Wednesday, August 05, 2026

Science grab bag: The Moon, Mars, Curiosity

Science grab bag. Updating from "Space X rocket to crash into the Moon, Charles Darwin's carnivorous plants, when the sun runs out of fuel," Kenneth Chang (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:

If a rocket stage crashes into the moon and no one sees it, did it really crash?

A discarded upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket slammed into the surface of the moon around 2:35 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday at a speed of 5,400 miles per hour.

However, it appears no one has yet reported any obvious signs of the impact.

Astronomers hoped that the collision would create a bright enough flash of light and a big enough cloud of dust and debris that it could be observed through telescopes from Earth. But at the appointed time, the moon looked like the moon.

More subtle observations taken at the Lowell Discovery Telescope in Arizona and the Very Large Telescope in Chile could reveal evidence of the collision, like specific wavelengths of light emitted or absorbed by the plume of debris, but those data need to be analyzed.

Thanks, Musk, for attacking the moon. Leonard David (SPACE) reports on a planet:

Planting boots on Mars is hard enough. But getting "breathing room" on the Red Planet without inhaling toxic dust is yet another issue.

Given NASA's plans to eventually put astronauts on the Red Planet, the agency assembled a Martian Dust Limit Working Group earlier this year to review what's known and unknown about the toxicological hazard to human crews from exposure to Mars dust. The ultimate goal was to establish a permissible exposure limit for humans on the Red Planet by compiling a comprehensive set of expert perspectives regarding Martian dust toxicology, exposure pathways and mitigation strategies.

The working group's conclusions reinforced the view that an initial Martian dust standard "must balance conservatism with operational feasibility while accommodating architectural and scientific uncertainty," the report states. Furthermore, the report explains, "as additional Martian data and toxicological research become available, this standard should be periodically revisited to ensure continued protection of crew health during human exploration of Mars."

Our land rover Curiosity continues to make discoveries on Mars. NASA issued the following press release:

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Discovers Field of Honeycomb Textures

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jul 29, 2026 $A panoramic view of a sweeping Martian plain covered in patterned fractures leading toward distant hills showcases the terrain explored by NASA's Curiosity rover to investigate the planet's past environment.$

NASA’s Curiosity Discovers a Field of Martian Polygons

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

As NASA’s Curiosity rover recently began climbing up a Martian valley nicknamed “Valle Grande,” it sent back images that were a familiar sight to mission scientists: honeycomb-like textures called polygonal fractures, each one about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across. The mission has spotted small patches of these geometric shapes several times before, but nothing at the scale discovered in Valle Grande.

In a 360-degree panorama that the rover captured on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the polygonal shapes spread in all directions for as far as the rover can see. They even wrap around the sides of a nearby butte nicknamed “Miraflores,” which stands 20 feet (6 meters) tall and is topped with a thick cap of sand.

“We’ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,” said the mission’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We measured their shapes and chemistry carefully and are hopeful there are clues in the data as to how these features formed.”

NASA’s Curiosity rover captures a rocky, reddish Martian landscape filled with polygonal fractures.

A close-up of the polygon fractures discovered by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover highlights their honeycomb-like textures

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Some of the polygons that the mission has spotted in the past clearly formed as mud cracks, though a variety of processes can contribute to their honeycomb textures, including cycles of warm and cold temperatures or compression that squeezed water out of the sediment when the surface was buried.

These newly discovered polygons are among the many surprises Curiosity has trundled across since landing on Mars 14 years ago, on Aug. 5, 2012. Besides sulfur crystals, shiny meteorites, and other interesting geologic features, the rover has made major discoveries about the ancient Martian environment — most importantly, that it had the water, chemistry, and nutrients to support microbial life.

Billions of years ago, lakes and streams dappled the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. The rover has previously uncovered chemistry left over from Mars’ watery history, including carbon-based molecules believed to be precursors to RNA and DNA, two nucleic acids that carry genetic information. Scientists have no way of knowing whether these organic molecules were created by biologic or geologic processes — either path is possible — but their discovery reconfirmed that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support life.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this sand-capped butte, nicknamed “Miraflores,” estimated to be about 20 feet (6 meters) tall, on June 11, 2026. The surrounding area includes an expanse of terrain covered in surface features called polygons.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, JPL built Curiosity and leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of the agency’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.

To learn more about Curiosity, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity

News Media Contacts

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
240-285-5155 / 202-672-4780
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, August 5, 2026. Chup and Hegseth cover up the crash of a civilian plane in the US due to the US military, Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn stop posing and preening as their backbones collapse, CBS NEWS had an important report on Epstein willing to air when Bari Weiss decided to fir the correspondent, and much more.

Isabel Kershner and Adam Rasgon (NEW YORK TIMES) note:

Soon after President Trump announced a new plan last week to deliver peace and security in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave instead experienced a spike in deadly Israeli bombings, which threatened to undermine hopes for long-awaited progress.

On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed 18 people, according to the health ministry in Gaza, making it one of the deadliest days there since a troubled cease-fire came into force in October. Gaza health ministry data from the conflict does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Israeli strikes a day earlier killed at least two people and damaged warehouses for medical supplies, Palestinian officials said. And on Monday, the Israeli military struck a car on a beachside road, killing two, according to Gazan officials. No new Israeli strikes have been reported in Gaza since Monday evening.

Netanyahu is not listening to Chump. No one is. As Ben noted in the MEIDASTOUCH NEWS video at the top, Iran's negotiating with Jordan, not with Chump.

Meanwhile, Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) notes:

President Donald Trump's demand that oil companies roll back their profits, because it is hurting his standing with voters, is falling on deaf ears.

Energy markets responded with minimal reaction to Trump's Monday criticism of oil companies for "making too much money" off global shortages created by the Iran war, Politico is reporting and the president threatened, "They better cut the retail price, the consumer price. I'll say it loud and clear. I'm not happy about it."

Crude prices dipped slightly. Gas prices remained steady. The oil industry ignored the presidential pressure entirely.

Trump's ability to influence markets through rhetoric is deteriorating at a critical moment, the report notes, before adding, three months before midterm elections that will determine congressional control, his approval ratings are sinking amid voter anger over cost-of-living concerns.

Nicolai Haugsted (DAGENS) notes:

Pressure over the U.S. economy is no longer coming only from political opponents. A former member of Donald Trump’s own White House team is now accusing the administration of trying to convince Americans that everything is going well while many voters feel the exact opposite.

Sarah Matthews, who served as Trump’s deputy White House press secretary from June 2020 until January 2021, delivered the criticism during an appearance on MSNBC, where she argued that the administration is repeating mistakes Republicans once condemned.

Speaking on Deadline: White House, Matthews claimed the administration is attempting to paint a picture of economic strength that does not match the experience of many Americans.

“Republicans spent years mocking the Biden administration for trying to gaslight the American people and telling them that the economy was great when people were feeling the exact opposite. And they clearly learned nothing from this because this is exactly what the Trump administration is doing.”

Let's move over to the US miliary and the fact that they killed some people. No, not over in Iran, here in the United States. Joe Wilkins (FUTURISM) notes:

New bombshell reporting by Wired reveals an incident in which the testing of an experimental GPS jammer resulted in a medical plane crashing into the side of a mountain.

