Tuesday, July 14, 2026. Chump's claiming he's going to impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz, people grow more concerned about the damage he's doing to us with our one-time international allies, ICE kills another person (this time in Maine), a judge comes down very hard on Todd Blanche, NYT reveals that Blanche has been overseeing Chump's weaponization programs at the Justice Dept, and much more.
The Iran War is back on again, it seems. Over the weekend, the United States pummeled
nearly 200 Iranian targets across the massive country. Iran retaliated
by hitting US military facilities throughout the Gulf Arab states. All
this came after US President Donald J. Trump declared that his temporary
ceasefire, which lasted barely 18 days, was “over.” He referred to the
Islamic Republic as “scum.”
Since
then, the war has resumed–with Trump insisting that the United States
will take full control over the contested Strait of Hormuz (SoH).
Many were surprised that the president restarted
the conflict. After all, the United States is particularly sensitive to
spikes in global oil prices. Beginning the Iran War anew, even if it is
on the grounds of reopening the SoH (through which 20 percent of the
world’s oil must pass), will only harm the United States’ economy. That
is especially true, considering how drastically depleted America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has gotten.
Since
the SoH was closed at the start of the war, the Americans had relied
heavily on their 400-million-barrel-strong SPR to deflate energy prices
for American consumers. Officially, the SPR has been drained by about
100 million barrels since the war began. But many oil experts fret that
the SPR is stored in salt caverns for many years (decades, even).
Therefore, while there may be around 300 million barrels of oil
remaining in the SPR, not all of that oil is usable. The environment and
the chemical processes engineers must employ to keep the oil in those
caverns fresh enough to be usable corrupt much of the oil stored in the
SPR.
If those figures on the declining viability of the
remaining oil in the SPR are accurate, then restarting hostilities
right now–especially when those hostilities result in the closure of the
SoH again–will only harm the US economy by raising pump prices.
Higher prices at the pump mean higher prices everywhere.
All
that leads to higher inflation, which in turn prompts the Federal
Reserve to either maintain relatively high interest rates or raise them.
And that becomes a noose around the economy’s neck, dragging it into stagflation.
The
American vulnerability is different, and it is counted in missiles. By
the time the spring ceasefire took hold, the Pentagon had expended at
least half its THAAD ballistic-missile interceptors, nearly half its
Patriots, 45 percent of its Precision Strike Missiles, and about 30
percent of its Tomahawks, according to CSIS analysis that CNN confirmed
against internal Defense Department assessments. Those stocks were never
rebuilt. As fighting resumed this weekend, CNN reported the
replenishment arithmetic: roughly 15 new Tomahawks and 20 new Patriots
arriving per month, with no THAAD deliveries forecast in 2026, and a
three-plus-year timeline to restore pre-war inventories.
Stimson
Center analysts note such missiles take years, not months, to replace.
CSIS's Mark Cancian warns that days more at the current tempo push
stockpiles toward a "new, higher level of risk" for a Pacific
contingency, and Senator Mark Kelly has made the uncomfortable
arithmetic plain: Iran retains a huge stockpile of cheap ballistic
missiles and drones, so every barrage trades million-dollar interceptors
against munitions costing a fraction as much.
The Army is asking for more than $20 billion
just to replace THAAD and Patriot expenditures, inside a war
supplemental estimated at $80 to $100 billion, and the bill extends
beyond munitions, with the Navy's newest carrier returning from the
campaign to face a year or more in the repair yard. The Pentagon
insists, on the record, that it has everything needed to fight, and
CSIS's own analysis agrees that the U.S. can sustain the fight against
Iran under any plausible scenario. The risk is not losing this war, but
what is left in the arsenal for the next one.
[. . .]
Iran
is wagering that oil pain fractures American patience before bankruptcy
fractures the regime. Washington is wagering that economic
strangulation works faster than interceptor depletion. Two dates now
measure the race: July 17, when Iran's last legal oil sales end, and a
THAAD delivery schedule that reads zero for the rest of the year.
