Wednesday, June 10, 2026

I hope Josh Gottheimer is right

Tara Suter (THE HILL) reports:

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) on Tuesday said Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner should win his primary on Tuesday and then get off the ballot so that Democrats can replace him with a stronger candidate in the fall.

Platner is expected to win Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Senate. He would then face Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in the general election in a crucial race for determining which party will control the Senate.

“I think that he’s going to get off the ballot soon, I mean, you saw, today, reporting from his ex-political director saying that he lied about all this stuff and concerns that she had, I mean, the issues are just going to keep piling up,” Gottheimer told CNN’s John Berman on “CNN News Central.” 

On Monday, The Washington Post published an opinion piece from a former top aide of Platner’s campaign in which she pushed members of her party to consider voting for someone else.

“Democrats are being sold a narrative that Platner is the only choice for the race against Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Maine voters don’t have to accept that,” former state Rep. Genevieve McDonald (D), who was Platner’s political director between August and October 2025, wrote.

He won the primary tonight.  I wish and hope that Gottheimer is correct. 


"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS): 

Tuesday, June 9, 2026.  Chump gets booed at the Knicks game, a US helicopter crashes near the Strait of Hormuz, Chump and MAGA lie about the elections in California and the attack on USAID led by Musk and DOGE and much more. 




So Chump went to Madison Square Garden last night, got booed, stuffed his face, fell asleep and left early.   Sakshi Venkatram (BBC NEWS) reports:

Donald Trump has been booed at a basketball match in New York as he became the first sitting US president to attend the NBA Finals.

The catcalls came after frustrated ticketholders waited for hours in queues that stretched more than two blocks outside Madison Square Garden on Monday due to the intense security restrictions that came with the US president's appearance.

The New York Knicks lost 111-115 to the San Antonio Spurs in game three of the best-of-seven NBA finals, cutting the Knicks' lead in the series to 2-1.

After the game, Trump told reporters: "It was, I think, mostly cheers. It was loud, and it was very enthusiastic."


He can't stop lying.  He's unable to stop.  Rohan Nadkarni, Raquel Coronell Uribe and Sarah Dean (NBC NEWS) note, "As Trump was shown on the jumbotron here during the national anthem, the crowd erupted in loud booing. Trump smiled as he saluted through the song."  No, he's not supposed to salute.  He's not in uniform and he's never worn the uniform.  He's a civilian.  We have civilian leadership over the military in a democracy.  And he's supposed to put his hand over his heart.  But then again, Chump doesn't have a heart as he proves daily. 


But what else happened?  A US helicopter crashed in his war.  Eric Schmitt, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

A U.S. Army Apache helicopter gunship went down near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, and the two crew members were safely rescued, according to two people briefed on the incident.

It was not immediately clear whether the Apache was shot down by Iranian fire, experienced mechanical failure or encountered some other problem, said one of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and said the incident was under investigation.

The incident occurred after days in which hostilities in the region escalated and then ebbed, as Israel and Iran exchanged military strikes before stepping back, the latest example of the tenuous nature of the cease-fire.


Joseph Wilkins (CNBC) notes, "U.S. President Donald Trump repeated the claim that a deal to end the war in Iran could be reached in 'two or three days,' and that the critical Strait of Hormuz would reopen 'immediately' after such a deal." Chump's being saying that for how long now?  How long has this war gone on?  Three moths and twelve days.  It wasn't only supposed to last a week or two, remember?  



AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Before walking out of a volatile interview on NBC's "Meet The Press" this weekend, President Trump defended his progress in the war with Iran. He said a ceasefire has proven effective and that the conflict is only three months old. Meanwhile, Iran and Israel traded strikes overnight, and one of the main stumbling blocks of the war, Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz, remains unresolved. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf looks at the state of the strait.

KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Richard Meade is the editor in chief of Lloyd's List Intelligence...

RICHARD MEADE: We track ships.

LONSDORF: ...A noted authority on global shipping activity. Meade and his colleagues have spent a lot of time in the past three months tracking ships around the Strait of Hormuz, and something recently caught their attention.

MEADE: There has been over the last three weeks, a fairly steady flow of ships that are moving.

LONSDORF: U.S. forces have been quietly guiding a handful of ships through the strait, away from Iran and near the coast of Oman. When asked by NPR, U.S. Central Command did not dispute that assessment. But this is not an official operation like the short-lived Project Freedom that the Trump administration announced at the beginning of last month only to pause days later, which would have seen the U.S. Navy physically escort stranded ships through the strait. Meade says ship operators tell him there is no central coordination. The journey is still extremely risky, seen as kind of a last resort. Over several weeks, only a few ships a day have gotten out this way, a far cry from the more than 120 daily that passed through the strait before the war.

MEADE: This is not a normalization of trade.

LONSDORF: The Strait of Hormuz is a critical global choke point. Its closure has led to a significant disruption in energy supplies worldwide, and it's become a key focus of any talks about ending the war in Iran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was questioned about it several times last week as he made his rounds on Capitol Hill. But both the U.S. and Iran have recently dug in their heels about their respective blockades on the strait. Here's President Trump in that "Meet The Press" interview over the weekend with Kristen Welker.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MEET THE PRESS")

KRISTEN WELKER: There is a naval blockade in place...