The horrifying incident happened in May, the publication reports, when a small twin-engine medevac aircraft carrying two pilots and two medical workers departed from Roswell, New Mexico. Heading West for the small mountain village of Ruidoso, the crew became the victim of an electronic warfare exercise being conducted at the nearby White Sands Missile Range, a test which rendered their navigational system inoperable.

Due to a combination of low visibility and an air-traffic control that was stretched far beyond capacity — at least three other planes reported navigation disruptions due to the GPS jamming — the pilots failed to register a mountainous formation between their plane and the landing strip.

As airline pilot and aviation crash analyst Juan Browne told Wired, the visual effect of that approach would have been stupefying. “When those lights go out, man, you know you are in big trouble,” Browne explained.

Unfortunately, the disoriented crew ran straight into the side of a mountain they likely never saw, resulting in the loss of every life on board. It’s the first known instance where military GPS jamming played a role in downing a civilian plane in US airspace. Reported incidents of GPS jamming within the continental US have skyrocketed in recent years. According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the number of GPS interference events went from four in 2020 to 50 in 2024, and 40 across 2025.

Jeff Wise reported on this at WIRED July 30th. Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense. This is on him. And he should have announced it when it happened Instead, he thought he could lie and not say anything. He thought he could lie to the American people. He thought he could cover this up. Hegseth is not fit to be Secretary of Defense. This was clear when JD Vance had to provide the tie splitting vote to get him confirmed. He wasn't qualified for the post in any manner, shape or form. He'd never run a big agency or organization. His money problems as the head of DoD? Reflect his mad spending as the head of two different charity organizations. And his non-stop lies? That's what the country has learned to expect from FOX "NEWS" TV personalities.

There should be a Congressional investigation into this.

And, it goes without saying, apologies to the family members of the deceased. But Hegseth will probably attempt to play this off as not his fault and not anything that the country needs to be concerned about.

Jeffrey Epstein. A lot of people helped him. They covered up for him. That especially includes people in the media. Vicky Ward, for example, had a strong piece on Epstein for VANITY FAIR back in 2003 but Graydon Carter watered it down. Turns out, 60 MINUTES was working on a hard hitting piece. But then Bari Weiss waddled into the room and it got killed and the reporter got fired. Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling (THE NEW REPUBLIC) explains:

CBS’s 60 Minutes had the scoop on Jeffrey Epstein’s sketchy financials—before the Bari Weiss-run network fired the reporter fronting the investigation.

A new report by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden revealed that Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America enabled Epstein by permitting millions in suspicious transactions over the course of the sex offender’s criminal career.

Deutsche Bank AG failed to promptly notify authorities of more than $250 million in questionable transfers tied to Epstein, according to Wyden’s report. Those included cash amounts to pay women in Russia and Eastern Europe—which the bank retroactively informed U.S. officials of after Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2019.

Bank of America Corp. reported $170 million in Epstein-related transactions tied to billionaire Leon Black. The bank, according to Wyden’s report, noted years later that the transactions had “no apparent economic, business, or lawful purpose.”

JPMorgan Chase, as previously reported, processed more than $1 billion for Epstein, despite internal concerns at the bank.

Yet former 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi had the story months ago, having interviewed Wyden in March about her own investigation into Wall Street banks’ and the U.S. Virgin Islands government’s relationship with Epstein, according to Bloomberg.

But the report, and Wyden’s interview, would never air: Alfonsi was fired by CBS News leadership in the midst of a major network shakeup two months later in May, when she publicly criticized Weiss’s editorial grip on the storied news magazine. Weiss had blocked a segment Alfonsi previously reported on Donald Trump’s deportation program and El Salvador’s notoriously lethal CECOT prison.

A spokesperson for CBS News confirmed to Bloomberg that Alfonsi had interviewed Wyden earlier this year, but said the story had not been finished by the end of the last 60 Minutes season. The spokesperson did not elaborate on whether the show intended to air the segment during next season.

Joseph Stepansky (AL JAZEERA) observes:

Wyden added that bank records and public court filings reviewed by his team “detail a shocking pattern of the biggest Wall Street banks in the country choosing to ignore clear evidence of sex trafficking and money laundering, just to keep a wealthy client on the books”.

Beyond shielding Epstein from federal scrutiny, the report says the banks may also have been in violation of federal anti-money laundering laws that would have required them to report the suspicious behaviour.

Wyden also took aim at the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury, insinuating they did not perform their due diligence in their investigation of Epstein.

Henry Giardina (QUEERTY) notes:

Now, thanks to a new report from Senator Ron Wyden, we might finally have some real answers. Wyden followed the money and found that several “suspicious transactions” were flagged in Epstein’s Deutsche Bank account. The bank failed, however, to disclose this information to the government. Epstein’s JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America accounts saw similar shady activity connected to Epstein’s transactions with disgraced investor Leon Black. Together, the sum total of these flagged transactions exceeds $420 million. Some of these were payments to “women in Russia” and Eastern Europe.

In his 67-page report “Looking the Other Way: How Wall Street Banks Enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking.” Wyden calls out both banks for essentially facilitating Epstein’s trafficking crimes by failing to loop in the authorities despite repeated high profile red flag transactions. At the time of these exchanges, these banks were aware of Epstein’s criminal status. They let the money change hands anyway, and kept the authorities in the dark.

“Wall Street banks have been willing to turn a blind eye to the suspicious transactions of ultra-wealthy clients,” Wyden writes, “even if the failure to scrutinize and report these transactions runs directly afoul of federal law.”

A spokeswoman for Bank of America gave out the usual milquetoast statement, claiming that “we take our legal and regulatory responsibilities seriously and, as we have previously said, the bank did not facilitate wrongdoing.” Leon Black’s lawyers are claiming that the Epstein payments were part of a legitimate business enterprise. Sure, Tony Soprano!

Luckily, Wyden isn’t letting up that easily.

It gets worse. Tr*mp and his team continue to use every tool in their arsenal to cover-up the Epstein scandal, and Wyden’s intel is no exception. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to hand over the treasury’s files concerning Epstein to the Senate. Those same records were made readily available to Republicans in the House Oversight Comittee.

To make things even stickier, CBS EIC Bari Weiss allegedly also assisted in the cover up by failing to air a recently-taped 60 minutes segment with Wyden on this subject. Sharyn Alfonsi, the reporter who filmed Wyden’s segment was fired shortly after.

That news broke yesterday, the same day PARAMOUNT+ CEO David Ellison penned a column for THE NEW YORK TIMES insisting that the news and news consumers had nothing to fear from him:

There is a reason for that. I believe that anyone who oversees a news organization — I am chief executive of Paramount, which owns CBS — shouldn’t put a finger on the scale, especially on matters involving his own company. So when California’s attorney general, 11 other state attorneys general and, a day later, the Writers Guild of America sued to stop the deal, I stayed quiet. I quickly learned such restraint has costs. While I was silent, others were happy to write my story for me. No more.