President Trump has said that the
United States will charge a 20 percent fee on cargo shipped through the
Strait of Hormuz, despite his own administration’s position that such
fees violate international law.
He
made the announcement on Monday amid an intensifying battle between Iran
and the United States to control the waterway, a crucial artery for
global energy supplies. The two countries have traded attacks over the
strait for the past week, in effect shattering their month-old
cease-fire.
For
a large tanker carrying two million barrels of oil, for example, the
fee could add over $30 million in costs. Consumers would likely face
higher prices as a result.
Because
of the high cost, some analysts said they doubted whether the fee would
come into force. For ship operators in the region, the prospect of fees
is less of a concern right now than an escalation of the conflict
between Iran and the United States, experts said.
Of
all the responsibilities assigned to an American president, none is
more important than keeping the country safe from its enemies. Yet, the
U.S. has rarely, if ever, been as vulnerable as it is today under
President Trump. He has become our greatest national security threat.
Trump
has railed against NATO allies France, the United Kingdom, Italy and
Germany for not supporting his attacks on Iran, even though NATO is a
defense alliance, not a war alliance. Iran has retaliated by attacking U.S. military facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan. Trump’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has been strained by the kingdom’s refusal to let U.S. forces use its bases and airspace during the war.
Trump
has frequently lashed out at and alienated NATO, which, at 77, is one
of history’s oldest security alliances. Lately, he has publicly insulted Italy’s leader, told his staff during a news conference to cut off trade with Spain, and outraged Belgium by interfering with its World Cup match against the United States.
He has threatened to take Greenland from Denmark, by force if necessary. That would obligate the alliance’s other 31 members to defend Denmark against his aggression.
Now, the administration has diverted 260 FBI analysts
to focus on a “priority investigation” of the 2020 election. Their task
is to find proof of Trump’s six-year fantasy that he won against Joe
Biden.
The Department of Homeland Security is preoccupied with White House adviser Stephen Miller’s goal of deporting 1 million immigrants this year, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as “racist and draconian” rather than related to homeland security. Meanwhile, there has been a sharp drop in morale at the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired 15 senior officers while the U.S. is at war.
Trump,
who prefers to follow his gut rather than facts, has hollowed out the
government’s vital intelligence agencies and replaced career experts
with political loyalists. He recently named Bill Pulti, a housing developer, as acting director of National Intelligence.
He
really has a pattern of undermining the security of the United States.
No where is that more clear than in his diversion of FBI agents into
the 2020 election investigation. He is very lucky that there has not
been a major terror attack on US soil. He more than invited that to
happen when he made Trashy Garbage aka Tulsi Gabbard the DNI. Bill
Pulti is even worse, if that is possible.
And Chump's economy may be even worse than some realize.
America’s
labor market continues to look relatively healthy on the surface, but
two trends in the employment data this year may be hiding the real
problems Americans are facing with the labor market.
America’s
unemployment rate fell to 4.2 percent in June, a level that would
typically signal a healthy labor market. But a closer look at the data
suggests the jobs picture may not be as strong as the headline number
implies.
While
unemployment edged lower, labor force participation fell to 61.5
percent, and millions of Americans remained stuck in part-time work or
outside the labor force despite wanting employment. Those trends have
fueled concerns among economists that the official unemployment rate may
be masking broader signs of labor market weakness and underemployment.
The
broadest measure of labor underutilization—known as the U-6
unemployment rate—stood at 7.9 percent in June, nearly double the
official unemployment rate. Millions of people are also not being
counted as unemployed despite not having jobs.
“The
June jobs report has some eyebrow-raising data, especially the big drop
in the labor force,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal
Credit Union, previously told Newsweek, adding the caveat that one month
doesn’t make a trend.
A
federal immigration agent shot and killed an individual in a vehicle on
Monday in the coastal city of Biddeford, Maine, according to the state
attorney general’s office. Nearly eight hours later, details remained
scant, and federal authorities had not provided any information about
the fatal encounter.
The state’s governor, the
city’s mayor and other officials said they were seeking details, and
demanded a full investigation of the killing. It was the second fatal
shooting in a week involving an Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agent firing into a vehicle.
