Saturday, June 20, 2026

Hot Corn Dip in the Kitchen

Norma e-mailed to note a dip she likes to fix for her kids and herself on the weekends.  This is Southern Living's Hot Corn Dip recipe:

Ingredients

  • 2 (15.25 oz.) cans whole kernel corn

  • 1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese (at room temperature)

  • 1/4 cup sour cream

  • 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

  • 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, divided

  • 1/2 cup shredded pepper Jack cheese, divided

  • 1/2 tsp. garlic powder

  • 1/2 tsp. chili powder

  • Garnishes: sliced scallions, fresh jalapeño slices, or chopped cilantro

  • To serve: carrot and celery sticks, tortilla chips, or crackers

Directions

  1. Prepare oven and pan:

    Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 2.5-qt. casserole dish with cooking spray.

  2. Mix the dip together:

    In a large bowl stir together corn, cream cheese, sour cream, mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup of the cheddar cheese, 1/4 cup of the pepper jack cheese, garlic powder, and chili powder until evenly combined.

  3.  Add dip to dish:

    Pour the corn mixture into the prepared casserole dish.  Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup pepper jack cheese and 1/4 cup cheddar cheese over the top.

  4.   Bake the dip:

    Bake in preheated oven, uncovered, for 25-35 minutes, until the edges bubble and just start to brown. Garnish with green onions, jalapeño slices, or cilantro, if using. 

  5.  Serve dip:

    Serve hot with fresh cut vegetables, tortilla chips, or crackers. 




News?  Miss Sassy JD Vance has a new book out.  Anthea Butler (MS Now) reviews it:


Vice President JD Vance’s new book, “Communion,” is not only his story of his conversion to Catholicism in 2019, it’s also his pitch to Republicans, especially religious ones, about why he has the mettle to be the party’s 2028 presidential candidate. Writing a book has become a prerequisite for a presidential run, but as a professor who has read some awful writing, I find that Vance’s new book ranks among the worst things I’ve read. As has been reported, there’s a United Methodist Church on the cover of this book about converting to Catholicism, and that choice of illustration serves as a metaphor for the ignorance and inauthenticity found within.

Vance’s account of his conversion from evangelism to atheism and then to Catholicism is familiar to those of us who study religious switching in America. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, 35% of American adults were raised in a different religious tradition than the one they practice.

But on his promotional book tour, Vance is proving himself to be woefully inept about his faith. For example, on his Tuesday appearance on ABC’s “The View,” he couldn’t answer questions about how he squares his recently found faith with the Trump administration’s policies. He seems confused about what Catholicism is and doesn’t seem to understand that Christian beliefs aren’t the same as a list of conservative talking points.

Thus, in “Communion” we get his disjointed story about how he was attracted to the Catholic Church despite his divergent views from its teachings. If nothing else, “Communion” confirms what was already obvious: Vance is not the theologian he thinks he is, and indeed, he knows very little about the Catholic faith. Despite his lack of knowledge, in his short time as vice president, he has had the temerity to question  Pope Francis’ motivations for criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration policies and to lecture Pope Leo XIV on when war is morally justified.


I won't be reading the book, I don't need to.  As a Catholic, I have noted for years now that Vance does not understand my faith, that he is a Johnny Come Lately who lies about my faith.  I'm glad to read a review where he's called out for writing about something he so clearly does not understand. 


This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot" for Friday:

Friday, June 19, 2026.  Chump's deal or 'deal' has already hit a snag, Republicans in the US Senate don't see themselves as Chump's drones, Pete Hegseth faces more problems, Kristi Noem's errors and mistakes continue to surface from her time as Secretary of Homeland Security, in Chicago Barack reminds how a real president conducts themselves and honors this country, and much more.

 


As Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes above, Israel's attacked Lebanon and it appears the 'deal' or 'memo' may be off.  


The nascent U.S.-Iran deal faced fresh challenges on Friday after Switzerland said that the next phase of talks had been postponed and as Israel launched new strikes in Lebanon following a deadly attack on its soldiers there.

Israel said its military had struck more than 80 targets belonging to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, killing dozens, in response to an attack on an Israeli tank crew that left four soldiers dead in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that Israeli airstrikes overnight had killed at least 18 people and injured 33 others.

The upsurge of violence showed how Lebanon remained a major obstacle to the durability of the preliminary U.S.-Iran agreement. Israel is not a party to the U.S.-Iran talks, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that he is not bound by the deal, which calls for a cease-fire on all fronts, including Lebanon.

Mr. Netanyahu said on Friday that he had ordered the Israeli military to respond forcefully to the deaths of the tank crew, warning that Israel “will exact a very heavy price from Hezbollah for these attacks.”

Some lawmakers in Israel, and some Republicans in Congress, have strongly criticized the deal, which President Trump and President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran signed this week. Critics say it gives Iran significant economic relief while punting tougher negotiations, including on Tehran’s nuclear program, down the road.

Vice President JD Vance had been expected to fly to Switzerland for talks with Iranian officials, but the White House said late Thursday that his trip would be delayed. The United States was looking forward “to beginning technical talks as soon as possible,” a White House statement said.


Prior to everything falling apart, JD Vance was talking up the deal and inflating it.  Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Rebecca F. Elliott and Erica L. Green (NEW YORK TIMES) point out in great detail how JD was misleading everyone.  Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) focuses on three lies about the nuclear aspect of the deal JD told.

MS NOW notes JD's trip is off for now and details some of the lies Miss Sassy has been telling about the proposed deal.



On  the 'deal,' 'memo,' 'cease-fire,' 'chain letter' Chump's been pimping as the greatest deal ever.  Holly Baxter (INDEPENDENT) notes that Vice President JD Vance tried to talk up the effort yesterday:

As he pointed out himself during this very press conference, he has absolutely zero experience in conducting diplomatic negotiations. “Progressive critics” say he can’t do “hostile negotiations,” he said, with a smile, “but just two days ago I went on The View.”

Nobody laughed. He tried again: “Joy Behar is way more hostile than the Iranians and she and I are best friends now.” The room remained silent. Notwithstanding the fact that Joy Behar seemed to quite openly dislike Vance when she encountered him on The View, this joke doesn’t really work unless you follow it up with solid proof that you actually do have good political credentials and the “progressive critics” are wrong. Instead, Vance merely moved on.

When pressed why this deal was better than Obama’s, Vance couldn’t offer a lot of specifics. He kept going back to the idea that “Gulf states like this deal” and they didn’t like the old one, “and I trust their judgment”. He didn’t seem to know exactly why they’d come to that judgment.

Is Cuba next? “You guys would have to ask Marco [Rubio] about Cuba,” he said, before adding that the administration is talking with the Cuban government and hopes they “make smart decisions.”

Is he still going on his promised trip to Switzerland Friday to sign the deal that has, it turns out, already been signed? Apparently not. There are other people going “on the ground” in Iran to do “technical negotiations”, possibly over the weekend, and the Geneva signing may or may not happen after that.

