Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Hepburn

Charles Francis (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

At last, there is a novel about Katharine Hepburn.  

Hepburn’s director and friend, George Cukor, would hate it, as would Hepburn herself, who would despise it with her trademark imperious finality.  Readers, especially gays and lesbians who love their Turner Film Classics, will savor it because it rings so true. The Original by Priya Parmar is not another Hepburn biography; it is a work of historical fiction that conveys the emotional life of a woman who was a Rubik’s Cube of masks, roles, and selves. 

Who was “Kate Hep,” as she would sign her notes? Parmar has created a breathtaking novel of research, yielding the emotional terrain of this self-created and unknowable woman. Even so, after reading The Original, readers may well conclude that at her core, Hepburn was a lesbian.

Despite all the movable “cubies,” even Rubik’s Cubes have a core. So often Hepburn is described as an opaque bi-riddle or in consummate love with the bisexual and married Spencer Tracy. Still, this does not really align the cubies. She and Tracy lived cocooned on a block off Sunset Blvd. in the garden compound of Cukor, the closeted gay legendary director.  

For decades, this was a gay kingdom behind walls, a place where Cary Grant swam with Randolph Scott. Why does this matter now? It matters because LGBTQ+ Americans are still excavating the erasure of our history.  We must, especially in these times of total political assault. The Original rescues both our history and the dignity of an immensely popular star who re-engineered herself over decades to survive.

Hepburn was a lesbian.  She had a few affairs with men but she mainly slept with women. Spencer Tracy was mainly gay and after he died she turned a brief sexual relationship into a lifelong affair.  She lied because she was deep in the closet.  She'd stopped sleeping with Spencer long ago but remained his friend.  John Derek, for example, serviced Spencer and that's how Hepburn met him.  She didn't like him.  

She had affairs with Laura Harding, Claudette Colbert and many other women.  

It should be known and it should be public and it should be celebrated.

Instead, too many insist upon her remaining in the closet she built for herself. 

We need honesty and we need to understand the human condition.  

LGBTQ+ people are part of our culture today and were part of it in the past as well.


"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS): 

Tuesday, July 14, 2026.  Chump's claiming he's going to impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz, people grow more concerned about the damage he's doing to us with our one-time international allies, ICE kills another person (this time in Maine), a judge comes down very hard on Todd Blanche, NYT reveals that Blanche has been overseeing Chump's weaponization programs at the Justice Dept, and much more. 




Iran is the war of choice that Chump started.  It is ripping apart the economy.  Brandon Weichert (NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL) writes: 

The Iran War is back on again, it seems. Over the weekend, the United States pummeled nearly 200 Iranian targets across the massive country. Iran retaliated by hitting US military facilities throughout the Gulf Arab states. All this came after US President Donald J. Trump declared that his temporary ceasefire, which lasted barely 18 days, was “over.” He referred to the Islamic Republic as “scum.”
Since then, the war has resumed–with Trump insisting that the United States will take full control over the contested Strait of Hormuz (SoH).
Many were surprised that the president restarted the conflict. After all, the United States is particularly sensitive to spikes in global oil prices. Beginning the Iran War anew, even if it is on the grounds of reopening the SoH (through which 20 percent of the world’s oil must pass), will only harm the United States’ economy. That is especially true, considering how drastically depleted America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has gotten.

Since the SoH was closed at the start of the war, the Americans had relied heavily on their 400-million-barrel-strong SPR to deflate energy prices for American consumers. Officially, the SPR has been drained by about 100 million barrels since the war began. But many oil experts fret that the SPR is stored in salt caverns for many years (decades, even). Therefore, while there may be around 300 million barrels of oil remaining in the SPR, not all of that oil is usable. The environment and the chemical processes engineers must employ to keep the oil in those caverns fresh enough to be usable corrupt much of the oil stored in the SPR.
If those figures on the declining viability of the remaining oil in the SPR are accurate, then restarting hostilities right now–especially when those hostilities result in the closure of the SoH again–will only harm the US economy by raising pump prices.
Higher prices at the pump mean higher prices everywhere.

All that leads to higher inflation, which in turn prompts the Federal Reserve to either maintain relatively high interest rates or raise them.

And that becomes a noose around the economy’s neck, dragging it into stagflation.


The American vulnerability is different, and it is counted in missiles. By the time the spring ceasefire took hold, the Pentagon had expended at least half its THAAD ballistic-missile interceptors, nearly half its Patriots, 45 percent of its Precision Strike Missiles, and about 30 percent of its Tomahawks, according to CSIS analysis that CNN confirmed against internal Defense Department assessments. Those stocks were never rebuilt. As fighting resumed this weekend, CNN reported the replenishment arithmetic: roughly 15 new Tomahawks and 20 new Patriots arriving per month, with no THAAD deliveries forecast in 2026, and a three-plus-year timeline to restore pre-war inventories.
Stimson Center analysts note such missiles take years, not months, to replace. CSIS's Mark Cancian warns that days more at the current tempo push stockpiles toward a "new, higher level of risk" for a Pacific contingency, and Senator Mark Kelly has made the uncomfortable arithmetic plain: Iran retains a huge stockpile of cheap ballistic missiles and drones, so every barrage trades million-dollar interceptors against munitions costing a fraction as much.

The Army is asking for more than $20 billion just to replace THAAD and Patriot expenditures, inside a war supplemental estimated at $80 to $100 billion, and the bill extends beyond munitions, with the Navy's newest carrier returning from the campaign to face a year or more in the repair yard. The Pentagon insists, on the record, that it has everything needed to fight, and CSIS's own analysis agrees that the U.S. can sustain the fight against Iran under any plausible scenario. The risk is not losing this war, but what is left in the arsenal for the next one.