Social
media video shot early Monday showed agents surrounding a still body at
an intersection in a residential neighborhood of Biddeford, next to a
car with bullet holes in the windshield, as local police officers
arrived at the scene.
Representative Chellie
Pingree, a Democrat, said in a phone interview on Monday that “we have
gotten reports that ICE officers shot through a car window, and the
individual in the car was killed.”
Fighting
back tears, protester Katie Barrow, told NBC Boston, she was
heartbroken that someone died because of immigration enforcement. “It’s
just disgusting,” she said. “A badge and a gun are not a license to
kill.”
Adam Bartow (WMTW) notes, "A family friend told Maine's Total Coverage Joan Sebastian Guerrero was
killed in the shooting Monday morning. She says Guerrero leaves behind a
wife, 3-year-old child, and sister."
When Kristi Noem was pushed out of her job as the secretary of homeland security and replaced with Oklahoma’s GOP senator — and wannabe MMA fighter — Markwayne Mullin, the public was assured he would make all those pesky problems with Immigration and Customs Enforcement go away.
[. . .]
The
public-facing faux-moderation that came with Mullin’s confirmation —
along with the war in Iran — did push ICE out of the national headlines,
even while maintaining Trump and Miller’s mass deportations.
On
Tuesday, though, a fatal shooting in Houston served as a grave reminder
that nothing has changed substantively at the Department of Homeland
Security, much less at ICE. The biggest difference between Mullin and
Noem is that he’s male and she’s female, though both are bizarrely
committed to cartoonish performances of their gender, with him pretending he’s going to fight people on Capitol Hill and her apparent cosmetic transformations.
Mullin
was never intended to be more than a surface change, meant to deflect
attention from Trump and Miller’s attempt at ethnic cleansing through
deporting and harassing immigrants. ICE remains what Noem always wanted
it to be: a rogue organization staffed by people who are too sadistic or
unqualified to meet already too-low standards for regular police work.
The details of the shooting are awful. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was driving to work in Houston when ICE agents, reportedly chasing
someone else entirely, allegedly boxed in his car and him through the
stomach. The officers weren’t wearing body cameras. According to the New
Republic’s Greg Sargent, witnesses to the killing
have allegedly been pressured to self-deport before they can testify.
The official DHS response is the same dubious claim, issued in standard boilerplate, the agency always relies on in these cases: accusing the victim of threatening to run over ICE agents with his car.
It’s unlikely anyone sincerely believes this anymore. It’s what DHS said when an officer killed
Minneapolis resident Renee Good, even though multiple videos showed she
was turning the car away from the man who shot her. It wasn’t true when
Border Patrol agents shot Marimar Martinez
in Chicago, which was later revealed with the release of body camera
footage. Since Alex Pretti wasn’t in a car when he was shot by Border
Patrol officers in Minneapolis, they tried to blame the gun on his hip,
even though video footage shows he never touched it during the incident.
As Melissa Gira Grant of the New Republic pointed out,
not only does DHS put these excuses out before an investigation can
determine what happened, they block any good faith effort by other law
enforcement agencies to conduct a real investigation. It’s a series of
preemptive cover-ups, which is not what they’d be doing if they had any
confidence in these stories.
Minnesota
prosecutors announced Monday they have secured key evidence in their
ongoing investigations into the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex
Pretti during protests over a federal immigration enforcement crackdown
earlier this year.
"Through the cooperation of
our federal partners we have obtained the hard drives of previously
withheld evidence in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the
shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis," Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty
said.
The newly released materials include
police body-camera footage, witness statements and other evidence that
federal officials had previously withheld.
Moriarty said state and local investigators have also taken possession of Good's damaged vehicle.
As Betty noted last night in "Good for Judge Williams," U.S.
District Judge Kathleen Williams has issued an order in Chump's pretense of suing himself. Lawrence O'Donnell covered Judge Williams order at length last night on his MS NOW program.