“So you’re not going tomorrow?” one reporter asked. Vance equivocated and, again, moved on.
Then we entered the weirder portion of the presser. When told that the Pope had hailed the end of the war, Vance said, in a tone of voice that skirted a little too close to sarcasm, “My response to that is: Praise Jesus!” When someone said they noticed his voice is hoarse, he said, “I’ve been on a book tour,” thus reminding everybody of the fact that the chief Iran negotiator has been wasting his time this week on daytime talk shows soft-launching a 2028 presidential run by shilling a book about Christianity.


Once, we had wars of choice. Today, we have wars of distraction.

Call the catastrophically misguided war in Iran and the blink-and-you-missed-it war with Venezuela the Epstein Wars.

These were not wars fought to defend U.S. national security. They were not wars fought to advance our national interests.
They were wars conjured up not by generals or seasoned foreign policy advisors but by a frightened old man and his public relations team to distract from a scandal he fears will be his undoing.

On the topic of Chump's dead friend the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) notes:

President Donald Trump's director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons is firing back after a Democratic lawmaker accused the administration of giving luxury treatment to Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Maxwell, who authorities said helped run Epstein's child trafficking operation for years, was controversially moved from a facility in Florida to an amenity-filled "prison camp" in Bryan, Texas generally reserved for low-level offenders, breaking the rules that usually would prohibit sex offenders from such a facility — right around the time the administration was trying to get her testimony to turn down the temperature on public outrage over the Epstein case files.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, broke down the apparent injustice of it all in an interview on CNN this week.

"Oversight and Judiciary Dems visited Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison today, it is essentially a pristine park with fountains and ample green space," said Garcia, posting his reaction to X. "She’s the only convicted sex offender there ... this isn’t justice."
He demanded answers as to why then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, now Trump's acting attorney general and nominee for the permanent role, sent her to that facility.

This comes amid separate reporting that prison staff at the Bryan facility refused to answer basic questions from lawmakers on the tour.

The statement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons did not say anything that mattered or was factual.  And, as Tom Latchem (DAILY BEAST) notes, "The agency did not explain why a convicted sex offender was placed at a camp that, under its own rules, bars such inmates without a special waiver."

As you may recall, last July Blanche, who was serving as Deputy Attorney General, conducted a two-day interview with Maxwell while she was seeking clemency. After making favorable comments about Tr*mp, she wasn’t granted a pardon, but she did see her fortunes turn for the better.

From the minute Maxwell stepped into Camp Bryan, her presence “disrupted” the lives of her fellow inmates, all of whom are non-violent offenders serving much lighter sentences for far less serious crimes.

Last August, she was allowed to take meetings outdoors while the rest of the women had to stay inside. According to WSJ, the warden even scheduled a talk with other inmates after one incident where he warned that any aggressive behavior toward Maxwell would be punished. He also allegedly cautioned inmates not to speak with press about Maxwell, a move which, according to Jamie Raskin, violates the inmates’ rights.

“Every inmate I’ve heard from is upset she is here,” one reporter said of the facility where Theranos grifter Elizabeth Holmes is also serving time and where former Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah recently finished 33 months.

Since the start of Maxwell’s sentence, she’s also had access to special meals, a specialized response team, and other privileges seemingly denied the other inmates, none of whom have committed crimes anywhere near the scale of Maxwell’s.

Money might be able to buy you plenty of privileges in prison, but they don’t buy you that much.

House Democrats have been asking Blanche what the deal is for months, when a Wall Street Journal investigation broke the story of Maxwell’s special treatment wide open. So far, they haven’t gotten any clear answers.


In other news . . . 

Time for Convicted Felon Donald Chump to preen and pose.  The ego maniac has set some new standards.  David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports:

President Donald Trump just broke three of his own records in a new poll, and none of them are good.
The NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll, conducted June 8–11 among 1,340 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, finds Trump hitting simultaneous lows: his worst-ever economy approval rating, his worst-ever approval spread, and a disapproval rating that ties the highest ever recorded for him.
Just 33% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy — the lowest Marist has recorded since it began asking the question in 2019. Sixty percent disapprove.
Trump's overall approval sits at 36%, with 59% disapproving — a 23-point gap that is the widest Marist has ever measured for him across either term.


He's a loser on a losing streak these days.  Jordain Carney and Katherine Tully-McManus (POLITICO) note:

President Donald Trump is calling for Republicans to pass a $350 billion bill to fund the military while notching conservative policy victories — and GOP senators aren’t exactly scurrying to action.

House Republican leaders and committee chairs have been meeting for weeks about what to include in a new party-line reconciliation package. Speaker Mike Johnson has also had conversations about the House’s vision with Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
But the Senate has taken no concrete steps toward advancing a bill, and GOP senators and aides said this week it was becoming clear any “Reconciliation 3.0” would be a House-led effort. Multiple Senate Republicans — including members of leadership — say they don’t currently see a path that could marshall 50 votes behind such a measure on their side of the Capitol just months before the midterms.

“Everybody has a different concept of what they want, which is going to be the problem,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in an interview this week.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said a third bill “doesn’t look to me like it's got a lot of life in it,” while Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) separately warned that if his party was going to pass a third reconciliation bill, Republicans need to “saddle up and ride hard, because we’re running out of time.”

Wait.  They aren't marching in lockstep behind him?  Singing a hearty tune?  Chris Brennan (USA TODAY) explains there are hostilities currently:

President Donald Trump has groused repeatedly during his second term about the sometimes lengthy nomination process needed for key administration officials to be approved by the U.S. Senate.

Republicans who control the Senate this week were ready and eager to fast-track the nomination of Jay Clayton for approval as Trump's next director of national intelligence. There was a confirmation hearing set for June 17, creating the potential for a full Senate vote on June 18 that could have had Clayton on the job by the end of this week.
That was, until Trump derailed the fast-track with a petulant, early morning social media post just before 4 a.m. on June 17, catching his Republican allies in the Senate off guard hours before Clayton's hearing.
Those Republicans had a motivation not centered on Trump's past annoyances about nominations. They wanted to head off Bill Pulte, a federal housing official and enthusiastic participant in Trump's retribution efforts against perceived enemies, who is now set to take on the role of acting director of national intelligence on June 19.

That annoyed Trump, who lobbed his bombshell into the nomination process from the G7 summit in France on June 17, where the six-hour time difference meant he was tossing his tantrum about 10 a.m. local time while Senate Republicans were likely sleeping back home in America.




President Donald Trump is making life almost impossible for Senate Republicans — and these days fewer of them are willing to just let it slide.

Some lawmakers that were once happy to brush off impulsive and disruptive behavior by saying they hadn’t seen the president’s social media posts or that it was just “Trump being Trump” are increasingly willing to speak out against what they view as bad decisions that undermine their ability to deliver legislative wins as the midterms approach.
The latest irritation was the early-morning Truth Social post Wednesday that upended GOP hopes of quickly confirming a new director of national intelligence and reviving a surveillance bill that Trump already derailed earlier this month.

