Friday, June 5, 2026. Donald Chump crumbles as his power decays.
As Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes this morning, Donald Chump was losing it on social media as his party plans crashed and burned
There was a time when Chump was feared and got
whatever he wanted. Joni Ernst foolishly voted to confirm Pete Hegseth,
for example. Even though she knew better. Because she was scared. So
many people in Congress went along because they were scared. They
aren't scared now. You can't live your life in fear and that's changed
some of the control Chump had. Then he's also been exposed for a
self-serving jerk (at best) who the American people have turned
against. He's a grifter who has run one con job after another and
exposed himself in the process. So here we are and Filip Timotija (THE HILL) reports:
The
House Armed Services Committee adopted a provision for the annual
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would demand the Pentagon
inform Congress why senior military officers were fired or dismissed
within five days.
The requirement was
introduced by Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and was adopted Thursday without
objections in a bipartisan voice vote.
The
provision comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired two dozen
senior military officers since taking the helm at the Pentagon,
prompting bipartisan worries that experienced officials are being
dismissed without explanation.
Oh,
yes, a check is now in place with, no doubt, the hope that balance will
be restored. Because Congress is part of three branch government and
each of the branches is supposed to act as a check on the others.
Several
Democratic lawmakers are demanding answers following a report that a
White House official intervened to grant a $620 million Pentagon loan to
a company linked to President Trump’s eldest son.
“We
write to demand a full explanation for what appears to be an egregious
example of Trump administration corruption involving the White House
delivering a lucrative Defense Department loan to a company with
financial ties to the Trump family,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles on Tuesday.
The
Democrats include Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Richard Blumenthal
(Conn.) and Mazie Hirono (Hawaii) and Reps. Jason Crow (Colo.) and Mike
Levin (Calif.).
Vulcan Elements, a rare-earth magnet startup based in North Carolina, announced last November
it had received $620 million in a direct loan from the Pentagon and an
additional $50 million from the Commerce Department. The company said in
a press release at the time it would use these funds to produce 10,000 metric tons of magnet production in the U.S. annually.
A ProPublica investigation
published last week revealed Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm,
1789 Capital, took an undisclosed stake in the company around three
months before this deal was closed.
Additionally,
the outlet reported the lending request was made by Peter Navarro, the
president’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.
That's
Democrats trying to do a check and balance. And hopefully Republicans
will join them in this. Chump's corruption is the worst. He's gotten
away with it so far. But he's a lame duck now and the American people
have caught onto him.
The
American people have caught on to him. And that includes members of
Congress. Take John Cornyn. In the 2002 election, he was voted into
the US Senate. And he remained there winning re-election over and over
and over. And should have been a walk this go round -- at least in the
GOP primary. But Chump endorsed Ken Paxton and Paxton won instead. James Osborne (HOUSTON CHRONICLE) reports:
Now he says that bill "may not make it into my priorities the next seven months."
A
week after losing his reelection bid to Paxton, who Trump endorsed in
the final days of the race, Cornyn's political career is seemingly at
its end. And the four-term senator - who said he is "looking forward to
working in the private sector" - seems to have a new attitude to the
president.
[. . .]
[T]there
are early signs Cornyn is more willing to split with the president. On
Tuesday, he joined moderate Senate Republicans, including Lisa Murkowski
of Alaska and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, in challenging the
qualifications of Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing
Finance Agency, to serve as the acting director of national
intelligence.
And
then there's Todd Blanche. Chump wants to make him Attorney General.
That requires Senate confirmation. And it's not January 2025 anymore.
Lawrence O'Donnell noting suck up Todd Blanche kissing up to Chump, "That was Todd Blanche saying to Donald Trump, 'I will do anything for you, sir. Anything'."
In
May 2025, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat, arrived at an ICE
detention facility in his New Jersey city and asked for a tour. Though
he was initially let inside the facility’s gate, he was soon confronted
by about a dozen federal law enforcement officers and asked to leave.
And so he did.
For
a moment, that seemed like it would be the end of this incident, but
then one of the officers had a phone call. A video, later submitted to a
federal court, shows this officer turning to his fellow law enforcers
after the call and informing them, “We are arresting the mayor right
now, per the deputy attorney general of the United States.”
