.”



The American tourism industry is being brought to its knees by President Donald Trump.

According to NBC News, foreign travel to the United States has fallen by 10 percent since Trump took office, and it's already having measurable effects on the U.S. economy.

"Oxford Economics estimates spending among international visitors to the U.S. will fall $8.5 billion this year, as negative perceptions of the U.S. tied to trade and immigration policy lead travelers to other destinations."

All of this was forecast in a grim report earlier this year, which showed Trump's tariffs alone could cause $90 billion in losses from international tourism boycotts of the United States.

But one area that's being hit especially hard, the report noted, is LGBTQ tourism.

"Bookings for queer-friendly housing accommodations in the U.S. on the LGBTQ+ travel platform misterb&b saw a 66% decline among Canadian users and a 32% decline among European users from February to April, compared with the same period last year."



There has been no improvement and the damage he has done to tourism just grows more obvious.  Yesterday,  STYLE ON MAIN reported:


The United States is experiencing a clear and measurable decline in its dominance of the travel industry. This is a financial gut-punch, not hyperbole or economic scare tactics. The collapse of America's inbound tourism industry is expected to cost up to $29 billion in 2025 alone, with repercussions for local economies, transportation, and hospitality. While other countries are setting new records, the United States, one of 184 economies, is seeing a complete drop in foreign visitor spending. This isn't a statistical anomaly. Policy, perception, and the psychology of foreign tourists who are collectively opting to spend their money elsewhere are all contributing factors to this dramatic reversal.

Geopolitical tensions, shifting global alliances, and competitive destinations that have taken advantage of America's current difficulties are some of the underlying factors that go beyond simple economic conditions. The effect spreads further into the service sectors that depend significantly on foreign visitors, escalating regional inequalities and compounding losses in sources of income that have historically been thought of as steady. 



According to Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority data, the first four months of this year showed a decrease in the overall number of visitors. Mark Wayman, a recruiter for executives in the gaming and casino industries, told Business Insider in May that Las Vegas bookings through the summer are “the worst I’ve ever seen.”


He is destroying our country, our economy and our image. 

It's the cruelty and the hate that comes out of the Chump administration and that hate is embraced by a minority of Americans.  That hate exists to take advantage of immigrants, to harm them.  So if, for example, they speak out about poor living conditions, hate mongers try to have them deported. Josh Marcus (THE INDEPENDENT) reports:


A Los Angeles area family of Latino renters suing their landlord over a 2024 eviction claim they were met with a thinly veiled threat that they would be picked up by immigration agents, amid the ongoing, high-profile campaign of raids across the city.
“It’s not fair for him to take advantage of that,” former tenant Yicenia Morales told The Los Angeles Times. “I was born here. I have a birth certificate. I pay taxes.”
“I was already depressed over the eviction,” she added. “Now I’m hurt, embarrassed and nervous as well. Will he really call ICE on us?”

“It’s racist,” her attorney, Sarah McCracken, added in an interview with the paper. “Not only is it unethical and probably illegal, but it’s just a really wild thing to say — especially since my clients are U.S. citizens.”

The controversy stems from a June message from attorney Rod Fehlman, whom Morales and her lawyers at the firm Tobener Ravenscroft said they saw in state records was the legal point of contact for landlord Celia Ruiz and her real estate agent David Benavides.


This is not funny.  Stephen Miller probably thinks it is.  We've all seen his video from high school where he's giggling about torture and making it clear why he never had any friends and still doesn't.  Mia Maldonado (OREGON CAPITAL CHRONICLE) reports:

Threatening to call federal immigration authorities on employees after they raised concerns about their working conditions is considered illegal retaliation, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries is warning employers. 
Oregon law prohibits employers from discriminating or retaliating against workers because of their national origin, which includes actions that target workers based on their immigration status, ethnicity, language, ancestry or cultural traits. 