The chaos that followed Trump’s sudden U-turn on Jay Clayton’s nomination, just hours before a scheduled confirmation hearing, further loosened tongues in the Capitol hallways — even from lawmakers who tend to be reliable allies.

“The president’s timing and communication needs improvement,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said. “I think it’s unfortunate. It throws a kicker into the system when we get going and then we have to readjust.”

Asked about frustration within the conference about the recent lack of coordination, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) added, “Well, duh.”

Kennedy added, “No, I don't,” when asked if Trump takes senators into consideration: “He wants what he wants, and until he gets it, he just keeps pushing.”

This ill will has been percolating for some time now. Lindsay Wise, Meridith McGraw and Siobhan Hughes (WALL STREET JOURNAL) note:


President Trump wants Republicans in Congress to do exactly as they are told.

But recently he has been hearing a lot of “no” from John Thune, the Senate’s top Republican.

That has led to open conflict as Trump tries to push through a voter-ID law that he has said is crucial to Republicans’ winning the midterms but lacks enough support to pass. It is one of a series of disputes that have intensified pressure on Thune, the lanky South Dakota conservative who finds himself in an increasingly difficult political position just months ahead of the elections.
[. . .]
Thune has had to deliver a series of unwelcome news to Trump. Before they agreed to pass a recent $70 billion border-security package, Senate Republicans rejected funding for Trump’s White House ballroom and forced the administration to scratch a $1.8 billion fund that could have been used to compensate Trump’s political allies. Also, lawmakers loudly objected to Pulte in the role as interim director, saying he lacked national-security experience and airing concern that he would politicize the position.


Republicans are at a "boiling point" over tensions between President Donald Trump and Senate GOP leadership, Punchbowl News reported on Thursday morning.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has been "bearing the brunt of the fallout from Trump’s erratic behavior, expressing his frustrations with the president in an intentional but very reserved manner," said the report.
For the last week, the report noted, Thune "was being stiff-armed by a White House that was refusing his request for a briefing on the U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement" — then things kicked into high gear after Trump publicly blew up a hearing for one of his own critical nominees and triggered a standoff.

Things have gotten so tense that Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told reporters Trump is "taking shots" at Thune, and lamented, “Who doesn’t like John Thune? If you don’t like John Thune, you don’t like golden retrievers.”



Let's turn to one of the charm experts from Chump's cabinet.  Lorne Cook (AP) reports, "U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at NATO allies on Thursday, announcing a six-month Pentagon review of American forces in Europe whose outcome will depend on how fast the Europeans take responsibility for their own security. The threat of a review was yet another surprise for European allies and Canada as they learn to deal with an increasingly unpredictable ally. U.S. officials and senior military officers had promised to coordinate closely with the Europeans as America draws down."  Fresh from disgracing the United States at Normandy, Hegseth's just spreading the ill will around,  The man who only got confirmed in the Senate thanks to JD Vance's tie breaking vote has been a serial screw up going back to the Signal chat.  Remember that?  Remember when the report from the Pentagon's Inspector General found that, in that chat, Hegseth gave out the exact timelines, launch sequences and even the specific weapons that would be deployed in the strike on Yemen. 

Yet he remained in the job.  Loose lips Hegseth?  He's apparently the cold sore America can't get rid of.  Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) reports:

While Donald Trump is being excoriated by Republicans over his Iran deal, which one GOP lawmaker called “… a tremendous foreign policy blunder,” MS NOW’s Bill Rohde stated on Thursday morning that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth can expect that his role in advising the president to launch the war has put his job at risk.
Discussing the blowback Trump is facing over the war that, for the moment, has ended in a stalemate, Rohde claimed that Hegseth is already a prime target instead since he is already on the outs with a substantial number of Republican lawmakers.
“At some point. President Trump is the person most responsible for this strategic defeat and failure,” Rohde told the "Morning Joe” co-hosts. “But I would argue the person second most responsible, who is in the most dangerous position politically, is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He repeatedly lied to the American public in his press conferences about the progress of the war, and he also refused to give basic information to members of Congress. There's a lot of ill will among senators and House members towards Pete Hegseth.”

Senators and House members have ill will towards Hegseth?  That would explain what Eren Waris (MEAWW) reports: 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing a bipartisan congressional rebuke as lawmakers move to restrict his travel budget over long-running complaints that the Pentagon has kept Congress in the dark.

The proposed restriction comes as senators demand records related to military strikes that have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The effort turns months of frustration over limited access to information into a direct funding measure aimed at forcing greater transparency from the Pentagon.
A Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee proposal filed Tuesday would block Hegseth from using more than 25 percent of his travel budget until the Pentagon turns over key documents related to military operations.

Under the defense policy bill, lawmakers are demanding "unredacted civilian harm investigations" and other records connected to strikes in the Middle East and Latin America.
Committee members, led by Republican Sen Roger Wicker, highlighted the April 2025 strikes in Yemen that resulted in dozens of casualties and the February 2026 strike on the Minab girls' school in Iran that left at least 150 students and staff among the reported casualties.

Hegseth is notorious for so many things -- most of them hideous.  That would include his refusal to wash his hands.  Hygiene isn't a big thing with Hegseth nor are vaccines.  And that's coming back to haunt him.  Greg Jaffe and Maggie Haberman (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu, defense officials said.

The outbreak at the base in San Antonio raced through an Air Force Basic Military Training wing, where new recruits sleep on bunk beds in open bays and share meals at large communal tables.

A trainee in his sixth week of basic training died after falling ill on Friday and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, the Air Force said in a news release. It was not immediately clear whether the death of the trainee, Keon McDaniel, was related to the flu outbreak.

A comprehensive medical review into his death is underway to determine the cause, according to the Air Force.

In the weeks since Mr. Hegseth’s vaccine policy took effect on April 21, only about 40 percent of Air Force trainees have opted to take the vaccine, which had previously been mandatory, an Air Force official said.

And this is happening right now.  Imagine what awaits come winter.  Hegseth, ruining America just a little bit more each day. 

As James Ball (THE I PAPER) observed yesterday, "Hegseth is not a serious man, so few European leaders take him seriously."


Moving over to air head Kristi Noem.  As Chump's Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas, Kristi continues to screw up.  She was laughed at earlier this week when asked which country in South America would qualify as the US' best friend and she responded, "Well, we've worked so much with El Salvador and migration issues and third country agreements. But also Ecuador's been fantastic; we did a joint operation with them with the Department of War against the cartels in their country. We work very well with Argentina; their economic policies line up with ours. Costa Rica's been fantastic; they have a new president" -- Stop.  El Salvador and Costa Rica are not South American countries, they are part of Central America. 

It's the sort of mistake a freshman in high school could make but not one that the Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas should be making.  Prior to her current role, Kristi was the Secretary of Homeland Security where she did so many things wrong.  This included buying up facilities to turn into ICE prisons.   Hamed Aleaziz (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:

The idea was meant to supercharge President Trump’s mass deportation plan.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement would purchase more than a dozen empty warehouses across the United States to massively expand its capacity to detain people deemed to be in the country illegally, which in turn would spike deportations. A year into Mr. Trump’s term, it had bought 11 facilities at a cost of $1 billion.