That
deputy attorney general was Todd Blanche, who is now the acting leader
of the Department of Justice. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that he would nominate Blanche to become the Senate-confirmed attorney general of the United States.
[. . .]
Blanche
was Trump’s personal lawyer before he arrived at the Justice
Department. As DAG, Blanche oversaw the Justice Department’s criminal
investigations and prosecutions, including the DOJ’s 93 regional US
Attorneys’ offices and law enforcement agencies such as the FBI.
That
means that Blanche’s involvement in the Baraka arrest wasn’t an
isolated incident — at a hearing formally dismissing the charges against
Baraka, a federal magistrate judge scolded the DOJ for “using the
immense power of the government to pursue weak cases
or to make examples without sufficient cause.” Blanche was the senior
Justice Department executive overseeing political prosecutions targeting
a wide range of Trump’s perceived enemies, including former FBI
Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
That is only one reason Blanche isn't qualified. And Senator John Fetterman's saying he's not voting to confirm Blanche.
If he's not going to vote for Blanche it's doubtful any Senate Democrat
will. Fetterman's the one who's been closest to Chump. But the
Republicans, he's got them sewn up, right?
But
in recent days, Blanche has faced backlash from some of the same
Republican senators whose support he needs to secure confirmation after
he championed plans for a $1.8 billion fund that would have paid out
Trump followers and allies who alleged political persecution by prior
administrations.
Unhappy Senate Republicans
confronted Blanche about the fund at a contentious GOP conference
meeting last month. On Tuesday, Blanche said he was abandoning the plan,
which threatened to sink an unrelated immigration-enforcement bill.
Many
lawmakers worried such a fund could be used to reward people who
assaulted police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S.
Capitol. But Trump said he loved the idea and that Blanche was “doing a
very good job” leading the Justice Department.
Blanche
also continues to face criticism over the Justice Department’s release
of millions of files from the FBI’s investigation into convicted sex
offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Asked whether he
thought Blanche could get enough votes to secure confirmation, Senate
Majority Leader John Thune (R, S.D.) told reporters, “it’s hard to say …
this is an environment where nothing is a safe or sure thing.”
Blanche
on Thursday described his relationship with senators as good. “I don’t
say no to phone calls,” he said. “I’ll meet with anybody who wants to
meet with me.”
Senator
Thom Tillis (R-NC), who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee,
signaled the issue as a political faultline and a decisive hurdle for
Blanche as lawmakers weigh his nomination to permanently lead the
Justice Department.
Speaking
to CNN journalist Manu Raju in the halls of the Capitol, Tillis made
clear that any perceived sympathy for those involved in the 2021 riot
would be a dealbreaker.
“I haven’t made a
decision yet, the key for Todd or anybody going through the Judiciary
Committee is being pretty tight on January the 6th,” the senator said.
He
added: “They better not have said for one minute that the people that
beat up police officers like these right down here were righteous
people. You come even close to saying that. You don’t have a prayer of
my vote in Judiciary.”
The
Trump administration is proposing tariffs of 10 percent or more on
products from dozens of major trading partners, following a probe into
imports allegedly made with forced labor.
A
report released early Wednesday by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)
stated that Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and other
countries would face 10 percent additional tariffs for allegedly failing
to enforce a forced-labor import ban.
A
12.5 percent additional tariff would be imposed on China, Japan, India,
South Korea, Brazil, Switzerland, and dozens of other countries.
Yesterday
it came in the form of “Section 301” tariffs on 60 trading partners,
including the European Union and Japan. Section 301 is titled “Relief
from Unfair Trade Practices.” So what are the unfair practices the
Trumpists say the whole world is engaging in?
The
answer is that the Trump administration is accusing other countries of
“failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the
importation of goods produced with forced labor.”
Notice
the wording. They aren’t accusing the European Union itself of
employing slave labor. Even the Trumpists aren’t willing to lie that
shamelessly (yet). No, the claim is that the EU isn’t doing enough to
stop countries that do employ slave labor from selling their goods in
Europe.