The states claim this deal will give one company too much influence over theatrical releases and cable operators, while the W.G.A. argues that our combined market power will hurt writers. Both suits imagine a Hollywood that no longer exists — an industry ruled by a handful of legacy studios.

Add up every hour Americans spend watching television, and a combined Paramount-Warner would account for less than 20 percent of all watch time — competing every day against Netflix, Amazon, Apple, which are all companies whose resources dwarf ours. Include YouTube’s user-generated content in that math, and our share would drop to around 13 percent. A combined company would account for just 18 percent of the domestic box office over the past 12 months and only 22 percent, on average, over the past two years. Those are not the numbers of a company that can dictate what audiences watch or what writers get paid

He's so full of it. But that's especially obvious when he brings up other streamers. NETFLIX, AMAZON and APPLE do not have news magazine shows nor do they have newcasts in the morning or in the evening. PARAMOUNT does with CBS NEWS. Notice how he ignores that. And taking over WARNER BROS will also give them the 24 hour news channel CNN.

He insists that he's voted for various Republican and Democratic Party politicians over the years. I know for a fact that he's told friends that he plans to back off the right-wing tilt when Chump's out of the White House; however, that's not scheduled to happen until January 2029. He says repeatedly that it's journalism and it's news that he's doing. But he hired an opinion commentator (Bari) to oversee the news department and she keeps hiring fellow conservative opinion journalists. Broadcast journalism needs journalists trained in broadcast news. CBS NEWS' failing ratings go to the reality that Bari knows nothing about broadcast journalism and is either unwilling or unable to learn.

It takes a lot of fake asses to cover for Epstein. Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) notes one:

Since Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has publicly called for transparency on the disgraced financier and his potential co-conspirators, but a Tuesday report from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) suggested those calls were little more than a ruse.

Starting in the summer of 2024, Blackburn had been reached out to “repeatedly” with requests to support an effort to compel banks to fork over “Epstein-related suspicious activity,” MediasTouch’s Aaron Parnas reported Tuesday. Banks facilitated more than $1 billion in transfers from Epstein over nearly two decades, transfers that critics say should have been flagged as suspicious and forwarded to federal officials.

After Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent denied Wyden’s request to fork over records of Epstein-related bank activity at least three separate times, the Oregon senator moved to “force the issue legislatively,” and sought the support of Blackburn given her previous and continued calls for Epstein transparency, per MeidasTouch’s reporting.

“Her office never gave a clear answer and never responded to a direct request to co-sponsor the bill,” Parnas wrote. “Blackburn continued making public statements about being ‘stonewalled by Democrats’ on Epstein while privately declining every opportunity Wyden’s office offered her to actually do something about it.”

Blackburn began calling for transparency on Epstein within days of his suspicious death while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in a New York jail. And yet, behind the scenes, Blackburn refused to acknowledge Wyden’s attempts to shed light on Epstein’s financial activity.

It would appear that her concern was merely performative. Which is a lot like the actions of Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn who voted yesterday for Todd Blanche's nomination as Attorney General to be sent out of the Judiciary Committee and to the Senate floor. Paige Masten (THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER) notes:

Todd Blanche is on track to be confirmed by the Senate as attorney general, thanks to a new deal that supposedly resolves the concerns of Republican holdouts Thom Tillis and John Cornyn regarding the controversial settlement between Donald Trump and the IRS.

Blanche formally rescinded his previous order establishing the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund - which Tillis called a “payout pot for punks” - and clarified the scope of a provision that gave Trump and his family immunity from tax audits. Tillis and Cornyn affirmed Monday that they will now support Blanche’s nomination.

The “deal” is far more hollow than it appears on the surface. While it formally rescinds Blanche’s original order implementing Trump’s slush fund, it does not appear to formally modify the settlement that led to it, which is what Cornyn initially demanded. The settlement states that it cannot be modified without the written agreement of the parties involved, most notably Trump. As Blanche acknowledged at his confirmation hearing last month, the settlement may still be enforceable so long as it exists in its original form, and Trump and his lawyers could still try to see it through. As for Trump’s tax immunity deal, that remains intact, though it applies “only” to the president and his family and “only” retroactively, as if that makes it any less wrong.

In other words, Blanche’s written order affirms that the original fund is dead, but “dead” is not the same as “gone forever.” It does not preclude the Department of Justice from resurrecting the fund in the future, creating a similar fund under a different name, or from using taxpayer dollars to compensate so-called victims of “weaponization” through already existing means.

And that was obvious to anyone who wasn't a whore. Tillis and Cornyn whored to look big and strong and tough and then pretended that they had won when they lost. They couldn't actually vote "No." They played everyone for a sucker. Ahmad Austin Jr. (MEDIAITE) reports that

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) admitted there was “nothing we could do to rein in” President Donald Trump while talking about his anti-weaponization fund.

Cornyn — one of the holdouts preventing the confirmation of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — finally backed down Tuesday to allow Blanche’s nomination to advance to a full vote by the Senate.

Cornyn, along with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) had been withholding their support for Blanche over the president’s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.

The fund, created after Trump reached a settlement with the IRS, was intended to pay those who were allegedly victims of the weaponization of government. It was immediately proven to be deeply unpopular across the political spectrum.

Speaking after Tuesday morning’s vote, Cornyn declared the anti-weaponization fund was effectively “dead.”

When he was asked about Trump’s insistence to pay the supposed victims in some way, Cornyn admitted the president can’t be reined in.

“Well, there’s nothing we could do to rein in the president when he said he likes the fund and he wishes it still exists,” Cornyn said. “But the fact of the matter, it’s dead, and that’s all we could do under these circumstances.”

No, that's not all you could do. You could have voted "No" and buried Blanche's nomination in Committee for the foreseeable future. That would have made a strong point. Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) notes:

Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse shamed Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis for supporting President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Todd Blanche for attorney general.

The two senators had held up Blanche's nomination over the president's $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, but the survivors blasted Cornyn and Tillis for ducking meetings with them and ultimately agreeing to support Blanche – who has played a central role in blocking the full release of the Epstein files, reported MS NOW's Lisa Rubin.

"Senators Tillis and Cornyn were not willing to sit across from us and answer for the vote they were preparing to cast," the survivors said in a statement. "If they believed they were doing the right thing, they should have had the courage to look survivors in the eye and tell us why."

"The message was unmistakable," the statement added. "They wanted us to go away."

Chris Brennan (USA TODAY) offers:

A pair of Republican senators – John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina – just declared that they will allow themselves to be played for fools in the most predictable and pathetic way.

On Aug. 3, Cornyn and Tillis dropped their opposition on the Senate Judiciary Committee to President Donald Trump's nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general.

They had threatened to tank Blanche's bid because he cooked up a remarkably corrupt lawsuit "settlement" that gifted Trump permanent immunity from an Internal Revenue Service audit and a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay his supporters who trashed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

[. . .]

As legal documents, they have zero value.

They were not filed in a court. No judge examined or approved them. And Trump did not sign them. On Aug. 3, he told journalists he didn't even look at them and didn't know what they contained.

That's not how federal lawsuits work. Settlements are not amended via social media posts by one party in an action.

