Friday, August 14, 2026. Chump's more focused on taking bribes than he
is on the needs of the American people, Chump and Hegseth's USS LINCOLN
problem gets worse, assault survivors don't trust Chump or his
administration (and shouldn't), the Tate brothers' ties to Chump and his
family, Homeland Security enriched a friend of Kristi Noem's with a
no-bid contract for $464 million, and much more.
Let's start with Chump's latest nonsense. Alex Woodward (INDEPENDENT) reports that the joke that is the Kennedy Center Board is again saying Chump's name will go on the building:
The
board voted, again, to close the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts for renovations as part of a plan announced by the
president earlier this year, which was blocked by a federal judge and is
tied up in ongoing litigation. That plan included putting Trump’s name
on the white marble facade, in front of the name of the assassinated
former president, by renaming the venue The Donald J. Trump and John F.
Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
But
under the resolution approved by the board Thursday, Trump’s name will
appear on the building to thank the president for the multi-million
dollar renovations. An inscription will read “Restored and Renovated by
President Donald J. Trump” — directly below the sign.
No,
it would be restored and renovated by the American people who are the
taxpayers footing the bill. Chump's possibly doing a task on a list.
He's not doing anything else and he doesn't need his name on it. Back
to Woodward's article:
“This
morning’s decision to close the Center and the surprise agenda item to
put Donald Trump’s name back on the building was more of the same,” said
Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who is suing to stop the building’s
closure and Trump-led renovations. “This latest development is a
transparent effort to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and flies in the
face of the statutes that Congress passed.”
The courts and the law? There's no respect for either on the part of Chump or anyone else serving in the administration.
Todd
Blanche was sworn in as Attorney General of the United States earlier
this week — by Emil Bove, because of course — and today he addressed the DOJ workforce with a message that can be summarized as: ignore everything you have seen with your own eyes for the last 18 months.
“I
promise you that I will lead this department with integrity,” Blanche
told the tens of thousands of prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and
support staff he now oversees. “I promise you that I will focus on our
core mission which is to uphold the rule of law fairly and impartially,
to keep this great country safe and to protect the rights of every
citizen in this country.”
There
was also this, delivered with apparent sincerity, “We will always
respect the role of the judiciary.” This from a man confirmed in an
administration that has talked an unending amount of smack about federal judges and watched the threats against judges skyrocket.
Under Blanche’s leadership, the DOJ has been found to have made
arguments federal judges across the political spectrum have described as
“pretextual,” “disingenuous,” and “bad faith.” Blanche added, perhaps
anticipating the obvious follow-up, “We’re not going to be intimidated
out of enforcing the law.” Sure. That’s what’s been happening…
intimidation… by the judges?
Chump
and his corrupt cronies are happy to waste your tax dollars but they
won't even do their jobs. They'll take that money but they won't do
their jobs. They'll spend the money -- giving contracts to their
friends as they wallow in corruption -- for things that are not needed
and then whine that they need more money.
Starting last fall, the Department of
Homeland Security spent $464 million on a no-bid contract to buy 10 used
airplanes from a firm in Northern Virginia.
That
was an enormous price tag, but the department said it had no time to
consider other offers. The planes were needed urgently for deportation
flights.
But since then, the department has barely used this new fleet — for deportations, or anything else.
Three
of the aircraft are luxury business jets. Just months after acquiring
them, the department sought to loan or lease two to other agencies,
including one for the use of the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, according
to a letter to the department sent Wednesday by top Democrats on the
Senate Appropriations Committee.
The
other seven are older Boeing 737 passenger jets, which the government
has left parked at an airport in Lake Charles, La., for months at a
time, as reported earlier by CNN.
An internal government document, obtained by The New York Times, said
the agency did not have the staff necessary to operate them.
The acquisitions were part of a surge of
rushed contracts handed out recently by the Homeland Security
Department, which has repeatedly used the need for “urgency” to bypass
regular contracting procedures. The idled planes highlight the risks of
that approach. The agency rushed headlong to spend nearly half a billion
dollars, only to end up with planes it did not fly.
The
contract also illuminated a broader trend within the second Trump
administration: no-bid contracts awarded to people with connections to
Mr. Trump or his cabinet secretaries. The company that received this
contract, Daedalus Aviation Corporation, is led by a chairman who had
donated to a political committee supporting the previous homeland
security secretary, Kristi Noem.
That
is the administration. They are not honest brokers. They are not good
stewards of the tax dollars. They waste them, they steer no-bid
contracts to their friends and cronies. They wallow in the corruption.
They do everything but their actual jobs.
The
Secretary of Defense is supposed to be the advocate for the service
members. Pete Hegseth doesn't care about the service members unless it
is to hector them about beards and their weight.
That's
how you end up with the scandal of the USS LINCOLN -- where for months
service members on the vessel have not had adequate supplies -- from
toothpaste to food -- and where for months they have been at sea over
200 days now. Hegseth's not doing his job.
Today on MORNING JOE , Joe addressed Hegseth's failures noting that "while Pete Hegseth dithers America bleeds readiness."
"The promises have been made, the promises have been broken," Joe notes.
Democratic senators have begun raising
concerns about the extended deployment of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln,
amid reports about poor living conditions and a lack of downtime for the
crew after more than eight and a half months at sea.
The
Lincoln, a San Diego-based aircraft carrier with a crew of about 5,000
sailors, is supporting U.S. operations in the Middle East against Iran.
In a letter
to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Hung Cao, the acting Navy
secretary, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut,
described a list of reported problems on the ship.
“There
have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water
contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety
concerns and disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many
care packages in route to the ship to be lost in transit for months,” he
wrote about the problems, many of which were reported earlier by Navy Times and Stars and Stripes.
Last
night , Lawrence O'Donnell highlighted these failures by Chump and
Hegseth on his MS NOW program. In fact, Lawrence highlighted a ton of
failures by this administration.
The Trump administration has repeatedly said the fight against sex trafficking is one of its top priorities.
But
investigations have stalled and prosecutions declined in the past six
months because of staffing shortages, funding cuts, immigration
enforcement and growing distrust of the government among victims,
according to Reuters interviews with 25 former prosecutors, current
agents and victims’ advocates, and a review of federal court records.
"You
can't say something is a priority and then not provide the resources to
make that happen,” said Jacqueline Kelley, a former federal prosecutor
in New York who led the prosecution of rapper and actor Sean "Diddy"
Combs, who was accused of sex trafficking and convicted on two counts of
transportation for prostitution.
Federal
sex-trafficking charges have dropped this year to the slowest pace
since 2010. The Justice Department charged 73 people through June, about
22% lower than the number of people charged during the first half of
the past three years, court records show.
Charges
for related crimes also declined. The DOJ charged 1,230 people child
pornography violations through June, 3% less than average for the same
months over the past three years. It charged 318 people with violating
the Mann Act, which targets interstate prostitution, 18% less than
average.
These drops reflect a larger shift in
federal law enforcement priorities under President Donald Trump, who has
slashed agency budgets and mandated a focus on deportations. People
charged with crimes unrelated to immigration – everything from tax
evasion to drug trafficking – dropped 7% through June to about 22,000,
according to the court records.
The findings come just
as Congress has confirmed Trump nominee Todd Blanche as Attorney General
in a 50-to-49 vote with two Republicans defecting. His candidacy faced a
bipartisan backlash over the handling of documents related to convicted
sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and a transfer to a minimum-security
prison granted to his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, shortly after
Blanche personally interviewed her.