[. . .]

Iran is wagering that oil pain fractures American patience before bankruptcy fractures the regime. Washington is wagering that economic strangulation works faster than interceptor depletion. Two dates now measure the race: July 17, when Iran's last legal oil sales end, and a THAAD delivery schedule that reads zero for the rest of the year.

As Mike noted last night "Losers Platner and Chump," Chump has declared that the US is in charge of the Strait of Hormuz and will be charging a toll. Yan Zhuang (NEW YORK TIMES) notes:

President Trump has said that the United States will charge a 20 percent fee on cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, despite his own administration’s position that such fees violate international law.

He made the announcement on Monday amid an intensifying battle between Iran and the United States to control the waterway, a crucial artery for global energy supplies. The two countries have traded attacks over the strait for the past week, in effect shattering their month-old cease-fire.

[. . .]

A 20 percent fee on the value of a vessel’s cargo could more than double the cost of shipping oil through the strait, experts said.

For a large tanker carrying two million barrels of oil, for example, the fee could add over $30 million in costs. Consumers would likely face higher prices as a result.

Because of the high cost, some analysts said they doubted whether the fee would come into force. For ship operators in the region, the prospect of fees is less of a concern right now than an escalation of the conflict between Iran and the United States, experts said.



Of all the responsibilities assigned to an American president, none is more important than keeping the country safe from its enemies. Yet, the U.S. has rarely, if ever, been as vulnerable as it is today under President Trump. He has become our greatest national security threat. 
Let’s assess what he has done.

He launched a war of choice against Iran, a strategic and economic ally of Russia and China. The war quickly depleted America’s supply of critical weapons. Experts say it will take at least three years to rebuild the arsenal. The Center for Strategic and International Studies says this has “created a window of vulnerability for a potential Western Pacific conflict.“

Trump has railed against NATO allies France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany for not supporting his attacks on Iran, even though NATO is a defense alliance, not a war alliance. Iran has retaliated by attacking U.S. military facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan. Trump’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has been strained by the kingdom’s refusal to let U.S. forces use its bases and airspace during the war. 
Trump has frequently lashed out at and alienated NATO, which, at 77, is one of history’s oldest security alliances. Lately, he has publicly insulted Italy’s leader, told his staff during a news conference to cut off trade with Spain, and outraged Belgium by interfering with its World Cup match against the United States.   
He has threatened to take Greenland from Denmark, by force if necessary. That would obligate the alliance’s other 31 members to defend Denmark against his aggression. 
[. . .]
Since Trump’s second term began, about 300 FBI agents who worked on national security have left the bureau. The loss has been characterized as a “purge” that has greatly depleted the FBI’s capabilities.
Now, the administration has diverted 260 FBI analysts to focus on a “priority investigation” of the 2020 election. Their task is to find proof of Trump’s six-year fantasy that he won against Joe Biden. 
The Department of Homeland Security is preoccupied with White House adviser Stephen Miller’s goal of deporting 1 million immigrants this year, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as “racist and draconian” rather than related to homeland security. Meanwhile, there has been a sharp drop in morale at the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired 15 senior officers while the U.S. is at war. 

Trump, who prefers to follow his gut rather than facts, has hollowed out the government’s vital intelligence agencies and replaced career experts with political loyalists. He recently named Bill Pulti, a housing developer, as acting director of National Intelligence.  


He really has a pattern of undermining the security of the United States.  No where is that more clear than in his diversion of FBI agents into the 2020 election investigation.  He is very lucky that there has not been a major terror attack on US soil.  He more than invited that to happen when he made Trashy Garbage aka Tulsi Gabbard the DNI.  Bill Pulti is even worse, if that is possible. 


And Chump's economy may be even worse than some realize.  




America’s labor market continues to look relatively healthy on the surface, but two trends in the employment data this year may be hiding the real problems Americans are facing with the labor market.
America’s unemployment rate fell to 4.2 percent in June, a level that would typically signal a healthy labor market. But a closer look at the data suggests the jobs picture may not be as strong as the headline number implies.
While unemployment edged lower, labor force participation fell to 61.5 percent, and millions of Americans remained stuck in part-time work or outside the labor force despite wanting employment. Those trends have fueled concerns among economists that the official unemployment rate may be masking broader signs of labor market weakness and underemployment.
The broadest measure of labor underutilization—known as the U-6 unemployment rate—stood at 7.9 percent in June, nearly double the official unemployment rate. Millions of people are also not being counted as unemployed despite not having jobs.
“The June jobs report has some eyebrow-raising data, especially the big drop in the labor force,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, previously told Newsweek, adding the caveat that one month doesn’t make a trend.



A federal immigration agent shot and killed an individual in a vehicle on Monday in the coastal city of Biddeford, Maine, according to the state attorney general’s office. Nearly eight hours later, details remained scant, and federal authorities had not provided any information about the fatal encounter.
The state’s governor, the city’s mayor and other officials said they were seeking details, and demanded a full investigation of the killing. It was the second fatal shooting in a week involving an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent firing into a vehicle.
Social media video shot early Monday showed agents surrounding a still body at an intersection in a residential neighborhood of Biddeford, next to a car with bullet holes in the windshield, as local police officers arrived at the scene.
Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, said in a phone interview on Monday that “we have gotten reports that ICE officers shot through a car window, and the individual in the car was killed.”