It says exactly that in one of the two documents Blanche now claims to have amended – "This Settlement Agreement may be modified only with the written agreement of the Parties."

Turning to immigration, Brandon Caldwell (THE GRIO) reports:

The death of Edwin Lopez Cornejo is the second at the privately-owned detention center since it reopened last year.

Delaney Hall, the Newark, New Jersey, facility used to house those who have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, is once again at the center of controversy.

Edwin Jeovanny Lopez Cornejo, a Plainfield, New Jersey resident, was taken to the hospital on August 1, where he later died. His death marks the second recorded death at the detention center that became a flashpoint in President Trump’s escalation of immigration enforcement, as the government has equipped ICE with a multi-billion-dollar budget that surpasses the militaries of all but 15 countries globally.

“Reports that another person has died in ICE custody at Delaney Hall are heartbreaking and deeply disturbing—but tragically, they’re not unexpected. This is a pattern of abuse and neglect,” Rep. LaMonica McIver said in a statement.

She added, “I know about Delaney Hall and I know that cruelty is at its core. Even after the deaths, violence, abuse, and mistreatment of those inside, Republican leaders, even in our own state, deny the truth and refuse to act. Anyone who doesn’t see these heinous acts for what they are is choosing to do so.

“I am praying for the deceased and his family, and I will keep working to shut down Delaney Hall and abolish ICE before more innocent lives are lost.”

Lopez Cornejo, who was the father of a 12-year-old girl, according to his mother, had been in the country for 20 years when ICE agents detained him on June 18. According to a conversation with his mother, he had diabetes and epilepsy and took medication for his diabetes, high blood pressure and seizures.

Hallie Golden (INDEPENDENT) adds:

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker said the death underscored the need to permanently close the facility.

"This is not the first death of a detainee at Delaney Hall, and absent decisive action, it will not be the last," Booker said. "I have visited the facility myself and witnessed these conditions firsthand, so I say this plainly: Delaney Hall must be closed immediately and permanently."

It is the second detainee death at Delaney Hall during President Donald Trump's second term. Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian national, died there in December from a pulmonary embolism, which a medical examiner ruled was due to natural causes.

Lopez-Cornejo is also the second Salvadoran national to die in ICE custody during Trump's second term. Norlan Guzman-Fuentes was killed during a sniper attack on an ICE field office in Dallas in September.

Overall, at least 56 people have died in ICE custody during Trump's second term.

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

Murray: “Chairman Johnson has said repeatedly he believes Social Security is a Ponzi scheme… I am going to keep fighting to save Social Security and protect healthcare for Americans. Now, and long into the future.”

Johnson: “I’ve said it’s a legal Ponzi scheme, which is exactly what it is. I mean, take a look at what a Ponzi scheme is. That’s what Social Security is.”

Murray: “Seems to me like the biggest Medicaid theft didn’t happen in a billing office somewhere, it actually happened last year, right here in the United States Capitol, when Republicans passed Trump’s Big Ugly bill.”

***WATCH: Senator Murray’s full questioning***

Washington, D.C. — Today, at a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Medicaid, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Budget Committee, slammed Republicans’ sham hearing on Medicaid fraud. Senator Murray called out Trump for pardoning criminals convicted of Medicaid fraud and Republicans who voted to slash Medicaid to give tax cuts to billionaires last year in Trump’s Big Ugly Bill.

[MEDICAID FRAUD HYPOCRISY]

Senator Murray began by asking Jonathan Ingram, Vice President of Policy and Research at the Foundation for Government Accountability, about how Trump and Republicans’ say they want to crack down on Medicaid fraud; meanwhile Trump has actually pardoned criminals convicted of Medicaid fraud.

MURRAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we can all agree can we do need to crack down on fraud, especially in a program like Medicaid that so many Americans really rely on.

So, Mr. Ingram, let me just ask you: Yes or no? You agree that we need to be cracking down on Medicaid fraud, not letting criminals off the hook, yes?

INGRAM: Yes.

MURRAY: Thank you. So, I hope my Republican colleagues will use some part of this hearing to condemn President Trump for pardoning criminals who were convicted of major Medicaid fraud. Trump pardoned five former executives from Florida who committed serious Medicaid fraud to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. That is pretty bad.

Following what was dubbed “the largest health care fraud scheme charged by the U.S. Justice Department”—valued at over $1 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud—Trump commuted the 20-year sentence of a Florida nursing home and assisted living facility executive. So that’s even worse.

So, look, I’m all for a major crackdown on fraud—I think we all are, but it looks like we’ve got some pretty good leads starting in the White House.

[REPUBLICAN MEDICAID CUTS]

Senator Murray continued by asking Andy Schneider, Research Professor of the Practice at the Center for Children and Families in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, about how Trump’s Big Ugly Bill made the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history and kicked thousands of Americans off their health insurance, all to give massive tax breaks to billionaires.

MURRAY: Mr. Schneider, I want to turn to you. What single piece of legislation delivered the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history?

SCHNEIDER: Last year’s budget reconciliation bill.

MURRAY: Yep. Just so everybody knows: Republicans’ “Big, Ugly Bill” passed more than $1 trillion in health care cuts, mostly to Medicaid.

Mr. Schneider, how much in tax breaks for the top one percent did Trump’s bill contain?

SCHNEIDER: Approximately $1 trillion.

MURRAY: $1 trillion dollars, in tax cuts, to the top one percent.

Mr. Schneider, how many Americans are losing health care because of Trump’s Big Ugly Bill?

SCHNEIDER: So, in terms of the Medicaid cuts, the latest estimates are approximately 11 million.

MURRAY: 11 million.

So, zero billionaires lose their health care—they do get a trillion in tax cuts and then over fifteen million Americans—including the extended ACA tax credits—lose their health care thanks to Republicans passing $1 trillion in cuts for regular, working class people.

That is the math, and that is out-and-out grift. So it seems to me like the biggest Medicaid theft didn’t happen in a billing office somewhere, it actually happened last year, right here in the United States Capitol, when Republicans passed Trump’s Big Ugly bill.

[CLOSING REMARKS]

During Senator Murray’s closing remarks, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), doubled down on his stance on Social Security and called it a “legal Ponzi scheme.”

MURRAY: So Mr. Chairman, let me just say, I find it pretty astounding that Republicans are holding an entire Senate hearing on “fraud” in Medicaid, but they don’t seem to have anything to say about the “fraud” coming out of the White House. I mean look at the crypto schemes, and the foreign gifts—that is easily the most corrupt White House in American history—President Trump pardoned convicted criminals who committed Medicaid fraud! This is outrageous to me, and it is what we should be talking about.

But I also want to note a really big difference in terms of values and beliefs right now. Because I am here—and I know my colleagues on this side are—to fight for our safety net programs. But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not with me in that fight.

Chairman Johnson has said repeatedly he believes Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. Last week, another Republican Senator was on the floor saying Social Security is a “scam.”