But in a major turnabout, the agency is planning to offload seven warehouses purchased for more than $700 million by either giving them to other federal agencies or selling them outright, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

The decision to sharply scale back the warehouse plan is a rejection of a signature initiative under the previous homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, who pushed the boundaries of what the government can do to aggressively round up potential deportees. The new secretary, Markwayne Mullin, who had privately expressed skepticism about the plan, has said publicly that he wants the agency to be quieter about how it carries out immigration enforcement.


Yesterday, America was reminded of what a president can be as Barack Obama spoke in Chicago. 



The opening of the Obama Presidential Center drew thousands, including A-list celebrities, to celebrate the facility honoring the 44th president's historic legacy.

Former President Barack Obama, joined on stage by his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters, oversaw the grand opening ceremony that also featured other living former presidents: Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

"Everybody's got an opinion, and that means getting stuff done, involves reconciling the demands of a couple of 100 million people," Obama said as he reflected on America's political history. "Democracy can be frustrating, it can be slow, it can be inefficient, and yet more than anything, I hope this center will serve as an affirmation of just how special, how precious our democracy truly is, and remind us what we can achieve when we embrace our shared responsibilities as citizens."

Michelle Obama also commemorated the former president's work during a speech about his tenure and the center's many community-oriented amenities: "You were unflappable at every turn, always focused, always calm, always looking at the long view," she told her husband.




The entertainment was first-rate.






People came together and did so with a purpose that was beyond greed.  It was a reminder of what the country could be -- and will be again once Chump is out of the White House.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Tammy Duckworth's office:


[WASHINGTON, D.C.] — U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation—is demanding the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reject any pressure to rubberstamp President Donald Trump’s latest taxpayer-funded vanity project, the so-called “Triumphal Arch,” that could jeopardize the safety of the flying public. In a letter to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, Duckworth warned against wasting time and resources reviewing the proposed 259-foot “Triumphal Arch,” which would be constructed in one of the most complex and congested airspaces in the country.

Aviation Subcommittee Ranking Member Duckworth wrote, “President Trump choosing to force the FAA to invest limited staff and resources into a distracting review of his gaudy and disgraceful arch is merely the latest example of Trump putting his pet projects first, while neglecting America’s needs. This wasteful and dangerous project is particularly irresponsible given the FAA’s ongoing efforts to implement safety enhancements in and around DCA following the preventable DCA collision in late January 2025, the deadliest domestic air crash since the 2009 Colgan tragedy.”

In the letter, the Senator underscores the critical importance of exercising the highest level of caution in DC airspace after the tragic DCA collision claimed 67 lives. Initial reviews of the Arch project were conducted on an expedited timeline, raising concerns about undue pressure from the Trump Administration to advance a needless project which could put people’s lives in danger.

“Your mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world. Accordingly, the FAA must commit to upholding the highest safety standards and be firm in rejecting any improper or irresponsible pressure from President Trump to prioritize the construction of his gaudy, vanity arch over the safety of the American people,” concluded Ranking Member Duckworth.

Full text of the letter is available on Senator Duckworth’s website and below:

Dear Administrator Bedford:

I write to demand the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) uphold the highest safety standards and reject any efforts from President Donald Trump to pressure the FAA into wasting time and resources modifying the complex National Capital Region (NCR) airspace as part of a wasteful campaign to rubberstamp Donald Trump’s newest vanity project, the so-called “Triumphal Arch.” The Trump arch—which Donald Trump’s arch designer noted is a distinct memorial because unlike the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, President Trump’s arch is intended to celebrate the living—would offensively desecrate the hallowed symbolism of Arlington National Cemetery by destroying the historic sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House that has symbolized post-Civil War unity for decades.

Furthermore, the vanity arch’s proximity to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)—which, as the Trump administration is well aware, is one of the most complex, constrained and airspaces in the National Airspace System—reflects a flagrant disregard for the operational integrity of the airspace, aviation safety and the priorities of the American people.

President Trump choosing to force the FAA to invest limited staff and resources into a distracting review of his gaudy and disgraceful arch is merely the latest example of Trump putting his pet projects first, while neglecting America’s needs. This wasteful and dangerous project is particularly irresponsible given the FAA’s ongoing efforts to implement safety enhancements in and around DCA following the preventable DCA collision in late January 2025, the deadliest domestic air crash since the 2009 Colgan tragedy.

As you know, the FAA has failed to secure full funding for the Trump administration’s “Brand New Air Traffic Control System” despite Republicans controlling the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate since 2025, and jamming through not just one, but two, massive partisan Republican reconciliation spending bills. Some may brush off wasting millions, if not billions, of taxpayer dollars on Trump’s vanity arch as only an annoying nuisance. However, FAA should know better than anyone that such flippant dismissals are reckless and wrong.

The NCR is an extremely challenging airspace because of complicated flight paths, restricted airspace and complex civil-military operations. Even minor disruptions can have cascading, fatal effects—a sobering reality that our country witnessed just last year when a midair collision involving a commercial aircraft and an Army Blackhawk helicopter killed 67 people. The DCA midair collision underscores the consequences of inadequate coordination and the need for extreme caution when evaluating any new obstruction in this environment.

The FAA’s initial feasibility study was a “limited review” and far from the required full aeronautical study that must be conducted. However, even this limited examination confirmed that the proposed 259-ft Trump vanity arch structure requires red lighting because it constitutes an obstruction under Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Part 77. FAA’s initial review appears to have been completed on an expedited timeline, raising questions as to whether Donald Trump or his White House aides are already improperly pressuring FAA to prioritize rubberstamping Trump’s vanity arch over public safety.

Importantly, the finished structure is not the only potential hazard Donald Trump is forcing into this highly congested, complex DCA airspace. The National Park Service (NPS) indicated that construction of Trump’s vanity arch would require cranes reaching 300 to 320 feet in height and NPS estimated construction could last 20 hours per day for two to three years. On final approach to DCA, commercial jets can fly as low as 500 feet above ground level (AGL). Introducing construction equipment approaching the AGL limit in an already congested airspace raises additional operational and safety issues.

There is already evidence that the Trump administration is dismissive of, or simply avoids, advanced aviation safety planning in coordination with FAA experts. In addition to the Trump administration’s chaotic testing of Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the NAS, commercial pilots reported that during evening approaches to DCA, the bright lights from Donald Trump’s personal UFC playground—which was installed on the White House lawn for his taxpayer-funded birthday party—impaired pilot visibility as they worked to navigate one of the most challenging approaches in the NAS.

Your mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world. Accordingly, the FAA must commit to upholding the highest safety standards and be firm in rejecting any improper or irresponsible pressure from President Trump to prioritize the construction of his gaudy, vanity arch over the safety of the American people.