Patrick Whittle, Leah Willingham and Jack Brook (AP) note, "Immigrant rights groups identified the man who was killed as a 26-year-old native of Colombia." They also note, via Senator Angus King, that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullins claims the man they killed was using his car as a battering ram.  Christopher Cann, Shawn P. Sullivan and Natalie Neysa Alund (USA TODAY) point out, "Federal officials have repeatedly accused people shot by immigration authorities of using their vehicles to ram agents. For example, [Renee] Good was shot and killed inside her car on Jan. 7."  Suzanne Gamboa and Nicole Acevedo (NBC NEWS) add:

Fighting back tears, protester Katie Barrow, told NBC Boston, she was heartbroken that someone died because of immigration enforcement. “It’s just disgusting,” she said. “A badge and a gun are not a license to kill.”

Adam Bartow (WMTW) notes, "A family friend told Maine's Total Coverage Joan Sebastian Guerrero was killed in the shooting Monday morning. She says Guerrero leaves behind a wife, 3-year-old child, and sister."


When Kristi Noem was pushed out of her job as the secretary of homeland security and replaced with Oklahoma’s GOP senator — and wannabe MMA fighter — Markwayne Mullin, the public was assured he would make all those pesky problems with Immigration and Customs Enforcement go away.

[. . .]

The public-facing faux-moderation that came with Mullin’s confirmation — along with the war in Iran — did push ICE out of the national headlines, even while maintaining Trump and Miller’s mass deportations.
On Tuesday, though, a fatal shooting in Houston served as a grave reminder that nothing has changed substantively at the Department of Homeland Security, much less at ICE. The biggest difference between Mullin and Noem is that he’s male and she’s female, though both are bizarrely committed to cartoonish performances of their gender, with him pretending he’s going to fight people on Capitol Hill and her apparent cosmetic transformations.
Mullin was never intended to be more than a surface change, meant to deflect attention from Trump and Miller’s attempt at ethnic cleansing through deporting and harassing immigrants. ICE remains what Noem always wanted it to be: a rogue organization staffed by people who are too sadistic or unqualified to meet already too-low standards for regular police work.
The details of the shooting are awful. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was driving to work in Houston when ICE agents, reportedly chasing someone else entirely, allegedly boxed in his car and him through the stomach. The officers weren’t wearing body cameras. According to the New Republic’s Greg Sargent, witnesses to the killing have allegedly been pressured to self-deport before they can testify. The official DHS response is the same dubious claim, issued in standard boilerplate, the agency always relies on in these cases: accusing the victim of threatening to run over ICE agents with his car.
It’s unlikely anyone sincerely believes this anymore. It’s what DHS said when an officer killed Minneapolis resident Renee Good, even though multiple videos showed she was turning the car away from the man who shot her. It wasn’t true when Border Patrol agents shot Marimar Martinez in Chicago, which was later revealed with the release of body camera footage. Since Alex Pretti wasn’t in a car when he was shot by Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis, they tried to blame the gun on his hip, even though video footage shows he never touched it during the incident. As Melissa Gira Grant of the New Republic pointed out, not only does DHS put these excuses out before an investigation can determine what happened, they block any good faith effort by other law enforcement agencies to conduct a real investigation. It’s a series of preemptive cover-ups, which is not what they’d be doing if they had any confidence in these stories.

On the topic of Renee and Alex, they were both murdered in January.  Philip Marcelo (INDEPENDENT) reports:

Minnesota prosecutors announced Monday they have secured key evidence in their ongoing investigations into the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during protests over a federal immigration enforcement crackdown earlier this year.
"Through the cooperation of our federal partners we have obtained the hard drives of previously withheld evidence in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis," Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.
The newly released materials include police body-camera footage, witness statements and other evidence that federal officials had previously withheld.
Moriarty said state and local investigators have also taken possession of Good's damaged vehicle.


As Betty noted last night in "Good for Judge Williams," U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams has issued an order in Chump's pretense of suing himself.  Lawrence O'Donnell covered Judge Williams order at length last night on his MS NOW program.




Trump sued the IRS and the Treasury Department for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. For the record, this is a leak that happened during his first presidency. But in his second term, Trump decided he could bilk the taxpayers for some quick cash and the Justice Department — an institution that historically enjoys independence, but whose acting and presumptive future head has publicly taken the position that Donald Trump has the “right” to direct in its conduct of individual criminal cases — declined the defend the United States government against Trump’s suit and “settled” — coughing up a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” for Trump’s January 6 allies and other flunkies, and a blanket immunity deal. Todd Blanche then went to Congress and claimed that no court could review any of these decisions because “there is no judge.”

Except there is a judge and settling a case in a corrupt bargain does not remove the judge from that equation. Judge Kathleen Williams has now declined to accept the premise that a lawsuit between a man and himself is, to use the parties’ word, “ordinary.”

There is nothing “ordinary” about this case; it is the very definition of sui generis.

In the past, there might have been a colorable claim that the president in his personal capacity is not the same as the executive agencies he directs. It still would run head first into concerns about the level of independence any agency head could possibly have in such a case — not to mention the fact that the president in charge during the offending conduct was the same one cosplaying as a plaintiff — but Judge Williams notes that the Supreme Court just put the kibosh on that:

Indeed, just recently, the Supreme Court cited Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 133 (1926) as a “landmark decision” and “perhaps our best word on the subject” of whether the President could remove subordinates in government service at will. Trump v. Slaughter, 609 U.S. __, slip op. at 16 (2026). Finding that he could, the majority ruled that “[s]ubordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.” Id. at 36. “[T]hese officers exercise the President’s power, not their own, and thus must be responsible to him.” Id. at 35 (emphasis in original).




Judge Williams, in her order, said that Trump's personal lawyers and the Department of Justice attempted to "use the Court to provide some legitimacy ... to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law."  