So, I wanted to make really clear at this hearing, I could not disagree more strongly, Mr. Chairman. Social Security is a program that millions of hardworking Americans have paid into their entire lives. So Republicans might want to cut benefits, or privatize Social Security, but I want you to know I am going to keep fighting to save Social Security and protect healthcare for Americans. Now, and long into the future.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

JOHNSON: To correct the record, I’ve said it’s a legal Ponzi scheme, which is exactly what it is. I mean, take a look at what a Ponzi scheme is. That’s what Social Security is. It’s been horribly mismanaged. Those funds were not invested in something that’s of value to the federal government—government bonds. I’m happy to—and we’ll probably hold a hearing on this, and I’ll prove the case—but it’s a legal Ponzi scheme, and that’s quite honestly indisputable.

MURRAY: Mr. Chairman, to respond.

And welcome to the chairmanship, but I find that you are turning this into a debate committee, not a budget committee. That’s fine, but let me just respond—

JOHNSON: I think it’s important that the American people see a civil exchange but go ahead.

MURRAY: You have a right as a chair, but I will respond: Americans pay for their Social Security. They pay into it for their lifetimes, and they deserve to know it’s going to be there in the future. That’s what we’re focused on.

###

The following sites updated:

TPM – Talking Points Memo

Tight Race in Michigan

1 hour ago

Mother Jones

How Elon Musk Is Re-Engineering the World

1 hour ago

Thomas Friedman is a Great Man

Space X rocket to crash into the Moon, Charles Darwin's carnivorous plants, when the sun runs out of fuel

7 hours ago

Trina's Kitchen

Dill Pickle Chicken with Nectarine and Crispy Rice Sald

7 hours ago

Ruth's Report

Chump and his 'tepid' economy

7 hours ago

Mikey Likes It!

Creeps and con artists Mike Johnson and Chump

7 hours ago

Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)

Vicki Wickham, Harry Styles, John Mellencamp, Diana Ross

7 hours ago

SICKOFITRADLZ

Chump's decay

7 hours ago

Oh Boy It Never Ends

Rosie O'Donnell, Lili Taylor, Michelle Pfeiffer,

7 hours ago

Like Maria Said Paz

The reviews are in

7 hours ago

Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude

disgusting blanche (and general hospital)

7 hours ago

Ann's Mega Dub

Max Miller refuses to do the right thing and drop

7 hours ago

PBS NewsHour - The Latest

Iran and Oman make progress on deal to reopen Strait of Hormuz, officials say

12 hours ago

The New Republic

Judges Rip Trump Apart 75 Times for Violating First Amendment

14 hours ago

Paul Krugman

The Oligarchs are Doubling Down on Republicans

1 day ago

Tuesday, August 04, 2026

Space X rocket to crash into the Moon, Charles Darwin's carnivorous plants, when the sun runs out of fuel

Science grab bag post. THE GUARDIAN reports:

A four-tonne piece of a SpaceX rocket that has been floating in space since last year is set to unintentionally crash into the moon at high speed on Wednesday, a collision that poses no danger to Earth but will leave behind a new lunar crater and afford an opportunity for further scientific research.

The school-bus-size object is the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had launched a lunar lander from Firefly Aerospace toward the moon in January 2025.

The rocket body ⁠is due to hit the moon about 06.35am GMT, crashing into its surface at 5,400mph (8,690 km/h). The space junk will kick up a plume of lunar dust that will probably be illuminated by sunlight but difficult ⁠to spot with the naked eye from Earth.

Nasa said the impact was expected to create a crater about 60ft (18 metres) wide and 12ft (four metres) deep and throw dust and rock outward as ejecta.

So Alien Musk is going to damage our Moon. He really is trash and he thinks he can get away with anything because of the money governments give him as corporate welfare.

Next, Charles Darwin. Jack Tamisiea (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:

Charles Darwin loved a deep dive. The famed evolutionary biologist devoted years to studying barnacles and obsessed over breeding pigeons.

But one of his most enduring fascinations was carnivorous plants. He called Venus flytraps “one of the most wonderful plants in the world” and once remarked that he cared more about sundews, plants that sport sticky, flypaper-like traps, “than the origin of all the species in the world.”

In 1875, Darwin published a treatise on carnivorous plants that featured several species he thought could be flesh-eating flora. Among them were hardy alpine plants in the genus Saxifraga that had sticky hairs reminiscent of his beloved sundews. Darwin tempted two European Saxifraga species with insects during feeding experiments, but he was ultimately unable to prove that the species were carnivorous.

More than 150 years later, scientists have vindicated Darwin’s hypothesis. A team of researchers recently served tiny flies to another Saxifraga species native to China. Their findings, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, revealed that the plant does digest and absorb sustenance from trapped prey, expanding evidence of carnivory to a new family of plants.

Lisa Lock (PHYS.ORG) adds:

While many plants exhibit carnivorous traits such as prey capture, to be formally classified as carnivorous, they must show adaptations for attracting and catching, digesting and absorbing nutrients from prey. In 1875, Charles Darwin posited that some species from the genus Saxifraga—a group of flowering plants typically found in alpine environments—may be carnivorous because of their sticky glandular hairs, which can trap insects. However, there has been a lack of conclusive evidence to support this hypothesis.

Hang Sun and colleagues studied S. candelabrum, which grows in alpine areas of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau–Hengduan Mountains in China. Field observations and surveys of existing plant samples showed that insect prey were present on the glandular hairs of 43 out of 45 surveyed specimens, with mature plants displaying an average of 71 trapped insects in total (predominantly found on these hairs). The authors then looked for evidence of digestion and nutrient absorption to support their hypothesis.

Fluorescence tagging was used to identify phosphatase activity (a digestive enzyme commonly found in carnivorous plants), suggesting that the plant can potentially digest prey. Drosophila labeled with a stable form of nitrogen were then fed to the plant to analyze whether it could absorb nutrients from prey. The authors observed a notable rise in labeled nitrogen levels among S. candelabrum and control plants from another carnivorous species, in contrast to noncarnivorous controls, supporting the hypothesis of carnivorous behavior in this species.

Lisa Lock (PHYS.ORG) also notes:

In a billion years, the sun will start to run out of fuel and expand to become a red giant. Earth's oceans and atmosphere will be burned away, and Earth will likely be engulfed by the sun altogether. The sun will then shrink to a dim white dwarf, and all light and warmth in the solar system will diminish. In a hundred trillion years, the galaxy's ability to produce stars will be exhausted, and everything will turn dark. However, there's a way for life to escape this fate—and what's more, we wouldn't need to leave the planet to do it. We just need to build some safeguards.

First problem—the sun. To block it out, we can place a large sunshade at the Lagrange point 1 (a gravitational balancing spot between the sun and Earth). We'd need to cover a huge 70-degree area of the sky to ensure the red giant would be eclipsed.

To reduce the required area of our sunshade, we can place a weight at Lagrange point 1, attach a long cable and place the shade close to Earth, just outside the moon's orbit. We could mine 40% of the dwarf planet Ceres to produce a carbon tether 2 million km (1.2 million miles) long, and 0.01% of the moon to produce an aluminum sunshade 350,000 km (217,000 miles) in radius.