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

WELKER: ...Which technically is an act of war under international law. So is this a war as long as there's a naval blockade in place?

TRUMP: Well, we have a blockade. It's been extremely effective. And the reason we have it is they tried to blockade, and now we blockaded them.

LONSDORF: Trump eventually walked out of that interview. And even when or if the strait does reopen, it will take a while to fix the mess that's been made.

TOM BARTOSAK-HARLOW: There's around probably 1,000 ships at the moment that need to get out.

LONSDORF: Tom Bartosak-Harlow is a spokesperson for the International Chamber of Shipping, the global trade association for ship owners and operators. He says just getting the ships that are currently stuck out will take days, maybe weeks. And getting trade back to where it was back in early February, before Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran, will likely take months.

BARTOSAK-HARLOW: We need to see a return to the situation that we had before the start of this war, where ships had unimpeded access through the Strait of Hormuz.

LONSDORF: Not just for the global economy, but because that's what's expected under international law.

BARTOSAK-HARLOW: By definition, freedom of navigation is free.

LONSDORF: Anything short of that would set a new and dangerous precedent. But others, like Meade at Lloyd's List, worry that new precedent has already been set.

MEADE: The reality is that once the strait has been closed once, it can be closed again.

LONSDORF: Meaning that countries and companies are already rerouting to rely on it less. And this weaponization of trade has implications for other crucial waterways too. In April, Indonesia's finance minister floated the idea of tolling ships transiting the Strait of Malacca, another massively important global shipping route. He later walked that back after pressure from Indonesia's foreign minister. And over the weekend, the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen threatened to stop Israeli ships from operating in the Red Sea. As Meade puts it...

MEADE: What happens in Hormuz does not stay in Hormuz.


Meanwhile, the Chumpsters point the fingers at others when they are the ones responsible for the latest messes.  Such as?  How about the trouble facing cattle?  Ryan Grenoble (HUFFINGTON POST) reports: 

Republicans are rushing to blame former President Joe Biden for the return of a brutal flesh-eating parasite called New World screwworm, despite having killed the screwworm monitoring program in March 2025.

Appearing on CNBC Monday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins zeroed in on a familiar, and imaginary, foe: immigrants. The screwworm, claimed Rollins, has returned decades after it was eradicated because Biden had an “open borders policy.”

Biden did not have an open borders policy.

“Under the last administration with the massive movement under the open borders policy, the cartels, etc., border security, that’s when [screwworm] began to make its way back up toward America, hitting Mexico in early 2023, moving its way up through Mexico in 2024,” Rollins said.

“And when we walked in the door last year — I was sworn in on Feb. 13 of 2025 — they laid this all out for me and I said, well, where are the sterile flies, right? I mean, we’ve beaten it before, we’ve got to beat it again, and obviously not much had been done to, uh, push back.”


Oh, how they lie.  DOGE -- a Chump program -- killed monitoring of the screwworm.  Grenoble explains:

The screwworm monitoring program was abruptly terminated in March 2025, after Rollins took over. So, too, were 5,300 other grants and programs killed by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, when the Elon Musk-led bureau gutted the United States Agency for International Development.

At the time, Musk called USAID a “crazy waste of money” and “a radical-left political psy op.”

Peyton Schuman, senior director of government relations for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, told KXAN Austin a screwworm outbreak could cost Texas $1.8 billion a year, with cattle producers bearing the brunt of more than $700 million in annual losses.


They lie.  They flat out lie.  They continue to lie and blame things on Joe Biden even when it's programs that they killed.  They killed the program.  They stopped the monitoring.  This is on them and no one else.  


The primary driver of inflation in the U.S. economy—the forever war in Iran—has not yet taken full effect. Now we’ve found an entirely new driver.

Last week, the flesh-eating parasite known as the New World screwworm was found in a calf in Texas; a second case was identified about five miles away shortly thereafter. (A third case was found in a dog.) Screwworm flies lay their eggs in the live tissue of warm-blooded animals, from livestock to pets to humans. These larvae “screw” into the animal’s flesh, and while they are not very harmful to humans, in that the horrifying effects of maggots chewing into your skin are relatively easy to notice and address, they can kill a livestock host if not treated. In a widespread infestation, one of the last resorts would be mass culling, which would obviously have huge impacts on a diminished U.S. cattle herd.

The total herd count already sits at a catastrophic 75-year low, in part because of the screwworm outbreak that broke past a firebreak in Central America starting in 2023. The U.S.-Mexico border has for the past year been closed to live cattle auctions, affecting the feeder cattle that come in through Mexico to rebuild herds. But closing the border did not stop the flies from coming.

Low cattle volumes have sent the price of beef skyward to levels not seen since the Korean War, up between 20 and 35 percent in the past year. A screwworm outbreak would seriously aggravate that spike. In other words, you probably should have ordered your last hamburgers of the summer a week ago.

An outbreak would dramatically impact ranchers who have been in a deep hole for the past decade from reduced stocks, and more recently from drought, tariffs, imports of cattle pushed by President Trump to lower the price, a war in Iran that has spiked costs of fertilizer and fuel, and now the screwworm. “The cattle producer in the U.S. has already been under extreme financial stress,” says Joe Maxwell, co-founder of Farm Action and a farmer in Missouri, where he once served in the state legislature and as lieutenant governor. “This is serious, the screwworm outbreak. But it’s even more serious because of the financial position they were already under.”