"The Parties used the existence of federal litigation as a means of conferring legitimacy upon a course of action that they were unwilling to subject to judicial review," Williams wrote. "The context of the 'settlement,' the relationships of the people involved in negotiating and approving it, the ethical implications of their conduct, and the Parties' swift efforts to dismiss this case after the Court raised fundamental jurisdictional questions all support this conclusion. Accordingly, the Court expressly finds that Plaintiffs acted in bad faith."

Williams also directly called out acting Attorney General Todd Blanche throughout her order, and suggested he provided "misleading" testimony before Congress when probed over the Justice Department's now-defunct "Anti-Weaponization Fund."

"The Court is extremely troubled by the testimony given by Acting Attorney General Blanche on May 19, 2026," Williams said. "In response to why the 'settlement agreement' had not been submitted to this Court for review, he stated that 'there is no judge' because the case had been dismissed and, therefore, there was "no mechanism" for reviewing the agreement ... While temporally accurate, this answer is, at best, misleading and, at worst, disingenuous. The Court was available to review any pleading by any Party at any time during this lawsuit. And if Acting Attorney General Blanche had thought the dismissal was improvidently granted or thought Plaintiffs misspoke when they said, "no judicial analysis is appropriate," he only had to file an appearance and ask for relief."









This is big news for Chump.  And even bigger news for Todd Blanche whose confirmation hearing is supposed to start tomorrow.  This is a very big scandal.  And Blanche is already seen circumventing the law by refusing to release all of The Epstein files.  But this morning's NEW YORK TIMES offers yet another scandal for Blanche.  



Mr. Martin, a right-wing lawyer who championed the cause of the Jan. 6 rioters, had just been forced out as the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. The White House then inserted him into Justice Department headquarters, in part to oversee a task force to investigate claims that the Biden administration had targeted President Trump and his allies.

Mr. Blanche, who once led Mr. Trump’s criminal defense team, did not believe that Mr. Martin, a provocateur with minimal prosecutorial experience, had the chops and know-how to do the job, according to current and former officials who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.

“I am frustrated,” Mr. Blanche wrote to Mr. Martin, after less than a month on the job, documenting a relationship that swiftly descended from tense to testy.

He moved quickly to rein in Mr. Martin, scheduling a check-in meeting every Friday, according to a trove of internal Justice Department emails obtained by a government watchdog and provided to The New York Times in advance of Mr. Blanche’s confirmation hearing to be attorney general on Wednesday.

Mr. Blanche, a methodical former federal prosecutor, also created an organizational plan for the weaponization group that assigned key investigative lanes to some of his own deputies. That ensured, among other things, that he had tight control over one of the most sensitive issues on his plate — demands from Mr. Trump and his supporters to identify, investigate and punish those who had once pursued them.

The multifaceted portrait of Mr. Blanche that emerges from 352 pages of documents obtained by American Oversight is of a Trump loyalist who is committed to executing the president’s agenda but also intent on keeping a firm a grip on processes inside his building, perhaps because he has such limited control over forces beyond it.


When Blanche began overseeing Martin's work in attacking those who Chump wanted revenge on, he was breaking the ethics pledge he had signed about recusing himself.  Senator Adam Schiff noted this pledge May 19th in a letter he wrote with Senators Dick Durbin and Richard Blumenthal:


We are writing to seek information regarding recent reports indicating that potentially serious ethical violations have taken place at the highest levels of the Department of Justice (DOJ). As the Designated Agency Ethics Official and most senior career official at the Department, you have a unique and important role in defending the Department’s integrity. Specifically, we are seeking prompt clarification regarding Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s potential failure to recuse himself from matters involving his former private client, President Donald Trump, even after he was advised to recuse himself by ethics officials. Furthermore, we request that you personally ensure the preservation of all existing and future records, communications, and materials related toethics advice provided by Department or external ethics officials to senior political DOJ appointees – including previous officials who have left the Department. 

In a stark diversion from institutional norms, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche – as well as others appointed to lead the Justice Department – previously served as President Trump’s personal attorney. Recent public reporting revealed that in March 2025, less than two weeks after assuming the role of Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Blanche was explicitly and formally advised by the Department’s top career ethics lawyer that his recusal from legal cases involving President Trump in his personal capacity was necessary.

At Mr. Blanche’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 12, 2025, he committed to recusing himself from cases when advised to by government ethics officials. When Sen. Schiff asked Mr. Blanche about potential conflicts of interest he may face as Deputy Attorney General stemming from his private representation of President Trump in federal criminal matters, he stated under oath, “I will follow the rules as told to me by the experts, career prosecutors in the department, if it comes to ever recusing.”The unmistakable understanding from this testimony is that Mr. Blanche would recuse himself from matters where he was advised to do so by an ethics official.

Upon his confirmation as Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Blanche signed an ethics pledge – addressed to you – stating that, pursuant to the department’s impartiality regulation, he would not participate “personally and substantially in any particular matter” involving parties in which a former client – such as President Trump – is a party for a period of one year after he last provided service to that client or until the client satisfies any outstanding bill, whichever is later. Furthermore, Department regulations strictly prohibit his participation in any criminal investigation or prosecution in which he holds a relationship – including a “close personal relationship,” as an attorney, or otherwise – with anyone involved in the matter.

Instead, Mr. Blanche appears to have ignored ethics and legal advice. This misconduct would be considered extreme on its own and is even more offensive given President Trump’s unprecedented efforts to seek vast personal financial compensation from taxpayer money and use the Department to exact vengeance against his political enemies.

I don't understand how someone with all these problems gets confirmed. 


Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released the following statement in response to the news that a coalition of 12 attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger:

“A Paramount-Warner Bros. megamerger would mean higher costs and fewer choices for Americans. Good news: the states are stepping up to block this antitrust nightmare. This fight isn’t over.”