Everyone, and I mean everyone,
understands that the alleged justification for these tariffs is a lie.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that the EU is less diligent
about opposing the use of slave labor than the US. For that matter,
there is no reason to believe that Trump and his minions have any
particular objection to slave labor. This is nothing but a
transparently, one might say sneeringly, bogus rationale for continuing
to flout both US law and international agreements.
Why
do Trump’s minions keep using legal tricks and lies to impose tariffs?
There is, after all, no reason they couldn’t simply ask Congress to
impose tariffs through normal legislation. But doing so would run into
three problems, from Trump’s point of view. First, Congress might balk.
Second, at minimum an attempt to pass legislation would require
hearings, in which the weakness of the administration’s arguments would
become obvious. Third, one of the reasons Trump loves tariffs is that he
gets to issue decrees at will, none of this pesky nonsense of
consulting with the legislative branch; having to follow the
Constitution would spoil his fantasies of omnipotence.
So here we go again, with another round of tariffs that will probably be ruled illegal some months from now.
Chump's just lying. Accusing the UK and others of using slave labor. Lies to get his way. Lies to try to fool the American people. Sam Stevenson (NEWSWEEK) explores what this means for American consumers:
For
consumers, the implications are direct: tariffs are effectively taxes
on imports, and those costs are often passed through supply chains,
increasing prices at the checkout.
That means
everyday products such as clothing, electronics, household goods and car
parts could become more expensive if the proposal takes effect.
Economists
broadly note that tariffs tend to raise costs. Previous U.S. trade
actions have been linked to higher consumer prices as importers and
retailers adjust pricing to cover additional expenses.
Kristi
Noem, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security and
current U.S. envoy for the Shield of the Americas, is facing a new Hatch
Act complaint over her use of a government jet for a political trip, as
well as her use of government social media accounts for self-promotion.
The
Hatch Act is a 1939 law limiting the political activities of federal
employees with the aim of ensuring that federal programs are
administered in a nonpartisan fashion and to prevent executive branch
employees, except for the president and vice president, from using their
office for political ends.
The complaint
alleges that “Noem, and one or more members of her staff violated the
Hatch Act by using public resources to travel to and attend part of the
Republican Governors Association conference in Nashville, Tennessee, on
June 11, 2025.”
American Oversight, the
watchdog group that filed the complaint, also requested that the Office
of Special Counsel, which handles Hatch Act complaints, investigate the
Department of Homeland Security’s use of its official Flickr account to
“publicize Noem’s attendance at the partisan RGA event and other
similarly-political activities.”
Records show that DHS
One, the name of the jet used by the secretary, was used for Noem’s trip
to the Republican Governors Association in Nashville. Former advisor to
President Donald Trump, Corey Lewandowski, who served as a special
government employee during Noem’s tenure at DHS, and who was allegedly engaged in an extramarital affair with Noem,
was also CC’ed on some of the communications regarding the RGA trip.
Noem has faced questioning before Congress about the alleged
relationship, and attacked the reports as “tabloid garbage,” though she
stopped short of explicitly denying the allegations while under oath.
The
U.S. Department of Homeland Security is canceling most pending
contracts initiated under ousted Secretary Kristi Noem, the current
secretary said on Wednesday, a move that follows congressional scrutiny
and an internal watchdog review of her contracting practices.
During
a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security
Committee, Secretary Markwayne Mullin also said he would restore longer
training for federal immigration officers, reversing a Noem-era decision
that shortened training during a hiring surge and drew bipartisan
concerns in Congress about whether recruits were adequately prepared.
Mullin faced questions from a top Democrat about what steps he had taken to roll back Noem-era contracts.
"We are looking at the contracts that weren't already signed, and we did go through and cancel most of those," Mullin said.
Just 50 miles from the Canadian border, the town of Froid is home to less than 200 people.
For more than a decade, Roberto Orozco-Ramirez has been one of them.
Marvin Qualley:
Roberto's our neighbor. He's a part of our community.
Matt Standal:
Over the years, Roberto has come to mean a lot of things
to a lot of people here. He's a local diesel mechanic, little league
coach, and father of four boys.
Sheri Crain:
Great businessman. He's my neighbor, been my neighbor next door for 11 years.
Matt Standal:
But what residents of Froid didn't know until recently is
that Roberto is also an undocumented immigrant who had been deported
back in 2009.