These impacts are why the U.S. worked so hard for 60 years to prevent the screwworm’s return. In an obscure yet effective government program, the government bred enormous quantities of male screwworms that it irradiated to make them sterile. It then airdropped them into the Panamanian rainforest to mate with females. Those assignations produce no larvae, eradicating the threat of northward migration. This was so successful that there hasn’t been a single identified case in cattle in Texas since 1966—until last week.

It’s a good example of a government program that can easily be demonized by self-described fiscal conservatives who love to find funny-sounding initiatives to push their argument that America spends too much taxpayer money on nonsense. You can imagine John McCain or Tom Coburn or Bobby Jindal smirking about spending millions of dollars to sterilize a parasitic worm. Well, guess what: Sometimes things that sound ridiculous to the ignorant layman in Congress are critically important.

With this outbreak, the Trump administration is finding out that effective government is the only thing preventing serious disruptions to commerce, if not terrible hardship for farmers, consumers, and everyone else. It is not just a playground for silly tree-hugging liberal scientists that can be destroyed to save a buck.

ANIMAL DISEASE MONITORING PROGRAMS, including those tracking the screwworm, were under the control of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Elon Musk’s barely postadolescent cybercriminal henchmen tossed “into the wood chipper” shortly after President Trump’s inauguration. A ban on bison, horse, and cattle imports from Mexico was put in place by the Biden administration in November 2024, but after an inspection protocol was put in place, the border was reopened on Trump’s watch in February 2025. But DOGE cut the screwworm monitoring programs soon thereafter, maximizing the risk. Monitoring obviously provides an early warning for when more aggressive measures will be needed.


Musk and DOGE.  That's Donald Chump's doing.  Not Joe Biden.  Got nothing to do with Joe Biden.  This is another problem brought to you by Donald Chump.  

And Musk and DOGE were a problem with USAID before the news of the cattle issue.  Last week, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued the following:

Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Melanie Stansbury, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Military and Foreign Affairs, released a report documenting the catastrophic humanitarian, national security, and economic consequences of President Trump’s decision to eliminate the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) one year ago. The report coincides with the deadly and rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

“By shuttering USAID, Donald Trump is causing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, harming our national security, and now we are facing a deadly, rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak he and Elon Musk helped cause. Documenting the harm they caused is the first step to accountability,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.

“The Trump Administration’s dismantling of USAID has had devastating consequences around the world. These reckless cuts have contributed to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, weakened our national security, and eliminated jobs across our communities. In New Mexico, we take care of one another. We know that when it comes to our global community’s health, our fates are intertwined. Turning our backs on the world doesn't make us safer or stronger—it weakens our economy, our national security, and our global leadership at home and abroad,” said Ranking Member Melanie Stansbury.

“The dismantling of USAID has not only left 10,000 dedicated federal workers out of work, including many of my constituents, but it has also made our world less safe and less healthy. What we’ve seen with the Ebola outbreak in the DRC is a tangible example of this carelessness. It’s clear from this report that hundreds of thousands of people have needlessly gone hungry, gotten sick, or died because of the elimination of USAID. It will take years, if not decades, to rebuild our international reputation, and we should start that work now,” said Ranking Member Suhas Subramanyam.

In February 2025, as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk Elon Musk addressed a cabinet meeting to say, “We will make mistakes. We won't be perfect. When we make mistakes, we'll fix it very quickly. So, for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention. We restored the Ebola prevention immediately—and there was no interruption.” The evidence is clear that Musk’s claim was inaccurate, and that his cuts have badly hindered Ebola prevention, detection, and screening at enormous cost.

According to models from Boston University, 600,000 people have died in just over a year as a direct result of eliminating USAID, two thirds of them children. As of June 2026, a deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is spreading rapidly, having already sickened more than 1,000 people and killed over 200, in part because the infrastructure USAID built to detect and contain outbreaks like this no longer exists.

 

###




And his lies this week include lies about election fraud.  Spencer Pratt is Chump's chew toy and he's not letting him go, reality be damned.  On MS NOW's MORNING JOE today, Mika noted these lies.


And last night, Rachel Maddow addressed this wave of lies last night. 






Zorro Ranch.  SCRIPPS NEWS notes "Zorro" is mentioned nearly 14,000 times in the released Epstein e-mails.  




Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas says today that in 2019 federal authorities stepped in to his case and told him "to pause the investigation."  


Hector Balderas, a Democrat who served as New Mexico's attorney general from 2015 to 2023, told Scripps News he was deep into building a state case against Epstein in 2019 — and had just returned from interviewing a survivor — when the Southern District of New York called.

"They were concerned that we were getting parallel interviews from the same survivors they were going to use in an aggressive prosecution as well," Balderas said.

He paused the state probe, he said, after then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey promised the DOJ would share evidence and allow New Mexico to pursue state charges later. Neither happened. Federal investigators never executed a search warrant on the property.

"I think that they absolutely impacted our case, and I don't think that they were forthright, and I don't [think] they were operating in good faith," Balderas said.

Now he wishes he'd pressed on alone.