-30-




The following sites -- plus Ann's "The money grubbers," Marcia's "Even Nancy sees Chump's decline" and Mike's "Deranged Chump"  -- updated:


Posted by at

Friday, June 19, 2026

Italian-American Pasta Salad in the Kitchen

lindamcmahon

 


Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Linda Goes After The Kids Again" went up last night.  



Ingredients
3 small red bell peppers (24 ounces; 680 g)

2 cups grape tomatoes (11 ounces; 312 g), halved

1 large shallot (2 ounces; 56 g), finely chopped

1 1/2 tablespoons (23 ml) fresh lemon juice (from 1 lemon)

1 1/2 tablespoons (23 ml) red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons (24 g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt, divided; for table salt, use half as much by volume or the same weight

1/2 cup (120 ml) olive oil, divided

4 quarts (3.8 L) water

1 pound (454 g) uncooked conchiglie pasta, medium pasta shells, or orecchiette pasta

5 medium cloves garlic, thinly sliced

6 ounces (170 g) Genoa salami slices, cut into 1/2-inch-thick strips (about 2 cups), divided

1/2 cup chopped mild banana pepper rings (3 1/2 ounces; 100 g)

1/2 cup coarsely chopped pitted kalamata olives (2 3/4 ounces; 78 g)

2 tablespoons drained non-pareil capers (1 ounce; 27 g)

1 pound (454 g) fresh mozzarella cheese, torn into small bite-size pieces

1 cup roughly chopped fresh basil

Directions
Working directly over the flame of a gas burner or under a broiler, cook the red bell peppers, turning occasionally, until deeply charred all over, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a heatproof bowl, cover with plastic, and let stand 5 minutes. Place in a medium bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let stand at room temperature until cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes. Peel charred skin from bell peppers; discard skin and seeds. Slice peppers into 1/4-inch strips.

In a large bowl, stir together tomatoes, shallot, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, crushed red pepper, and 2 teaspoons (6g) salt. Marinate, uncovered, at room temperature for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally and gently smashing some of the tomatoes using the back of a wooden spoon. Stir in sliced red bell peppers and 1/4 cup of oil; set aside.

Bring water to a boil in a 6- to 8-quart pot set over high heat. Add remaining 2 tablespoons (18g) salt and return to a vigorous boil over high. Add pasta, and cook for 2 minutes longer than the package directions for al dente, until pasta is tender.

While the pasta cooks, heat remaining 1/4 cup oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and 3 ounces (85g) salami; cook, stirring often, until garlic is light golden and salami starts to crisp along edges, 4 to 6 minutes; stir into tomato mixture.

Drain pasta in a colander. Add pasta, banana peppers, olives, capers, and remaining 3 ounces salami to tomato mixture, stirring to combine. Let stand, uncovered, at room temperature, until flavors meld, about 30 minutes. Stir in mozzarella and basil.


Let's note the other salads we've shared in the spring and summer of 2026, 2025 and 2024:





There is a powerful force that affects politics as much as it affects individual lives. It is fatigue.

We just get darn tired of something, be it a job, a relationship, a hobby or a routine. We have been devoted to it for years, and suddenly we want out; we want to do something else. What we loved doing has become boring and tedious. More work than fun.
A kind of national fatigue played a role in the collapse of the Soviet Union: People were tired of the system and its oppressiveness. Likewise, South Africa.

I was in and out of that country just before apartheid came to its timely death. Ordinary White people, including Afrikaners, said they had had enough; they were tired of the whole complex, cruel structure.

It is my contention that President Donald Trump wants out — that for him, the fun is over. The old stimuli — his daily television domination, the adulation, the global recognition — once so important to him, are ebbing.

Michael Wolff, Trump’s biographer, and James Carville, the picaresque Democratic activist, have both speculated, along with several commentators, that Trump may not finish out his term. They imply that some external force, like illness, will cause him to leave office.

Fatigue?  I think we all have Chump fatigue.  He is a hideous man who has destroyed our country.  Every day, he finds a way to demonstrate a new form of cruelty.  


This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot" for Thursday:

Thursday, June 18, 2026.  Chump goes deranged as his 'deal' is called out and mocked, Todd Blanche is the man with something to hide, most Americans see Chump as "a dangerous dictator," and much more.



Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) charts Chump's early morning dementia.     





A majority of Americans view President Donald Trump as a “dangerous dictator” whose power should be constrained, according to a poll that found a notable increase in that sentiment since March.
[. . .]
A new Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll of 5,469 adults living across all 50 states found that 59 percent believe that Trump “is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.”

Support for that view has increased since March, when 52 percent of Americans agreed with the statement. It also exceeds the 56 percent recorded in September 2025, when a majority of respondents similarly described Trump as a “dangerous dictator,” according to PRRI.
The poll, which was conducted between May 1 and 18, has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.53 percentage points. While the poll was being conducted, headlines around the Trump administration included foreign policy and the war with Iran, trade and tariff escalations with Europe, and gas prices rising due to troubles in the Strait of Hormuz.


Dictator?   Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan (NEW YORK TIMES) reported on the Situation Room meetings of Todd Blanche, Pam Bondi, Susie Wiles, JD Vance and other members of the administration to plot on how to deceive the American people about Epstein and specifically Chump's closeness to Epstein while also detailing the administration's discussions about implementing the Insurrectionist Act and suspending habeas corpus.  The last two are why Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued the following yesterday:

Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, demanded answers from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles after recent reporting revealed Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller pushed to suspend habeas corpus rights and Vice President J.D. Vance pushed to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress peaceful protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Habeas corpus is a fundamental aspect of due process, allowing people in the United States to contest the basis of their detention.

“Donald Trump has worked to defy and undermine the Constitution to push his bigoted mass deportation campaign. New reporting shows that top White House officials openly planned to deny core constitutional rights, and the Vice President’s support to use the military against peaceful protests. Oversight Democrats will fully investigate this outrageous attack on the Constitution and the rule of law. All those responsible should be held accountable,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.

In the letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Ranking Member Garcia wrote, “Oversight Democrats are investigating the systematic violations of the Constitution by the Trump Administration through its mass deportation campaign. The Administration’s willingness to use violence against civilians, lack of oversight for violations of civil rights, and violations of court orders are widely documented. New reporting revealed that the Administration considered far more egregious violations of the constitution, and that senior White House staff, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller, advocated for the illegal suspension of fundamental civil liberties as the Administration considered suspending habeas corpus rights and invoking the Insurrection Act to suppress peaceful protests in Minneapolis. In light of this disclosure, we demand that you immediately provide records and documents which outline a draft plan by senior members of the Administration to effectively subvert the Constitution on a massive scale.”

 

###




As Ruth noted "We still have not seen the 'deal,' 'cease-fire,' or 'memo of understanding.'  Whatever you call it, Convicted Felon Donald Chump continues to keep it under wraps." -- whatever it is, it's still unknown.  But based upon Chump's incessant remarks and the sketch that's been discussed, people are forming opinions.  



