President
Donald Trump continues to inflate the extent of the alleged
vandal-inflicted “damage” to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool,
nearly tripling the length of a cut he initially claimed was done to the pool’s surface last month.
Trump on Monday remarked on his Truth Social platform about the crews draining the pool again as it continues to suffer from long-standing algae-related issues in the water and, following a series of costly renovations under his watch, damage to its surface that experts suspect could be due to poor repair work.
In
recent weeks, the president has argued that vandals used a “knife or
blade” to cut the surface, originally claiming on Saturday, June 20 that
the size of a “gash” to the pool was 250 feet long.
By Monday, Trump claimed the alleged “gash” was 300 feet long, or the length of a football field minus the end zones.
By nighttime? What he called a “slit” was 350 feet long.
And
now, three weeks later, Trump has claimed that “slashes” on the pool
were 300 yards long, adding that the floor of the pool was “cut and then
pulled upward, with great force, by these thugs.”
That’s nearly three times as tall as the Statue of Liberty (305 feet from the ground to the torch).
Yet,
Washington DC residents swiftly turned to social media to challenge the
president's assertion, pointing out that a "300-foot" (or 900 feet)
slash wasn't evident anywhere in the now-empty pool. "Did a walk around
of the Reflecting Pool today, and as others have also noted, there is no
sign of a '350 foot' gash, let alone any gashes at all," Democratic
influencer Matt Rein posted, alongside pictures of the pool.
"A worker even told me that he did not see anything of the sort, either.
"I'm
here at the Reflecting Pool and crews are almost done draining all of
the water ... no '350 foot' gash found from my vantage point," Rein
added in another post.
The
appearance of the tracks comes as attention remains focused on Trump’s
claims that extensive damage was inflicted on the pool’s liner.
On
Monday evening, Trump said on Truth Social that officials had drained
the Reflecting Pool in order to repair what he described as “scars and
damage” caused by vandals. He claimed the liner had been cut over a
distance of hundreds of feet.
The president’s
characterization of the damage has drawn scrutiny because large portions
of the basin are now visible following the draining operation.
During
a recent visit to the site, Newsweek was unable to identify any obvious
long gash in the exposed sections of the pool. However, significant
fencing remains in place around parts of the memorial, access is
restricted, and the basin had not yet been fully drained. As a result,
it was not possible to inspect the entire length of the pool.
They
are not finding gashes because they do not exist. This is all one of
Mr. Chump's lies. And the tracks most likely were made when Mr. Chump
drove over the area on May 7th.
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.”
President Donald Trump on Sunday night bragged that his approval rating has jumped to an impressive new high.
Just one problem: it hasn’t.
Trump wrote on Truth Social:
It’s
not clear what rating Trump was referring to, but none of the recent
polls tracked by RealClearPolling, the New York Times or the Economist
have his approval rating even approaching 50%, much less 59%.
To the contrary, the Economist’s tracker has his disapproval rating at 59%, versus a 36% average approval rating, which puts him 23 percentage points underwater.
The Times’ tracker has his approval rating at 19 percentage points underwater, while RealClearPolling has it at 56.5%.
Mr.
Chump thought he could fool people just by pretending his approval
rating was higher up. It is not. He is underwater in all the polls.
It is obvious that very few Americans like him and even fewer like the
job that he is doing.
Senator
Adam Schiff's office says newly uncovered government documents reveal
additional Trump administration contracts to produce and install large
promotional banners on federal buildings in Washington, D.C., including
displays featuring oversized images of President Donald Trump and
"America First" branding.
According
to Schiff's office, the newly identified contracts add to previous
findings that taxpayer funds were used for large-scale banner
installations at government facilities throughout the nation's capital.
"The
Trump administration is spending hundreds of thousands of your tax
dollars to glorify and pay tribute to a sitting U.S. President and his
political agenda," Schiff said in a statement. "Not only is this a
terrible waste of Americans' hard-earned money, it is clearly against
the law. Congress has long outlawed spending tax dollars on propaganda
and self-aggrandizement and an eight-story high Donald Trump head
certainly qualifies as propaganda."
The
documents cited by Schiff's office show that the Department of the
Interior awarded a contract worth approximately $39,000 for banners
featuring President Trump alongside an "America First" slogan.