Yes,
Blanche and Chump have sent the message that sex crimes don't matter.
Why would anyone trust them? Ghislaine Maxwell is in Club Fed now. She
was in a lower security prison and yet she made nice with Blanche and
he moved her to a minimum security prison -- one she was not qualified
-- due to the crimes she was convicted of -- to be in. And then he lies
about it over and over. When he bothers to answer questions about the
transfer.
They've brought no charges against any of the other perps exposed in the Epstein files.
Every
minute of every day, Liz Stein has to relive the worst thing that’s
ever happened to her. She does it during news interviews and when
meeting lawmakers on Capitol Hill to demand justice for herself and
other survivors of the late disgraced financier and convicted sex
offender Jeffrey Epstein.
And she’s had to do
it throughout the attorney general confirmation process for Todd
Blanche, a man who rose from being President Donald Trump’s criminal
defense lawyer to the top official overseeing the U.S. Department of
Justice. Blanche has served as deputy attorney general, the No. 2 at
DOJ, since March 2025. He then became acting attorney general in April
after Trump fired his predecessor, Pam Bondi, and officially nominated
him to oversee the department in June.
Since
that time, Stein and her fellow survivors have consistently urged
senators to vote against Blanche’s confirmation, arguing that he has
shown no urgency or concern with expanding the Epstein investigation.
Despite some initial pushback from two Republican members of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, Blanche cleared that first hurdle to advance to a
full Senate vote, in part by meeting with survivors — something he’d
previously declined to do.
Republican Sens.
Susan Collins, who is in a tough re-election race in Maine, and Lisa
Murkowski of Alaska then announced that they would join Democrats in
voting against Blanche, raising the tension heading into the final vote.
With last-minute support from GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the
Senate confirmed Blanche, 50-49, early Saturday morning.
Stein
told The 19th that just last year she felt momentum toward
accountability growing, driven by public outrage from across the
political spectrum and the Epstein survivors’ decision to step into the
national spotlight as a unified group calling for transparency. However,
Blanche’s confirmation crystalizes another feeling for Stein: “It feels
like the DOJ is weaponizing this case for political reasons, and it
feels like we’re the pawns being used in that game,” she told The 19th.
That
momentum feels stagnant for now, Stein said, but she wants people to
know that it won’t be a deterrent. “I think that every attempt the
Department of Justice has made to make us go away has not worked,” she
said. “We’re not going away.”
"I
think that every attempt the Department of Justice has made to make us
go away has not worked." And Epstein survivors see this as do survivors
of other sex trafficking. It's why the US 'Justice' Dept is a dirty
joke.
Why would anyone trust Blanche or Chump?
But
in MAGA land, Chump's a hero. In his first term, they did their own
media and they lied. Chump was doing this and that and stopping sex
trafficking. Then when his first term was over, the same crazed 'media'
was saying that Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or someone else was about
to be arrested for sex trafficking. This carried through 2024. And
despite the fact that Chump never delivered on sex trafficking while in
office and despite the fact that after leaving the White House he didn't
deliver -- and was not installed as that 'media' would insist every
other month was about to happen -- they still believed it.
They're crazy.
The
rest of us aren't. And we can look and we can see that Chump is a
predator and that's why he hangs out with predators. We know that he's
not going to help stop sex trafficking because, as he told Marjorie
Taylor Greene, his friends could get hurt.
Andrew
Tate is fighting extradition to the U.K. The star of the so-called
manosphere and his brother Tristan are charged with crimes that include
rape and human trafficking. Their extradition is playing out in federal
court, but it's also testing the political ties that Tate has built in
the U.S. NPR's Bill Chappell reports.
BILL CHAPPELL, BYLINE: Here's Andrew Tate two years ago, speaking outside a courtroom in Romania.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANDREW TATE: I'm very close to the Trump family. I know them well.
CHAPPELL:
Very close with the Trump family. In fact, Tate said he'd recently
spoken to Barron Trump, the president's youngest son. Tate also teamed
up with Donald Trump Jr. to promote a MAGA crypto coin. At the time,
Tate was facing charges in Romania related to his lucrative webcam porn
business. He denies these charges too, which also include rape and
trafficking. Tate has millions of followers online, where he preaches
male dominance and money-making schemes. His fans include people who
work in the U.S. government.
JARED HOLT: The Tate brothers have friends on Capitol Hill.
CHAPPELL: That's Jared Holt, a senior researcher at Open Measures, a company that monitors online extremism and disinformation.
HOLT:
You know, there's people in the Trump administration that have cozied
up to them before, people in the MAGA movement that have cozied up to
them before, certainly.
[. . .]
CHAPPELL:
But does that support go both ways? Andrew Tate seemed to think so in
2025. After President Trump took office, he said, quote, "the Tates will
be free." And there were signs the new Trump administration might help
him.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE BENNY SHOW")
ALINA HABBA: I admire you. I admire what you're doing.
CHAPPELL:
That's Alina Habba talking to Tate days before Trump was sworn in.
Habba was Trump's personal lawyer who went on to work in his
administration. She joined Tate on an episode of conservative influencer
Benny Johnson's podcast. At the time, Tate was still in Romania under a
travel ban.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE BENNY SHOW")
HABBA: I'm right there with you. And yeah, you're good. If you're in the States, I got your back.
CHAPPELL:
One month later, the Tates were in the U.S. They flew to Florida after
Romania lifted its travel ban. That day, reporters asked Trump if his
administration played a role.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don't know. You're saying he's on a plane right now?
The latest developments have renewed interest in reports linking
Barron Trump to the Tate brothers. According to The New York Times,
Barron and Andrew Tate reportedly spoke during a video call in 2024.
Barron has never publicly addressed the reported connection.
The controversy has also reached Capitol Hill. Rep. Yassmin Ansari
called on the House Oversight Committee to investigate the Trump
family's alleged communications with the Tate brothers. She also urged
the committee to seek testimony from Barron regarding any knowledge he
may have had about the case or the brothers' legal proceedings.
"Recent
reporting and public disclosures raise extremely grave national
security, diplomatic, and ethical concerns about whether political
networks in the President’s orbit, including members of his family, and
other public officials leveraged their influence to shield these two men
who are facing grave criminal indictments on human trafficking, s----l
assault, and exploitation of minors, among other appalling offenses,"
Ansari wrote in a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman James
Comer.
The Chump family can generally be found where ever predators gather. And that's something survivors register.
Just
like people register Bari Weiss killed a 60 MINUTES segment on Epstein
by firing the reporter Sharyn Alfonsi. She had worked on a segment
about the finances and, as part of the segment, interviewed Senator Ron
Wyden. Tara Dublin (RAW STORY) reports:
Among the multiple bombshells that dropped in
DC this month, there’s one extra big one that we can’t allow to get lost
in the raging garbage fire news cycle Trump somehow created so that no
one would trust anything they heard from the media.
Sen. Ron “Chutzpah” Wyden (D-OR, and my Senator, hence my nickname for him) released his highly anticipated report
on the Senate Finance Committee’s four-year investigation into the
American and Russian banks tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s international sex
trafficking ring. The 67-page report specifically focuses on the failure
of the Wall Street banks to blow the whistle on Epstein’s financial
crimes, with one bank going as far as helping Epstein hide certain
transactions to avoid suspicion.