With the sun's light blocked, we'd need to replace it. Thankfully, the solar system's huge gas giants are literally made of fusion fuel—enough for 9.1 quadrillion years of sunlight shining on Earth. One of the biggest hurdles of fusion is that no known material can hold a reactor together. To squeeze the fuel tightly enough for it to produce energy, even the strongest theoretical materials would break. Thankfully, our gas giants could provide this inward pressure for us—all we have to do is dive.

Fusion reactors floating 6,500 km (4,000 miles) deep in Jupiter's atmosphere could breathe in helium-4 and hydrogen and produce energy. This could be beamed up to Jupiter's Lagrange point 1, then transmitted by a laser measuring 15 km (9 miles) to a Lagrange relay and shone onto Earth's surface.

Next problem—Earth would still be engulfed by the monstrous red giant if we don't move it away. The easiest way to do this is to redirect an asteroid to fly close to Earth's surface a million times, with the gravitational slingshot effect gradually transferring energy to increase Earth's orbital distance. However, a large asteroid flyby is risky. Instead, we could mine oxygen from Jupiter and fire a smaller particle beam past Earth. The beam would be equivalent in mass to half of the Amazon River's outflow.

That is all very, very interesting.

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, August 4, 2026. Chump's Iran War continues, his lies continue, Blanche's dirty tricks get exposed but Cornyn and Tillis pretend not to notice, Hegseth continues his war on trans Americans, Pam Bondi may have more problems to face, and much more.

The Iran War continues and Chump continues to look like a fool. John Bowden (INDEPENDENT) notes:

Donald Trump sounded much like an angry, jilted lover ranting on social media on Monday morning as he complained about Iranian officials denying that talks were underway with the United States for another ceasefire agreement.

The president would later address the situation at a White House event and was still fixated on the incongruent statements from Iran’s government as he said talks continued, facilitated and supported by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

On Truth Social, he unleashed on Iran for making him look foolish.

“Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous! They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg,’ talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman,’” Trump griped.

“They then go on to give their usual blather in saying, the Strait of Hormuz will be operated powerfully by them, when it is already completely controlled by the United States Navy and our ‘Blockade’ or, as some say, ‘The United States Wall of Steel!’”

Then Trump complained about how Iran was still claiming that its forces would control the Strait of Hormuz and exact tolls from ships passing through the waterway. Hours later at the White House, he appeared to still be fuming about statements from Iran as he appeared before reporters during an executive order signing and subjected them to a dizzying rant about how Iran was describing the talks.

Jason Lange (REUTERS) notes the latest polling:

Americans picked Democrats over Republicans as better stewards of the economy for the first time in nearly a decade in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, which also found their approval of President Donald Trump's performance falling to 35%.

The finding, in a poll conducted Wednesday through Monday, showed how Trump's handling of the economy, including rising energy prices resulting from the Iran war, could weigh on his party's chances in the November midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the next two years.

Trump's presidential approval rating fell to 35% from 37% in a prior Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last month, with the share of Americans who give his presidency a thumbs up within just one percentage point of the lowest level of his term.

Senator John Cornyn has held out on voting to release Todd Blanche's nomination for Attorney General from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Late Sunday night, Blanche posted two documents on social media. Monday morning, when I dictated yesterday's snapshot, Ben Meiselas on MEIDASTOUCH NEWS was the only one asking questions about the documents. All other outlets were acting as though they represented what Blanche said they did. Now Andrew Stanton (NEWSWEEK) reports:

Legal experts told Newsweek there are some legitimate concerns about the deal on both the weaponization fund and the tax audit provision.

Former federal prosecutor Gene Rossi told Newsweek he believes the administration will still “try their best” to give January 6 defendants some sort of financial relief, and that the issue “probably will not go away.”

Neama Rahmani, another former federal prosecutor, told Newsweek that he is taking Blanche at his word that he does not plan to pursue the weaponization fund, but that a future attorney general could still revisit it because the underlying settlement agreement, which he described as a “sham,” still exists.

“Could potentially another attorney general try to reinstate the fund because the settlement agreement exists? I think, probably, yes. The best thing to do would be to rescind the settlement agreement itself,” he said.

Michael McAuliffe, ex-federal prosecutor and former elected state attorney, told Newsweek he has concerns about the deal.

“The clearest indications that nothing should be taken as a final pronouncement of the fate of [the] ‘fund’ is that the President can, and likely will, try to impose his will or wish, on any attorney general at any time on any issue,” he said. “It appears as if the ‘fund’ is off limits in order to achieve the confirmation of the president’s former personal lawyer as attorney general, but that’s for now and as a part of a previous AG order (not a court order).”

He said that nobody should “conclude its demise permanent,” given contradictory statements about it.

Another aspect of the agreement that has drawn legal questions is the fact that the second document posted by Blanche, pertaining to the tax audits against Trump, appeared to be unsigned by Blanche or any of the parties involved.

Rossi said it is “odd” that it was unsigned.

“I remain a little bit skeptical on this IRS document which is unsigned by the acting attorney general. That raises a red flag for me,” he said.

Rahmani said it was likely intentional that there was no signature because he still wants the fund to apply retroactively to Trump and his family.

Ben Meiselas, one of the founders of MeidasTouch, raised similar concerns in a post on X.

“This is also not signed by all the parties which is required to rescind under the terms of the original agreement, para. 8. This is an unenforceable sham document,” he wrote.

Sarah K. Burris adds:

Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Monday issued a joint statement saying that they both believe that an agreement with President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee, Todd Blanche, is trustworthy. At the same time, legal analysts and experts are flooding social media calling the lawmakers out for buying into something that isn't even legally binding.

[. . .]

Legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein at Politico wrote on X that it is "Not at all clear that the narrowing of the IRS claims waiver in the Trump settlement is 'binding.' That's simply Blanche's interpretation at this point. Nothing to stop other Trump family members, affiliates, trusts, etc., from claiming they can rely on the original wording."

Legal experts and scholars were quick to agree, calling Blanche's pledge to Tillis and Cornyn a "sham" and highlighting that it is far from legally binding. The agreement also doesn't have any consequences if Blanche were to break it.

Former federal prosecutor and University of Michigan Law School Professor Barbara McQuade said, "Blanche’s appeasement is hollow. Trump still gets immunity from tax audits worth $100 million. And last week’s payout to abortion clinic blocker shows the path to payouts to rewrite history will be individual settlements instead of one designated fund."

Ben Meiselas commented that the contract between the Justice Department, IRS and Trump makes it clear that all three parties must agree to edit the agreement. "This is an unenforceable sham document," he added.

Lawyer and Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway tagged both senators and agreed, "This cannot be emphasized enough."

Criminal Law Professor at the University of North Carolina, Carissa Byrne Hessick agreed, writing on X, "Others might have a different impression, but I see nothing in Blanche's letter that would prevent him from reviving the fund the moment that he is confirmed. Sen. Cornyn is a former state AG and judge on the TX Supreme Court ... so I imagine he is aware of this as well."

National security expert Marcy Wheeler similarly commented, "The order is not remotely binding. And you're still [clapping] that Trump will get excused from his $200 million known tax dodge, the money laundering Capital Bank just disclosed and the bribes he accepted between November 2024 and end of 2025. Why do you love crime so much, Tillis?"