A new report has implicated President George W. Bush’s Department of Justice in the controversial case of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The report, published in the Miami Herald by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Julie K. Brown, whose reporting helped lead to Epstein’s arrest in 2019, focuses on former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, who opened the first criminal probe into Epstein’s conduct in the mid-2000s.

It features previously unreported details, including the fact that then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta started negotiating a secret plea deal with Epstein in 2007 after the financier was arrested for felony solicitation the year before.

After Reiter had gathered evidence and interviewed “two dozen tearful girls and their parents,” he was then “stonewalled by state prosecutors and attacked in the media” before being ostracized by federal prosecutors who took over the case.

Reacting to concerns raised by the parents of some of Epstein’s victims, Reiter requested a meeting with Acosta, who served as President Donald Trump’s labor secretary during his first term.


Donald Chump's best friend may be dead but he remains in the news.  Ed Mazza (HUFFINGTON POST) notes:

The Democratic National Committee used Monday’s National Best Friends Day to celebrate a friendship that President Donald Trump almost certainly wants forgotten.

The organization posted a 1997 photo of Trump with late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein:

“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”


Not all the filth Chump has cozied up to is dead like Epstein.   Sarah Rumpf (MEDIAITE) reports:


Gregory Bovino, who previously served as Border Patrol Commander in President Donald Trump’s administration, responded to reports he was considering running for president with a declaration about his preferred immigration policies that included some mathematically ludicrous figures.

Bovino’s tenure as Border Patrol commander occurred during a period of growing backlash to Trump’s immigration crackdown, sparking nationwide protests and multiple court challenges, especially after two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis: Renee Good on Jan. 7 by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24 by Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez. Polling shows public opinion has significantly soured on the Trump administration’s immigration policies, even among Republicans.

The controversy ultimately led to the ouster of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March and Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) taking her place; DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin exited the month prior. Bovino himself was defenestrated from his position in January shortly after the shootings of Pretti and Good, reassigned out of Minneapolis, and then his “retirement” was announced.
On Monday, NewsNation reported that Bovino was considering running for president in 2028, including on-the-record quotes from him and a “Bovino 2028” website he had launched — and the slogan “Men Fight Back.”

Chump birthed a Nazi.  And he's done suckling at Chump's breast.  


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

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, led Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), in sending a letter to call on the Department of Transportation Inspector General to open an official investigation into Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s involvement in the “Great American Road Trip” reality show which was paid for by the same corporations he is tasked with regulating.

Senator Murray’s call to investigate comes after Secretary Duffy’s appearance at last month’s Senate Appropriations Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing where he refused to answer basic questions about the arrangement. In May, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint against Secretary Duffy, contending that Duffy’s reality show production may have violated federal gift and travel rules.

“We write to request that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) open an investigation into potential misconduct and violations of federal laws, rules, and regulations associated with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy’s participation in ‘The Great American Road Trip’ reality show,” wrote the senators. “We respectfully request that you review new information that was raised during a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on May 19, 2026. Specifically, during testimony before the Committee, Secretary Duffy suggested that ‘The Great American Road Trip’ was an official activity. Secretary Duffy stated: ‘This was officially part of America 250 and you all sanctioned America 250.’”

“Secretary Duffy’s insistence that his participation in the ‘The Great American Road Trip’ was part of his official duties raises serious questions about use of funds and potential misconduct. A non-profit called the Great American Road Trip, Inc. organized and paid for ‘gas, lodging, car rentals, and other production costs’ associated with the show,” the senators continued. “We are concerned with this potential mix between personal and professional activities. If the road trip was personal, then it appears a Cabinet official spent several days over multiple months taking and filming a road trip that should have been paid for by the Secretary, but instead the Secretary accepted gas, lodging, and other travel expenses from a non-profit funded by the very companies the Secretary regulates. If it was official—as Secretary Duffy suggested before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee—then a number of DOT-regulated companies financed an official activity of the United States government through a non-profit pass-through.”

“Many of the companies listed as sponsors are actively doing business with DOT or are directly regulated by DOT. As one company that declined the sponsorship opportunity put it, ‘you’re paying for access.’ Furthermore, the agreement between DOT and the non-profit was signed in December 2025, months after the filming for the series began in September 2025. It is important to know: what specific business did any of these sponsors have before DOT during this period? Who, if anyone, screened the sponsor list for potential conflicts?” The senators concluded. “We support celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary, and encourage all Americans to explore our national parks, historical landmarks, and museums across the country this year and every year. Our concern lies with the sponsorship of the Secretary’s road trip and the serious questions it raises.”

The full letter is available HERE and below.

Dear Acting Inspector General Behm:

We write to request that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) open an investigation into potential misconduct and violations of federal laws, rules, and regulations associated with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy’s participation in “The Great American Road Trip” reality show.

In addition to the potential violations outlined in the attached May 11, 2026, complaint from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), we respectfully request that you review new information that was raised during a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on May 19, 2026. Specifically, during testimony before the Committee, Secretary Duffy suggested that “The Great American Road Trip” was an official activity. Secretary Duffy stated: “This was officially part of America 250 and you all sanctioned America 250. … This is an official partner of America 250. Also this body told me that I’m supposed to promote tourism and travel, and that’s what it does as well.” The Secretary later reiterated: “If I’m going to celebrate America 250. You gave me the ability to partner with America 250 and I did. You told me, this body said to celebrate tourism and travel and that’s what I’m doing.”