Titled “Looking
the Other Way: How Wall Street Banks Enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex
Trafficking,” the report exposes how top bankers shielded Epstein from
federal scrutiny by delaying the reporting of suspicious financial
activity to the U.S. government, likely in violation of federal
anti-money-laundering laws. It includes new details about the extent of
suspicious activity reported by Deutsche Bank after Epstein’s death, new
details from bank reports filed about suspicious transfers to Epstein
through accounts at Bank of America, and names top officials at JPMorgan
Chase and other banks who were responsible for reporting Epstein’s
shady activities to the government but instead protected Epstein to gain
access to his Rolodex of billionaires.
Sen.
Wyden’s Epstein investigation first began in 2022, with an inquiry into
the sex trafficker’s “absurdly priced” tax planning for
multi-billionaire and Trump crony Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo
Global Management.
[. . .]
The
Trump administration has declined to investigate over 4,700 wire
transfers totaling nearly $1.1 billion, as Sen. Wyden detailed in this
Twitter thread in November 2025.
The
report goes on to reveal that the banks and Epstein’s estate have paid
$900 million to settle Epstein-related lawsuits while refusing to
cooperate with Sen. Wyden’s investigation. Also non-compliant is
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has obstructed access to
Treasury’s own Epstein Files (which most Americans don’t even know
exist) not just to Sen. Wyden, but to the House Oversight Committee and
its Republican Chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) as well.
A
new report by Senate Democrats claims that Sen. Marsha Blackburn
refused to help subpoena financial records related to Jeffrey Epstein.
The
report by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), released last week, suggested that
major banks including JPMorganChase, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank
failed to report concerns about Epstein’s financial transactions from as
far back as 2002 until after the millionaire financier was arrested on
sex trafficking charges in 2019.
“I said from
the start that if you want to get to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein
cover-up, you had to follow the money,” Wyden said in a statement
accompanying the report.
“This report is a
ready-made roadmap for prosecutors, investigators and members of
Congress to finally start holding the Epstein class accountable,” he
continued.
In the report, Blackburn —
Tennessee’s senior senator and the Republican nominee for governor — is
accused of ignoring efforts by Senate Democrats to subpoena these banks,
despite her public calls for transparency in the Epstein case and
punitive justice for sex offenders.
Wyden, a
ranking member and former chair of the Senate Finance Committee, says he
repeatedly went to Blackburn’s staff from 2024-2025 to ask for her help
as a Republican committee member to subpoena Epstein bank records “as
Blackburn had long been an outspoken proponent of increased transparency
with relation to Jeffrey Epstein,” but her office declined.
Donald
Trump is not a well man. He is, unfortunately, also President, which
means that we all pay a price for his inability to accept reality.
Notably, while he insists that he has “total control over the Strait of
Hormuz,” shipments of oil through the Strait will remain minimal unless
Trump can find a way to smuggle oil out in catering carts — or until he
makes a deal with Iran. And we won’t have such a deal until he faces up
to the reality that he lost his war of choice.
The
Hormuz closure means, in turn, that oil prices — which briefly fell
most of the way back to prewar levels on hopes that a deal was really
coming — will remain high for the foreseeable future. Here’s the price
of Brent crude:
But here’s
the puzzle: Why aren’t oil prices even higher? They were over $100 a
barrel before markets began betting on an end to the war, so why aren’t
they back above $100 again? Also, why are they “only” about $25 a barrel
above prewar levels, when many analysts — myself included — suggested that they might go much higher?
A large part of the answer is that oil prices actually are higher — if you look at the right numbers.
[. . .]
So
while the price of a barrel of crude is up around $25, the price of the
products refined from that barrel is up about 25+35=60 dollars per
barrel, putting it in the range of middle of the road predictions of
what would happen as a result of a long-term Hormuz closure.
The
Chump economy. He's destroyed the economy. People suffer while he
lines his pockets with bribes. Or says he's suing the US government for
$10 billion. It's all about lining his pockets. Let's note this from
Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Gift to Trump “reinforces
that foreign corporate special interests can…buy lucrative tariff
exemptions simply by showering President Trump with shiny gifts…[and]
could also raise serious legal questions under federal criminal law”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) pressed Antwerp World Diamond
Centre (AWDC) and David Gotlib Luxury Cufflinks, over the decision to
gift President Trump an 18-karat gold, diamond-encrusted ring shortly
before the Trump administration announced tariff exemptions on European
diamonds.
AWDC’s lavish gift came just weeks before the
Trump administration exempted European natural diamonds from Section
301 tariffs, making Belgium’s diamond industry the only major one with
zero-percent tariff access to the U.S. market.
“[T]he circumstances surrounding the European diamond industry’s
exemptions raise troubling new questions about foreign corporate
interests potentially buying special favors from President Trump with
lavish gifts—or in the case of the gold ring, what appears to be a
cartoonish bribe,” wrote the senators.
In February, after the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s
International Emergency Economic Power Act (IEEPA) tariffs, the Trump
administration quickly replaced them with other authorities. This change
erased a September 2025 zero-percent tariff exemption AWDC had pushed
for and had hailed as a “tremendous boost” for its business. AWDC
acknowledged it faced a “significant decline” in Belgian diamond exports
to the US following the Supreme Court decision.
On June 28, 2026, at an America 250 celebration in Brussels, the AWDC
President presented U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White with a
watch-sized, 18-karat gold ring with 321 diamonds, 56 sapphires, 13
emeralds, six rubies, and two diamond “T” emblems, to be delivered to
President Trump. AWDC explicitly linked the
gift to trade issues, stating that the company commissioned the ring to
“celebrate that enduring relationship” with the Antwerp diamond
sector’s “most important trading partner for generations.”
Then, on July 24, 2026, the Trump administration officially exempted
European natural diamonds from the latest tariffs, restoring the Belgian
diamond industry’s zero-percent tariff access to the U.S. market.
AWDC’s status as a public-private partnership with the Belgian
government means President Trump may be required to give up the ring
under the Foreign Emoluments Clause.
“[P]resenting a gift of this magnitude could still play directly into
President Trump’s well-established affinity for shiny gifts,” wrote the lawmakers,
referencing the pattern of corporate executives using flattery and
gifts to secure lucrative exemptions to the administration’s tariff
rules. In the second Trump administration, Apple, NVIDIA, and Rolex have
all seemingly secured favorable treatment after gifting President Trump
lavish gifts or donating money to his inauguration.
“At best, your [gift to]… President Trump amidst high-stakes tariff
decisions creates the glaring appearance of impropriety. At worst, it
reinforces that foreign corporate special interests can…buy lucrative
tariff exemptions simply by showering President Trump with shiny
gifts,” said the lawmakers.
“If your gift implicates federal bribery law, you or the officials
responsible for it could be subject to criminal penalties…we write to
request more information about your attempts to influence Trump
Administration officials,” the lawmakers concluded.
The senators pressed AWDC to explain its apparent influence over the
tariff exemptions and detail any communications the company had with
administration officials leading up to the exemption announcement
by August 24, 2026.
Senator Warren has long conducted oversight on the Trump family’s apparent attempts to profit from their government roles:
In August 2026, Senators Warren, Blumenthal, and Kim probed Korean company Base Group’s mysterious $2 million payment to
President Trump while under a trade-related investigation by the Trump
administration, raising concerns about pay-to-play politics and bribery.
In a new letter to Base Group Chairman Kim Sung-jip, the lawmakers
pressed the company for answers on the suspiciously-timed payment.
In July 2026, Senators Warren and Blumenthal, along with Representative Stansbury, opened an investigation into
reports that Softbank Group’s (Softbank) recently donated $50 million
to the Trump Presidential Library — the largest publicly disclosed
contribution to the Library and a possible attempt to curry political
favor.