Toward the end of the Obama administration’s negotiations over its Iran nuclear deal in 2015, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump chimed in with some advice from his book, “The Art of the Deal.”

“Message to Obama re: Iran: ‘The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it,’” he posted on Twitter.
Trump and his administration are now committing this cardinal sin in their efforts to obtain their own nuclear deal with Iran.

In fact, it looks a lot like they’re giving up on even claiming their memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran is a favorable document to the US. The Trump administration is making it abundantly clear they just want out of this war.

Trump’s overriding desire to extract himself has been clear for a long time; he has repeatedly pulled back on his threats, downplayed Iranian provocations and resisted a return to large-scale hostilities.

But over the last 24 hours, this attitude has moved from the subtext to the text.

The administration has repeatedly suggested that its handling of the MOU is about catering to Iran.

Perhaps most striking were comments the administration made without attribution.

“The consensus of the team was we want to get this thing over with, and the deal is the way to do it in a way that maximizes our upside and minimizes our downside,” an administration official directly involved in the talks told CNN’s Alayna Treene.



Holly Baxter (INDEPENDENT) sees indicators in Chump's refusal to provide details:

If you’d like to know how Donald Trump’s closing speech at the G7 went, it’s probably best to start at the part where he asked Scott Bessent whether the stock market was smarter than his Treasury secretary.

“No, sir,” Bessent dutifully replied. He was disagreeing with a notion Trump had just posited, but it was clear from his tone of voice that he didn’t mean to disagree. He was simply trying to make real-time sense of what his boss had just said, which happened to be the semi-coherent and utterly baffling: “The stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including people on this stage, apart from me. What do you think, Scott, is the stock market more brilliant than you?”


Yeganeh Torbati (NEW YORK TIMES) states, "The agreement lifts the U.S.-imposed naval blockade of Iranian ports and, most crucially, grants Iran waivers to begin exporting its oil even before the negotiation of a final agreement on its nuclear program. That will give Iran a critical economic lifeline. In recent years, its economy has been in a tailspin, with a collapsing currency and sky-high inflation."  The paper's David E. Sanger reminds:

It was less than 15 weeks ago when President Trump, at the height of his bravado about how the war with Iran would end, declared “there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”

When the text of the deal intended to wind down the conflict was finally released on Wednesday, read aloud paragraph by paragraph by a senior administration official who stopped to defend each section, it read nothing like a surrender document. Instead, the Iranians emerged from a confrontation with the world’s most powerful military having not only survived, but with much to celebrate.

It starts with the resumption of Tehran’s ability to reap billions of dollars in oil sales, lifting pressure on the struggling regime even as negotiators prepare to begin haggling over a far more lengthy and critical document: the one Mr. Trump insisted in an interview on Sunday will arrest Iran’s nuclear program for the next 15 or 20 years.

For a president who prizes leverage above all else, that decision is just another mystery of the war. But the wording of the “Memorandum of Understanding” also suggests that, over time, Iran may negotiate some permanent way to exercise sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. That seems in contradiction to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s declarations just a few weeks ago that anything other than the kind of free passage through the strait that the world knew before the war was “not acceptable” and “cannot happen.”


Max Rego (THE HILL) notes a Republican senator who's calling the deal out:

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.) on Wednesday slammed the deal between the Trump administration and Iran, two days before the two sides are set to sign it.

“The details that I’ve seen so far look … awful. This will go down as a tremendous foreign policy blunder,” Cassidy told Nexstar’s Reshad Hudson on Capitol Hill. 



Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is not mincing words when it comes to President Donald Trump’s newly-announced deal with Iran.

“Worst foreign policy blunder in decades,” Cassidy said.

In a post to X on Wednesday, the exiting Louisiana senator — who was defeated in a primary race in May, after President Trump endorsed one of his opponents — sounded off on the deal, which he believes is a massive win for Iran.
“Reagan is rolling over in his grave,” Cassidy wrote. “Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal.”

He added, “Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”


Cassidy is not the only Republican in Congress who is disappointed with the deal.  Bayliss Wagner, Robert Jimison and Tim Balk (NEW YORK TIMES) explain:

President Trump’s agreement with Iran opened new fissures in his party on Wednesday, with Republicans on Capitol Hill and beyond questioning whether his administration had secured adequate concessions from Iranian leaders after months of a costly and unpopular war.

After the Trump administration released the text of the arrangement on Wednesday, some Senate Republicans reacted with fierce criticism, skepticism and alarm. Prominent members of the G.O.P.’s old guard from outside Congress also sounded dubious notes. And even some of the president’s allies in the conservative news media voiced concern.

[.  .]

The reactions underscore a challenge Mr. Trump faces five months ahead of the midterm elections, as he works to free Republicans from the political albatross of the war while navigating varying views about it within his own party. While Mr. Trump has won praise for the deal from some Republican allies, consolidating support in a party with competing factions is proving to be a difficult task.








Retired four-star Army Gen. Jack Keane on Wednesday said the tentative deal between the U.S. and Iran is a “long way from accomplishing” President Trump’s objectives in the Middle Eastern country.

Keane told hosts John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby on the “Cats and Cosby Show” on WABC 770 AM that his “gut reaction” to the deal was “more about what’s not in there than what’s in it,” referring to a lack of restrictions on Iran’s missile capabilities and inspections of its nuclear facilities.


Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) notes Stephanie Ruhle whose MS NOW program now airs in the morning: 
 
Donald Trump’s pride in getting an Iran deal done, despite accusations that it was a complete capitulation to Iran’s leadership, led MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle to haul out the “Trump Always Chickens Out” (TACO) taunt.

During a discussion of the deal with former diplomat Richard Haas and MS NOW’s David Rohde, she asked the two experts what the US got out of the deal.
According to both, the US was definitely on the losing end and the deal could easily fall apart.

“There's concerns that [Israel Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu is going to try to blow up this deal because it's so bad for Israel in the long term,” Rohde explained before adding a curt, “It is.”
“I was really expecting a little more meat on the bone,” he said. “We’re a long way from accomplishing the objectives that the president wants to accomplish here with the Iranians. … We’re at the beginning of a process that’s going to take some time here for sure.”

Keane, who served a stint as acting Army chief of staff in 1993, noted that Iranian officials will look at the U.S. response to the deal as “something of a victory for themselves because the war is not continuing.”

“They got a ceasefire,” he told Catsimatidis and Cosby. “Now they’re moving towards a final agreement. And they’re going to delay that as much as possible, believing that the closer we get to the midterms, the less likely the president will return with military operations.”









Meanwhile, Damian Paletta (WALL STREET JOURNAL) ponders whether JD Vance is up to selling the deal as Chump intends for him to do:


This week, Vance is selling more than books.

He has been all over the airwaves in the past few days trying to sell the Iran deal that President Trump announced Sunday afternoon. In addition to The View, he showed up on Megyn Kelly’s show. Kelly is a leading conservative voice who has been sharply critical of the Iran war. Vance calmly and persistently pushed back on hawkish conservative critics who allege the White House is being duped by Iran.

