Through most of 2008 this was a parody site. Sometimes there's humor now, sometimes I'm serious.
Wednesday, August 12, 2026
Our federal judges continue to show a spine and allegiance to the Constitution
Again, applause for our federal courts which continue to
do strong and Constitutional work -- unlike the Crooked Court presided
over by John Roberts. Nick Hilden reports:
On
Wednesday, a federal judge smacked down President Donald Trump’s
“unconstitutional” attack on U.S. election integrity by ruling against
an executive order that would assert federal control over mail-in
voting. According to former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance, the judge’s order
comes as Trump has given “every reason to take him seriously when he
threatens to declare an emergency to seize control of the outcome.”
As
Vance explains, “Today, in a case brought by the League of Women
Voters, Judge Indira Talwani in Boston entered a nationwide order
blocking the Postal Service from carrying out Trump’s efforts to assert
federal control over mail-in voting policies ahead of the election.
Previously, as a result of her decision in another case, his plans had
been paused in some states, but not others (only states whose AGs sued
were covered), creating still more confusion and an uneven playing field
for voters to navigate.”
But per the judge’s
order, “Where the EO is presently causing confusion and threatening both
increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy, the court
finds that enfranchisement heavily outweighs the executive’s attempt to
unconstitutionally insert itself into the domain of election
regulation.”
While the government had argued
that it is too soon for a judge to deliver a final ruling, claiming that
the Postal Service must first establish new rules in concordance with
Trump’s EO, which could then be challenged in court, the judge
“disagreed sharply,” writing, “The court finds it prudent to review the
EO now, where less than 90 days pend before the midterms and the
millions of citizens who rely on mail voting require clarity as to how
or whether they will vote in November.” She also noted that the short
amount of time before the midterms “underscores the critical need for an
injunction to prevent Defendants from changing election rules on the
eve of the election.”
We
really need our strong federal judges. Now more than ever. And I've
been so impressed in the last years with how they have ruled in terms of
the Constitution.
Attorneys
for President Donald Trump have asked a federal appeals court to
immediately step in and halt a judge's scathing sanctions order, after
the jurist declined to issue a stay.
"This
appeal arises from the district court's extraordinary abuse of its
sanctions power," Trump's brief said Wednesday, repeating that a "stay
would harm no one" in the interim.
U.S.
District Judge Kathleen Williams last week said there was no "good
cause" to halt a ruling that referred Trump attorney Alejandro Brito to
the Florida Bar and granted monetary "reimbursement" for amici curiae —
or friends of the court — she allowed to enter the IRS lawsuit.
As
Law&Crime has reported, those amici included 35 former federal
judges, as well as ex-IRS and Treasury officials, who advanced arguments
that the Trump DOJ did not make before Trump the individual moved to
voluntarily dismiss the action. The judge saw the sudden dismissal as a
way for Trump to "manipulate the judicial process" and improperly force
the IRS into a $1.776 billion "settlement" with "no viable basis in law
or fact," while opening the door for Trump supporters to seek payouts
from a so-called "anti-Weaponization Fund."
The judge, a Barack Obama appointee, responded in mid-July by issuing serious sanctions. She also barred reference to the "settlement" she deemed "non-adversarial" and "collusive."
No, he perpetuated a fraud on the court and tried to use the court in a fraudulent manner. The ruling should stand.
Wednesday, August 12, 2026. Chump grows more unpopular, his cowardly
actions are noted, he continues his war on immigrants and on reality,
two cry babies who voted to support Todd Blanche becoming Attorney
General now want to pretend that they ave backbones, and much more.
The threat to Air Force One was seen as so dire that they sneaked President Trump off the jet
in a catering container to keep him safe. But the same dire threat did
not stop them from then sending Air Force One into the skies anyway with
a planeful of senior officials, government employees, reporters and
military personnel serving as decoys, some unwittingly.
If
the Iranians were trying to shoot down the presidential plane last
month, as U.S. officials concluded at the time, then the subterfuge in
Ankara, Turkey, that protected the president also may have made targets
of dozens of others who flew aboard the jet, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the senior aides Stephen Miller and Steven Cheung.