In March 2026, Senator Warren released a new response from
the Department of Defense (DoD) indicating that there are no effective
processes in place to prevent possible conflicts of interest and
corruption involving President Donald Trump’s family and the
Department’s awarding of defense contracts. In a new letter, she and
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) pressed Secretary of Defense Pete
Hegseth on this failure and pushed for answers regarding Trump’s sons’
latest investment in Powerus, a drone company.
In September 2025, Senator Warren pressed the CEO of Rolex on
why the company invited President Trump to be Rolex’s guest at the
finals of the U.S. Open Tennis Championship earlier this month — just
weeks after President Trump announced 39 percent tariffs on Swiss
imports.
In July 2025, Senator Warren pushed the CEOs of Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Apple, and Alphabet,
on their attempts to secure billion-dollar tax handouts paid for by
ripping away health care coverage, food assistance, and other services
from millions of American families.
In May 2025, Senator Warren wrote to Pilgrim’s Pride and JBS USA (the parent company of Pilgrim’s Pride), pushing them to
explain Pilgrim’s Pride $5 million donation to the Trump-Vance
Inaugural Committee, the single largest donation — bigger than Amazon,
Meta, and Google’s donations combined.
In April 2025, Senator Warren pressed Tim Cook about
reports that spoke with Trump administration officials to win an
exemption to Trump’s China tariffs, worth billions of dollars for Apple.
In April 2025, on the 100th day of the second Trump administration, Senator Warren read 100 reports of corruption from
President Trump’s term into the Congressional record, pointing to all
the ways President Trump and his family have used the presidency to
enrich themselves, give favors to donors, and made it more difficult to
hold him accountable for corruption.
###
That's
what he's done, Mr. Corruption, he's lined his pockets, taken bribes,
created wealth for himself while he leaves Americans struggling to buy
groceries, struggling to pay for gasoline. Graig Graziosi (INDEPENDENT) reports:
Gas prices on Wednesday hit their highest-ever price for this point in the year according to GasBuddy.
Patrick
De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, reported in a post
on X that gas prices have never gone above $4 per gallon after August
12 in any year.
On Wednesday morning, the
average fuel price was just over $4 per gallon. The last time fuel cost
nearly that much around mid-August was in 2022 when the national average
gas price was $3.98 per gallon.
Gas prices have
remained high for the majority of the year thanks to President Donald
Trump’s ongoing war in Iran. Despite Trump's promises that fuel prices
will "drop like a rock" once the war ends — and his frequent claims the
the war has effectively ended and that Iran's military is destroyed while the U.S. controls the Strait of Hormuz — prices have continued to climb.
And
the climbing price? Doesn't bother him at all. The needs of the
American people are not his concern. His concern is how to keep the
private jet that Qatar gifted him with. That's what he's concerned
about. Not how Americans are going to put food on the table, but on how
many bribes he can take before he has to leave office. Harry J. Holzer (THE HILL) offers:
Last week’s jobs report
from the Department of Labor created shock waves in the U.S. Instead of
showing 80,000 new jobs, as economists expected, payrolls in the U.S.
declined by 23,000 in July. And payroll growth for May and June were
revised downward by a combined 100,000. To our surprise, the U.S. has
apparently returned to the flat job growth we saw in 2025.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Murray and Murphy Blast Wasteful Spending, Demand Answers
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Patty Murray
(D-WA),Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Chris
Murphy (D-CT), Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee,
wrote a letter
to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin
blasting DHS’ acquisition of 12 new planes—including 5 new luxury
jets—and its plans to use those aircraft to ferry Trump administration
officials around.
They also sent the letter to the DHS Inspector General, noting that
the acquisition and use of the planes merits investigation by his
office.
“It has come to our attention that the Department of Homeland
Security is effectively running an in-house private jet service for
Trump administration officials with a slew of new luxury jets and other
airplanes it has acquired and begun providing to officials over the last
year,” Murray and Murphy write to Mullin. “This
includes providing jet services not only for DHS officials like
yourself, but also for White House Border Czar Tom Homan, other
administration officials, members of the first family, and even the
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel.”
The lawmakers blasted the wasteful use of funds and noted that the
acquisitions of the planes is almost certainly unlawful, as well: “The
Department’s purchase of these airplanes to shuttle administration
officials around the globe demonstrates a remarkable disregard for
American taxpayers who work hard and expect government officials to
responsibly manage their tax dollars, not burn them on extravagant
luxury jets. These acquisitions also raise serious legal concerns, as
Congress has not provided the necessary legal authorization for DHS to
purchase these planes, much less run a private jet service for
government executives.”
Murray and Murphy write that Republicans in Congress have delivered
over a quarter of a trillion dollars to DHS through two partisan
reconciliation bills, but note that: “instead of using the
staggering amount of funding provided to DHS to actually improve the
lives of Americans by requiring basic compliance with the Fourth
Amendment, acquiring and deploying body-worn cameras to every law
enforcement officer in the field, mandating minimum officer
identification, or properly training new hires, this administration has
lit taxpayer dollars on fire by acquiring new and unnecessary planes to
jet Trump officials around in extreme luxury.”
They ask for basic information about the acquisitions and plans for
the planes and conclude by urging Secretary Mullin to sell the planes
and work with Congress to steer the funds to more important priorities: “[W]e
hope that you will sell off these unnecessary luxury jets and airplanes
acquired by DHS and return the funding to American taxpayers. We would
be happy to work with you and our colleagues in Congress to return those
dollars to the Treasury and put them to better use making sure
Americans can afford health care, rent, and groceries.”
Full text of the letter is available HERE and below:
Markwayne Mullin
Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
2707 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE
Washington, D.C. 20528
Secretary Mullin,
It has come to our attention that the Department of Homeland Security
(“Department” or “DHS”) is effectively running an in-house private jet
service for Trump administration officials with a slew of new luxury
jets and other airplanes it has acquired and begun providing to
officials over the last year. This includes providing jet services not
only for DHS officials like yourself, but also for White House Border
Czar Tom Homan, other administration officials, members of the first
family, and even the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), Kash Patel. In total, DHS has acquired 12 new aircraft, including
5 extravagant new luxury jets, using funds provided in the “One Big
Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA). These jets were acquired and provided for
officials’ use, even though no authorization was ever provided by
Congress to buy any airplanes, much less to support executive travel.[1]
The Department’s purchase of these airplanes to shuttle
administration officials around the globe demonstrates a remarkable
disregard for American taxpayers who work hard and expect government
officials to responsibly manage their tax dollars, not burn them on
extravagant luxury jets. These acquisitions also raise serious legal
concerns, as Congress has not provided the necessary legal authorization
for DHS to purchase these planes, much less run a private jet service
for government executives.[2]
But instead of using the staggering amount of funding provided to DHS
to actually improve the lives of Americans by requiring basic
compliance with the Fourth Amendment, acquiring and deploying body-worn
cameras to every law enforcement officer in the field, mandating minimum
officer identification, or properly training new hires, this
administration has lit taxpayer dollars on fire by acquiring new and
unnecessary planes to jet Trump officials around in extreme luxury that
the vast majority of Americans will never experience.
For example, in the midst of last fall’s government shutdown, your
predecessor spent nearly $200 million of OBBBA funds provided for the
Coast Guard to acquire:
Two Gulfstream 700 luxury business jets, a model
Gulfstream describes as “the pinnacle of business aviation excellence,”
which boasts “the most spacious cabin in the industry.”[4]
The jets were acquired despite the fact that DHS already owns two
Gulfstream jets to support executive travel and despite the fact that
DHS had never raised the need for any additional jets in any of its
annual budget requests. The Department stole money that should have been
used to support modernization of the Coast Guard’s fleet, meet
operational needs, and improve military readiness to instead purchase
two new luxury jets to shuttle the DHS Secretary and Deputy Secretary
around the globe.