“They are proposing an endless conflict,” Vance said of the critics. “They want this to go on until every bomb has been dropped or until every Iranian is dead. That’s not what the President of the United States wants.”

One challenge for Vance: No one has seen the fine print on the deal, leading to screams from conservatives that perhaps Trump has been duped (The WSJ reported Tuesday that a draft of the deal would allow Iran to sell oil, and Iranian tankers have already been permitted to depart through the U.S. blockade).


When not expecting Vance to sell whatever, Chump enjoys pitting him against Marco Rubio.  Isabel van Brugen (DAILY BEAST) notes:


Donald Trump pitted JD Vance against Marco Rubio during a private dinner, asking Rupert Murdoch to compare the 2028 Republican contenders while they sat at the same table.

The awkward exchange was detailed in an excerpt from Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, obtained by Axios. The book about Trump’s second term, set for publication on June 23, offers a glimpse into the 80-year-old president’s habit of holding impromptu popularity contests among his allies.

Trump has long positioned his vice president, 41, and secretary of state, 55, as potential rivals in the 2028 presidential race. While he has not publicly endorsed either, he has asked friends and advisers to compare the two.

According to Haberman and Swan, Trump hosted Murdoch, Vance, Rubio, and several White House aides at a private dinner on Oct. 16, 2025. During the gathering, Trump turned to the 95-year-old conservative media mogul and asked him to assess the two men widely viewed as leading candidates for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.

The president asked Murdoch whom he preferred, Vance or Rubio, while adding that he thinks “they’re both great.”

“What do you think of JD?” Trump asked.

Murdoch replied: “Well... I think JD has the potential to be great.”

“And what do you think of Marco?” Trump asked.
Murdoch answered immediately: “Marco is brilliant.”

“With Vance and Rubio sitting awkwardly at the table, Murdoch was notably more effusive about Rubio,” Haberman and Swan wrote, according to the excerpt obtained by Axios.



Chump's lame duckery becomes more and more evident.  Thomas Kika reports:

President Donald Trump is trying to "get creative to avoid embarrassment" after one of his much-prized endorsements went down in flames in a key swing state, per a new analysis from MS NOW.

Trump built up a notable win-streak of 2026 midterm endorsements in recent weeks, costing numerous state and federal lawmakers their reelection bids in retaliation for standing up to him. However, as the weeks have gone by, his endorsements have proven to be far from bulletproof, most recently when the Trump-backed Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones lost his gubernatorial bid to businessman and healthcare executive Rick Jackson, sending him into the general election to face Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms in the crucial battleground state.
Despite Trump's endorsement, Jones ended up five points behind Jackson when all was said and done. 


Two weeks ago, in Iowa’s gubernatorial race, Trump threw his support behind Rep. Randy Feenstra, who narrowly lost his Republican primary to Zach Lahn. This week, it happened again. MS NOW reported:

Healthcare executive Rick Jackson clinched the Republican gubernatorial nomination on Tuesday, pulling off a win over Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and securing a spot in the November election against Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms. […]

Jackson, a businessman who entered politics as an outsider candidate, sought to position himself as an alternative to career politicians.

Trump endorsed Jones, the incumbent lieutenant governor, who ended up losing his primary bid by roughly 5 points.

Yes, sir? No, sir? What, sir? It was clear at that point, just a couple of minutes in, that nobody — including his own team, or perhaps especially his own team — had any idea what Trump was talking about.

This was probably the most alarming Trump appearance to date. He was breathless and incoherent, ill-seeming and off-piste. He spent 32 minutes justifying his deal with Iran to the world before mentioning a single discussion that had taken place among the G7 countries at the summit, and the justifications spoke for themselves.

"This wasn't a three-month deal," he declared. "This was years in the making. You know why? Because I was the one who killed General Soleimani."

Soleimani, who has been dead since 2020, enjoyed repeated cameos throughout the proceedings. Trump called him "a mad genius" and "the boss of Iran," returning to him again and again like an aging musician who keeps bringing audiences back to his biggest hit because the new material isn't getting much applause. The implication, of course, was that Soleimani represented a job well done to Trump himself. This deal? Not so much.


Turning to Toad Blanche, acting Attorney General.  Chump has nominated him to be the next Attorney General.  Thomas Kika reports Toad is facing some harsh winds:

President Donald Trump is keen to get his newest judicial attack dog properly installed at the top of the Justice Department, but according to a new report from The Hill, he has run into a serious wall of Republican "skepticism" in Congress.

Todd Blanche, who previously served as Trump's personal attorney, was promoted to acting Attorney General following the departure of Pam Bondi. Since then, he has wasted little time attempting to rack up "wins" in order to endear himself further to the president and audition for the proper AG job. It seems to have worked out for him, as Trump nominated him for the position earlier this month.
However, he now faces considerable pushback from Republicans in the Senate who will have to confirm his appointment, The Hill reported on Wednesday, much of it stemming from his involvement in the settlement of Trump's IRS lawsuit.

"Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is headed for a rocky Senate confirmation process to take on the role permanently as several Republican senators raise concerns about his credibility and independence from President Trump," The Hill reported. "Blanche faced withering criticism from Senate Republicans during a private meeting last month at which more than 20 GOP lawmakers vented their frustrations with the administration and panned the proposal he rolled out to establish a $1.8 billion 'anti-weaponization' fund."
It continued: "Blanche on Tuesday assured GOP senators in at least two private meetings that the fund is dead and he won’t support it if Trump tries to revive the idea in the future. But he still faces skepticism over the fund and other issues, including an agreement that Trump reached with his administration to shield himself and his family from IRS audits of past tax returns."



Hanging over Blanche’s confirmation hearings are damaging new revelations about the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. No senator will be able to cast a vote for him without either embracing or forgiving his cynical politicization of the Epstein matter.

,

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, in new reporting for the New York Times excerpted from their forthcoming book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, offer astonishing insights into the dishonesty and incompetency of the leaders overseeing the bungled Epstein response. And Blanche stands inextricably at the center of it all.

,

Most fundamentally, Haberman and Swan expose that Blanche and Justice Department leadership handled the Epstein case as a matter of politics, not prosecution. Their reporting flatly discredits Blanche’s self-congratulatory refrain that, under his watch, the Justice Department stands above and beyond political concerns. At his confirmation hearing for the deputy-AG position, for example, Blanche declared, “Politics would play no role in my decisions as deputy attorney general.” And when asked in December 2025 if political motivations influenced redactions from the Epstein files, he fired back, “Absolutely, positively not.”
Turns out, that was bulls[**]t.

,

In fact, Haberman and Swan report in detail how key decisions around the Epstein files were made by Blanche and other DoJ leaders who worked intensively with (and at times took direction from) top White House officials. Unsurprisingly for a Justice Department that now hangs on its headquarters a massive banner of Donald Trump’s glowering face, the DoJ’s priority was not to pursue criminals, to protect victims, or to inform the public but to minimize political damage to the president and his administration.