While the federal government is cracking down on immigration enforcement across the country, the state of Oregon has policies protecting people living and working in Oregon regardless of their immigration status. State agencies including the labor bureau and Department of Justice have pledged to take “aggressive action” to enforce the law in these cases. 

The agency did not immediately specify how many complaints it received involving threats to call Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. 

“Intimidating and silencing workers who simply want to be treated fairly by threatening or actually calling immigration officials on them is one of the most egregious forms of retaliation,” agency commissioner Christina Stephenson said in a July 16 statement. 

Again, don't be a bottom feeder like Stephen Miller and don't act like any 'jokes' about this being done to someone is funny. Chump has worked very hard to normalize hate.  He wants to terrorize.  Don't help him do that. 

Chump and company are terrorizing immigrants -- those with green cards and those without.  They're inflicting very real harm and destroying lives.  Don't help them normalize their cruelty.  Patricia Lopez (BLOOMBERG) notes:


Mandatory detention is the newest and potentially most powerful weapon in the White House’s arsenal for turbo-charging deportations. Once arrested, immigrants without legal status will, with few exceptions, be held in custody until they are deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That means they are no longer eligible, as in the past, to post bond at a hearing and have an immigration judge decide their fate. ICE alone will be the decider.

That threatens to transform temporary detention centers into long-term prisons - and to strip immigrants of the constitutional rights that are due to every person in the US, regardless of legal status.
Acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons wrote in a July memo obtained by the Washington Post that immigrants should be detained “for the duration of their removal proceedings,” a process that can stretch out for months, or even years, given judicial backlogs. That could affect millions of immigrants.

It is an aggressive move from an agency that is becoming increasingly reckless in its handling of immigrants. The policy is already expected to draw a court challenge questioning the constitutionality of sidestepping judges.

David Bier, director of immigration studies for the libertarian Cato Institute, told me it is part of a strategy to gain “total control” over the removal process. “Judges make an independent determination based on facts,” he said. “They’re not going to just do what ICE wants.” Once the norm, such independence now seems to strike this administration as an intolerable act of defiance.


Judges do that which is why Chump is trying to use JAG and why he is firing judges.  Margaret Kadifa (MISSION LOCAL) reported last week:

Judge Ila Deiss, who had been working for San Francisco’s immigration court since 2017, was fired Thursday, according to the San Francisco Immigration Court.

Judges Roger Dinh, Elisa Brasil and Jami Vigil were all fired in April, according to the San Francisco Immigration Court. That was one month shy of the standard two-year probationary period which, for all three judges, would have ended in May 2025.

That leaves a total of nine vacancies across 26 courtrooms, according to the San Francisco Immigration Court.


This should frighten everyone.  This inhumane and cruel.  It's already happening to immigrants as well as to a few US citizens.  This is not the way the law is supposed to work; however, if you silently go along with it, grasp that this is how all US citizens will be treated because we are on a very slippery slope.  



Agents from the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, are carrying out part of Trump's campaign promise of mass deportations by arresting people suspected of being in the country without authorization.

It’s a tactic that has been met with growing alarm by the Republican president’s critics.

In Lansing Thursday, a group of Democratic state lawmakers introduced legislation to ban local, state and federal law enforcement officers from wearing masks.

State Representative Betsy Coffia (D-Traverse City) said the law would apply to all levels of law enforcement, but is specifically in response to ICE’s tactics.

“We must have clear, transparent practices by law enforcement. Our constituents demand it,” Coffia told reporters, “Anonymity makes enforcing accountability, enforcing the law and protecting civil rights damn near impossible.”

In this week's "Media: Why America's turned on Chump's war on immigrants," Ava and I served up two mythical sequences from cop dramas to underscore how what ICE is doing is not the arrest procedure that has been worked out over years within the United States.  But grasp that it can become the new procedure if we don't speak out.  If we go along with these kidnappings and these assaults as normal when the victims are immigrants, it won't be long before the same tactics are openly used on US citizens.  You speak up now or you risk losing whatever's left of democracy. 