DHS also spent OBBBA funds provided for ICE to acquire 10 additional
aircraft. To justify the purchases, DHS previously claimed they would
all be used to support removal operations in some way.[5] Now, it says these planes are being used for the following purposes:
Two Gulfstream G650 luxury business jets, ultra-long-range
aircraft that seat up to 15 passengers. One of the G650s has already
been leased to the FBI for 12 months to support Director Patel’s
travel—despite the fact that the FBI already has its own jets to support
the Director’s travel. The other G650 is currently being retrofitted
for deployment to support Border Czar Homan and undisclosed DHS
officials’ travel, according to the Department.
One Boeing 737-8 MAX business jet, a modified
ultra-luxury jet that DHS acquired fully equipped with a bedroom and
other luxury amenities like a shower, kitchen, bar, and flatscreen
TVs—amenities that even Air Force Two lacks. Despite these features, DHS
claimed the jet would “serve dual missions—both as ICE deportation
flights and for cabinet level travel.”[6]
Now, DHS has informed us the bedroom is being removed, and the plane
will remain in ICE’s ownership but be loaned to the Department of
Defense (DOD) to fly undisclosed cabinet-level officials. It has also
been reported the jet will be used to fly the First Lady around.[7]
Seven Boeing 737s, a commercial aircraft that can
seat upwards of 200 passengers. DHS claims four of these aircraft will
be used to support Congressional Delegations (CODELs) but has not
provided information on why it is necessary or a permissible use of
funds for DHS to purchase these aircraft. DHS states three of the
aircraft will soon support ICE deportation flights. Top former DHS
officials and industry experts have noted that these acquisitions waste
tax dollars,[8]
and we remain alarmed by how ICE may use these planes to support the
administration’s lawless immigration enforcement campaign. One aviation
industry executive said that: “It’s hard to see this as anything but a
waste of public money.”[9]
The American people deserve a full accounting of this gross misuse of
their tax dollars, and Congress needs more information to conduct
sorely-needed oversight and to appropriately craft this coming year’s
funding bill for the Department. The misuse of these funds also merits
investigation by DHS’s Inspector General, and we have copied him on this
letter to make him aware of our concerns.
Instead of extending tax credits to lower Americans’ health care
costs or investing to help families afford child care and housing,
Republicans in Congress chose to make historic cuts to health care and
nutrition assistance in order to cut taxes for the ultra-rich and
provide DHS with more money for immigration enforcement than the budget
of nearly every military in the world. We fought Republicans’ backward
legislation to supercharge DHS’s budget, but we believe every lawmaker
should at minimum agree that Americans’ tax dollars should not be wasted
on lavish new jets to shuttle DHS officials, the FBI director, and an
undisclosed number of other Trump officials and family members around
the globe in extraordinary comfort.
DHS has repeatedly noted that as Secretary you are focused on being “the best possible steward of taxpayer dollars.”[10]
Accordingly, we ask that you furnish the information requested below,
and we hope that you will sell off these unnecessary luxury jets and
airplanes acquired by DHS and return the funding to American taxpayers.
We would be happy to work with you and our colleagues in Congress to
return those dollars to the Treasury and put them to better use making
sure Americans can afford health care, rent, and groceries.
Please provide the following by August 26, 2026:
Contract details for the purchase of each plane;
Contracts for any/all retrofitting and missionization of each plane;
Cost analysis for the operations and maintenance of each plane for the life cycle of the plane;
Flight logs to date, including the names and titles of passengers, origination, destination, and purpose of travel;
A copy of the lease agreement with the FBI for the G650 jet;
A copy of the loan agreement with DOD for the Boeing 737-8 MAX business jet; and
The legal justifications for the purchase, operation, and maintenance, as well as planned uses, of these aircraft.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to San Diego on Wednesday to pitch a new playbook. He joined Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner to unveil the Great American Recovery Initiative.
The Trump administration’s plan rejects the popular idea of giving people homes before treating their addictions. Instead, officials want to mandate treatment and religious guidance.
Kennedy framed the street crisis as something deeper than just a lack of shelter. “For many Americans it is a spiritual battle,” he explained.
He noted the federal toolkit offers a practical guide. “We are giving state and local leaders a practical roadmap to help Americans win that spiritual warfare,” Kennedy said.
Local service providers quickly pushed back against the federal pivot. Experts have long supported a model that gets people indoors first, which they say creates a stable base for medical care.
[. . .]
Ann Oliva, head of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, defended the old approach. She argued that providing shelter first treats people with dignity.
“At the end of the day, housing first works because it doesn’t require people to deserve a safe and stable place to live,” Oliva stated. “It treats people like human beings.”
As usual with Junior, it's ignore the experts in the field, it's use propaganda ('spiritual warfare') and, most important, it's do nothing that benefits or helps anyone. Junior should have gone to prison for dealing heroin back in the day. His name kept him out and afloat and he never learned anything -- especially not empathy.
Thursday, August 13, 2026. Inflation remains high as noted in
yesterday's economic report that so many try to talk up despite the
reality of it, Hegseth is an abject failure as Secretary of Defense, ICE
agents aim a gun at an unarmed woman in a car, family detention gets a
serious exploration by MS. MAGAZINE, and much more.
Inflation
as measured by the consumer price index rose 0.1% from June to July,
the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday, showing that costs
broadly remained elevated for consumers amid volatile energy prices.
From a year ago, inflation dropped slightly to 3.4% from 3.5%.
But in a troubling sign for consumers, it remains above the rate of wage growth, which as of last month was pacing at 3.2%, according to the BLS. Average hourly earnings slipped 0.2% from a year earlier, as well, the agency said Wednesday.
Inflation
has been wiping out wage gains for the past four months, Heather Long,
chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote on X.
“For middle-income and lower-income Americans, this is the key issue,” Long wrote.
As
the Middle East conflict has dragged on, gasoline prices have popped up
again, and averaged $4.06 nationwide in early August, according to AAA.
Overall energy costs fell 1.5 percent in July, but they are still
nearly 15 percent higher than they were at this time last year. The
war’s impact on fuel costs was also visible in airline fares, which
jumped 2.2 percent since June and are up 25.5 percent over the past
year.
The elevated costs come at a time when hiring has slowed dramatically
and Americans are seeing slower wage gains. The overall annual
inflation rate for July remains above the 3.2 percent increase in
average hourly earnings over the same period, which means that workers
are still losing ground in their spending power.
Anders Bylund (THE MOTLEY FOOL) notes, "Oil
prices could also throw a spanner in the works, depending on how
negotiations in the Iranian conflict work out. Today, President Trump
claimed 'total control' over the Strait of Hormuz. The oil market, which
votes with money rather than adjectives, barely budged." And that's
because neither Chump nor the US have "total control" of the region. David Goldman (CNN) explains,
"President Donald Trump has routinely claimed that the United States
controls the Strait of Hormuz, a claim belied by the notion that
military escorts are needed to shuttle commercial vessels in and out of
the Persian Gulf and Iran has attacked 64 vessels transiting the strait,
resulting in 17 seafarer fatalities and 35 injuries." Christopher Rugaber (LOS ANGELES TIMES) reminds that "prices
are still rising more quickly than average wages, underscoring the
struggle many Americans have had with more expensive groceries, gas, and
healthcare, trends that have taken on a high profile in the
fast-approaching midterm elections." And Madison Hoff (BUSINESS INSIDER) points out, "Food
price increases looked similar to June; food away from home rose 3.4%
year over year again, and food at home rose 2.7% again. Overall food
prices increased 3%, like they did in June." The bottom line's delivered by Steve Kopack (NBC NEWS), "The
rate of inflation likely outpaced growth in Americans’ wages last
month, according to projections, even as energy prices moderated
slightly."