She then added, "Let's be honest. Tillis ' concerns were the POLITICS of the corruption, not the corruption itself. This gives the GOP top cover through the election ... and then Blanche will forgive more Trump crimes afterwards."

So if Tillis and Cornyn accept this nonsense as proof, they're doing so knowingly and the whole thing was just a stunt for them to strut and pretend that they had some independence and some ethics while they begged for Blanche to toss them a lie that they could run with. Aaron Blake analyzes this moment for CNN:

Blanche late Sunday issued a written document that purports to rescind President Donald Trump’s highly controversial “anti-weaponization” fund and limit the tax immunity that Trump’s own government gave him in the same settlement.

The problem with Blanche rescinding the “anti-weaponization” fund order is that it wouldn’t seem to necessarily fully kill off the fund.

As the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy has explained, the settlement’s terms (see our annotation here) state that it could be “modified only with the written agreement of the parties.” That would include Trump.

So while Blanche has rescinded a separate order he wrote that actually created the fund under the terms of the settlement, the settlement itself still exists — and could seemingly be enforced.

In fact, Cornyn and Blanche basically explained all of this during an exchange at Blanche’s confirmation hearing in mid-July, before they agreed to greenlight his nomination.

When he started pressing Blanche, Cornyn asked whether the settlement agreement had been modified by the parties, including Trump. (It hadn’t, Blanche said.) Under Cornyn’s questioning, Blanche admitted that even if he verbally promised to fully kill off the fund, the settlement remained an “enforceable document,” and Trump could file a lawsuit seeking to enforce its terms.

“There’s no guarantee that he or one of the other plaintiffs might [not] raise that issue by way of a lawsuit and — a breach of contract lawsuit in the future,” Cornyn said.

See, Cornyn is screwing with the American people. He's conning them along with Blanche. Svante Myrick (THE HILL) offers:

To be clear: none of this erases the rot revealed by the deals that Blanche engineered and approved. Blanche has abused his power to mock the rule of law, enrich his most important client and betray American taxpayers in the process.

Remember, this all started with an extortion demand from the sitting president against the people he is supposed to serve. In January, Trump and family members filed a lawsuit demanding $10 billion from the taxpayers because a contractor working for the IRS had leaked some of their tax returns.

Remember, too, that this administration is loudly committed to the idea that there is no such thing as an independent Justice Department. They insist that every executive branch employee, including the acting attorney general, is there to carry out the president’s demands.

Blanche buys into that ideology. So there were never two sides to the lawsuit, only lawyers working for Trump inside and outside the government. There was never any question that the Justice Department would give Trump whatever he wanted.

What Trump got, just months after his bogus lawsuit was filed, was Blanche approving the creation of a massive taxpayer-funded slush fund that Trump could dole out to his allies — possibly even those who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Police. He also got an appalling immunity deal that would effectively make Trump, his family members and their business empire legally untouchable for any wrongdoing they had committed up to that date.

Blanche could never have gotten a deal like that for Trump when he was outside the government. And Trump would never have demanded a deal like that if he weren’t so reprehensibly committed to using the presidency for self-enrichment. The whole thing was a flagrant abuse of the legal system to benefit Trump personally and financially.

Remember that as Tillis and Cornyn try to pretend that they accomplished something of value.

At ABOVE THE LAW, Kathryn Rubino weighs in:

This is not AT ALL some enforceable guarantee that the American people will be protected from another slush fund dressed in a trench coat. There’s the, ahem, shaky legal ground of a unilateral modification to a settlement agreement. Plus an AG order rescinding a previous AG order can be superseded by — wait for it — another AG order! As Republican lawyer Mike Howell admitted, “Can be undone after Tuesday.” The slush fund is dead, long live the slush fund.

And then there’s what we actually know — Trump wants the fund back. He said so Saturday morning. Blanche wants whatever Trump wants, something he’s made abundantly clear for the last 18 months. This order is nothing more than a smokescreen, designed to get Blanche through the confirmation process. Nothing more. Pretending it is real is an insidious form of gullible that allows terrible abuses to occur.

Oh, and while we’re establishing that rumors of fund’s death are greatly exaggerated: Jezebel reported last week that anti-abortion extremist Paul Vaughn, one of 23 Trump pardoned activists convicted under the FACE Act for blocking access to reproductive health clinics, received a $1 million payout from the DOJ. “This unlawful seven-figure payout to an anti-abortion extremist is all the proof the Senate should need that the so-called anti-weaponization slush fund is far from dead,” the National Women’s Law Center told Jezebel. The fund doesn’t even need to formally exist to do its work.

All this is a familiar page of the Trump 2.0 confirmation playbook. Senator Bill Cassidy conditioned his support for RFK Jr.’s confirmation on specific promises about vaccines, promises Kennedy proceeded to break almost immediately after being confirmed, firing the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, cutting vaccine funding, and adding baseless content to the CDC website casting doubt on vaccine safety. Cassidy has declined to say whether Kennedy broke his commitments. Now Cassidy is watching Cornyn and Tillis extract written commitments from Blanche on the slush fund, and one imagines he has some institutional knowledge about how this plays out. But the GOP of 2026 has about as much spine as a wet noodle. When CBS News asked Cassidy last week whether he’d vote for Blanche today, his answer was: “I’m not going to answer that because I’m still in the information gathering stage.”

Meanwhile, previous Attorney General Pam Bondi is back in the news. Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) notes:

Journalist and political strategist Christopher Armitage expressed frustration Monday over a “very illegal act” allegedly committed by ex-Attorney General Pam Bondi, as well as how holding her to account remained “a single subpoena” away.

The act in question was Bondi’s sale of Trump media securities in April of 2025 – sales that she made just “hours” before Trump announced his so-called reciprocal tariffs that immediately “sank the stock she had just left,” Armitage wrote in an analysis published Monday on his Substack, The Existentialist Republic.

According to Armitage, Bondi sold “as much as $5.5 million” worth of Trump media securities, and as of August, 14 months after the incident, no case has been opened against Bondi on suspicion of insider trading.

“Martha Stewart went to federal prison for something smaller than this. Her case grew out of a stock sale worth $45,673,” Armitage wrote.

John Gallagher (LBGTQ NATION) observes:

Blanche said in a second post last night that the deal would only apply to the president, his two older sons, and the Trump Organization.

Drunk Pete Hegseth continues to hold the title of Secretary of Defense. He doesn't accomplish much with the title -- certainly not in the Iran War -- but he does use it to attack trans people. Greg Jaffe and Dave Philipps (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

Last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued an order that effectively forced all trans troops out of the military. Many of the more than 4,000 who were serving accepted that the Pentagon was going to force them out and took a cash payout to leave quickly.

But others decided to stay and fight, taking their cases to special separation boards set up by the military.

The boards operate like court proceedings, with lawyers and a panel of three officers who decide whether to retain or remove the service member. It is the same process the military uses to determine whether it should kick out troops who abuse drugs, beat their spouses or steal.

The Pentagon has treated the trans separation hearings with levels of security and silence usually reserved for state secrets. They take place behind closed doors on military bases. There are no cameras and no transcripts; the public is not allowed to attend.