The government has on rare occasions engaged in sleight of hand
to safeguard presidents from possible jeopardy, particularly for
journeys to hazardous locations, such as when George W. Bush or Barack
Obama flew to Iraq during days of war or when Bill Clinton made a brief
visit to Pakistan with its history of terrorism. The Trump team’s ruse
in Ankara, however, stands out not only for its misdirection but also
for the way it shifted the evident peril to others and was kept secret
long after Mr. Trump was out of harm’s way.
“They
just didn’t seem to give a second thought to anybody but the president
and the few people who were with him,” said Joe Lockhart, who served as
White House press secretary to Mr. Clinton during his 2000 trip to Islamabad,
the Pakistani capital. “We went out of our way to make sure the maximum
number of people, especially civilians, were protected and not human
shields. They didn’t even think about it. And to me, that’s the big
difference.”
Republican
Sen. John Cornyn is raising concerns about the Trump administration’s
construction of a border wall through national and state parks in his
state.
In a letter
released on Tuesday, Cornyn warned that the border barrier’s
construction could disrupt natural beauty, indigenous sites, wildlife
and tourism at Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park,
both of which are located in Texas.
“Many residents
that live and work around the parks are also concerned that a physical
wall, which would be accompanied by lighting systems, access roads, and
maintenance corridors, would (1) ruin the beauty, landscape, and
wildlife of the park, (2) threaten culturally significant Native
American sites, (3) disrupt wildlife migration, (4) limit access to the
Rio Grande River, and (5) significantly harm the local economy as
tourism is a major economic driver for the region,” he wrote.
So?
What do you want us to do, Cornyn?
You're the one who said that you,
as a senator, didn't have the power to rein in Chump. That's what you
said as you explained voting for Todd Blanche to become Attorney
General.
So you wrote a letter? Like one of your constituents might do? You have no power because you don't know how to exercise power.
In related news, former US Vice President Kamala Harris has spoken out against Chump's SAVE America Act. Ryan Mancini (THE HILL) reports Senator John Kennedy spoke to Sean Hannity about Harris' statements:
“No
disrespect, but Vice President Harris is no longer relevant. She had a
shot and she missed. She can cozy up to the Lulu Lenins all she wants
to,” Kennedy said, referring to Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir
Lenin. “But she has me confused with somebody who cares what she thinks.
I mean, she’s yesterday.”
No,
disrespect, Kennedy, but you are no longer relevant. You've been voted
out of the Senate, stabbed in the back by Chump. Yet you voted for
Todd Blanche to become Attorney General. And in January 2025, you voted
for Robert Kennedy Junior to become Secretary of Health and Human
Services.
Now Kamala was a
senator like you once. But she went out as vice president. Makes her
much more relevant than you ever will be and you can blame your cry baby
self for that.
Cry
babies is all that MAGA's produced from the GOP. The biggest one of
all is, of course, Donald Chump and America has grown weary of his
constant crying and whining. Fernando Cervantes Jr. (USA TODAY) reports:
President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to yet another low since his return to the White House, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll, which also found that just 1 in 3 Americans approve of his job performance.
The survey, released Aug. 11, found that 33% of Americans approve of Trump’s performance, down 3 percentage points from the previous week. This marks the lowest approval rating the president has seen in YouGov tracking since he returned to office in 2025.
Apart
from his continued slump in the polls, a majority of Americans, 60%,
said they perceived the president as "not honest and trustworthy".
According to the newest poll, 65% of respondents said the country is
headed in the wrong direction, up 2 percentage points from the Economist/YouGov’s poll in late July.
65% of Americans feel that "te country is headed in the wrong direction." The country's rejecting Chump.
And
this poll was taken before the country learned of Chump's cowardly
action of switching planes and leaving reporters and White House staff
at risk of an attack on the plane that they were in.
What
should have happened, if he had to be whisked away in a catering truck,
was that he ot on the third plane and flew off and it was announced
that the plane Rubio, reporters, et al were on had some sort of a
mechanical issue and was not departing just yet. And when Chump was
safely in England, it could be announced that due to the mechanical
problem, he flew on another plane. Then the plane that would carry
Rubio, et al, could take off and anyone wanting to bomb it because Chump
was on it would know Chump was not in the air.