A man whose been
involved in repeated bankruptcies can't be counted on to steer the US
economy in a successful manner. We've seen that. We should grasp it.
There are no writers for this 'reality' show to make Chump come off as
anything but the bumbling grifter that he is.
Republicans
on the Senate's Joint Economic Committee posted a series of numbers
trying to sell yesterday's report as good news. Again, it wasn't. And
if you doubt it, note this number that they posted:
Consumer Price Index
From July 2025 to July 2026:
Headline CPI-U inflation was 3.36 percent.
Food price inflation was 2.98 percent.
Energy price inflation was 14.73 percent.
Core CPI-U inflation was 2.48 percent.
Let's look at another of his
'successes' -- the USS LINCOLN. For months now, the lack of food
available for sailors on the vessel has been in the news. Also well
covered was the extreme length of the tours being asked of those serving
on the ship. Ellie Cook (NEWSWEEK) now reports:
At
least two U.S. Navy sailors have attempted to jump overboard on the USS
Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, according to family members of the
crew, after concerns were raised during an extended deployment for the
war with Iran.
The aircraft carrier left the
U.S. in November and was rerouted from the Pacific to the Middle East as
the White House prepared to launch its war on Tehran at the end of
February.
Relatives of the roughly 5,000 sailors
and Marines who have spent more than eight months aboard the Lincoln
have raised the alarm over supply shortages, long work schedules and
fears over the potential for self-harm, in multiple reports published in
the past week.
More than 200 family members of
the sailors met last week with Hung Cao, the acting secretary of the
Navy, according to the specialist media outlet Stars and Stripes.
A
second meeting, which took place virtually, between top Navy officials
and loved ones of the sailors and Marines on the Lincoln also discussed
concerns over mental health and safety, according to recordings seen by
MS Now.
Cao said the Lincoln would be relieved
by the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier group but did not specify when,
the outlet reported.
Speaking to the Military Times,
the partners of sailors onboard the ship have spoken of multiple
incidents of service members attempting to take their own lives.
Annabelle
Loma told the outlet she had been told by the ombudsman that her
husband had attempted to jump overboard. She said she has only been able
to speak to him a handful of times since, and that he was now in a
medical hold.
“He’s scared,” she said. “He thinks
he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out,
his 13-year career is ruined, just like that. That’s not fair, that’s
not right. That’s not what he should be worrying about right now.”
Their
deployment began in November and was due to end in May, making its
current service the longest of a U.S. carrier in the modern era. No
return date has been made public at the time of writing.
It
is not yet “Mutiny on the Bounty”, but the crew aboard the USS Abraham
Lincoln and their families back home are making it clear to Pete
Hegseth, the Secretary of War, and other Pentagon officials that one of
America’s most iconic warfighting vessels is plagued with a potentially
deadly morale problem. Back in April, barely a month into Donald Trump’s
war with Iran, sailors serving on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
started grousing on social media about dwindling food supplies. Images
sent to spouses and parents were leaked to the media and appeared to
support claims that the ship’s supplies were coming under growing
pressure. Some “meals” consisted of little more than a handful of boiled
carrots and two dried-out slices of unidentifiable meat. Sailors aboard
the nearby USS Tripoli were also lodging similar complaints.
At
the time, Hegseth denied any problems existed, claiming that the
vessels had more than 30 days of food supplies for their crews. “Our
sailors deserve and receive the best,” he said. But four months later,
the crisis has intensified. This week, sailors’ families confronted top
Pentagon officials at what military newspaper The Stars and Stripes
described as “intense town hall meetings” held in San Diego, where the
Lincoln is based. Families reportedly warned acting secretary of the
navy, Hung Cao, that they were increasingly fearful of suicides among
the men and women serving aboard the carrier, which has been at sea for
more than 250 consecutive days, more than 40 of them engaged in combat
with Iran. (Photo: Getty)
Chump
never served and didn't appreciate those who did. He then elected to
nominate a drunken failure to be Secretary of Defense. And here we
are. A Secretary of Defense who installed a beauty salon in the
Pentagon so he can get his touch ups and foundation to try to cover his psoriasis
and who spends more time arguing to be called the Secretary of War
(can't be called that legally) and insisting he's over the Department of
War (also can't be called that legally). What Hegseth isn't doing and
hasn't done is taking care of the service members. Hafiz Rashid (THE NEW REPUBLIC) observes, "Trump,
for his part, seems either unaware of how dire things are among
servicemembers or simply doesn’t care. He touted the U.S. naval blockade
on the Strait of Hormuz Wednesday and bragged about how successful it
is."
Earlier today on MS NOW's MORNING JOE, the gang addressed the issue.
Let's move over to ICE. They've managed to disgust the nation yet again.
New
video shows an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent pulling a gun
on a Northern Virginia woman who was driving her car in Falls Church
Monday afternoon. The agents accused the woman of trying to run them
over. But the woman says she didn’t put them in danger.
Carolina Molina shared dashcam and cellphone videos of the interaction with News4.
Madaleine Rubin (NEW YORK TIMES) notes, "The
agents repeatedly accused her of trying to run them over with her car
and threatened to arrest her. But in videos captured from several
angles, there is no indication that Ms. Molina had tried to harm the
agents." Billal Rahman (NEWSWEEK) quotes
Carolina Molina stating, "Something should be done about these thugs
who can get away with pointing a gun at someone for absolutely no reason
and killing others. I don’t understand why the White House isn’t doing
anything about them. They’re unhinged and emotional. Maybe they need
therapy resources." And what many Americans may not understand is why
ICE (a) thought they could get away with lying that someone was trying
to attack then with their car (Carolina's dash cam and cell phone
footage demonstrated she had not done that) and (b) why ICE thought they
could pull a gun on an unarmed person?
They
act that way because they haven't been trained and because they are
often the dregs of society -- hired due to a need not as a result of
qualifications.
Immigration
agents on Friday detained a father in New Jersey, with his neighbors
rallying around the family and raising thousands of dollars to try to
help his legal fight.
Tonny Quesada-Ramirez’s
detention in South Orange is the latest case involving U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detaining immigrants with pending
legal status applications—a gray area that has seen agents avoid arrests
until a decision is made.
A GoFundMe set up for
Quesada-Ramirez, known to his community as Tony, quickly surpassed the
$25,000 target and sat at over $36,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.
Neighbor
Shuly Adams, who started the fundraiser, wrote: “He was kind. He was
easy to work with. He lit up when talking about his family, most of all
his two sons, the older of whom has Down’s syndrome.”
Earlier
this year, a 16-year-old student at a Los Angeles high school was
looking forward to starting his junior year, where he planned to try out
for the school’s varsity tennis team. His parents were both college
psychology professors.
But in April, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested the family, who
immigrated from Iran more than a decade ago, after U.S. Secretary of
State Marco Rubio told immigration officers to revoke their permanent
legal status. ICE separated the family, sending them to two different
Texas detention centers.