He
has more than enough to do -- including end the Iran War. Yet he
continue to play interior designer. It is as though he has nothing else
to do. He does do other things. He destroys. He does corrupt no-bid
contracts. In fact, Nicolai Haugsted (DAGGENS) reports:
According
to The Irish Star, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse says he has
received whistleblower material through the Government Accountability
Project, a nonprofit organization that supports whistleblowers.
According
to Whitehouse, former project managers described multiple examples of
hurried renovation work that resulted in expensive mistakes.
“The
Center rushed a series of renovations driven by the President’s
aesthetic whims and his desire to star in a series of televised events
in December,” Whitehouse said in a statement.
Whitehouse also claims the renovation program bypassed normal procurement procedures.
His
office released an 83-page appendix containing internal emails,
documents and photographs that it says support the whistleblower
allegations.
Among the claims is that an $8
million contract to replace the concert hall floor was awarded without
competitive bidding to a company that allegedly lacked experience with
concert hall projects.
Monday, July 13, 2026. Chump continues his war on Iran while he
continues destroying the US economy, outrage continues to build over ICE
murdering Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, and much more.
Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes the state of the Iran War.
Brent crude oil, the international
benchmark, closed last week near $76 per barrel, about 5 percent higher
than prewar levels. Although oil prices are far below the peak of nearly
$120 a barrel during the worst of the war, the market moves that follow
each round of strikes have shown Iran’s capacity to move energy prices.
A
recovery in shipping traffic after the United States and Iran signed a
preliminary cease-fire agreement last month had led to a “sharp”
increase in global oil supplies, the International Energy Agency said in
a report
released on Friday. Oil exports from the Persian Gulf jumped by 6.5
million barrels per day in June, to around 16 million barrels per day,
helping to bring down prices.
[. . .]
If ships become more wary of plying the strait after recent attacks, the
talk among economists may turn from forecasts of an impending oil glut
to worries about “demand destruction”
as high energy prices squeeze businesses and consumers. The average
price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States remains 30 percent
higher than before the war. It was $3.88 a gallon on Sunday, up from
$3.80 a gallon a week earlier, according to the AAA motor club.
Repeated closures of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large
proportion of the world’s fuel and fertilizer are ferried, have resulted
in higher operating costs for farmers, a trend that will indirectly affect grocery prices in the long term. According to recent data
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for “food at home”—that is,
the cost of groceries—increased by 2.7 percent between May 2025 and May
2026.
Although the price of eggs—a point of contention ahead of the 2024 presidential election—has decreased in the past year, other staples such as ground beef and sandwich bread have gone up.
Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said that “almost
everyone has a food item that they’re focused on. They buy regularly
that they use as a benchmark for the cost of living and their financial
situation.”
“The war is just exacerbating all the angst around,”
said Zandi. “It’s a real problem financially, but also it’s being
supercharged in the minds of people because people are really focused on
the cost of food and groceries.”
Even if the Trump administration
returned to its brief truce with Iran, the consequences of the conflict
will be long lasting. Zandi predicted that the cost of oil will remain
high for the next several years, even with producers seeking ways to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Millions of Americans are borrowing money or draining their savings
to buy groceries, highlighting the financial strain many households face
as the cost of living rises, new research has found.
More
than a quarter of working-age adults who relied on credit cards to buy
groceries were either unable to pay their balance in full or missed
their minimum payment, according to the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan
think tank. About one in 10 adults relied on so-called "buy now, pay
later" loans to cover their groceries — of those, about a third missed a
payment last year, the analysis found.
About 20% of working-age
adults said they had tapped long-term savings that weren't intended for
everyday expenses, such as an emergency fund, at least once in the last
12 months to pay for groceries, the researchers said.
"Families
still need to eat. They will still need to pay for their basic needs,"
Kassandra Martinchek, a co-author of the study and public policy expert
at the Urban Institute, told CBS News. "Now they have the additional
burden of also needing to repay debt — it could constrain their ability
to meet their basic needs in the future and get back on their financial
feet."
An overwhelming share of Americans say everyday life costs too much, a feeling many tie most directly to food and fuel bills.
In the survey conducted for the Guardian, a whopping 95% of respondents said the country is in an affordability crisis.
[. . .]
Compared with earlier this year, far more Americans now say the economy
is deteriorating. Roughly 57% describe it as getting worse, compared to
46% in February. The share saying conditions are improving fell from 28%
to 16%.
Concern about basic costs was not confined to one political camp. According to the Guardian,
about half of Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike said
groceries and gasoline are difficult to afford, and now two-thirds of
Americans say they have little confidence that the federal government
will bring relief from the cost-of-living crisis.
Among the goods and services listed,
gasoline was ranked as the good that most Americans had trouble
affording, at 52%. Coming in second, groceries were similarly found to
be unaffordable, with 51% of Americans saying they struggled to buy
them.
Welcome to the Chump economy.
While Chump illegally grabbed 2.2 billion dollars in 2025, the American
people have been fleeced at the gas pump and at the grocery store.
According
to the Economic Research Service at the Department of Agriculture,
prices across all food categories are expected to rise 3.2 percent in
2026.
Today, Jessica Cheung, a
senior audio producer for “The Daily,” talks with the general manger of a
food co-op in Pittsburgh about how the store is being affected by the
quickly increasing costs.
Everything Chump touches
turns to s**t. His ICE program? He's beefed it up and raised numbers.
And we have Lorenzo Salgado Araujo's death to show for it.
Shortly before 7 a.m. on Tuesday,
immigration officers were trailing a white work van in the Magnolia Park
neighborhood of Houston. Minutes later, the driver had been fatally
shot in his abdomen.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement on X
and again to The New York Times on Saturday that a federal officer had
opened fire at the man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, in “self-defense”
after Mr. Salgado Araujo “weaponized” his white van. The agency accused
him of ramming one of their vehicles and trying to run over an ICE
officer.
Neither Mr. Salgado Araujo,
a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the United States without
authorization for 35 years, nor the three passengers in his van were the
initial targets of the operation, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman told The Times.
Footage
from bystanders and local businesses obtained by The Times, although
incomplete, provides a window into the events that unfolded on Canal
Street.
[. . .]
Mr. Salgado Araujo’s white work van — closely followed by two unmarked
S.U.V.s driven by ICE agents — is heading south on Wayside Drive at 6:46
a.m. Neither of the S.U.V.s appeared to have emergency lights
activated.
Mr. Salgado Araujo’s van abruptly makes a tight left turn onto a
residential block of Canal Street that is partially blocked off by
construction. The change of direction is apparently too sudden for the
agents in the lead S.U.V. — a Nissan — to follow. The second S.U.V. — a
Jeep — follows the van onto Canal.
Footage shows the Jeep, driven by an ICE agent, initially speeding up
along the driver’s side of Mr. Salgado Araujo’s van, overtaking it.
But two seconds later, a security camera at a medical office filming
from the opposite direction shows the Jeep on the passenger side of the
van. The Jeep appears to veer sharply toward the van, possibly making
contact. Both vehicles swoop into a U-turn. An agent appears to exit the
Jeep.
So it would appear that ICE struck Lorenzo's
car first. That would implode DHS' claim that they killed him because
he used his vehicle to ram into them.
Another lie
from DHS. Markwayne Mullen would be well advised to get ahead of this
and to announce this. If he wants to be boxed in as a liar this early
in his tenure, he better get ready for being seen with the same disgust
that his predecessor Kristi Noem is. Kristi's scandals continue to be
exposed. For example, Julia Ornedo (THE DAILY BEAST) reported earlier today:
Kristi
Noem’s alleged lover is still facing scrutiny for his short-lived stint
as “shadow secretary” of the Department of Homeland Security.
Investigators
have uncovered evidence that Corey Lewandowski, 52, may have been
involved in the improper awarding of government contracts in his time as
Noem’s right-hand man, insiders tell the Wall Street Journal.
A
potential criminal referral to the Department of Justice is being
considered, the outlet reported, adding that both the White House and
new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who took over after
Noem’s ouster in March, have been briefed on the matter.
DHS officials were stunned to discover how involved Lewandowski was in
the contracts signed during Noem’s 14-month tenure at DHS, according to
The Journal. Sources told the outlet that Lewandowski personally signed
certain contracts or had knowledge of the approvals despite not being a
full-time federal government official.
At the time of the stop, Mr. Araujo was
on his way to work at a construction site. Three men were in the car
with him, including Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, his younger brother. As
of Friday, they remained in immigration detention in Conroe, Texas,
outside Houston.
On Thursday, the three men told a lawyer, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, that Mr. Araujo did not use his vehicle as a weapon or try to run over the immigration officers, and that no agent had been positioned in front of the vehicle, the lawyer said.
The
authorities did not provide video footage of the encounter. The ICE
agents were in unmarked vehicles and were not wearing body cameras,
according to the area’s congresswoman, Representative Sylvia Garcia, a
Democrat. Ms. Garcia said she had spoken to the acting director of ICE,
David Venturella.
Surveillance and
witness videos obtained by The New York Times show two ICE vehicles
tailing Mr. Araujo’s white van and trying to cut it off. The van can be
seen doing a U-turn before stopping alongside the road, with several
immigration agents running toward the van as it comes to a halt. Video
of the moments when shots were fired has not emerged.
At least two of the passengers in a van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo at the time he was fatally shot
by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Houston
this week are disputing the federal agency's account of the incident,
according to an attorney representing the men.
Hugo Balderas, the lawyer for two of
the three passengers, said Friday he had spoken with his clients, who
say ICE's account is inconsistent with their experience.
"They confirmed that at no point was
there ever an ICE agent directly in front of the vehicle," Balderas
said. "They also confirmed that the shots came from the sides, not from
the front, which is inconsistent with the ICE statement."
On Saturday morning Ronaldo Salgado
glanced, his smile bittersweet, at a photo of his father projected on a
large screen and found the courage to address dozens of people crammed
at an indoor vigil in his native Houston.
Mr.
Salgado and a younger brother moved the room to tears as they spoke
about the love their father, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, had for soccer, and
the passion he had for the American dream. When the brothers renewed
calls for accountability in the fatal shooting of their father at the
hands of immigration agents, the crowd erupted in applause.
Mr.
Salgado Araujo was a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant who had been living
in Houston for 35 years. He was driving to work with three other men
Tuesday morning when agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement began following him and later shot him after they said he had failed to stop his vehicle.
“I just want to continue pressuring, continue the pressure, to continue
obtaining a full independent investigation,” said Mr. Salgado, 29, a
public-school teacher, as he addressed the crowd at an event organized
by the Service Employees International Union. “To continue preserving
the evidence, and for his van to be returned to us.”
Gov.
Greg Abbott's radio silence on the ICE shooting in Houston is even more
jarring given he was on the radio this week for hours after the
shooting.
Abbott
had White House Border Czar Tom Homan on during his guest hosting
duties on The Sean Hannity Show on Tuesday, where they celebrated ICE
ramping up its deportation activities nationwide. But neither said a
word about Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
Salgado
was shot early Tuesday morning in Houston's East End after ICE agents
attempted to pull over the van he was driving with three other
passengers, including his brother, as the work crew was on their way to a
construction site. Salgado is a Mexican national who did not have U.S.
citizenship. U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, told reporters that
Salgado wasn't the target of the stop when his vehicle was pulled over.
Abbott
didn't talk about the shooting during the radio program or on his
social media accounts since. As of Friday afternoon, he'd posted about
his family dog passing away and promotions of his radio program from
earlier in the week.
It's
a very different reaction than Abbott had in January after ICE shot and
killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minnesota. After that shooting,
Abbott was on a conservative radio program where he said the White House
needed to "recalibrate" how it was using ICE to make arrests.
Another
death that Donald Chump's responsible for. How many more murders is he
going to be allowed to carry out? At what point, do the courts step in
and say, "Enough." Tell him that's enough, that he clearly doesn't
know how to oversea this operation and that -- for public safety reasons
-- it needs to be shut down?
I am outraged and struggling to recognize the country I have loved all my life.
This past week, another life was tragically taken by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
Yet
his story is only one sad part of a much larger tragedy for immigrants
without legal status. Thousands are being held in ICE detention
facilities across our nation.
Reports
indicate that roughly 70% have no criminal record. Many accounts
describe overcrowded conditions, inadequate food, poor medical care and
unsanitary facilities. More than 50 people have died while in ICE
custody.
We
can debate immigration laws, but we should never debate the value of a
human life or the obligation to treat every person with dignity.
If we lose our compassion, we lose something far greater than our politics. We lose our soul.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Sen. Murray Calls for an
Independent Investigation; Demands ICE Release all the Footage Related
to Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s Filling
Washington, D.C. – In response to the fatal shooting
of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA),
Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, released a video statement
demanding that ICE release all of the footage related to this tragedy
and calling for an independent investigation. In the video, Senator
Murray draws attention to the fact that ICE has provided no evidence to
back up its dubious claims that the officer fired in response to Salgado
Araujo “weaponizing his vehicle” and the agency has a history of lying
about using extreme force against innocent civilians.
Senator Murray has spoken out forcefully and consistently against
the Trump administration’s cruel and counterproductive mass deportation
campaign and the egregious treatment by ICE and DHS of American
citizens, legal immigrants, and undocumented immigrants. As Vice Chair
of the Appropriations Committee, she led Democrats’ efforts fighting
tooth and nail to secure meaningful reforms in law to rein in ICE and
Border Patrol—which Republicans ultimately refused altogether and chose
to skirt Democrats by delivering another massive blank check for the
agencies with no accountability. Last month, at a Senate Appropriations
Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on
the FY27 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS)—Murray pressed Secretary Markwayne Mullin on the conduct of ICE
and Border Patrol and Republicans’ refusal to enact reforms into law.
In March, Senator Murray released a video about
the numerous violent shootings we are seeing from Trump’s reckless ICE
and CBP agents across the country—and the urgent need to rein in these
rogue agencies. Senator Murray highlighted the stories of Marimar Martinez, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, Carlos Jimenez, Francisco Longoria, and Carlitos Ricardo Parias—all
of whom were shot by ICE or CBP agents. Throughout the video, Senator
Murray calls out the egregious use of force from federal agents, their
lies that don’t hold up in court, and the extreme danger they are
putting families and communities in by recklessly using firearms.
Senator Murray also called out Republicans for refusing to negotiate
serious and common sense measures to rein in ICE and CBP.
In December 2025, Murray called attention to the violent assault of Wilmer Toledo-Martinez in Vancouver, Washington and she successfully advocated for his release from
the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWIPC). Wilmer was lured out of
his home under false pretenses, violently detained by federal agents,
and mauled by an attack dog despite not resisting arrest or attempting
to flee. Not long after, Murray also called attention to the case of Jose Paniagua Calderón, whose foot was run over by agents in Vancouver.
In November 2025, Senator Murray joined 48 of her colleagues in the Senate and House of Representatives in introducing the Restoring Access to Detainees Act,
which would mandate that DHS allow people who have been detained to
contact their legal counsel and families. In February 2025, Senator
Murray signed onto a letter demanding that DHS end wrongful searches and interrogations of Tribal members, and continued to push for answers from DHS on the matter last December. In March 2025, Murray also reintroduced her Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act. She and Senator Richard Blumenthal led 27 of their Senate colleagues last year in a letter expressing concern with prevalence and the treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in ICE detention.
In Washington state, Senator Murray has been conducting oversight of
the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWIPC), despite the Trump
administration’s efforts to block Congressional oversight of federal
immigration detention facilities. After a protracted legal battle over
Washington state’s ability to enforce health and safety standards at
NWIPC, a federal appeals court ruled in
August 2025 that the state should be allowed to enforce such standards
at the detention center, and that failure to comply could result in
fines of up to $10,000 per violation. In December 2025, Senator Murray led Members of the Washington state Congressional delegation in a letter to
Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons expressing grave concerns with
conditions at NWIPC in Tacoma, Washington and demanding answers to a
long list of questions regarding overcrowding and lack of access to
medical services, food, and legal counsel for individuals detained at
the facility.
Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:
“That is Ronaldo Salgado. On Tuesday morning, an ICE agent shot and
killed his father, Lorenzo—a construction worker with no criminal
history who spent 35 years in Houston building homes and raising three
American sons.
“Now here is ICE’s version: they say Lorenzo ‘weaponized his vehicle,’ so an agent fired in self-defense.
“Of course, ICE has provided no evidence to back up its claims. And
we know ICE lies. How? That is almost word-for-word what DHS said after a
federal agent shot Carlitos Parias in Los Angeles—right up until the
body cam footage showed the agent’s gun went off while officers were
smashing in his windows, and a judge threw the whole case out.
“It
is the same story they told about Marimar Martinez in Chicago—until the
video showed the agent was the one doing the ramming.
“We know that ICE lies. Yet Republicans still refuse to require ICE
to follow the same basic rules your local police follow every single
day.
“That is what Democrats are fighting for—and it should not be a fight.
“I’m
still pushing for accountability in the law, but I am also demanding an
independent investigation and that ICE release all of the footage
related to Lorenzo’s killing.
“We also need to hear from the witnesses at the scene they detained and shipped to God knows where.