Further, in a frequently asked questions document about the show, DOT states twice that “celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary is part of Secretary Duffy’s official duties, and The Great American Road Trip is one aspect in support of those responsibilities.” Even the White House’s website dedicated to America’s 250th Anniversary touts that DOT “is aiding in coordination of The Great American Road Trip, a year long, multi modal journey featuring designated Freedom 250 destinations.” As CREW’s President and CEO recently said, “The reason why people have questions is because [Duffy] has mixed his work with this quasipersonal, quasi-official travel.

Secretary Duffy’s insistence that his participation in the “The Great American Road Trip” was part of his official duties raises serious questions about use of funds and potential misconduct. A non-profit called the Great American Road Trip, Inc. organized and paid for “gas, lodging, car rentals, and other production costs” associated with the show. The Great American Road Trip, Inc. lists “sponsors powering America’s road trip” on its website, including Boeing, Toyota, Shell, Electronic Payments Coalition, CRH, Google, Royal Caribbean Group, Travel, American Bus Association, Comcast NBCUniversal, Enterprise, United Airlines, U.S. Travel Association, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, Yellowstone Vacations, Grand Canyon, and Brand USA.

We are concerned with this potential mix between personal and professional activities. If the road trip was personal, then it appears a Cabinet official spent several days over multiple months taking and filming a road trip that should have been paid for by the Secretary, but instead the Secretary accepted gas, lodging, and other travel expenses from a non-profit funded by the very companies the Secretary regulates. If it was official—as Secretary Duffy suggested before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee—then a number of DOT-regulated companies financed an official activity of the United States government through a non-profit pass-through.

We understand that the DOT and the Great American Road Trip Inc. entered into a memorandum of agreement that states that the non-profit will receive “no compensation for the Gift, its use by DOT or any DOT-authorized third party, nor any favorable consideration for any future federal assistance, action, contract, or other financial award.” However, the companies and organizations that provided sponsorship funding to the non-profit of up to $1 million or in-kind contributions were not subject to the same terms. Many of the companies listed as sponsors are actively doing business with DOT or are directly regulated by DOT. As one company that declined the sponsorship opportunity put it, “you’re paying for access.” Furthermore, the agreement between DOT and the non-profit was signed in December 2025, months after the filming for the series began in September 2025. It is important to know: what specific business did any of these sponsors have before DOT during this period? Who, if anyone, screened the sponsor list for potential conflicts?

We support celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary, and encourage all Americans to explore our national parks, historical landmarks, and museums across the country this year and every year. Our concern lies with the sponsorship of the Secretary’s road trip and the serious questions it raises.

We respectfully request that you promptly investigate this matter and complete the investigation by September 30, 2026.

###





 Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Lady Bird Chump" went up last night.  The following sites -- plus Trina's "Brisket and Sausage Frito Pie in the Kitchen," Betty's "We need a Supreme Court code of ethics that is enforceable and transparent," Marcia's "Chump's dementia blinds him to reality" and Rebecca's "ugly bari weiss" -- updated:


Posted by at

Tuesday, June 09, 2026

Junior and Lindsey

 Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Lady Bird Chump"


ladybirdchump



Lady Bird Chump, busy with a beautification program.  How sweet.

Meanwhile, news from THE BALLER ALERT: 


Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came into Washington selling medical conspiracies, but now, it seems he may be ready for early retirement.  Kennedy, known widely as RFK Jr., now listed by HHS as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, oversees one of the most consequential portfolios in the federal government. HHS says its divisions work across public health, health care, research, safety, and human services, while its FY26 budget proposal called for $94.7 billion in discretionary authority. That is not a symbolic job. That is a national machinery job.

According to a New York Times report provided in the source material, colleagues described Kennedy as isolated from much of his department’s top staff and focused heavily on food policy, pesticides, and vaccine-related priorities while showing limited engagement with the broader HHS portfolio. The report says several people in attendance at leadership meetings described him as “checked out.”

That phrase is doing a lot of damage because it lands during a tense stretch for public health. The World Health Organization declared the 2026 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern on May 17, citing the Bundibugyo strain. The CDC later announced enhanced travel screening, entry restrictions, and other public health measures tied to the outbreak. 

Kennedy’s public answer when asked about Ebola was short: “Yeah, we’re working on it.” The Times report said he had made little public comment on the outbreak after that, while CDC officials handled much of the response.


Junior's an idiot and a disgrace.  David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports on another disgrace: 

With Donald Trump's endorsed candidate facing a potentially embarrassing primary Tuesday, some of the loudest voices in MAGA world are rooting for him to lose — and they're not whispering about it.

On Monday's edition of Steve Bannon's War Room, Bannon and Noel Fritsch — a conservative campaign consultant working for GOP Senate candidate Mark Lynch — gleefully torched Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on the eve of South Carolina's Republican primary, warning the four-term incumbent could fall below the 50% threshold required to avoid a runoff.

"This would be the most humiliating thing that would ever happen to Lindsey Graham," Bannon said.

Trump formally endorsed Graham in April and, with the primary hours away, announced a last-minute tele-rally Monday evening in a scramble to push Graham over the line. It didn't stop his own base from celebrating the incumbent's struggles.