For
the past 123 days, the teen and his mother have lived in an immigrant
detention facility in Dilley, where he and other detainees share their
rooms with swarms of cockroaches, spiders and mosquitoes, he wrote in a
sworn affidavit. Meanwhile, his father is at the South Texas ICE
Processing Center in Pearsall.
“We have been
put through hell for the past four months, and our physical and mental
health have deteriorated in ways that might not be reversible for
years,” Maryam Tahmasebi, his mother, wrote in The Nation on Tuesday.
“We are only allowed to speak with my husband for 10 minutes every two
weeks, under supervision.”
The
teen is one of at least 60 children who the Trump administration has
held in the Dilley detention center for 100 days or more — far exceeding
the 20-day limit for detaining immigrant children — according to a
Texas Tribune analysis of federal government data.
On
average, children in the Dilley detention center spend 25 days there —
but in a six-month period ending in December, that average peaked at 47
days, according to the Tribune’s analysis.
The teen,
who is only identified by his initials — S.M.H. — in court documents,
said in a sworn declaration that being arrested and detained was
“terrifying” and he has lost 10 pounds since his arrest.
On Aug. 6, just days after the Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14160,
which aimed to remove birthright citizenship for children of
undocumented parents and temporary visitors, the president signed two new executive orders targeting birthright citizenship and so-called birth tourism.
The second order, “Ending Birth Tourism,”
denies visas to women suspected of misrepresenting their reason for
traveling to the U.S. in order to give birth on U.S. soil.
These
executive orders are the administration’s latest attempt to police
American identity, punish migrant women for entering the U.S. and
ultimately regulate their reproduction. Beyond the issue of birthright
citizenship, immigrant women and children continue to be targets of a
hostile immigration system that seeks to control them through detention,
family separation and deportation.
Trump’s
efforts to criminalize and punish women, including mothers and pregnant
women, have been expanding since his first term, when he signed Executive Order 13768,
“Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States in 2017,”
removing protections for pregnant women to allow for their frequent
detention in immigration facilities. This EO ensured pregnant women
could be held in detention centers, despite the fact that they require
specialized healthcare, access to medical labs and high-quality
ultrasounds that are not readily available in these facilities.
Immediately following this order, more than 2,100 pregnant women were detained, many of whom were detained upwards of weeks or months.
In 2018, Trump implemented a “zero tolerance”
policy that resulted in the separation of more than 5,000 families and
the incarceration of children as young as 4 months. These children were
housed in abhorrent conditions
and without basic amenities, including a blanket, toothbrush and
something to eat. Images of children held behind chain-link fencing
sparked public outrage on both sides of the political spectrum and the
family separations eventually ended, though as of 2024 as many as 1,360 children still had not been reunited with their families.
Family
detention differs from the earlier zero tolerance policy that resulted
in children being separated from their parents, but it’s no less
traumatic. It is a practice designed to detain whole families in
immigration facilities while they await hearings.
While halted under Biden, many people don’t know that the Trump administration reinstated family detention in March 2025 and reopened two family detention centers in Texas:
the Karnes Family Civil Detention Center in Karnes County, which can
house 830 people, and the South Texas Family Residential Center in
Dilley, which has space for 2,400 people. Both the Karnes County and
South Texas facilities are run by private companies: CoreCivic and GEO Group, respectively.
Family
detention allows the administration to get around the optics of
separating families while ramping up immigrant detention and undermining
the rights of families and children. In fact, since 2025, “the number
of families in detention centers has more than tripled,” according to a report by the Children’s Equity Center,
“detaining children of all ages, starting in infancy.” These facilities
function like civil detention centers or prisons and are unsuitable for
stays of any duration.
In addition, minors are being held in residential centers much longer than the 20-day limit set by the Flores Agreement, a 1997 law which outlines basic standards of care for minors in immigration detention.
And let's note this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), alongside Senators Chris
Murphy (D-CT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Catherine
Cortez Masto (D-NV), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark Kelly
(D-AZ), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Alex Padilla (D-CA),
Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA),
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) sent a letter to
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr. demanding he explain why the Trump administration planned
to award a no-bid contract to a Trump-aligned law firm with no apparent
immigration law experience, allowing them to represent
unaccompanied children who are in the care and custody of the Office of
Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
“Given the political connections between the firm’s senior
leadership and the Trump administration, we have concerns about why you
sidestepped the competitive bidding process to select this firm to
provide legal services for children who are in ORR care and custody, and
demand transparency into whether all federal procurement processes were
followed,” the senators wrote. “Children deserve
competent representation by attorneys who practice at the intersection
of child welfare and federal immigration law, but Americans also deserve
to know why their federal dollars are being doled out to Trump’s
friends and allies.”
The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),
through ORR, has an obligation to ensure that unaccompanied children are
provided competent legal aid as they navigate the immigration process.
Despite this, Secretary Kennedy has cut legal service funding for 26,000
unaccompanied children, proposing to shift funding to the Trump-aligned
Burke Law Group, despite the firm’s lack of experience protecting the
rights of immigrant children.
“The firm appears to have little relevant experience with the
legal and practical challenges that children face, raising serious
concerns about the firm’s ability to provide not just representation but
adequate, zealous representation,” the senators added. “Within
hours of the notice in the Federal Register, the firm appears to have
updated their website to include content about immigrant youth that
didn’t exist on the website the previous day. At best, this is
concerning, and at worst, it is a part of a coordinated scheme to paper
over the firm’s lack of experience.”
Burke Law Group’s inexperience in the area of the law they would be
contracted to perform could result in serious harm for the nearly 2,000
children in ORR’s care. The firm itself employs 26 people in total,
adding an additional concern about the firm’s capacity to provide
adequate legal representation to innocent children, let alone its
competency to do so. Instead, the only clear outcome of this contracting
award is that another Trump-aligned business will receive millions from
the Trump administration.
In the letter, the senators demanded that Secretary Kennedy provide
transparency as to why the Burke Law Group was considered for this
contract and details about the firm’s plans to provide legal assistance
to unaccompanied children.
Full text of the letter is available HERE and below:
Secretary Kennedy,
We are alarmed by the recent news that the Trump administration
intends to award $150 million to a Houston law firm with close ties to
President Trump and no apparent expertise in immigration law, to provide
legal representation to unaccompanied children. Given the political
connections between the firm’s senior leadership and the Trump
administration, we have concerns about why you sidestepped the
competitive bidding process to select this firm to provide legal
services for children who are in the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s
care and custody, and demand transparency into whether all federal
procurement processes were followed. Children deserve competent
representation by attorneys who practice at the intersection of child
welfare and federal immigration law, but Americans also deserve to know
why their federal dollars are being doled out to Trump’s friends and
allies.
Most Americans agree children should not be forced to navigate the
complex immigration process without adequate counsel, and Congress has
enacted several provisions and funded counsel for these children for
many years. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act
(TVPRA) directs the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS), through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), to
“ensure, to the greatest extent practicable . . . that all unaccompanied
alien children . . . have counsel to represent them in legal
proceedings or matters and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation,
and trafficking.” Recently, ORR moved to withhold funding from over 100
legal services providers that had provided counsel to children for
decades, which essentially cut off all funding for representation of
approximately 26,000 unaccompanied children currently navigating the
immigration court process.
Yet, seemingly overnight, ORR bypassed the competitive bidding
process entirely, awarding the Burke Law Group (“the firm”) a one-year
single-source cooperative agreement. We are awaiting final details, but
the new agreement appears to cover around 1,800 children currently in
ORR custody.