,

The panic level around the unfolding public-relations crisis was so intense that Blanche reportedly met with White House brass in the Situation Room — the same ultrasecure facility used during national-security crucibles from the Cuban Missile Crisis to 9/11 to COVID. The decision-making that came out of those meetings was questionable at best. At times, Blanche vouched for desperate measures intended to mitigate individual brushfires, only to accelerate the larger conflagration.

For example, as public confidence collapsed around the DoJ’s vexing and often self-contradictory messaging, Blanche devised an underhanded ploy to create an illusion of transparency. Haberman and Swan report that he suggested prosecutors could formally ask judges to unseal secret grand-jury records relating to the investigations of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. But, as Blanche understood based on his own prosecutorial experience, the judges likely would deny the motions (which they all eventually did). And even if by some fluke a judge granted the DoJ’s disingenuous request, Blanche knew the grand-jury records would contain nothing new or interesting. He believed it would be a win-win; either way, Justice Department leaders would look like they tried, and nothing damaging would be revealed.
When that gambit satisfied precisely nobody, Blanche tried something even more desperate. He flew to Florida and interviewed Maxwell face to face with the expectation that the convicted child sex trafficker — who actively solicited a presidential pardon — would clear Trump of wrongdoing. Haberman and Swan report that Vice-President J.D. Vance (who “appeared panicked” over the right-wing response to the Epstein mess) initially proposed that carnival barker Tucker Carlson do the dirty work, meet with Maxwell behind bars, and tell his audience that all was well. The plan fell through, and Blanche emerged as Carlson’s understudy — not exactly a sparkling résumé item for an aspiring attorney general.



 


Meanwhile another woman accuses Chump in The Epstein Fields.  Edith Olmsted (NEW REPUBLIC) notes:


Buried in the Department of Justice’s massive trove of files on Epstein, an interview conducted by the FBI on June 19, 2020, included allegations that the president had previously used Trump Tower as a hunting ground for young women, RawStory reported Wednesday.
In the early 1990s, the woman worked at a luxury shoe store near Trump Tower, and would study in the building’s public atrium during her lunch breaks. One day, she met a colleague at the atrium who pointed out two men lurking nearby.

“[She] described one of the men was dark haired and looked like Antonio Banderas, while the other man was blonde and looked like the surfer type,” the FBI report stated. “Her colleague told her that the men constantly picked up [redacted] women.”

The woman was then approached by the dark-haired man, who struck up a conversation with her. “He asked if she knew who Donald Trump was and told her he was meeting people that day,” the report stated.

“[She] told the man that she knew who Trump was. The man asked if she wanted to meet Trump and told her that she did not need to work so hard to go to school,” the report stated. “The man winked and said he could do whatever she liked.”
“[She] felt that it was clear that sex was on the table, even though the man never mentioned sex,” the report stated. “[She] felt these men were playing the role of recruiters for Trump.”

“The man told her that if she did not want to meet Trump right then, she could go to a party. The man told her that she could bring a friend if the friend looked like her, but she could not bring a guy,” the report stated. The invitation for the party had Epstein’s address on it, the woman told the FBI.

When she declined the invites, she said she began receiving death threats. “The threats consisted of the men saying that they knew where she worked and could find her. [She] never told the police because she did not think they would believe her,” the report stated. They never approached her again.
 


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


The Children Harmed in Life-threatening or Dangerous (CHILD) Labor Act would strengthen labor law, give Department of Labor greater enforcement power

“In fiscal year 2025, more cases of federal child labor violations were uncovered than during any other year since the Great Recession, and hazardous work violations ticked up again after declining in the year prior.” – MORE from the Economic Policy Institute

Murray and DeLauro’s legislation is more urgent than ever as child labor law violations spike and the Trump administration has undermined existing enforcement efforts while Republicans push for even weaker standards

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, former chair and senior member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), and U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee and Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education reintroduced legislation to protect children from exploitative child labor practices and hold the companies and individuals who take advantage of them accountable. The Children Harmed in Life-threatening or Dangerous (CHILD) Labor Act strengthens our ability to combat child labor by cracking down on employers who violate child labor laws with stronger penalties and allowing children who have been seriously injured to sue their employers. The bill also expands child labor provisions to hold suppliers and subcontractors throughout the supply chain responsible.

According to recent reporting, the number of child labor violations has risen fivefold in the last 10 years and Republican-led state legislatures are continuing to propose and pass legislation at the state level that rolls back child labor regulations with the goal of eroding federal standards–as outlined in Project 2025.

“It should never be cheaper for a company to break child labor laws than to follow them—but right now, it is. Violations are at their highest level in years, Republicans are gutting protections in state after state, and the Trump administration has all but stopped enforcing the laws on the books,” said Senator Murray. “Children should not be subjected to abusive and dangerous work environments—they should not be working the night shift operating heavy equipment and in unsafe conditions with no consequences. My bill would deliver real penalties, real accountability for giant corporations, and real recourse for kids who get hurt.”

“No child should have to risk their life or their future because of a job,” said Congresswoman DeLauro. “Yet across this country, children are being put to work in dangerous jobs that threaten that future while companies reap massive profits from their labor, and this Administration weakens the agencies responsible for enforcing labor laws and protecting children from abusive labor practices. Corporations cannot cut corners – especially not when it comes to our children. The CHILD Labor act will put a stop to this by holding companies accountable and ensuring our children’s futures are protected.”

The CHILD Labor Act would protect children by enhancing the Fair Labor Standards Act to hold liable contractors or subcontractors for child labor violations in the same manner as the employer who employs the child in oppressive child labor; increase the civil penalty amount for child labor violations from $16,000 to $160,350—or 10 times the inflation-adjusted amount; increase the criminal penalty fine from $10,000 to $750,000; require any person who violates child labor provisions to be liable to each employee affected by the violation in an amount no less than $75,000; and require federal contracts to contain child labor provisions that prohibit the use of oppressive child labor.

The legislation would also require the Secretary to report to Congress data and recommendations concerning overall trends for work-related injuries, illnesses, or deaths to Congress on an annual basis.

In the Senate, the legislation is cosponsored by Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tina Smith (D-MN), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

In the House, the legislation is cosponsored by Representatives Alma Adams (D-NC-12), Judy Chu (D-CA-28), Danny Davis (D-IL-7), Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA-10), Dan Goldman (D-NY-10), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-18), Seth Magaziner (D-RI-2), Jim McGovern (D-MA-2), Mark Pocan (D-WI-2), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-9), Shri Thanedar (D-MI-13), Jill Tokuda (D-HI-2), and Lauren Underwood (D-IL-14).

The legislation is endorsed by the National Employment Law Project, and the Center for Law and Social Policy.

A one-pager on the bill is available HERE.

A section by section of the bill is available HERE.

Full text of the legislation is available HERE.

###


Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Linda Goes After The Kids Again" went up last night.  
The following sites -- plus Ann's "Grifting Nepo Baby MegHam McCain"  -- updated:


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