###



Posted by at

Tuesday, July 14, 2026

He's Satan's problem now

So Lindsey Graham died.  Not shedding any tears.  Michael Tomasky (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:

But no one hit Trump harder than McCain’s great pal Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina senator, who died over the weekend at age 71 of “a brief and sudden” illness, went on CBS This Morning on July 21 and said: “I don’t care if he drops out. Stay in the race, just stop being a jackass … I’m looking for him to be a responsible member of the 16-person primary and stop saying stuff like this. The world is falling apart. We’re becoming Greece. The Ayatollah’s on the verge of having a nuclear weapon, and you’re slandering anybody and everybody to stay in the news. You know, run for president, but don’t be the world’s biggest jackass.”
Trump responded—remember this?—by reading out Graham’s private cell phone number during a speech.
Matters escalated. Trump announced his “Muslim ban” that December 7. The very next day on CNN, Graham laid into him:
“Trump’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for … He’s the ISIL man of year, by the way. I just got back from Iraq a week ago this Monday... Now we have young men and women in harm’s way all over the world, particularly in the Middle East. They were concerned about this rhetoric because the enemy will use it against us. What was a concern last week has to be DEFCON 4 this week. Because what Mr. Trump is doing, and I don’t think he has a clue about anything... He’s putting our soldiers and diplomats at risk, he’s empowering the enemy; and this ban, if it’s actually enacted, would take people who have been interpreters, who came to our side in Iraq and Afghanistan and who are under siege in their own countries, it basically becomes a death sentence for them … You know how to make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”
Graham so wanted the world to know that he spoke these words that his office put out a press release drawing attention to them. He never endorsed Trump in 2016, even announcing that he wrote in a third-party candidate when he voted. But the next year, once Trump was president, Graham began to accept a reality quite contrary to the one his remarks to CNN attempted to conjure in December 2015—namely, that Trump not only represented his party, but in effect was his party.
The two started talking. Trump took him on golf outings. By October 2017, Graham was insisting that Trump was “growing into the job.” This, by the way, was a couple weeks after Trump expanded the Muslim travel ban that an earlier Graham had so thoroughly excoriated.
If there were any remaining questions about the relationship, Graham settled them in April 2018, when he announced that “the Trump movement is real ... he will be our nominee, I’m confident of that, and I will support him.” Four months later, eulogizing his dear friend McCain on the Senate floor, Graham said: “He taught me that honor and imperfection are always in competition.”

I think Tomasky is actually being too soft on Graham.  Lindsey was gay and we all know it.  We all knew it when he was alive.  He did all of these hateful things and that's because he was filled with hatred -- self-hatred.  For what he was, a gay man, he had intense self-hatred.  All he had to give the world was hate. That explains his policies and his attitude. 


The acceptance of those in the D.C. club of evil, because its proponents were pleasant to them at cocktail parties, is one of the greatest problems America faces. Morality, contrary to the assertion of Ben-Gvir, as profoundly immoral a man as any who currently walks the planet, takes a back seat in the Senate cloakroom, and at Georgetown cocktail parties, to the conviviality of the pampered lives in a bubble of D.C. insiders.
They have lost sight of the fact that an evil man who would laugh at their jokes or send them a note on the occasion of a child’s wedding or graduation is still evil.
Graham was a man who understood this and thrived in that environment. Few prominent figures in Washington have managed to be so public and yet such masters of personal opacity. He hid what he really felt or who he really was behind a career of offering strong but often contradictory statements to the media. (He understood the media does not seek consistency or hold you to past positions. Rather, it is just looking for a good quote with which to lead the next story or broadcast.)
That is how he could be the closest ally of both John McCain and Donald Trump, one of Trump’s fiercest critics and one of his most dependable allies.
It is how he could be widely believed to be a closeted gay man and at the same time an active supporter of stripping away LGBTQ rights. (He was a co-sponsor of the “Defense of Marriage Act” and voted against legislation that would have prohibited workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.)
[. . .]
That was Lindsey Graham. Not a study in contradictions so much as he was an opportunist who trades principle for power. Perhaps in that respect it is no wonder he fit in so well with so many in Washington.


Lindsey is dead.  He is not missed.  Daniel Villarreal (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

Transgender author Jesse James Rose wrote in an Instagram post published Sunday that recently deceased homophobic Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) regularly paid her “a fat stack of cash” when she was a “twinky pre-transition college student” to do “unspeakable things to him in a hotel room while he wore red lingerie.” She is the second self-identified sex worker to say that they slept with Graham during his time as a U.S. senator.

In Rose’s post, entitled “Eulogy for a Horny Hypocrite,” she wrote, “Just woke up to find out, Lindsey Graham is dead?? lol??? … It is a canon trans event to have far right freaks bankrolling you and then turning around and voting against you…. Shout out to s*x workers everywhere, forced to humanize their enemies just to make rent.”

“It is an absolute mindf**k to me that one of the reasons I have any semblance of financial security (& a lack of student loans) is because of this man. At the time, I had no idea who he was, and I only figured it out because another group of twinks leaked Lady G to the media. Some queers tried to grandstand critique this, saying we shouldn’t out people. I believe bigots with power deserve no peace or privacy, especially when they hold public office,” she continued.

She then concluded her eulogy to the “now deceased sissy senator from South Carolina” by writing, “Lindsey, rest in hell for what you did to our community. I will continue to love queer and trans people harder than you ever hated us. You loved every second of our time together, and now everyone knows.”


"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS): 

Monday, July 13, 2026.  Chump continues his war on Iran while he continues destroying the US economy, outrage continues to build over ICE murdering Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, and much more. 


Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes the state of the Iran War.





Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, closed last week near $76 per barrel, about 5 percent higher than prewar levels. Although oil prices are far below the peak of nearly $120 a barrel during the worst of the war, the market moves that follow each round of strikes have shown Iran’s capacity to move energy prices.

A recovery in shipping traffic after the United States and Iran signed a preliminary cease-fire agreement last month had led to a “sharp” increase in global oil supplies, the International Energy Agency said in a report released on Friday. Oil exports from the Persian Gulf jumped by 6.5 million barrels per day in June, to around 16 million barrels per day, helping to bring down prices.

[. . .]

If ships become more wary of plying the strait after recent attacks, the talk among economists may turn from forecasts of an impending oil glut to worries about “demand destruction” as high energy prices squeeze businesses and consumers. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States remains 30 percent higher than before the war. It was $3.88 a gallon on Sunday, up from $3.80 a gallon a week earlier, according to the AAA motor club.



Repeated closures of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large proportion of the world’s fuel and fertilizer are ferried, have resulted in higher operating costs for farmers, a trend that will indirectly affect grocery prices in the long term. According to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for “food at home”—that is, the cost of groceries—increased by 2.7 percent between May 2025 and May 2026.

Although the price of eggs—a point of contention ahead of the 2024 presidential election—has decreased in the past year, other staples such as ground beef and sandwich bread have gone up. Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said that “almost everyone has a food item that they’re focused on. They buy regularly that they use as a benchmark for the cost of living and their financial situation.”

“The war is just exacerbating all the angst around,” said Zandi. “It’s a real problem financially, but also it’s being supercharged in the minds of people because people are really focused on the cost of food and groceries.”

Even if the Trump administration returned to its brief truce with Iran, the consequences of the conflict will be long lasting. Zandi predicted that the cost of oil will remain high for the next several years, even with producers seeking ways to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

 

Millions of Americans are borrowing money or draining their savings to buy groceries, highlighting the financial strain many households face as the cost of living rises, new research has found. 

More than a quarter of working-age adults who relied on credit cards to buy groceries were either unable to pay their balance in full or missed their minimum payment, according to the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. About one in 10 adults relied on so-called "buy now, pay later" loans to cover their groceries — of those, about a third missed a payment last year, the analysis found. 

About 20% of working-age adults said they had tapped long-term savings that weren't intended for everyday expenses, such as an emergency fund, at least once in the last 12 months to pay for groceries, the researchers said. 

"Families still need to eat. They will still need to pay for their basic needs," Kassandra Martinchek, a co-author of the study and public policy expert at the Urban Institute, told CBS News. "Now they have the additional burden of also needing to repay debt — it could constrain their ability to meet their basic needs in the future and get back on their financial feet."



An overwhelming share of Americans say everyday life costs too much, a feeling many tie most directly to food and fuel bills.

In the survey conducted for the Guardian, a whopping 95% of respondents said the country is in an affordability crisis.

[. . .]

Compared with earlier this year, far more Americans now say the economy is deteriorating. Roughly 57% describe it as getting worse, compared to 46% in February. The share saying conditions are improving fell from 28% to 16%.

Concern about basic costs was not confined to one political camp. According to the Guardian, about half of Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike said groceries and gasoline are difficult to afford, and now two-thirds of Americans say they have little confidence that the federal government will bring relief from the cost-of-living crisis.

Among the goods and services listed, gasoline was ranked as the good that most Americans had trouble affording, at 52%. Coming in second, groceries were similarly found to be unaffordable, with 51% of Americans saying they struggled to buy them.


Welcome to the Chump economy.  While Chump illegally grabbed 2.2 billion dollars in 2025, the American people have been fleeced at the gas pump and at the grocery store.  

THE NEW YORK TIMES' podcast THE DAILY focuses on grocery store prices today:

According to the Economic Research Service at the Department of Agriculture, prices across all food categories are expected to rise 3.2 percent in 2026.

Today, Jessica Cheung, a senior audio producer for “The Daily,” talks with the general manger of a food co-op in Pittsburgh about how the store is being affected by the quickly increasing costs.

Everything Chump touches turns to s**t.  His ICE program?  He's beefed it up and raised numbers.  And we have Lorenzo Salgado Araujo's death to show for it. 


Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot dead last week by ICE in Houston, Texas.  Robin Stein, Devon Lum, Sam Lerma, Mimi Dwyer, Alexander Cardia, Aric Toler, Dmitriy Khavin, Charlie Smart and Allison McCann (NEW YORK TIMES) report: 

Shortly before 7 a.m. on Tuesday, immigration officers were trailing a white work van in the Magnolia Park neighborhood of Houston. Minutes later, the driver had been fatally shot in his abdomen.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement on X and again to The New York Times on Saturday that a federal officer had opened fire at the man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, in “self-defense” after Mr. Salgado Araujo “weaponized” his white van. The agency accused him of ramming one of their vehicles and trying to run over an ICE officer.

Neither Mr. Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the United States without authorization for 35 years, nor the three passengers in his van were the initial targets of the operation, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman told The Times.

Footage from bystanders and local businesses obtained by The Times, although incomplete, provides a window into the events that unfolded on Canal Street.

[. . .]

Mr. Salgado Araujo’s white work van — closely followed by two unmarked S.U.V.s driven by ICE agents — is heading south on Wayside Drive at 6:46 a.m. Neither of the S.U.V.s appeared to have emergency lights activated.

Mr. Salgado Araujo’s van abruptly makes a tight left turn onto a residential block of Canal Street that is partially blocked off by construction. The change of direction is apparently too sudden for the agents in the lead S.U.V. — a Nissan — to follow. The second S.U.V. — a Jeep — follows the van onto Canal.

Footage shows the Jeep, driven by an ICE agent, initially speeding up along the driver’s side of Mr. Salgado Araujo’s van, overtaking it. 

But two seconds later, a security camera at a medical office filming from the opposite direction shows the Jeep on the passenger side of the van. The Jeep appears to veer sharply toward the van, possibly making contact. Both vehicles swoop into a U-turn. An agent appears to exit the Jeep.


So it would appear that ICE struck Lorenzo's car first.  That would implode DHS' claim that they killed him because he used his vehicle to ram into them.  


Another lie from DHS.  Markwayne Mullen would be well advised to get ahead of this and to announce this.  If he wants to be boxed in as a liar this early in his tenure, he better get ready for being seen with the same disgust that his predecessor Kristi Noem is.  Kristi's scandals continue to be exposed.  For example, Julia Ornedo (THE DAILY BEAST) reported earlier today:


Kristi Noem’s alleged lover is still facing scrutiny for his short-lived stint as “shadow secretary” of the Department of Homeland Security.

Investigators have uncovered evidence that Corey Lewandowski, 52, may have been involved in the improper awarding of government contracts in his time as Noem’s right-hand man, insiders tell the Wall Street Journal.

A potential criminal referral to the Department of Justice is being considered, the outlet reported, adding that both the White House and new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who took over after Noem’s ouster in March, have been briefed on the matter.

DHS officials were stunned to discover how involved Lewandowski was in the contracts signed during Noem’s 14-month tenure at DHS, according to The Journal. Sources told the outlet that Lewandowski personally signed certain contracts or had knowledge of the approvals despite not being a full-time federal government official.


Markwayne Mullen was brought in to be a change.  Yet ICE continues killing people and continues claiming that they were the victims.  When they weren't.  Christina Morales and Jacey Fortin (NEW YORK TIMES) note:


At the time of the stop, Mr. Araujo was on his way to work at a construction site. Three men were in the car with him, including Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, his younger brother. As of Friday, they remained in immigration detention in Conroe, Texas, outside Houston.

On Thursday, the three men told a lawyer, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, that Mr. Araujo did not use his vehicle as a weapon or try to run over the immigration officers, and that no agent had been positioned in front of the vehicle, the lawyer said.

The authorities did not provide video footage of the encounter. The ICE agents were in unmarked vehicles and were not wearing body cameras, according to the area’s congresswoman, Representative Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat. Ms. Garcia said she had spoken to the acting director of ICE, David Venturella.

Surveillance and witness videos obtained by The New York Times show two ICE vehicles tailing Mr. Araujo’s white van and trying to cut it off. The van can be seen doing a U-turn before stopping alongside the road, with several immigration agents running toward the van as it comes to a halt. Video of the moments when shots were fired has not emerged.


Bianca Seward (HOUSTON PUBLIC MEDIA) adds:

At least two of the passengers in a van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo at the time he was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Houston this week are disputing the federal agency's account of the incident, according to an attorney representing the men.

Hugo Balderas, the lawyer for two of the three passengers, said Friday he had spoken with his clients, who say ICE's account is inconsistent with their experience.

"They confirmed that at no point was there ever an ICE agent directly in front of the vehicle," Balderas said. "They also confirmed that the shots came from the sides, not from the front, which is inconsistent with the ICE statement."


Edgar Sandoval (NEW YORK TIMES) notes:


On Saturday morning Ronaldo Salgado glanced, his smile bittersweet, at a photo of his father projected on a large screen and found the courage to address dozens of people crammed at an indoor vigil in his native Houston.

Mr. Salgado and a younger brother moved the room to tears as they spoke about the love their father, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, had for soccer, and the passion he had for the American dream. When the brothers renewed calls for accountability in the fatal shooting of their father at the hands of immigration agents, the crowd erupted in applause.

Mr. Salgado Araujo was a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant who had been living in Houston for 35 years. He was driving to work with three other men Tuesday morning when agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement began following him and later shot him after they said he had failed to stop his vehicle.

“I just want to continue pressuring, continue the pressure, to continue obtaining a full independent investigation,” said Mr. Salgado, 29, a public-school teacher, as he addressed the crowd at an event organized by the Service Employees International Union. “To continue preserving the evidence, and for his van to be returned to us.”


Jeremy Wallace (HOUSTON CHRONICLE) covers the silence from Texas Governor Greg Abbott on the death of Lorenzo: 

Gov. Greg Abbott's radio silence on the ICE shooting in Houston is even more jarring given he was on the radio this week for hours after the shooting.

Abbott had White House Border Czar Tom Homan on during his guest hosting duties on The Sean Hannity Show on Tuesday, where they celebrated ICE ramping up its deportation activities nationwide. But neither said a word about Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

"Well, you guys are doing a great job," Abbott told Homan after the border czar bragged about ICE rounding up 10,000 people in less than 5 days as part of a stepped-up enforcement push.

Salgado was shot early Tuesday morning in Houston's East End after ICE agents attempted to pull over the van he was driving with three other passengers, including his brother, as the work crew was on their way to a construction site. Salgado is a Mexican national who did not have U.S. citizenship. U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, told reporters that Salgado wasn't the target of the stop when his vehicle was pulled over.

Abbott didn't talk about the shooting during the radio program or on his social media accounts since. As of Friday afternoon, he'd posted about his family dog passing away and promotions of his radio program from earlier in the week.

It's a very different reaction than Abbott had in January after ICE shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minnesota. After that shooting, Abbott was on a conservative radio program where he said the White House needed to "recalibrate" how it was using ICE to make arrests.


Another death that Donald Chump's responsible for.  How many more murders is he going to be allowed to carry out?  At what point, do the courts step in and say, "Enough."  Tell him that's enough, that he clearly doesn't know how to oversea this operation and that -- for public safety reasons -- it needs to be shut down?  




I am outraged and struggling to recognize the country I have loved all my life.
This past week, another life was tragically taken by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Yet his story is only one sad part of a much larger tragedy for immigrants without legal status. Thousands are being held in ICE detention facilities across our nation.

Reports indicate that roughly 70% have no criminal record. Many accounts describe overcrowded conditions, inadequate food, poor medical care and unsanitary facilities. More than 50 people have died while in ICE custody.

We can debate immigration laws, but we should never debate the value of a human life or the obligation to treat every person with dignity.

If we lose our compassion, we lose something far greater than our politics. We lose our soul.



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

Sen. Murray Calls for an Independent Investigation; Demands ICE Release all the Footage Related to Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s Filling

*** WATCH HERE***  

Washington, D.C. – In response to the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, released a video statement demanding that ICE release all of the footage related to this tragedy and calling for an independent investigation. In the video, Senator Murray draws attention to the fact that ICE has provided no evidence to back up its dubious claims that the officer fired in response to Salgado Araujo “weaponizing his vehicle” and the agency has a history of lying about using extreme force against innocent civilians.

*** Watch here***  

Senator Murray has spoken out forcefully and consistently against the Trump administration’s cruel and counterproductive mass deportation campaign and the egregious treatment by ICE and DHS of American citizens, legal immigrants, and undocumented immigrants. As Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee, she led Democrats’ efforts fighting tooth and nail to secure meaningful reforms in law to rein in ICE and Border Patrol—which Republicans ultimately refused altogether and chose to skirt Democrats by delivering another massive blank check for the agencies with no accountability. Last month, at a Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on the FY27 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—Murray pressed Secretary Markwayne Mullin on the conduct of ICE and Border Patrol and Republicans’ refusal to enact reforms into law.

In March, Senator Murray released a video about the numerous violent shootings we are seeing from Trump’s reckless ICE and CBP agents across the country—and the urgent need to rein in these rogue agencies. Senator Murray highlighted the stories of Marimar Martinez, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, Carlos Jimenez, Francisco Longoria, and Carlitos Ricardo Parias—all of whom were shot by ICE or CBP agents. Throughout the video, Senator Murray calls out the egregious use of force from federal agents, their lies that don’t hold up in court, and the extreme danger they are putting families and communities in by recklessly using firearms. Senator Murray also called out Republicans for refusing to negotiate serious and common sense measures to rein in ICE and CBP.

In December 2025, Murray called attention to the violent assault of Wilmer Toledo-Martinez in Vancouver, Washington and she successfully advocated for his release from the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWIPC). Wilmer was lured out of his home under false pretenses, violently detained by federal agents, and mauled by an attack dog despite not resisting arrest or attempting to flee. Not long after, Murray also called attention to the case of Jose Paniagua Calderón, whose foot was run over by agents in Vancouver.

In November 2025, Senator Murray joined 48 of her colleagues in the Senate and House of Representatives in introducing the Restoring Access to Detainees Act, which would mandate that DHS allow people who have been detained to contact their legal counsel and families. In February 2025, Senator Murray signed onto a letter demanding that DHS end wrongful searches and interrogations of Tribal members, and continued to push for answers from DHS on the matter last December. In March 2025, Murray also reintroduced her Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act. She and Senator Richard Blumenthal led 27 of their Senate colleagues last year in a letter expressing concern with prevalence and the treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in ICE detention.

In Washington state, Senator Murray has been conducting oversight of the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWIPC), despite the Trump administration’s efforts to block Congressional oversight of federal immigration detention facilities. After a protracted legal battle over Washington state’s ability to enforce health and safety standards at NWIPC, a federal appeals court ruled in August 2025 that the state should be allowed to enforce such standards at the detention center, and that failure to comply could result in fines of up to $10,000 per violation. In December 2025, Senator Murray led Members of the Washington state Congressional delegation in a letter to Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons expressing grave concerns with conditions at NWIPC in Tacoma, Washington and demanding answers to a long list of questions regarding overcrowding and lack of access to medical services, food, and legal counsel for individuals detained at the facility. 

Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:

“That is Ronaldo Salgado. On Tuesday morning, an ICE agent shot and killed his father, Lorenzo—a construction worker with no criminal history who spent 35 years in Houston building homes and raising three American sons. 

“Now here is ICE’s version: they say Lorenzo ‘weaponized his vehicle,’ so an agent fired in self-defense.

“Of course, ICE has provided no evidence to back up its claims. And we know ICE lies. How? That is almost word-for-word what DHS said after a federal agent shot Carlitos Parias in Los Angeles—right up until the body cam footage showed the agent’s gun went off while officers were smashing in his windows, and a judge threw the whole case out. 

“It is the same story they told about Marimar Martinez in Chicago—until the video showed the agent was the one doing the ramming.

“Look, we saw the videos of officers killing Renée Good and Alex Pretti.

“We know that ICE lies. Yet Republicans still refuse to require ICE to follow the same basic rules your local police follow every single day.

“That is what Democrats are fighting for—and it should not be a fight.

“I’m still pushing for accountability in the law, but I am also demanding an independent investigation and that ICE release all of the footage related to Lorenzo’s killing.

“We also need to hear from the witnesses at the scene they detained and shipped to God knows where.

“If you’re wondering what you can do, you need to understand that your voice matters here. When America spoke up for Alex Pretti and Renée Good, Republicans felt the pressure.

“Keep sharing Ronaldo’s words. Use your voice and use your vote. We do not have to accept this as our new normal.”

###





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