In some cases, service members’ spouses and even the service members themselves are kept out.

One of the few people who have seen the process over multiple hearings, at multiple bases, is Ms. [Priya] Rashid.

What she has seen are troops who deployed around the world and earned the respect of their peers. They waited patiently, in some cases for years, until the Pentagon finally told them that they could serve openly.

Now, separation boards — afforded almost no leeway by the Trump administration — were punishing them for it.

“It’s in a lot of ways a public humiliation ritual,” Ms. Rashid said in an interview. “Going in, I had hoped I was paranoid, and boards’ outcomes were not predetermined. It turned out to be much worse than I thought.”

Turning to Chump's war on immigrants, he suffered a defeat. Robert Davis (RAW STORY) notes:

The Supreme Court has put a decisive end to one of President Donald Trump’s signature crusades after he missed the deadline to seek a rehearing.

When the court struck down Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship for millions of Americans in a 6-3 ruling at the end of June, it started a 25-day clock for the president to seek a reversal of the decision, which he vowed to do.

“I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY,” the 80-year-old president declared on Truth Social last month. “This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision.”

But that deadline came and went without the Trump administration submitting such a filing.

Now, the Supreme Court has put the final nail in the coffin, issuing a certified judgment and affirming a lower court ruling that had blocked the president’s executive order seeking to ban automatic citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents in the country temporarily or illegally.

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

David Venturella, now Senior Official Performing the Duties of ICE Director, was a former senior executive at GEO Group — one of ICE’s largest private prison contractors

In response to Warren’s oversight, Venturella details key ethics commitments including divestment and recusal, but left loopholes that could enable future conflicts of interest

Text of Letter (PDF) | Text of Venturella Response (PDF)

Washington, D.C. — After raising ethics concerns about top U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official David Venturella, a former senior executive at one of the nation’s largest private prison contractors, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a new response disclosing key ethics commitments from Venturella, including divestment and recusal from certain cases involving his former company. Senator Warren also pressed Venturella further, highlighting remaining loopholes that could enable future abuses — and may have already enabled at least one instance of apparent corruption — and pressing Venturella to fully address all possible conflicts of interest.

“Last month, in response to a letter from me, you indicated that you will recuse yourself from certain matters involving GEO Group and certain contractual decisions at ICE. But I remain concerned that you may still be making—or have very recently made—decisions in your roles both as an Advisor and now Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director of ICE that are clouded by your conflicts of interest,” wrote Senator Warren.

In May, Senator Warren wrote to Venturella regarding concerns that his history as a former senior executive at GEO Group made him unfit to lead ICE and demanded that he recuse himself from all matters that could benefit the company. In his response, Venturella detailed commitments to divest all of his GEO Group stocks, fully recuse himself from all contracts and obligations related to detention, and recuse himself from participating in particular matters involving GEO Group.

“While these are important steps, they are insufficient to address the scale of your conflicts and leave key loopholes that would allow you to use your new position to financially benefit your previous employer,” wrote Senator Warren. “Transparency into the agency’s decisions—and its ties to GEO Group—is more important than ever, yet your refusal to fully answer all questions about this matter—in addition to the gaps in your recusal commitments—only add to the cloud of corruption surrounding ICE and this Administration’s immigration agenda.”

One key example where these ethics loopholes may have enabled Venturella to avoid recusal involved a recent revision to the ICE National Detention Standards (NDS). In June, ICE — with Venturella at the helm — reportedly made several revisions to its NDS at the request of the GEO Group, Venturella’s former employer.

“In particular, by restricting your recusal agreement to ‘particular matters involving the GEO Group,’ this arrangement could allow you to participate in activities that might still pose a conflict, such as the development of internal directives, guidance, or other policies that would affect all ICE contractors,” wrote Senator Warren.

The revisions appear to be designed to allow GEO Group to avoid liability in pending and future lawsuits brought by detainees who argue that the corporation may be committing unconstitutional labor violations.

“Federal detention standards are intended to safeguard the health, safety, and rights of individuals in government custody,” wrote Senator Warren. “Any revisions to those standards should be based on objective evidence, operational necessity, and the public interest—not influence-peddling by private contractors or abuse of the revolving door by government officials with glaring conflicts of interest.”

Senator Warren further argued that Venturella’s ethics commitments are insufficient, writing that Venturella has “made ethics arrangements to allow [him] to work on matters involving the company, and by extension, [his] potential financial interests.”

In his recusal memorandum, Venturella acknowledged that, despite federal ethics regulations requiring a one-year cooling-off period from working on issues involving a former employer, he had received authorization to work on matters involving GEO Group — and had refused to make the authorization and the justification for it public. Additionally, Senator Warren argued that the scope of the recusal does not sufficiently address the scale of Venturella’s conflicts, leaving open the possibility that Venturella may be continuing to benefit from his long career with GEO Group, even while serving in federal government.

“Given your conflicts of interest, your inadequate recusal requirements, and the cloud of corruption surrounding the Trump Administration’s immigration agenda, I again request that you recuse yourself from all matters that could directly or indirectly affect GEO Group,” concluded Senator Warren.

In addition to this recusal, Senator Warren requested answers to a series of questions regarding ethics arrangements and changes to the NDS by August 16, 2026.

Senator Warren has led the fight to root out corruption, close the revolving door between government officials and the private sector, and hold the Trump administration accountable for its cruel immigration agenda:

In May 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed the Acting Director-Designate for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), David Venturella, on his decades-long revolving door career between ICE and the private prison industry and his reported use of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel and resources for personal or political favors.
In May 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) introduced the Banning Lobbying And Safeguarding Trust (BLAST) Act, a bipartisan bill to impose a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress.
In April 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), along with Representatives Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) and 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.
In March 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, launched an investigation into the diversion of military resources as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funneled billions of dollars through a Navy contract vehicle to build a network of migrant detention centers.
In February 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.), along with Representatives Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) pressed the Inspectors General (IGs) of 16 key agencies to open investigations into senior Trump officials who were recently lobbyists or “shadow lobbyists” and may be using their roles to benefit their former employers and clients.
In January 2026, Senators Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Andy Kim (D-N.J.), pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on potential conflicts of interest surrounding the awarding of multiple lucrative Department of Defense (DoD) contracts and loans to companies associated with President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
In December 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) pressed the Trump administration to follow through on promises to limit defense companies’ stock buybacks and incentivize them to increase research and development spending.
In December 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called for then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to recuse herself from the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s review of any Warner Bros. merger due to potential conflicts of interest related to her former employer, lobbying firm Ballard Partners.
In September 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote to Donald Korb, nominee for Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), ahead of Korb’s confirmation hearing, pressing him on his stark conflicts of interest and urging him to make ethics commitments to mitigate these conflicts.
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.
In July 2025, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote to former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin seeking an explanation and further information on his recent decision to start a strategic advisory firm. Austin had publicly promised Senator Warren during his 2021 confirmation process that he would not become a lobbyist after his government service ended.
In December 2020, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) reintroduced the Anti-Corruption & Public Integrity Act to strengthen ethics laws and crack down on government officials’ conflicts of interest across the government.