And that's what he should have insisted upon.
Instead, he risked the lives of others. He put other people at risk. That's not a leader.
An important inflation report Wednesday could give the Federal Reserve a little breathing room in its battle against inflation.
The
consumer price index, due at 8:30 a.m. ET from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, is expected to show only a modest increase for July — 0.1%
on the all-items headline number and 0.2% for the all-important core
reading that excludes volatile food and energy prices, according to the
Dow Jones consensus. On an annual basis, they are expected to show 3.4%
and 2.5% respectively, both down 0.1 percentage point from June.
While
that will still keep annual inflation rates well above the Fed's 2%
goal, two straight muted monthly readings could help buy Federal Open
Market Committee policymakers a little time before making a move on
interest rates.
Oil
prices bounced around before finishing higher Tuesday while global
stocks were mixed as markets awaited a key inflation report expected to
influence upcoming monetary policy decisions.
Crude
prices initially rose more than two percent on hardening rhetoric
between the United States and Iran on the prospects for reopening the
Strait of Hormuz, which is vital to the world's flow of petroleum
shipments.
[. . .]
All eyes will be on Wednesday's consumer price index report for July.
"It's
a wait-and-see day," said Sam Stovall of CFRA Research, who sees the
most recent lackluster jobs data as denting the odds of an imminent
interest rate hike.
As the economy continues to tank under Chump's leadership, voters reject Chump and, yes, embrace SNAP. Aliss Higham (NEWSWEEK) notes:
Democratic
and Republican voters across a series of politically competitive states
and congressional districts broadly agree that Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits should be increased, new polling shows, as grocery prices continue to put pressure on household budgets.
Surveys
conducted across 11 states and 28 competitive congressional districts
found that a majority of voters from both major parties supported higher
SNAP benefits for people living alone. Most Democrats also backed
increased assistance for single mothers, while Republican support for
raising those benefits was more mixed.
The
findings come as Americans continue to contend with food prices that are
significantly higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic,
despite a slowdown in inflation in recent years.
SNAP, commonly known as food stamps, is the largest federal food assistance program in the United States and provides monthly grocery benefits
to households with low or no income. The new surveys indicate there is
considerable bipartisan appetite for increasing that assistance.
Democratic
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar says a Homeland Security Investigations agent was
outside her monthly town hall meeting in Richfield, Minnesota, on
Thursday.
Omar posted a letter she sent to
Michael McCarthy, interim special agent in charge of HSI's office in St.
Paul, Minnesota, regarding the incident on social media Monday
afternoon. The document said a Richfield police officer noticed a young
woman sitting in a Ford Explorer as people arrived at an area community
center, where the meeting took place, and "became suspicious of the way
she was monitoring the building."
According to
Omar's letter, the officer then ran the plates attached to the Ford and
found they were registered to a different vehicle. They then approached
the woman in the SUV.
"I understand that she
initially identified herself as security, and after Richfield Police
confirmed with my security team that she was not part of our operation,
she called her supervisor and explained that she was an HSI agent and
was outside the community center as part of an undercover drug operation
in the area," Omar said in the letter.
The woman left the property after speaking with her supervisor, according to Omar's letter.
"Instead
of monitoring the area for those who might wish harm to me and my
constituents, Richfield Police were required to devote time to
investigating why an HSI agent was outside of a Congressional event in a
vehicle with mismatched plates," Omar said in a written statement on
Monday. "It also raises serious and uncomfortable questions about the
purpose of HSI's presence outside of my event."
Now Homeland Security is spying on political townhalls led by members of Congress?
Chump's
war on immigrants is a very ugly and very mean-spirited action. It's
impcating all areas of the country -- including the decrease in travel
to the US by foreigners who kept the hospitality industry -- among
others -- rolling in the money until Chump's war. The crackdown on
immigrants is impacting the economy. Pedro Camacho (LATIN TIMES) reports:
Industry
groups representing construction, agriculture and other labor-dependent
sectors are warning the Trump administration that its immigration
crackdown is worsening worker shortages and could conflict with other
economic priorities, including lowering housing costs and maintaining
food production.