Fritsch, who identifies himself as a consultant for Lynch — a Greenville businessman self-funding his challenge to the tune of $5 million — was withering.

"Lindsey Graham is an embarrassment," Fritsch said. "These phony — they're counterfeit Republicans. It's not even fair to use the word Republican in the same sentence with a lot of these guys. They are going to sell out the country to the lowest bidder, and everybody knows it now, Steve."


"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS): 

Monday, June 8, 2026.  Chump MEETS THE PRESS and it does not go well, Markwayne Mullin flies the friendly skies on the same private jet Kristi Noem once did, Pete Hegseth rules that Mormons are not members of a religious faith, and much more. 

As Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes this morning, Chump's in hiding after his disaster MEET THE PRESS appearance. 


Jane C. Timm (NBC NEWS) offers a fact check of Chump's MEET THE PRESS appearance:


Gas prices

Asked about rising gas prices that have resulted from the war, Trump said they would go down once a deal is reached.

“If we sign an agreement, it’ll go down now. Otherwise, they’ll go down after we’re finished,” Trump said.

But oil executives have said it will take time to restore oil production in the Middle East and bring down gas prices, even if the Strait of Hormuz is reopened immediately.

Exxon Senior Vice President Neil Chapman said at a Bernstein Research conference late last month that it is “going to take time to rebalance the global markets” once the strait reopens due to dwindling inventories.

“You can estimate four to six weeks before we get into a normal supply chain,” he said. “And it all depends on whether the strait opens — at what time it opens. And then the question for the world and every country and every commercial organization is how quickly do you rebuild those inventories?”

Meanwhile, Sultan Al Jaber, chief executive of the United Arab Emirates state oil group ADNOC, recently said: “Even if this conflict ends tomorrow, it will take at least four months to get back to 80% of pre-conflict flows and full flows will not return before the first or even second quarter of 2027.”

Jan. 6 riot

Trump defended the Justice Department’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, saying that allies who “have been hurt so badly by radical left lunatics” deserve payment. While the Justice Department told a court that the fund is “not going forward,” there’s nothing to stop the Trump administration from giving payouts to Trump allies in the future, even without the fund.

Asked by Welker whether anyone who attacked police officers on Jan. 6 should receive funds, Trump said he “wouldn’t be inclined to say so, but I have to see it.”

When Welker again brought up the roughly 170 Jan. 6 rioters who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers, Trump said: “They pled guilty because they were frightened. They went down. They were ushered into a building. Many of them were arrested without even going into the building.”

This needs context, as some of the most violent rioters from that day never entered the building. The Biden Justice Department’s sprawling Jan. 6 probe mostly focused on individuals who either entered the Capitol itself or engaged in some sort of aggravating conduct outside the Capitol, such as assaulting police officers.

For example, one of the longest sentences went to David Dempsey, who was ordered to serve 20 years in prison. Prosecutors said he swung makeshift weapons and hurled objects at officers, sprayed them with chemicals, and stomped five times on an officer’s head — acts committed outside the Capitol building itself.

Trump also claimed the FBI brought people into the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“They had FBI agents ushering them into the building,” Trump said.

As Welker noted during the interview, there’s no evidence that any FBI special agents ushered anyone into the building, and no on-duty FBI special agents were on the grounds until after the riot broke out and some responded to assist with crowd control.

There were four FBI confidential human sources, or informants, who entered the Capitol building, but they weren’t directed to do so by the bureau, according to a report from the Justice Department’s inspector general. The report also found that the FBI tasked three informants to report on domestic terrorism suspects who were possibly attending events in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. The FBI did not provide tasks for the other 23 informants in Washington that day.



That's an excerpt.  Garret Downs (CNBC) notes:

President Donald Trump stormed out of a taped interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after being pressed on his controversial “weaponization” fund and on evidence of his persistent claims of election fraud.

Trump sat with NBC’s Kristen Welker for a taped interview on a Wisconsin farm that touched on the Iran war, potential interest rate hikes, and the $1.776 billion “weaponization” fund that could financially compensate convicted violent rioters who attacked police officers on Jan. 6, 2021. Thousands of people stormed the Capitol that day, attempting to disrupt the certification of former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

The president said he would like to see the weaponization fund proceed despite setbacks that prompted acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to say it was permanently halted.

[. . .]

Trump suggested Jan. 6 rioters were ushered into the Capitol by the FBI, a claim that he did not provide evidence for and which has been widely refuted by video of rioters beating Capitol Police officers who were trying to defend the building.

 Pressed by NBC for evidence on those claims, Trump shifted to claims of election fraud, which he has long claimed but has been unable to prove in a court of law.

“The election was rigged, it was a dirty election and it’s happening again right now in California,” he said, referring to primaries for mayoral and gubernatorial elections in the state, where votes are still being counted.


He continued to lie until storming off the set, throwing the microphone to the ground and stepping on it.    Chad de Guzman (TIME) notes:


“Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” Trump said, ending the interview. “Thank you darling. Have a good time.” On his way out, he appeared to step on the microphone.

The President has clashed with the press for reporting critically on him and his Administration, and he has also had a pattern of targeting female journalists in particular.