Keith Nordlund:
Up until six months ago, I didn't know Roberto was illegal.
Matt Standal:
Neighbor Keith Nordlund says Border Patrol vehicles started showing up around town in early January.
Keith Nordlund:
We had -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we had at least two Border Patrolmen in our town.
Matt Standal:
Agents staked out Roberto's house and, according to his neighbors, even harassed Roberto's children.
Keith Nordlund:
I personally don't believe that's right. Them four boys are American citizens.
Matt Standal:
Roberto turned himself in on January 25. The government
charged him with illegal reentry and immediately took him into
detention, telling Montana PBS that this enforcement action represents a
community safety priority.
Keith Nordlund:
The beef is donated by local ranchers.
Matt Standal:
Within days, Keith Nordlund found himself organizing the
biggest fund-raiser this town had ever seen to help Roberto. More people
showed up to the Froid Community Center than the town has residents.
They shared a meal. They bid on hay and gravel and tools, raising
thousands of dollars for Roberto's family.
A separate legal fund raised thousands more.
Roberto Orozco-Lozcano Jr.:
It's really hard seeing that now he's in jail.
Matt Standal:
Roberto Orozco Jr. is Roberto's oldest son. He says his
father fled cartel violence in Mexico as a teenager and came here to
build a better life.
Roberto Orozco-Lozcano Jr.:
It's incredible seeing such a hardworking man, I mean, my dad. being in a situation like this. I just don't find it very fair.
Matt Standal:
When Montana attorney Laura Christoffersen heard about
Roberto, she says she began studying immigration law and hired an expert
thanks to those private donations. And what they found changed
everything.
Laura Christoffersen, Attorney:
What we believe is that, even in 2009, at the time of his
first deportation, he was not afforded due process, which means he was
illegally removed.
Matt Standal:
Christoffersen says she found mistake after mistake in
the way federal authorities handled Roberto's deportation and says,
since January, ICE agents have repeatedly violated his rights.
Laura Christoffersen:
I think people should understand that this is the person
who's been in the U.S. more than 25 years, raised a family with four
U.S. citizen children who are contributing members of our community.
They pay taxes. They obey the rules. They follow the law. They don't
take from our society.
Matt Standal:
In this deep red part of the state, there are mixed
feelings about Roberto's legal status. But Keith Nordlund says this
ordeal has caused him to question some long-held political beliefs.
Keith Nordlund:
I'm not OK that Roberto was here illegally. I don't
believe that's right. However, our system is so broken that a guy like
Roberto that's came here, has worked his butt off, has built a business,
he's thriving in a niche, and he is a valuable asset to our community,
how is there not a way for him to be legal?
For about five days in December,
Abdullahi Mohamed seemingly vanished into the US immigrant detention
system. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had detained him near
Portland, Maine, and held him for more than seven weeks in
Massachusetts. Then, without warning, ICE began moving him repeatedly
across the country, from state to state and facility to facility, faster
than his family could keep up. News of his whereabouts came to them in
fragments: an email from his lawyer that he was in Mississippi; a phone
call from the wife of a fellow detainee who said he was in Louisiana;
and at one point, a call from Mohamed himself—that lasted for about two
minutes—from an undisclosed airport.
His lawyer laid out what was happening.
“They are doing this now more and more—moving people without any
notice,” he wrote to the family in an email. The transfers, he
explained, can block people like Mohamed from speaking with an attorney
and make it difficult to file legal petitions in the right jurisdiction,
while distressing families. “This is cruelty,” he wrote.
Quick and repeated transfers have become more common in President Donald Trump’s second term, a Marshall Project
investigation has found. From the final year of the Biden
administration to the first year of Trump’s latest term, the number of
people transferred five or more times more than tripled. The number of
people transferred out of state within 24 hours more than doubled,
according to a Marshall Project analysis of ICE detention data obtained by the Deportation Data Project.
Immigration lawyers say the many transfers
not only cause undue suffering for people being detained and their
families but have significantly undermined due process protections.
Because detainees have limited access to phones while in transit, and
ICE’s detainee locator
does not always reflect their real-time location, immigration attorneys
say rapid transfers can leave people unreachable for hours or even
days. Families can lose track of their relatives, while lawyers struggle
to locate or speak with clients.