Masked federal agents in unmarked vehicles have stoked fear in the immigrant community, with fewer people frequenting grocery stores and businesses, emptier streets in East San Jose and sparse showings for community events. Some undocumented residents are choosing to self-deport.

The operations have also given rise to ICE impersonators, including reported incidents at a Philadelphia university, the arrest of an impersonator in North Carolina for sexually assaulting a woman and an impersonator in Florida conducting a traffic stop and asking people for their documents, among others.


And it's not just ICE agents attempting to hide, Cassandra Burke Robertson (THE CONVERSATION) reports:


Something unusual is happening in U.S. immigration courts. Government lawyers are refusing to give their names during public hearings.

In June 2025, Immigration Judge ShaSha Xu in New York City reportedly told lawyers in her courtroom: “We’re not really doing names publicly.” Only the government lawyers’ names were hidden – the immigrants’ attorneys had to give their names as usual. Xu cited privacy concerns, saying, “Things lately have changed.”
When one immigration lawyer objected that the court record would be incomplete without the government attorney’s name, Xu reportedly refused to provide it. In another case, New York immigration Judge James McCarthy in July referred to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, attorney as merely “Department” throughout the hearing.

New York immigration Judge Shirley Lazare-Raphael told The Intercept that some ICE attorneys believe it is “dangerous to state their names publicly.” This follows a broader pattern of ICE agents wearing masks during arrests to hide their identities.

This secrecy violates a fundamental principle that has protected Americans for centuries: open courts. 

That is not acceptable.  None of it is.  And what they do to immigrants today, they will try to to citizens at a later date.

The government can not hide in the shadows in a democracy.  That's not how it works. 


The longer these attacks continue, the more inhumane the attacks get.  Now they want to treat immigrants like cattle.  Douglas MacMillan and Silvia Foster-Frau (WASHINGTON POST) report


U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has directed personnel to sharply increase the number of immigrants they shackle with GPS-enabled ankle monitors, as the Trump administration widens surveillance of people it is targeting for deportation, according to an internal ICE document reviewed by The Washington Post.
In a June 9 memo, ICE ordered staff to place ankle monitors on all people enrolled in the agency’s Alternatives to Detention program “whenever possible.” About 183,000 adult migrants are enrolled in ATD and had previously consented to some form of tracking or mandatory check-ins while they waited for their immigration cases to be resolved. Currently, just 24,000 of these individuals wear ankle monitors.

One exception would be pregnant women, who would be required to wear wrist-worn tracking devices, Dawnisha M. Helland, an acting assistant director in the management of non-detained immigrants, wrote in the letter. “If the alien is not being arrested at the time of reporting, escalate their supervision level to GPS ankle monitors whenever possible and increase reporting requirements,” Helland wrote.

The new ankle monitor guidance, which has not been previously reported, marks a significant expansion of a 20-year-old surveillance practice steeped in controversy. While tracking devices are cheaper and arguably more humane than detention, immigrants and their advocates have long criticized the government’s use of the bulky black ankle bands, which they say are physically uncomfortable, impose a social stigma and invade the privacy of the people wearing them, many of whom have no criminal record or history of missed court appointments.


This is still a democracy and this is still our country.  If you don't speak out, that might not be the case for much longer.  Again: We have to turn out in the mid-terms in November (and October for early voters) of 2026 and put Democrats in charge of Congress.  


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


Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement on another Government Accountability Office (GAO) decision announced this morning, which concludes that President Trump has illegally impounded funding provided by Congress for Head Start programs across America, in violation of the Impoundment Control Act (ICA):

“Today, a top government watchdog confirmed what we’ve known for months: President Trump has illegally held up vast sums of funding for Head Start programs across America—blocking funding that working families count on every day for pre-K and so many critical services Head Start offers.