The MEET THE PRESS transcript of the interview is here.  Today on MS NOW's MORNING JOE, Mika addressed the interview.






President Trump, who campaigned on a central promise to keep the United States out of overseas wars, denied in an interview aired on Sunday that he’d ever made the pledge.

“I didn’t guarantee no war,” Mr. Trump said in a lengthy interview with Kristen Welker, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” taped during his trip to Wisconsin on Friday. “Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?”

Speaking about the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, he continued: “So when you say I promised, I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We’ve been doing this for three months.”

He did promise. As a candidate in 2024, Mr. Trump repeatedly pledged not to involve the United States in war, including on the night he won the election. “They said, ‘He will start a war,’” Mr. Trump said during his victory speech. “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”


Chump is a liar.  He is a very sick person.  

Speaking on MEET THE PRESS, he spoke of how he wants to revive the slush fund.  The one Blanche has sworn is dead.  Permanently.  That would be the same slush fund that is currently causing legal problems for Chump.  David McAfee (RAW STORY) reports: 

President Donald Trump's decision to abandon his $1.8 billion IRS settlement didn't defuse the legal crisis surrounding it — it just shifted the target, according to a federal trial attorney who has been tracking the case.

Sabrina Haake, a 25-year federal litigator and political analyst who writes the Substack newsletter The Haake Take, argues that Trump dropped the so-called anti-weaponization fund not because of political pressure ahead of the midterms, but to avoid forcing the appointment of a third attorney general. The real threat, she writes, came from an extraordinary intervention by 35 retired federal judges.

On May 27, those judges — spanning both parties — filed a motion to reopen Trump's IRS case on suspicion of fraud against the court. Their motion accused the Department of Justice of deceiving U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams by announcing a settlement publicly without notifying the court, then using that settlement as legal justification for transferring $1.776 billion in taxpayer money to Trump, his family, and his businesses while purporting to release all federal claims against them.

The judges called it "most egregious conduct involving a corruption of the judicial process itself," writing that the parties "used the proceedings before this Court as a legal pretext" while working to prevent the court from determining whether a legitimate case even existed. If Trump controlled both sides of the same case and personally profited from the outcome, the judges reasoned, there was no legal controversy — only theft.


Todd Blanche, the idiot who doesn't understand the law.  The idiot who thinks the Senate should confirm him as Attorney General.  Todd Blanche who doesn't understand the term "public servant" and instead sees his role as Deputy AG and now as AG as "public defender for Chump."  No, that's not what the Attorney General is supposed to be.  


McAfee also reports that US House Rep Ted Lieu is warning Blanche:


Rep. Ted Lieu is done being subtle about Todd Blanche.

The California Democrat delivered a blunt message to the acting attorney general late on Saturday night after Blanche announced the DOJ would not be releasing the 2.5 million remaining Epstein files in its possession, saying the department had "moved on."

"Dear Todd Blanche: You don't get to decide to 'move on' from the Epstein Files or from following the congressional law," Lieu wrote. "That decision can only be made by the American people and Congress. You will be disbarred. The files will eventually be released."

Lieu added, "November is coming."

It wasn't Lieu's only shot at Blanche this weekend. The congressman also responded to a report that Blanche had said that he was putting "roadblocks" in place to make it harder for Democrats to hold Trump accountable in the future.

Lieu's response: "Dear Todd Blanche: So what illegal actions by Trump would compel you to think a future Administration would hold Trump accountable? Please do share."


Blanche apparently doesn't understand what it means when Congress passes an act and the act is signed into law by the president.  It means it's a law and that the government is compelled to obey it.  But Blanche insists that he-- not even yet made Attorney General -- can reject a law.  That he has some power not granted in the Constitution that allows him to determine which laws must be obeyed ad which he can ignore. 


 Let's move over to Markwayne Mullin.  Markwayne Mullin replaced Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary.  on March 24th.  Kristi?  Chump had to call in Tom Homan to fix things.  It appears to be going the same way with Markwayne.  Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) reports:


Violent clashes between protesters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at Newark's Delaney Hall detention facility forced the Trump administration to deploy its top immigration official for emergency de-escalation after newly appointed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin made the situation dramatically worse.

According to Politico reporting by Myah Ward, tensions that had been escalating nightly cooled only after border czar Tom Homan was dispatched to meet with state and local officials and negotiate a resolution to the standoff.

The crisis began when images and videos surfaced showing violent clashes between pro-immigrant demonstrators and ICE agents outside the 1,000-bed, privately run detention facility. The unrest followed allegations of poor conditions inside the facility and a detainee hunger strike. Democratic lawmakers descended on the site to condemn detention conditions and accuse federal agents of violence against protesters.

Mullin's response made matters worse. The new DHS secretary threatened to pull customs staffing from Newark Liberty International Airport—a threat that shocked administration officials and sparked airline industry fears of travel chaos across the region.


Is Markwayne unqualified for the post he's been given?  Or is he just a slow starter?  Robert Davis (RAW STORY) reports:


Markwayne Mullin may have been brought in to straighten out the Department of Homeland Security following former Secretary Kristi Noem's tenure, but a new report shows that Mullin may be more of the same, according to one legal expert. 

The Independent reported in late May that Mullin regularly uses a controversial $70 million Gulfstream jet to fly home to Oklahoma on Thursdays and doesn't return to work until Monday afternoon, meaning he works at most three days a week in Washington, D.C. The aircraft includes a queen bed, a bar, and showers, according to the report. It was one of nine jets the Trump administration approved to purchase with funds meant for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, it added.

Legal expert Shant Karnikian discussed the report during a new episode of the podcast, "Civil Action," on Sunday.

"We'll see how long this lasts," Karnikian said of Mullin's tenure in the Trump administration. "This is apparently the swamp draining that Donald Trump had in mind."

Mullin was brought in to replace Noem after the former secretary publicly undercut President Donald Trump about funding for advertising campaigns featuring Noem. While Mullin told Senators during his confirmation hearing that he would help get Homeland Security back on track, some of his actions seem to suggest otherwise.

For instance, Mullin has called for ICE to return to its old training methods that were curtailed following months of violent clashes between federal agents and protesters. Mullin has also been combative with lawmakers who have questioned his leadership at the department. 


Still on ICE, Sophie Hurwitz (MOTHER JONES) reports:

Early Saturday morning, a woman whose husband is detained at ICE’s Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, drove nearly two hours to visit him. She was turned away at the gate. 

GEO Group—the multibillion-dollar ICE contractor that runs Delaney Hall—had cancelled family visitation for the day. She sat on a curb, cried, and drove home. Throughout the morning, I saw half-a-dozen women and children arrive: all were told they would not be seeing their loved ones that day.

More than two weeks since detainees began a hunger and labor strike inside Delaney Hall—and their allies outside answered with near-daily protests—it’s still incredibly difficult to find out what’s going on inside the facility. Often, family members find their visits rescheduled or canceled, and journalists have not made it in, either. 

Members of Congress are allowed by law to conduct unannounced oversight visits to ICE facilities like Delaney. But politicians have been turned away, too. New Jersey congresswoman LaMonica McIver is facing assault charges after she was arrested alongside Newark mayor Ras Baraka trying to conduct an oversight visit last year. New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill tried to visit the jail in late May, and was denied. 


And then there's Pete.  Pete Hegseth who was so obviously wrong from the moment Chump nominated him for Secretary of Defense.  Hegseth was never qualified and that's only become even clearer as he has remained the Secretary.  For example, CK Smith (SALON) reports:


The Department of Defense has significantly reduced the number of recognized religious affiliation codes used across the military, consolidating roughly 200 categories down to 31 in a broader administrative overhaul of how service members’ religious identities are recorded.

Of those 31 categories, 22 are variations of Christianity, most major Protestant denominations.

Social media is also pointing out the list’s inconsistencies. Catholicism is now listed under a single designation under Christianity without similar distinctions of their denominations. Atheists will now be grouped under “Agnostic” — despite each category representing very different beliefs. Jehovah’s Witnesses are categorized under Christianity, while the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) isn’t. All of Judiasm is under a single category. And it’s odd to see Quaker listed so prominently as their doctrine is famously nonviolent and anti-war.


Who put Hegseth in charge of determining what was a religion and what wasn't one?  Whomever did that might need to explain to the Mormons how the US government has now declared them a non-religion.  And it hasn't gone unnoticed.  Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) notes:


Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) lashed out Saturday at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office over a “significant change” it instituted regarding the classifications of religions, one he argued was “unacceptable” and that he was actively working to correct.

This week, the Department of Defense announced that it had significantly reduced the number of recognized religions within the agency, down from more than 200 to 31. The change, according to Sean Parnell, Hegseth’s assistant for public affairs, was to allow “religious support personnel" to better provide "spiritual care to our warfighters.”

The issue, Curtis claimed, was that in whittling down the number of recognized religions, Hegseth’s office had declared the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – commonly referred to as the Mormon Church – to not be a Christian religion.

“Latter-day Saints are among the most patriotic, service-oriented individuals in our country. They are also unequivocally Christian – just look at who is in the name of the Church,” Curtis said in a statement published on social media Saturday. “It is unacceptable for a government entity to characterize a faith in a manner that contradicts the religion’s own foundational tenets. I am working now to ensure a correction is made.”


Let's wind down with this from Senator Ron Wyden's office:

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called for Republican leaders to negotiate on real reforms to warrantless government surveillance, instead of insisting on repeating their failed effort to extend FISA Section 702 without a single meaningful reform. The Senate voted 47-52 early Friday morning against taking up a FISA extension bill.

“Americans aren’t going to stand for law-abiding people being spied on. There’s bipartisan agreement in Congress that the status quo isn’t good enough to protect Americans’ rights against abuse by the government,” Wyden said. “Bill Pulte’s appointment as acting Director of National Intelligence is a symptom of the larger problem: Warrantless FISA surveillance depends on a handful of government officials to choose not to misuse the most powerful spying apparatus the world has ever seen. Firing Pulte won’t solve the real problem. Americans are demanding real protections written into the law, not promises that the next guy will be trustworthy.

“Republican leaders have failed three times this year to pass a long-term extension of warrantless FISA surveillance without a single new meaningful protection. Instead of trying a fourth time, they should put real surveillance reforms on the table.” 

Wyden has authored bipartisan surveillance reform legislation to reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and has spent decades leading the fight against the expansion of unnecessary government surveillance.

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