Representatives
have raised their concerns directly with the White House and the
departments of Homeland Security, Labor and Agriculture, CNN reports.
The administration's effort to end deportation protections for roughly
1.3 million people who had been authorized to work in the U.S., combined
with increased immigration enforcement, has intensified existing labor
shortages, industry groups said.
"These
two things might be working against each other at the moment," Jim
Tobin, president of the National Association of Home Builders, said of
Trump's immigration and housing agendas. The residential construction
industry is already short between 200,000 and 400,000 workers, he told CNN.
Foreign-born
workers accounted for more than a quarter of the U.S. construction
workforce in 2024 and more than half of workers in several trades,
including roofing, drywall installation and painting. "The more we
squeeze labor, the more we're going to increase home prices," Tobin
said.
The concerns have contributed to internal
debate over worksite enforcement. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne
Mullin has called for changes to employment visa programs while
maintaining that undocumented workers should be deported, drawing
criticism from immigration hardliners.
Agricultural
groups have raised similar concerns, particularly about industries
requiring year-round labor that cannot rely on existing seasonal visa
programs. Republican lawmakers have also urged changes to the H-2A
agricultural visa system.
Evidence of broader economic effects has emerged elsewhere. A Los Angeles County analysis published in February found widespread business losses following immigration enforcement operations, while studies of Houston and Chicago have linked enforcement surges to reduced employment and disruptions in construction-heavy labor markets.
Leaders
of enemy nations seeking to harm the U.S. economy and worsen the
affordability crisis plaguing American families would love to deprive
our country of hundreds of thousands of essential workers.
Fortunately
for our enemies — but unfortunately for our country — this is exactly
what President Trump is doing with his irrational anti-immigration
policies, which primarily keep out and deport hardworking immigrants of
color.
The latest example of this is the Trump administration’s move to revoke the legal status of more than 300,000 Haitian immigrants and about 50,000 immigrants from other countries living lawfully in the U.S. under a program called Temporary Protected Status.
A Supreme Court ruling
in June said the government could revoke the work permits of these
temporary status recipients and begin deportation proceedings against
them July 27. The ruling overturned a lower court decision that found
the move to curtail the status was “in part” based on “racial animus.”
As
a result of the Supreme Court decision, employers have already begun
firing Haitian employees who have lost the protection of Temporary
Protected Status.
Trump has demonized
unauthorized immigrants for years and claimed in an executive order on
the first day of his second term that they are staging a dangerous
“invasion” of the U.S.
The
president even said such immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our
country.” He later denied knowing that Adolf Hitler used the same
language about the 6 million Jews his Nazi regime murdered in the
Holocaust.
Despite the Supreme Court upholding birthright citizenship, Chump's issued an executive order targeting it.
Civil rights groups that successfully fought President Donald Trump’s first attempt to curtail birthright citizenship are targeting his latest effort.
The
American Civil Liberties Union and other groups asked a federal judge
on Aug. 11 to make it “unquestionably clear” that Trump’s new directive
can’t be enforced.
“Trump's
executive orders are a ham-handed attempt to distract the American
people from the Supreme Court’s clear holding: that birthright
citizenship is protected by our Constitution,” Carol Rose, executive
director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement.
In June, the Supreme Court affirmed
that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully
or temporarily present in the country are citizens at birth. The few
exceptions to birthright citizenship are for children of foreign
diplomats or babies born to enemies in occupied territory.
ICE plans to spend up to $20m (£15m) to purchase
thousands of gloves for officers and agents that can deliver painful
electric shocks by March, according to a notice published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security.
The
devices, called Glove (Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter), are
manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC of Lexington, Kentucky.
According
to the manufacturer, “the discomfort associated with the stimulation is
usually effective in bringing individuals into compliance in less than
three seconds and leaves no burns, marks or scars”. The company has
advertised the device as a “humane, low-optics, de-escalation solution
for many situations facing our men and women in uniform”.
On ICE, let's note this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Senate investigation
revealed ICE has attempted to deport 282 veterans and their relatives;
could be violating law that prevents the use of military against
civilians
“Service members must have
confidence that their sacrifices will be honored, not used against them
or to target their loved ones.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.),
along with Representatives Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Maggie Goodlander
(D-N.H.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), and Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas) led a
bicameral letter pressing the Department of Defense (DoD), the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Veterans Affairs (VA), U.S.
Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) on their efforts to coordinate to arrest, and detain, and deport
hundreds of veterans and military families.In April 2025, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rescinded its long-standing policy that
treated military service a “significant mitigating factor” when
deciding whether to pursue immigration enforcement, and replaced it with
a new policy stating that military service alone “does not automatically exempt” non-citizens from enforcement actions.
In September 2025, Senator Warren opened an investigation into the
impacts of these policy changes on military families. The investigation
revealed that ICE has attempted to deport 282 veterans and their
relatives. But DHS refused to disclose the number of active-duty troops
and their families who have been threatened by the administration’s
policy.
But new reports indicate that DoDand DHS appear to be coordinating to
convert military bases into “traps” for individuals this administration
deems deportable and has detained non-citizens during routine
check-ins, visits, and drop-offs at or near military installations. At
the same time, DoD has continued to recruit new service members with the promise of immigration protections.
Recent reporting by the Associated Press reveals
that, since January 2025, more than 50 parents and spouses of
active-duty service members have been detained, and at least six have
been deported. ICE’s statistics show that the agency has arrested 16
non-citizen armed forces members since the beginning of Fiscal Year
2026. Some service members have reportedly needed to take leave or delay
deployment because ICE detained their families.
“These efforts imperil military readiness, weaken service members’
morale, and betray America’s promises to the people who put their lives
on the line for our nation,” wrote the lawmakers. Alarmingly,
DoD has been reportedly targeting individuals at military
installations, detaining them on military property, and turning them
over to ICE — effectively converting military bases into “traps” for
noncitizens. For example, a 22-year-old military wife was recently detained while
attempting to obtain a military spouse I.D. Military officials
allegedly called DHS and held her in a room until ICE agents arrived to
take her to a detention center.
“DoD’s participation in civil immigration enforcement activities
raises both ethical and legal concerns, including potential violations
of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits using the armed forces of
the military for civilian law enforcement,” wrote the lawmakers.
The coalition warned that if service members were to be swept up in
any of these enforcement actions, it could separately constitute a
violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which provides
protections to all members of the United States military on active duty,
including non-citizens, from civil actions—such as immigration
proceedings—that interfere with their military duties.
“Service members must have confidence that their sacrifices will be
honored, not used against them or to target their loved ones,” wrote the lawmakers. “DoD’s
new anti-immigrant practices risk deterring future recruits and
damaging the credibility of military recruitment efforts—which promised
to care for service members even after their time in uniform.”
The lawmakers requested that the agencies explain the enhanced
coordination between DoD and DHS, restore long-standing immigration
protections for family members of service members, and explain what
steps they are taking to protect troops, veterans, and their families
from unjust immigration enforcement by August 23, 2026.
The letter was signed by Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Michael
Bennet (D-Colo.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie
Hirono (D-Hawaii), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Ed Markey
(D-Mass.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Alex Padilla
(D-Calif.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Raphael Warnock
(D-Ga.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
The letter was endorsed by the Immigration Defenders Law Center, the
Seattle Clemency Project, Common Defense, Repatriate Our Patriots, and
League of United Latin American Citizens.
“It is hard to imagine a more profound betrayal than targeting
service members, veterans, and military families for deportation,” said
Jennie Pasquarella, interim executive director of the Seattle Clemency
Project. “This
administration is abandoning decades of bipartisan policies that
recognized a simple truth: protecting those who serve makes our military
stronger and our nation safer. Targeting the very communities that have
sacrificed for this country is not just morally indefensible, it is a
direct attack on military readiness, recruitment, and trust.”
“This administration has made a conscious decision to abandon its
promises to military families and fail those who put their lives on the
line for our nation,” said Amanda Schuft, director of legal services at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “We
have seen the devastating human cost firsthand. Our client, the father
of an active-duty Army service member, was detained by ICE despite
suffering from terminal renal failure, forcing his son to take leave
from military service to plead for his release and provide evidence of
his grave medical condition. The government ignored those pleas. After
his health deteriorated in detention, our client was eventually
released, only to die within weeks.”
“Family readiness directly impacts mission readiness. Behind every
military spouse or parent in detention is a servicemember who could
deploy at any moment. Without a strong homefront, we cannot have a ready
force. Our government must honor its commitments to those who serve,”
said Danitza G. James, MSW, President, Repatriate Our Patriots.
Senator Warren has led the fight to hold the Trump administration
accountable for mishandling military funds to pursue its cruel
immigration agenda and has continuously fought for the safety and
well-being of our servicemembers and veterans:
In May 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released new answers from
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense
revealing the Pentagon’s financial support for the Trump
administration’s cruel immigration agenda was far higher than initially
reported by DoD.
In April 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chris Van
Hollen (D-Md.), along with Representative Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) and
Representative Troy Carter (D-La.), urged the Inspectors General of
the Departments of Homeland Security and State to open an investigation
into the Trump administration’s attempts to deport people to countries
they have no ties to. These deportations use the military to conduct the
international deportation flights and detain noncitizens on U.S.
military bases within the United States and overseas.
In March 2026, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) led 52 members of Congress in a new investigation into
potential corruption in government contracts stemming from the White
House’s fast-tracked expansion of inhumane warehouse-based immigration
detention facilities using a Navy contracting vehicle.
In March 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released new data obtained
from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealing that the Trump
administration has attempted to deport hundreds of veterans and their
family members after promising immigration protections at the time of
recruitment.
In January 2026, following a new report by the Congressional Budget
Office revealing Trump’s domestic deployments of the National Guard and
Marines have cost at least $589 million — more than double what Senator
Warren’s bicameral investigation previously found — she called for the Trump administration to “answer for wasting more than half a billion taxpayer dollars.”
In December 2025, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed Trump’s nominee to
be Army General Counsel, on the deployment of the National Guard and
reports that senior Judge Advocate General (JAG) officers have been
sidelined after raising legal concerns about military operations.
In December 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative John Garamendi (D-Calif.) co-led the release of a new report,
along with 11 other members of Congress, revealing the Trump
administration diverted more than $2 billion of military funds and
resources from the Pentagon to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
for immigration enforcement and its impact on readiness and morale. The
report also revealed that the diversion of funds was happening at the
expense of updates to barracks, maintenance hangers, and military
construction projects in the Pacific.
In October 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) joined colleagues in requesting that
CBO provide an independent assessment of the projected costs associated
with the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard to
U.S. cities.
In September 2025, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tammy
Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), along with Representatives
Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), and Delia C.
Ramirez (D-Ill.), led 55 members of Congress in opening a new investigation into
the Trump administration’s arrest, detention, and deportation of
non-citizen service members, veterans, and military families.
In September 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) led more than 60 members of Congress in opening a new investigation into
the Trump administration’s practice of detaining and sending immigrants
to countries where they have no citizenship or connections of any kind.
These deportations use the military to conduct the international
deportation flights and detain noncitizens on U.S. military bases within
the United States and overseas.
In February 2025, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) pressed Secretary
of Defense Pete Hegseth on the military’s deployment of active-duty
forces to the southern border and Guantanamo and the Department of
Defense’s (DOD) new involvement in immigration detention and
deportation.
###
Meanwhile Chump's having a fit that his false claims got rebuked and fact checked. Thomas Kika notes:
President
Donald Trump lashed out with a new social media tantrum this week,
taking aim at a think tank report that offered a sharp rebuke of his National Guard deployments, per a report from The Hill.
Trump's
post was in response to a July report from the liberal-leaning Center
for American Progress, which found that his deployment of the Guard to
Washington D.C., had "failed to reduce violent crime despite its claims
of success." His attack came after the report's author, Chandler Hall,
discussed its findings during an appearance on C-SPAN.
Trump's
extended post went so far as to threaten the group with a lawsuit, all
while also attacking numerous entities he claimed to be funding it, from
Walmart to Apple to Goldman Sachs.
[. . .]
The report, published on July 13,
argued that "The second Trump administration is trying to take credit
for the historic drop in violent crime across America," even though this
trend has been ongoing for years, well before Trump's return to the
White House. The administration has tried to use that preexisting trend
to "justify expanding policies that are unpopular, ineffective and
costly."
On Aug. 3 last year, the assault and attempted carjacking of Edward Coristine,
a 20-year-old programmer known online as “Big Balls” who had worked for
Elon Musk’s now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency, became a
flashpoint for President Donald Trump’s argument that Washington, D.C.,
had spiraled out of control.
Eight
days later, Trump mobilized roughly 800 National Guard troops to the
capital, an extraordinary use of military personnel on U.S. soil. He
cast the deployment in dire terms, describing a city overwhelmed by
violence and disorder and promising that federal intervention would
restore control, even as violent crime in Washington had fallen to its lowest level in 30 years, according to the Department of Justice.
The
deployment, dubbed “Make DC Safe and Beautiful,” quickly expanded. Some
4,000 troops from states and territories across the country are now
deployed to the capital, down from a summer surge for America's 250th
anniversary that pushed the force to roughly 5,000. That number is
expected to decline further in the coming weeks, with the mission
typically hovering between 2,500 and 3,000 troops.
But even as the force shrinks from its summer peak, the deployment is expected to remain a fixture in D.C. through the remainder of Trump’s term, ABC News was first to report.
The
mission is unprecedented in its scale and duration. The deployment is
projected to cost an additional $1.4 billion, a staggering price tag
even as its effectiveness remains murky. Two soldiers were also killed
in an attack near the White House last year. Meanwhile, the Guard is
juggling competing demands, with thousands of troops deployed to the
Middle East amid the war with Iran and others serving on missions around
the world.
Keeping
the National Guard in DC through the end of Chump's term? $1.4 billion
dollars. He's really spending (wasting) US tax dollars. Hugh Cameron (NEWSWEEK) notes:
According
to preliminary figures from the MPD, accurate as of August 10, total
crime is down 20 percent in the year-to-date compared with 2025, with
property crime seeing a decline of 23 percent driven by a 53-percent
drop in motor vehicle theft and a 37 percent decline in “Theft from
Auto”—the act of taking property or parts from a vehicle.
However,
while homicides are down 31 percent, violent crime has seen a slight
increase of 3 percent. This is thanks to a significant increase (41
percent) in the number of assaults with a dangerous weapon that have
been recorded, as well as a 2 percent increase in cases of sex abuse,
despite a 15 percent decline in the number of robberies.
John
Roman, director of the Center on Public Safety & Justice at the
National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago,
said establishing whether the reduction seen in overall crime rates in
D.C. would require corroboration from FBI data and comparison with other
cities.
He told Newsweek that the available
figures pointed to “among the largest declines in street crimes that a
National Guard presence could reasonably be expected to effect,” noting
the drop in robberies and homicides. However, he noted that other cities
in the United States had experienced similar declines without any
National Guard presence.
David Weisburd, a
professor at George Mason University’s Department of Criminology, Law
and Society, told Newsweek that “establishing a causal relationship
between the National Guard deployment and crime is virtually impossible
without careful controlled research.”
[. . .]
“Crime,
like in U.S. cities that were not subject to the deployments, was
actually already decreasing prior to the National Guard deployment in
D.C., and this is especially the case for violent crime,” Alex Piquero, a
professor of Criminology at the University of Miami, told Newsweek.
“And
while property crime, especially auto-related crimes, may have seen
some decreases during that time in D.C., it is difficult to link the
deployment with actually causing any crime change since the deployment
appears to have been targeted at tourist areas,” he said.
Piquero,
a former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)—the primary
federal agency for recording crime figures—said that the evidence from
other cities that experienced deployments “show no effect on crime,” as
this was already decreasing in those cities before the deployment began.
“It
is important to also note that cities without guard deployments also
saw crime decreases, which tends to suggest that the crime decline in
the U.S. was a more general phenomenon,” he said.
This
was the conclusion reached by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) in a
recent analysis, which found that, nationwide, nine of the 13 examined
crimes fell in the first half of 2026, part of a long-running trend that
has left shoplifting as the only offense now sitting above 2019 levels.
Yet Chump intends to waste $1.4 billion dollars on this.