Trump sued the IRS and the Treasury Department for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. For the record, this is a leak that happened during his first presidency.
But in his second term, Trump decided he could bilk the taxpayers for
some quick cash and the Justice Department — an institution that
historically enjoys independence, but whose acting and presumptive
future head has publicly taken the position that Donald Trump has the “right” to direct in its conduct of individual criminal cases — declined the defend the United States government against Trump’s suit and “settled” — coughing up a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund”
for Trump’s January 6 allies and other flunkies, and a blanket immunity
deal. Todd Blanche then went to Congress and claimed that no court
could review any of these decisions because “there is no judge.”
Except there is a judge and settling a
case in a corrupt bargain does not remove the judge from that equation.
Judge Kathleen Williams has now declined to accept the premise that a lawsuit between a man and himself is, to use the parties’ word, “ordinary.”
There is nothing “ordinary” about this case; it is the very definition of sui generis.
In the past, there might have been a
colorable claim that the president in his personal capacity is not the
same as the executive agencies he directs. It still would run head first
into concerns about the level of independence any agency head could
possibly have in such a case — not to mention the fact that the
president in charge during the offending conduct was the same one
cosplaying as a plaintiff — but Judge Williams notes that the Supreme
Court just put the kibosh on that:
Indeed, just recently, the Supreme Court
cited Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 133 (1926) as a “landmark
decision” and “perhaps our best word on the subject” of whether the
President could remove subordinates in government service at will. Trump
v. Slaughter, 609 U.S. __, slip op. at 16 (2026). Finding that he
could, the majority ruled that “[s]ubordinates who exercise the
President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then,
can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the
people.” Id. at 36. “[T]hese officers exercise the President’s power, not their own, and thus must be responsible to him.” Id. at 35 (emphasis in original).
Judge
Williams, in her order, said that Trump's personal lawyers and the
Department of Justice attempted to "use the Court to provide some
legitimacy ... to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to
redress grievances not defined in the law."
"The
Parties used the existence of federal litigation as a means of
conferring legitimacy upon a course of action that they were unwilling
to subject to judicial review," Williams wrote. "The context of the
'settlement,' the relationships of the people involved in negotiating
and approving it, the ethical implications of their conduct, and the
Parties' swift efforts to dismiss this case after the Court raised
fundamental jurisdictional questions all support this conclusion.
Accordingly, the Court expressly finds that Plaintiffs acted in bad
faith."
Williams
also directly called out acting Attorney General Todd Blanche
throughout her order, and suggested he provided "misleading" testimony
before Congress when probed over the Justice Department's now-defunct
"Anti-Weaponization Fund."
"The
Court is extremely troubled by the testimony given by Acting Attorney
General Blanche on May 19, 2026," Williams said. "In response to why the
'settlement agreement' had not been submitted to this Court for review,
he stated that 'there is no judge' because the case had been dismissed
and, therefore, there was "no mechanism" for reviewing the agreement ...
While temporally accurate, this answer is, at best, misleading and, at
worst, disingenuous. The Court was available to review any pleading by
any Party at any time during this lawsuit. And if Acting Attorney
General Blanche had thought the dismissal was improvidently granted or
thought Plaintiffs misspoke when they said, "no judicial analysis is
appropriate," he only had to file an appearance and ask for relief."
This is big news for Chump. And even bigger news for Todd Blanche whose confirmation hearing is supposed to start tomorrow. This is a very big scandal. And Blanche is already seen circumventing the law by refusing to release all of The Epstein files. But this morning's NEW YORK TIMES offers yet another scandal for Blanche.
Mr. Martin, a right-wing lawyer who championed the cause of the Jan. 6 rioters, had just been forced out
as the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. The White
House then inserted him into Justice Department headquarters, in part to
oversee a task force to investigate claims that the Biden
administration had targeted President Trump and his allies.
Mr.
Blanche, who once led Mr. Trump’s criminal defense team, did not
believe that Mr. Martin, a provocateur with minimal prosecutorial
experience, had the chops and know-how to do the job, according to
current and former officials who requested anonymity to discuss private
conversations.