The firm appears to have little relevant experience with the legal
and practical challenges that children face, raising serious concerns
about the firm’s ability to provide not just representation but
adequate, zealous representation. Within hours of the notice in the
Federal Register, the firm appears to have updated their website to
include content about immigrant youth that didn’t exist on the website
the previous day. At best, this is concerning, and at worst, it is a
part of a coordinated scheme to paper over the firm’s lack of
experience. Furthermore, the firm’s senior leadership has political ties
to the Trump administration. One of the founders of the firm was a
Trump appointee – to an agency with no involvement in either child
welfare or immigration law – and still another founding partner now
serves as Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Office of
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) for Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and has a questionable connection to harms perpetuated
against detainees at immigration detention centers.
Consistent with the TVPRA, Congress has funded, and ORR administered,
robust legal services to unaccompanied children under past Republican
and Democratic administrations alike. Counsel for children should have
at a bare minimum, experience and knowledge of the complex laws,
policies, and dynamics of the intersection of immigration and child
welfare law. Beyond the professional duty of legal competence, there is
long-standing concern about adequate representation by qualified counsel
for this vulnerable population, which is why Congress authorized and
funded the program originally. HHS has yet to clarify how a 26-person
Houston-based law firm will be able to adequately satisfy the TVPRA’s
mandate to provide representation for unaccompanied children in ORR’s
care and custody.
For these reasons and our deep concern regarding the treatment and
protection of unaccompanied children, we call for an independent,
timely, transparent, and public investigation at both the state12 and
federal level into this award, with the full cooperation of ORR and HHS.
We request the following information and responses to questions by August 25, 2026.
Please provide:
Names of all legal services providers considered for this
cooperative agreement. Please include the type of provider (e.g., law
firm, nonprofit) and their qualifications.
A copy of the firm’s application for the award.
A copy of the cooperative agreement and justification for single-source funding.
All communications between employees of the firm and agency personnel at ORR and HHS.
Copies of the merits determination for this agreement and the
compliance justification for why the agreement is in line with the
grants policy agreement.
Questions:
Nothing in this agreement discusses how children who were already
represented will be supported by the firm or how such children will be
transferred to attorneys of the firm.
What is the firm’s plan to ensure adequate continuity, experience,
and knowledge in taking these cases, including its anticipated
case-per-attorney ratio?
What, if any, subcontractors will the firm employ or plan to employ to handle the workload?
Describe the firm’s coordination, if any, with the supplemental
cooperative agreement awardee, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and
Immigrants.
There are currently only two attorneys at the firm listed as having
any immigration experience. How is the cooperative agreement expected to
ensure proper legal representation of approximately 1,800 children in
ORR custody?
Will firm attorneys be required to convey a represented child’s
sensitive personal information, or information of the represented
child’s family members or prospective sponsors, to ORR or DHS without
specific and credible reason to believe such information-sharing is in
the best interest of the represented child?
Please explain what the firm is expected to share with ORR or HHS,
including who will have access to such information, the cadence by which
that information will be shared, and the purpose of such
information-sharing.
Please also explain how the firm will be in compliance with ABA
Model Rule 1.6 and Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct 1.05
and 1.06, involving a client’s informed consent.
How will this firm be handling ‘Know Your Rights’ presentations and
legal consultations? How will they be providing these services to
children not in Texas? Please clarify whether these services will be
provided in-person or virtually.
Todd
Blanche may have scraped through his Senate nomination (just), but The
Swamp has uncovered documents exposing a major lie he appears to have
missed during his controversial questioning of Ghislaine Maxwell.
Far
be it from us to suggest that Blanche’s Ghislaine grilling was a way to
ensure she didn’t reveal anything unseemly about the president’s
friendship with Jeffrey “Kryptonite” Epstein. But it seems the British
socialite who was conveniently moved to a cushy hotel prison after
talking to Blanche misled the new attorney general about her own
relationship with Trump.
Maxwell told Blanche
on July 24, 2025, that she met Trump in 1990 when she flew to New York
to help her media mogul father, Robert Maxwell, with “some advertising
issues with the New York Daily News.
“And in fact, I met—I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much,” she continued.
“And I think it should be said that he also very much liked Ivana,
because she was also from Czechoslovakia, where my dad was from. So I
don’t—I don’t remember if I did meet him or not in 1990 with my dad, but
I knew that that’s how I knew about—about Mr. Trump.”
Maxwell
went on to make the point that she didn’t meet Epstein until the
following year, adding that her father never met the child predator who
killed himself/was murdered exactly seven years ago last Monday.
The
only problem is that The Swamp has unearthed a newspaper clipping from
the May 17, 1989 issue of the New York Daily News which reports how both
Trump and Ghislaine were guests at a party on board her father’s
yacht—named Lady Ghislaine—with “caviar flown in from Paris on the
Concorde and salmon served from the vessel’s stores by shoeless
waiters.”
Also on board were John Tower, the former
senator whose defense secretary nomination was shot down over his
thrifting and heavy drinking, literary agent Mort Janklow and Peter
Kalikow, then owner of the New York Post.
The
report said Maxwell insisted his well-heeled guests took off their shoes
before boarding his yacht. Trump, it said, had a “much bigger yacht and
was happy to discuss them with Maxwell.”
The
report, by gossip columnists Phil Roura and Tom Poster, was not just in
the New York Daily News; it was syndicated nationwide.
The
obvious question for Trump’s then deputy attorney general and now his
top lawman is this: If Ghislaine was able to snow him so easily with
this lie, how much else should we believe about her account of her and
Epstein’s relationships with the president?
The
British socialite and Epstein's former girlfriend had pushed to keep
federal grand jury materials out of the public following the Trump
Justice Department’s request to unseal them, Courthouse News Service reported. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska granted the release of the documents.
In her opinion, Preska outlined her decision.
"As
noted above, Maxwell has lodged a veritable kitchen sink of objections
to the government’s request to publish the sealed materials in
compliance with the Act," Preska wrote.
"The
court finds that all of Maxwell’s objections are meritless and that, in
light of the Act, any remaining materials in the Government’s possession
should become part of the public record, subject to any
victim-protecting redactions authorized by the Act," Preska wrote.
Epstein
and Maxwell enabler Todd Blanche was called out yesterday in a press
release by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee:
Washington,
D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform, released the following statement after
the Department of Justice published an Office of Legal Counsel memo
declaring that the President could claim executive privilege over
communication with his “private advisers.” This unprecedented memo has
major implications for any investigation into Trump Administration
officials, including the Epstein investigation, shady government
contracts, and grifting projects by the President and his family.
“In
one of his first acts as Attorney General, Todd Blanche launched a plan
to hide Donald Trump’s crimes and corruption from the American people,
and obstruct our Epstein investigation. This dubious expansion of
executive privilege to cover Trump’s outside advisors is a clear attack
on Congress’s oversight powers, and creates an environment ripe for
corruption that protects only the President and his friends. We are
ready to fight to uphold our power and authority,” said Ranking Member
Robert Garcia.
In July 2026, Ranking Member
Garcia and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin urged
the Senate to reject Blanche’s nomination ahead of his confirmation
hearing for his failed handling of the Epstein files and his personal
involvement in moving Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security prison. In
June 2026, following the transcribed interview of former Attorney
General Pam Bondi, Ranking Member Garcia demanded the Committee bring in
Blanche for a transcribed interview regarding the Epstein
investigation. In January 2026, Ranking Member Garcia condemned Blanche
after the Department of Justice (DOJ) had released only half of the
Epstein files after months of defying the Oversight Committee subpoena
and Epstein Files Transparency Act.