During those gaps, attorneys say, some detainees have been pressured to sign forms affecting their immigration cases before they can speak with counsel.
House
Oversight Chair James Comer and other Republican lawmakers are calling
on the Justice Department to investigate allegations involving two men
accused of sexually abusing Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistant,
according to a letter provided first to CNN.
The new pressure
from the Republican lawmakers stems from testimony the panel received
last month from the assistant, Sarah Kellen.
In her
closed-door interview, Kellen said Frederic Fekkai, a French celebrity
hairstylist, and Philip Levine, the former mayor of
Miami Beach, sexually assaulted her in separate incidents. She alleged
that a third individual, Patrick Demarchelier, a French fashion
photographer, exposed himself to her, according to a newly
released transcript.
Comer’s letter to Acting
Attorney General Todd Blanche asked the Justice Department
to investigate “the allegations against, and any other criminal conduct
committed by” Fekkai and Levine in particular, noting Levine appears in
the so-called Epstein files 600 times and that Fekkai was known as a
“close friend” to Epstein.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
ICYMI:
Murray, Kaptur Asked GAO to Look Into Energy Department’s Decision to
Steer Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Away from Wind, Solar in Defiance
of Spending Law
Washington, D.C. — Today, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded
that the Department of Energy’s (DOE) decision last year to steer
hundreds of millions of dollars provided by Congress in fiscal year 2025
for the research and development of clean energy sources toward energy
sources favored by Secretary Chris Wright violated the law.
GAO’s investigation into the matter was requested
last July by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate
Appropriations Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
Energy and Water Development, and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH-09),
Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and
Water Development.
In a statement responding to the decision, Senator Murray and Congresswoman Kaptur said:
“Today, GAO confirmed what’s been clear from the start: the
Trump administration broke the law when it gutted investments in
affordable, clean energy. Secretary Wright unilaterally rewrote a
spending bill signed into law by President Trump, all so he could
benefit handpicked industries at the expense of clean energy research
Americans are counting on to lower their energy bills. GAO has made
clear that this was not merely a policy choice—it was a clear violation
of appropriations law.
“The Department of Energy
cannot simply ignore the law because the Secretary has a vendetta
against the most affordable energy sources. American families have paid
the price for this lawbreaking—in higher energy costs, in canceled
university and industry research awards, and in national lab scientists
who lost their jobs. The administration must take steps to immediately
comply with the law, and we must work on a bipartisan basis to insist
the Department follows the law.”
In fiscal year 2024, Congress provided $137 million for DOE to
support wind energy and $318 million to support solar energy. The fiscal
year 2025 full-year continuing resolution—written by House Republicans
and signed into law by President Trump in March 2025—continued those
funding levels. However, in a spend plan
made public on July 2, 2025, the Trump administration revealed it was
steering hundreds of millions of dollars away from congressionally
directed clean energy technologies to other, favored industries. Rather
than fund wind at the enacted level of $137 million, the administration
allocated just $29.8 million – a 78% cut. Rather than fund solar at the
enacted level of $318 million, it allocated just $41.9 million – an 87%
cut.
On July 28, 2025, Kaptur and Murray formally asked
GAO to issue a legal decision on whether DOE’s FY2025 spend plan
violated the Purpose Statute—which requires that appropriations be used
only for the purposes for which they were provided—and the
Antideficiency Act, which prohibits agencies from obligating funds in
excess of available appropriations.
On February 25, 2026, as DOE began obligating funds in defiance of
the law—including issuing a Notice of Funding Opportunity making $146.5
million in FY2025 funds available for geothermal energy despite Congress
providing only $118 million—Kaptur and Murray renewed
their GAO referral and called on the Department to immediately reverse
course. Today’s GAO legal decision responds to that request.
In its decision
today, GAO stated: “DOE is required to obligate and expend its FY 2025
appropriations in accordance with the referenced congressional control
point amounts in the FY 2024 explanatory statement. …. To the extent
that DOE obligated or expended FY 2025 funds in excess of appropriated
amounts—that is the FY 2024 levels described above—DOE should report an
Antideficiency Act violation.”