“I am frustrated,”
Mr. Blanche wrote to Mr. Martin, after less than a month on the job,
documenting a relationship that swiftly descended from tense to testy.
He moved quickly to rein in Mr. Martin,
scheduling a check-in meeting every Friday, according to a trove of
internal Justice Department emails obtained by a government watchdog and
provided to The New York Times in advance of Mr. Blanche’s confirmation
hearing to be attorney general on Wednesday.
Mr.
Blanche, a methodical former federal prosecutor, also created an
organizational plan for the weaponization group that assigned key
investigative lanes to some of his own deputies. That ensured, among
other things, that he had tight control over one of the most sensitive
issues on his plate — demands from Mr. Trump and his supporters to
identify, investigate and punish those who had once pursued them.
The
multifaceted portrait of Mr. Blanche that emerges from 352 pages of
documents obtained by American Oversight is of a Trump loyalist who is
committed to executing the president’s agenda but also intent on keeping
a firm a grip on processes inside his building, perhaps because he has
such limited control over forces beyond it.
When Blanche began overseeing Martin's work in attacking those who Chump wanted revenge on, he was breaking the ethics pledge he had signed about recusing himself. Senator Adam Schiff noted this pledge May 19th in a letter he wrote with Senators Dick Durbin and Richard Blumenthal:
We are writing to seek information regarding recent reports
indicating that potentially serious ethical violations have taken place
at the highest levels of the Department of Justice (DOJ). As the
Designated Agency Ethics Official and most senior career official at the
Department, you have a unique and important role in defending the
Department’s integrity. Specifically, we are seeking prompt
clarification regarding Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s potential
failure to recuse himself from matters involving his former private
client, President Donald Trump, even after he was advised to recuse
himself by ethics officials. Furthermore, we request that you personally
ensure the preservation of all existing and future records,
communications, and materials related toethics advice provided by
Department or external ethics officials to senior political DOJ
appointees – including previous officials who have left the Department.
In a stark diversion from institutional norms, Acting Attorney
General Todd Blanche – as well as others appointed to lead the Justice
Department – previously served as President Trump’s personal attorney.
Recent public reporting revealed that in March 2025, less than two weeks
after assuming the role of Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Blanche was
explicitly and formally advised by the Department’s top career ethics
lawyer that his recusal from legal cases involving President Trump in
his personal capacity was necessary.
At Mr. Blanche’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary
Committee on February 12, 2025, he committed to recusing himself from
cases when advised to by government ethics officials. When Sen. Schiff
asked Mr. Blanche about potential conflicts of interest he may face as
Deputy Attorney General stemming from his private representation of
President Trump in federal criminal matters, he stated under oath, “I
will follow the rules as told to me by the experts, career prosecutors
in the department, if it comes to ever recusing.”The unmistakable
understanding from this testimony is that Mr. Blanche would recuse
himself from matters where he was advised to do so by an ethics
official.
Upon his confirmation as Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Blanche
signed an ethics pledge – addressed to you – stating that, pursuant to
the department’s impartiality regulation, he would not participate
“personally and substantially in any particular matter” involving
parties in which a former client – such as President Trump – is a party
for a period of one year after he last provided service to that client
or until the client satisfies any outstanding bill, whichever is later.
Furthermore, Department regulations strictly prohibit his participation
in any criminal investigation or prosecution in which he holds a
relationship – including a “close personal relationship,” as an
attorney, or otherwise – with anyone involved in the matter.
Instead, Mr. Blanche appears to have ignored ethics and legal
advice. This misconduct would be considered extreme on its own and is
even more offensive given President Trump’s unprecedented efforts to
seek vast personal financial compensation from taxpayer money and use
the Department to exact vengeance against his political enemies.
I don't understand how someone with all these problems gets confirmed.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released the following statement in response to the news that a coalition of 12 attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger:
“A Paramount-Warner Bros. megamerger would mean higher costs and
fewer choices for Americans. Good news: the states are stepping up to
block this antitrust nightmare. This fight isn’t over.”