“Because of Trump’s illegal impoundment of this funding that Congress provided, we have seen Head Start centers temporarily close, families scramble to make alternate plans, and needless stress and panic in communities nationwide—including in Washington state.

“Stealing money from preschool programs? No President in modern history has demonstrated such contempt for working and low-income American families as Donald Trump.

“Trump has signaled he would like to eliminate Head Start—but that’s not his choice to make. Congress delivered this funding for Head Start on a bipartisan basis, and instead of trying to destroy preschool programs and breaking our laws to hurt working families, President Trump needs to ensure every penny of these funds get out in a timely, consistent way moving forward—and he must also finally get out the rest of the investments he has been robbing the American people of.”

In its decision, GAO also highlighted the Trump administration’s complete unwillingness to provide any explanation or justification for their actions, which, in this case, impact hundreds of thousands of children and families in Head Start programs across the country. This is further evidence that claims by this administration of a commitment to radical transparency are a farce—as this administration continues to try to hide what it is doing, and how it is spending taxpayer dollars, from the American public.

In April, Senator Murray raised alarm bells about how President Trump was withholding nearly $1 billion in Head Start funding, and she led her colleagues in demanding that the funds get moving. A Head Start center in Lower Yakima Valley, Washington state, was forced to temporarily close because of the chaotic delays. Senator Murray has also consistently warned of how President Trump’s dismantling of the Office of Head Start is hurting families nationwide.

In its decision today, the GAO concluded that:

“As explained below, we conclude that HHS withheld these funds from expenditure in violation of the ICA. The Head Start Act requires the Secretary to prescribe procedures to assure that ‘financial assistance under this subchapter shall not be suspended, except in emergency situations, unless the recipient agency has been given reasonable notice and opportunity to show cause why such action should not be taken’. HHS’s actions here were inconsistent with this legal requirement. … As of 2024, there were approximately

1,600 grant recipients across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, five territories, and Palau. Grant recipients, known as Head Start agencies, can generally receive federal funds that cover up to 80 percent of the approved costs of an agency’s Head Start program. ….  The Constitution grants the President no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation. …. In addition, plaintiffs in numerous cases before federal district courts reported Head Start agencies’ inabilities to access Head Start grant funding. While we accept that the rate of an agency’s obligations or disbursements of a given appropriation may vary from year to year, we expect that an agency’s obligations and expenditures, at any time throughout the fiscal year, will reflect a ‘reasonable attempt by the agency to carry out the purposes of the appropriation.’ Moreover, we would not expect substantial variations in disbursement rates in this case, where disbursements are directed by the Head Start Act. …. If the Administration wishes to make changes to the appropriation provided for Head Start, it must propose legislation for consideration by Congress.”

Presidents do not wield the power to unilaterally withhold or block investments that have been enacted into law through what’s known as “impoundment.” This foundational principle has been affirmed time and again. The Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974 makes this plain and establishes limited procedures the president can and must follow to propose delaying or rescinding enacted funding. The Impoundment Control Act also charges the GAO with the responsibility of investigating and reporting to Congress when the president illegally withholds funding.

The GAO has now acknowledged that it has opened 46 impoundment investigations and counting. Today’s announcement follows the GAO’s first decision in May in one of its ongoing investigations, which concluded Trump is illegally impounding funding for electric vehicle charging, and a subsequent investigation in June concluding Trump is illegally impounding funding for museums and libraries across America. The ICA authorizes the Comptroller General to file suit when the president illegally impounds funding.

Since his first hours in office, President Trump has illegally blocked funding owed to communities across the country through a variety of different means. Senate and House Appropriations Committee Democrats have been tracking Trump’s illegal funding freeze and found that, as of June 3, President Trump is blocking at least $425 billion in funding owed to the American people.

###


Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Tulsi Wants You To Help Save Our Girl"  and "Damsel In Distress Donald" went up last night.  The following sites updated: