Tim Weiner's THE MISSION: THE CIA IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Tim Weiner is an author.  This is from WIKIPEDIA:

He was a Washington correspondent^[3] for The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1982 to 1992,^[4] for The New York Times from 1993 to 2009 as a foreign correspondent in Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan and as a national security correspondent in Washington, DC.^[5]

Weiner won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting as an investigative reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, for his articles on the black budget spending^[6] at the Pentagon and the CIA.^[1] His book Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget is based on that newspaper series.

He won the National Book Award in Nonfiction for his 2007 book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.^[2][7]

In 2012, Weiner published Enemies: A History of the FBI, which traces the history of the FBI's secret intelligence operations from the bureau's creation in the early 20th century through its ongoing role in the war on terrorism.

His latest book, The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare, 1945–2020, was published in 2020. Among other things it describes how the CIA helped Joseph Mobutu as a reliable anti-communist in Congo, or how Ronald Reagan's encounter with Pope John Paul II led to a covert program to support the Polish Solidarity movement. Timothy Naftali cautions that Weiner may be overstating Putin's influence on the 2016 Presidential elections: "The Trump phenomenon, which the Russians abetted but did not create, emerged from a broken nation."^[8] This is also the assessment of Rajan Menon who, in his review for The New York Times, furthermore contends that he found no evidence supporting Weiner's suggestion that NATO expansion toward the Russian border in the 1990s sprang from the mind of Anthony Lake.^[9]

That is incorrect.  This week, his most recent book was released -- THE MISSION: THE CIA IN THE 21ST CENTURY.  

Monday, Rachel Maddow spoke with Tim about the book.

So the book sounds really interesting.  But if you need more, THE GUARDIAN reviews the book and notes:

Following two impeachments (and two acquittals), an insurrection and another election, Trump is back in the White House and bent on revenge. “Donald Trump hates the CIA,” Weiner said, noting that Trump considers the agency the beating heart of a “deep state” that he believes is working to undermine him. Consequently, the president has appointed “a coterie of dangerously incompetent and servile acolytes to the highest positions of national security”. Weiner describes the new CIA director, John Ratcliffe – a former personal injury attorney, Maga congressman and, briefly, director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term – as “a spineless person who will do whatever Trump tells him to do”.

Shortly after we spoke, Ratcliffe ordered a review that criticized the CIA’s original report on Russia’s pro-Trump influence operation, and the former CIA director John Brennan became the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI.

The new director has also moved aggressively to implement a purge at the CIA’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters. “He’s attempting to rid the CIA of its most experienced officers,” Weiner said, “and to impose ideological purity tests. Ratcliffe said explicitly from the get-go that he aimed to align the leadership of the CIA with the president’s view of the world. Since the president’s view of the world is largely based on falsehoods and imaginary enemies, I think this will be an extremely difficult task.”

Meanwhile, Ratcliffe dismissed hundreds of recently hired staffers and then sent their names to Elon Musk in an unclassified email that Weiner said was probably intercepted by the Russians and Chinese, who he posits are now presumably working to recruit them as spies. “All they need to do is to find people who are either deeply resentful or who might have a financial or a drug problem to be exploited.”

Trump’s anti-diversity crusade will also have national security repercussions, Weiner predicted. In February, a judge allowed the administration to reassign the team responsible for diversifying the agency. “For decades, the CIA has tried to hire people who don’t look like they just got off the bus from Kansas on the very sound principle that if you want to spy in a nation like Somalia or Pakistan or China, it might be wise to have a workforce that is not made up exclusively of white guys, and who speak languages other than English,” Weiner said. “Diversity was one of the CIA’s few superpowers, and the mindless abolition of the effort to diversify the CIA’s officers and analysts was one of the most stupid self-inflicted wounds that Ratcliffe could have delivered.”

Meanwhile, as Politico recently reported, allies may now be reluctant to share sensitive information with the US, no doubt mindful of the 2017 incident in which the president gleefully handed the Russian foreign minister a highly classified Israeli tip. “The CIA, to an extent that people rarely understand or appreciate, is really dependent on allied intelligence services,” Weiner explained. The appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, who oversees the CIA and 17 other intelligence agencies, only compounds the risk, Weiner said. Gabbard has never worked in the intelligence community and has been accused of parroting Russian propaganda. “What ally would share secrets with a dangerously deluded person like that?”

Weiner recognizes it might come as a surprise to some to hear him extolling the virtues of the agency he has previously skewered. “I’m not known as a great defender of the CIA but neither am I a defender of willful ignorance,” he said of the Trump administration’s seeming unconcern about the threats posed by foreign adversaries. “I do think that the mission of intelligence to divine the secrets of the enemies in the United States is worthwhile. There’s unfortunately no mechanism for defining the intentions of the president, and therein lies a danger.

“What keeps me up at night,” he continued, “is the fact that Trump has put the instruments of American national security in the hands of crackpots and fools, and that their incompetence and ideological blinkers will blind them to a coming attack. If the United States gets hit again under Trump, he will destroy what is left of our democracy.” When I asked Weiner how he thought the CIA might respond to Trump’s provocations, he chuckled. “Is the CIA going to join the resistance? No,” he said flatly.

Jeff Rowe (AP) reviews the book as well and notes:

Half of the book details how the CIA swerved far out of its intelligence-gathering lane after the 9/11 attacks and morphed into a paramilitary organization, calling its torture tactics “enhanced interrogation techniques” and killing many thought to be terrorists absent the oversight that governs the military services.

For example, one agent let a prisoner freeze to death in a dungeon-like “fetid hellhole” at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

In the agent’s defense, the post 9/11 months and years were a time of pervasive fear of another attack and relentless pressure on the CIA to prevent that. Some notable successes followed; agents penetrated both the Kremlin and Saddam Hussein’s government.

Knowledge is the essential tool of national security and peace and “The Mission” makes it clear we let the CIA go off track at our peril.

“A new cold war is slowly escalating toward existential danger,” the author writes. “Only good intelligence can prevent a surprise attack, a fatal miscalculation, a futile war.”

Here he is on MSNBC today discussing the book with Katy Tur.

And, yesterday, he was on NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED:

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Gone are the days when a fake passport and a cover story are all a spy needs to get by. So what's an ambitious intelligence officer to do in this era of cameras everywhere, of retina scanners, of AI? Well, Tim Weiner takes on the question of how the CIA is trying to reimagine the art of espionage in his new book. It's titled "The Mission: The CIA In The 21st Century." Tim Weiner, hey there.

TIM WEINER: Hello, Mary Louise.

KELLY: How much harder is it these days for a spy to spy?

WEINER: It's a challenge unlike any in the history of espionage, which goes back to when Sun Tzu wrote "The Art Of War" 26 centuries ago.

KELLY: Yeah.

WEINER: And Sun Tzu said, know your enemy. Well, the problem is your enemy knows you. An example of the challenges facing the CIA - 12 years ago, Chinese spies and hackers broke into the Federal Office of Personnel Management and stole passport files, fingerprint files, security clearance forms of 22 million people who work for the federal government, including people who work for the CIA. They crunch this data with retinal scans that they stole from international airports. And if you are a CIA officer arriving undercover in Dar es Salaam or Beijing or any other of a number of foreign capitals, you are likely as not to be confronted by a Chinese officer saying, hey, Joe. I know who you are.

KELLY: We know exactly who you are. Yeah. I mean, I suppose the flip side is that the U.S. can do the same thing. It's harder for America's rivals and adversaries, harder for a Chinese spy to land in, say, New York or Minneapolis and not be immediately spotted and tracked.

WEINER: Yeah, the problem there is that the Chinese Ministry of State Security is about 20 times bigger than the CIA. And the Chinese have ambitions to project their surveillance state into the United States. I mean, the difference between the Russian and the Chinese services is that the Chinese want to know us, and the Russians just want to screw us.

KELLY: Is it mutual?

WEINER: Well, screw thy enemy is definitely part of the equation here (laughter). Ever since the CIA was founded in 1947, it has tried to oppose, blunt, undermine, subvert Russian imperialism in the world. That took kind of a back seat after the end of the Cold War. CIA directors and their immediate underlings told the CIA's officers to be nice to the Russians, to, like, work with them on fields of mutual interest, like counterterrorism. And one senior CIA officer told me that this was like a guy who goes out and buys a baboon, and the baboon rips his face off, and then he goes out and buys another baboon. The Russians were not interested in cooperation. They shook your hand with one hand and picked your pocket with the next.

KELLY: So let me bring us to this moment. We are in 2025, and the CIA again serves a commander-in-chief, a president, who has openly questioned the agency's leaders and their work. When you ask current CIA officers about that, what do you hear?

WEINER: The gut-wrenching, nauseating feeling that the president of the United States has gone over to the other side and joined the axis of authoritarianism. It's hard for an outsider to understand the feeling that went through the high levels of the CIA when Trump ordered the United States to vote with Russia, North Korea and Iran at the United Nations against a resolution condemning the Russian occupation of Ukraine.

KELLY: Did CIA staffers raise that specifically with you, that incident?

WEINER: Oh, yeah.

KELLY: What were they saying?

WEINER: You know, there's an ideological purge that Trump has ordered at CIA. And the current director, John Ratcliffe, who is a MAGA acolyte, has told top officers and analysts with 20 or 30 years' experience to head for the exits, find a new line of work. He dismissed two years' worth of new hires, everybody the CIA had hired in 2023 and '24. And ideology is the enemy of intelligence.

So, again, new book released this week. 

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, July 16, 2025.  Inflation increases under Chump, the effects of the tariffs begin to be felt, ICE agents need to hide behind masks while ICE attorneys hide their names from the courthouse records, Mark Cuban wants Democrats to co-sign on Chump's gestapo immigration war, and much more.

Jeff Cox (CNBC) reports, "Consumer prices rose in June as President Donald Trump’s tariffs began to slowly work their way through the U.S. economy.  The consumer price index, a broad-based measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.3% on the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. The numbers were right in line with the Dow Jones consensus."  Shane Croucher (NEWSWEEK) adds:

But there are signs that prices are due to rise further in the coming months.

Some companies have said they have or plan to raise prices as a result of the tariffs, including Walmart, the world's largest retailer.

Automaker Mitsubishi announced in June that it would be increasing prices by an average of 2.1 percent in response to the duties, and Nike stated that it would implement "surgical" price hikes to offset tariff costs.

But many companies have been able to postpone or avoid price increases, after building up their stockpiles of goods this spring to get ahead of the duties.

Other companies may have refrained from lifting prices while they wait to see whether the U.S. is able to reach trade deals with other countries that lower the duties.

Inflation was addressed at the top of THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE last night on MSNBC.

Chump campaigned on ending inflation on day one.  As Stephanie noted, Tuesday was day 177 of the Chump administration.  No, that's not day one.

Inflation continues to increase.

Question: Do you think he might have done a better job if he and his administration had focused on the economy instead of trying to micro manage college universities -- not really a presidential duty -- or a hundred and one of his other pet causes?  

If he'd focused on the actual job, would the economy be as bad as it is?  Because it is bad and its going to get worse.  Each month it already has.  Walmart, for example?  Keesha e-mailed to note that the plain label canned chick noodle soup?  Great Value is the brand.  It's not at 70 cents a can and, under Joe, it was 50 cents a can.  Last month, Keesha notes, she paid 70 cents an avocado and this week the price jumped to 90 cents.  

And as if inflation isn't bad enough for the average American, Chump's 'big' 'beatiful' bill is about to really steal from the middle class, the working class and the poor to give huge tax breaks to te extremely wealthy.

Stephanie noted and quoted the banking institution's reaction to the inflation increase:

Bank of America: Today's report provides ample evidence that tariffs are being passed onto consumers.

Wells Fargo: One of the top questions we get these days involves when will we see the impact of tariffs on consumer spending and in the retail sector.  The time is now.

Ben covers the economy this morning on MEIDASTOUCH NEWS.

Ben notes, "But the only prices that are going down?  Airfare, hotel and motel prices.  These are recession indicators, folks."  

Chump's tariffs are destroying the economy and so is his war on immigration.  Martín Macías, Jr. (LOS ANGELES PUBLIC PRESS) reports:

Over the last month, Jorge, an Inglewood resident and a cook at a restaurant, has scanned social media each morning to check for ICE activity near his home or along the route to work. If federal immigration agents are around, he stays inside, which he said means risking the loss of a job that sustains his family of four.

“I leave home not knowing whether [ICE agents] will arrest me or not,” said Jorge, whose last name LA Public Press has agreed to withhold to protect his identity as an undocumented person. “I don’t go to work when I hear that [ICE is] near my home.”

Jorge, who said he’s lived in the United States for 24 years and is married to a U.S. citizen, said he’s missed at least eight days of work in recent weeks due to the fear of arrest by ICE. 

“I can’t miss many more days of work,” Jorge said. “Money isn’t going as far as it once did.” 

Though ICE hasn’t targeted his workplace, Jorge said he’s distributed red cards explaining the legal rights of immigrants to his coworkers so they’re more prepared in case agents show up.

Jorge’s story reflects a broader crisis across Los Angeles County’s restaurant industry, where some establishments have seen revenue drop by as much as 25% since immigration raids began in June, according to industry leaders, forcing owners to cut staff and reduce hours.

Since June 6, undocumented restaurant workers like Jorge have been targeted for arrest by federal immigration agents across Los Angeles County, where one in three residents is an immigrant. About 1.8 million California residents work in restaurants and food service, making it the largest private employer in the state, according to the National Restaurant Association. Nationwide in 2025, at least 20% of restaurant workers are immigrants. 

Across Southern California over the last month, at least 1,600 immigrants have been arrested by ICE in raids at sites including factories, car washes and Home Depot parking lots. The operations have made immigrants fearful of leaving home for daily errands and forced businesses such as auto shops to close, costing thousands of dollars in lost wages and revenue.

An ICE spokesperson didn’t respond by time of publication to a request for comment on the impact that federal immigration operations are having on restaurants. 

The restaurants where immigrants work and eat have also reported that they’re struggling to remain open as ICE operations continue to sweep across the region. 

Tricia La Belle, president of the Greater LA Hospitality Association and a restaurant owner for more than 30 years, told the LA Public Press that her five establishments have seen a 25% drop in revenue since ICE launched raids in June. 

The loss of business has forced her to cut staff, she said.

“We’ve cut down to the bare bones,” La Belle said about her establishments, which include Boardner’s nightclub in Hollywood and the Bon Vivant restaurant in Atwater Village. “You can’t provide the same quality of service when you don’t have a bus boy, barbacks and floor maintenance crews. You just don’t have those bells and whistles anymore.”

At THE WASHINGTON POST, Kevin Blackistone writes:

You wouldn’t know it from what FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, is about to do, but it has a human rights policy.

“Guided by its human rights approach, FIFA embeds its commitment throughout the organisation and engages in an ongoing due diligence process to identify, address, evaluate and communicate the risks of involvement with adverse human rights impacts. … FIFA will constructively engage with relevant authorities and other stakeholders and make every effort to uphold its international human rights responsibilities.”

But here was Sunday’s final of the Club World Cup — a sort-of dry run over the past four weeks for its 2026 World Cup in North America scheduled to be anchored in the United States — with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino and champion Chelsea in celebratory embrace with President Donald Trump, who is defining his second term in the White House not by protecting human rights but by trampling them.

Indeed, a day before the final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, several lawmakers toured a hastily built detention center in the Florida Everglades for undocumented migrants and described it in inhumane terms. Trump officials and supporters jovially named the encampment “Alligator Alcatraz” after the vicious reptiles that live in the surrounding swamp and the notorious prison of last resort in the San Francisco Bay that was shuttered because the government deemed it too expensive to keep humane.

On Friday, a federal judge in California ordered a stop to Trump administration raids of everything from farms to public parks to car washes looking for undocumented laborers. The actions erupted into violent confrontations between National Guard troops in riot armor and protesters trying to protect the immigrants being hunted.

Anecdotal narratives illustrate the enforcement of Trump’s immigration policies as xenophobic at best. People such as Kilmar Abrego García, the Salvadoran man living in Maryland on protected status whom the Trump administration admitted it mistakenly deported in a raft of detainees to a dissolute El Salvador prison. He’s still in custody. People such as University of Florida student Felipe Zapata Velásquez, a Colombian whom Gainesville police arrested on traffic offenses and then turned over to Trump immigration officers. He agreed to be deported rather than face detention.

Then there are those such as Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University PhD student on a student visa from Turkey, and Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown academic, whom Trump’s masked squads snatched off streets into unmarked vehicles and whisked away to who-knew-where because they were said to have voiced opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza. Both eventually were released but not necessarily freed.

And there is an expanding list of countries from which Trump would like to ban citizens’ entry to the United States. They include mostly sub-Saharan African nations to go along with countries in Latin America, Central Asia and the Middle East. They include countries that certainly will qualify for the World Cup. Iran already has.

All of this is an affront to what FIFA claims it stands for. Human Rights Watch reminded FIFA of as much last month.

Michael Waldman (Brennen Center For Justice) notes:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will now be the biggest federal law enforcement agency, by far. Its budget will exceed that of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and U.S. Marshals Service combined. (It even has a bigger budget than the militaries  of Brazil, Italy, and Israel.)

It will require a crash hiring spree for new ICE agents, with little training and oversight. Federal and local law enforcement officials will be pulled off their core duties in massive numbers to play the unfamiliar role of immigration enforcer. All this for an agency whose agents wear masks to avoid identification while grabbing people off the street, arresting political leaders, and choosing to sow terror.   

And for all the claims that only the “worst of the worst” will be targeted, enforcement seems increasingly to be focused more on construction workers and landscapers with no criminal history than on drug traffickers or sex offenders.

Then there is the troublesome role for private prisons. Many of the new facilities will be built and run by private firms. Eisen is the author of the definitive book, Inside Private Prisons. She reports, “In May, the CEO of private prison company CoreCivic told investors, ‘Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now.’ This budget bill will solidify that vision for CoreCivic, GEO Group, and other firms that manage and own immigrant detention centers and transportation subsidiaries.”

The administration has rebuffed oversight by Congress. Federal law says that members of Congress and their staffs must be permitted to “enter[], for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.” ICE is throwing up barriers and in some cases denying access outright. 

And of course, the Brennan Center has documented the ways this current crackdown is being pursued in violation of the law. The misuse of the Alien Enemies Act, a discredited wartime statute the administration has used to deport migrants, is a vivid example.

Let's stay with legal issues for a moment.  ICE agents?  As weve noted, if they don't quit their jobs their future is one of two paths: Suicide or drug addiction to self-medicate.  You can't do what they're doing and not tear apart your soul.  The same is true of the the attorneys working for ICE. 

Debbie Nathan (INTERCEPT) reports:

Inside a federal immigration courtroom in New York City last month, a judge took an exceedingly unusual step: declining to state the name of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney pressing to deport asylum seekers. 

“We’re not really doing names publicly,” said Judge ShaSha Xu — after stating her own name and those of the immigrants and their lawyers. It was the first of two separate instances The Intercept identified in which judges chose to withhold the identities of the attorneys representing the Trump administration’s deportation regime. 

As ICE agents across the country wear masks to raid workplaces and detain immigrants, government attorneys need not cover their faces to shield their identities. Legal experts who spoke to The Intercept agreed the practice of concealing the lawyers’ identities was both novel and concerning.

“I’ve never heard of someone in open court not being identified,” said Elissa Steglich, a law professor and co-director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin. “Part of the court’s ethical obligation is transparency, including clear identification of the parties. Not identifying an attorney for the government means if there are unethical or professional concerns regarding [the Department of Homeland Security], the individual cannot be held accountable. And it makes the judge appear partial to the government.”

Why not identify themselves?  Because they're rightly ashamed of themselves.  And they can hide all they want from the public -- or try to -- but they can't escape the voice inside them that knows what they're doing is wrong, the voice that will nag them until the day that they die.  Too late, they'll grasp that there's not enough money in the world to justify selling your soul.

Some people really aren't qualified for politics.  Politics chases money, yes, but your ability to amass money does not mean you grasp politics.  More than anything, common sense is required for politics and our best politicians possess common sense.  Selling out is not common sense.

I'm not a Mark Cuban fan.  That's been obvious for years.  Mark always has an idea.  "Idea" may be giving him too much credit.  He always has a "notion."  But his notions are not based on common sense.  His notions are based on what the other side is saying.

We'll circle back around.  Let's move over to Paul Krugman who has common sense and a brain and uses both.  From his most recent SUBSTACK: 

And as G. Elliott Morris points out, the detailed polling suggests overwhelming disapproval of Trump’s immigration policies. Notably, voters are twice as likely to support giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship than they are to support deporting them. By the way, in 2023 Congress seemed likely to enact bipartisan legislation that would have opened such a path. But Trump killed it.

What’s going on? Why were cynical, seemingly savvy takes on the politics of immigration so wrong?

Part of the answer is that there is almost always a “thermostatic backlash” against the policies pursued by a party that has recently gained power. Pundits who imagined that Trump’s war on immigrants would become more, not less popular once it began were assuming that he could defy all historical precedent.

But, like Morris, I think there’s more going on here than just the thermostat.

First, it’s important to understand that the call for mass deportations and/or imprisonment was based on a lie — the claim that America is facing a huge immigrant crime wave. “They’re not a city of immigrants, they’re a city of criminals,” declared Kristi Noem about Los Angeles last month. Last week city officials reported that LA is on track to have the fewest homicides in 60 years.

It's true that many Americans have remained willing to believe that big cities like LA and NYC are scary urban hellscapes, even though they’re quite safe these days.

An aside: There was a period in the 1970s and 1980s when New York, in particular, actually was the kind of scary place people like Trump and Noem claim it still is. As it happens, that sort-of hellscape period coincided with an era when New York had fewer immigrants than at any time before or since:

In any case, however, it seems to me that the lie is beginning to unravel as it becomes clear that ICE is having a really hard time finding violent immigrants to arrest.

According to the Miami Herald, only around a third of the people being held in “Alligator Alcatraz” — a cute name, but it’s a concentration camp, pure and simple — have any kind of criminal conviction.

Why aren’t they rounding up more undocumented criminals? Because that would be hard work, and anyway there aren’t that many of them. Morris did a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggesting that there may in total be only around 78,000 undocumented immigrants with criminal records, and 14,000 convicted of violent crimes. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller is demanding that ICE arrest 3,000 people a day. Do the math, and you see why they’re grabbing farm workers and chasing day laborers in Home Depot parking lots.

So Americans may be turning on Trump’s immigration policies in part because they’re starting to realize that they’ve been lied to. But an even more important factor may be that more native-born Americans are beginning to see what our immigrants are really like, rather than thinking of them as scary figures lurking in the shadows.

It’s a familiar point that views of immigration tend to be most negative in places with very few immigrants and most positive in places where there are already many foreign-born residents. You can get fancy about why that’s true, but I would simply say that if you live in a place like New York, where you’re constantly interacting with immigrants, they start to seem like … people.

And the Trumpies — for whom, as Adam Serwer famously observed, the cruelty is the point — are inadvertently humanizing immigrants for Americans who don’t have that kind of daily experience. The nightmarish ordeal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia has probably done more to highlight the humanity of immigrants, documented or not, than any number of charts and tables. And while some Americans are instinctively cruel, most are, I believe, instinctively decent.

Get it?  The crime wave myth needs to be called out.  Common sense and a brain puts Paul miles ahead of Mark Cuban.  Mark's gotten  Eric Swalwell on his side.  With what?  Mark's notion.  The way to take on Chump is to accept his premise (cave) and start making lists of violent criminals and we'll all round them up together.

What are we, Lindsey Buckingham?

If we go, go insane

We can all go together

In this wild, wanton world

We can all break down forever

Mark Cuban throws in the towel.  He calls that politics.  

If we've learned anything in these most recent days of The Epstein Files, it's that MAGA lies.  And then lies again.

What kind of an idiot -- Mark Cuban, for one -- buys the lie and makes plans to meet in 'the middle.'  It's not the middle.  The lie has pulled the country over to the right and Mark Cuban is going to push us further over.

I'm getting really tired of the Mark Cuban fan boys.  If you're not paying attention, he's also pimping Alien Musk's notion of a new political party.  

I don't see why elected Democrats feel they owe Mark Cuban anything. 

Take what's being called the biggest sweep or raid, the one targeting the cannabis farm in California.  Julie Watson, Amy Taxin and Olga R. Rodriguez (AP) note, "The government said four of the 361 arrested had prior criminal records, including convictions for rape and kidnapping."  The government says they nabbed 361 people.  And the government says four "had prior criminal records."  The government said.  Even their own figures don't back up a crime wave.   That's 1.1080% of the number taken in.  

And I look at the concentration camp in Florida -- call it whatever you want -- and I'm thinking, "If this were the McCarthy era would Mark Cuban be coming forward to say: Hey, let's meet them half way.  Some of these artists are Communists so let's make a list and . . ."  At what point do we take a stand for what we believe in and say, "No, we're not going to make this easy for you."  Because what Mark Cuban's proposing and what Eric has signed off on is making it easier and is getting in bed with the devil.  That's because every generation has a Mark Cuban or two who doesn't have a spine and is more inclined to go along to get along.  

Across the country, people are standing up and saying "no."  At USA TODAY, Rev. Tanya Lopez writes:

As a pastor, I consider the church not just a place of worship, but a sacred home − somewhere families gather to find comfort, courage and communion. For generations, our pews have held the laughter of children, the tears of grief and joy, and the prayers of the faithful.

Last month, the sanctity of our space was shattered.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered the parking lot of Downey Memorial Christian Church to take a man who was walking through our property. The agents were armed, masked and aggressive.

They tried to intimidate clergy and staff − people whose only armor is their faith and moral convictions. In that moment, our sacred space became a site of state-sanctioned fear and violence.

This is not isolated. It is part of a widening campaign.

Archbishop Alberto Rojas of San Bernardino, the spiritual shepherd of more than a million Catholics, recently excused parishioners from their obligation to attend Mass.

Why? Because fear of ICE raids has become so pervasive that even worship cannot feel safe.

In Detroit, Niraj Warikoo (DETROIT FREE PRESS) reports:

 

Standing in front of the Detroit headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on a sunny Monday morning, the Rev. David Buersmeyer asked a security officer if he could accept a letter from Catholics asking ICE Detroit to better treat immigrants.

Judith Brooks, a fellow Catholic who advocates for immigrants, stood by the Detroit priest's side with a sealed envelope, leaning forward to hand the letter to him. But the officer didn't respond, slammed the glass door shut with a loud thud and then pushed on it to make sure it was secure.

"Shame!" a protester shouted out. A crowd of hundreds who stood outside the building on Michigan Avenue then started to sing a song by Batya Levine, a Jewish musician: "In hope, in prayer, we find ourselves here, in hope, in prayer, we're right here."

The scene on July 14th outside the Detroit ICE building illustrated the growing frustration Catholic leaders and others have expressed with immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump, which they allege has unfairly targeted communities with overzealous actions.

[. . .]

"We are here today to ask that our nation and its leaders" listen to the plight of immigrants, Sister Rebecca Vonderhaar of Immaculate Heart of Mary told the large crowd at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church before the march.

"Many of our brothers and sisters and their families have proven their innate goodness," Vonderhaar said. "They have been so unjustly treated by raids and mass deportations. Let us know that apathy is never an option, but trust with faith, goodwill and a bit of advocacy will bear fruit. And trusting in your goodness oh, God, we move on."

 To defend immigrants and fight back against Chump's gestapo tactics, people are being thoughtful (well, people other than Mark Cuban) and creative.  Jennifer Stavros (LOS ANGLES PUBLIC PRESS) explains:

Federal immigration raids sweeping Los Angeles have created such widespread fear that even naturalized citizens are afraid to leave their homes, prompting mental health providers to form informal support networks for traumatized immigrant communities.

Immigrant neighborhoods that were once bustling have become noticeably quieter, with fewer people on the streets and some businesses seeing reduced foot traffic.

Therapists working in these communities say clients are canceling appointments and expressing new fears about seeking help.

Sandra Espinoza is a second-generation, bilingual Mexican-American licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and associate professor at Alliant International University’s Los Angeles campus. She has been paying attention to what has been happening locally and said she felt called to action.

“Once I heard about the ICE raids happening, I was very upset, and [I wanted] to find a way to kind of channel my anxiety and anger. I remembered that during the wildfires, another therapist had organized a list of over 800 therapists who were willing to provide pro bono services,” Espinoza said. “[I thought] how cool would it be if we could do this for the undocumented community at this time?”

While Espinoza’s network is smaller than the 1,000-provider wildfire list, she is far from alone in her desire to help migrants across the county. Some care providers are offering support publicly, while others, fearful due to their own or their clients’ immigration connections, are choosing to offer it privately through whisper networks and word-of-mouth referrals.

Therapists have voiced concerns about making these lists publicly accessible for confidentiality and safety reasons, so accessibility is limited and relies primarily on referrals and vetting processes.

For Espinoza’s network, both therapists and clients complete Google forms for vetting. The list is password-protected with only three people having access. Most connections are made personally by Espinoza, with 95% of clients choosing telehealth sessions.

The Coalition to Stop Avelo is another example of fighting back. The Houston, Texas based airline entered into a contract with Homeland Security to deport immigrants to other countries (not necessarily their own country) and the coalition came together to protest and raise awareness that if you're flying Avelo, you're flying with the gestapo.  The Coalition's Matthew Boulay explains that Avelo "got themselves into financial trouble and took the ICE contract out of desperation.  It was a morally bankrupt deal with the devil -- and now it’s backfiring, because passengers don’t want to fly Avelo."

Information is key.  Fiona Murphy (NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER) notes how NYC's faith-based food banks and shelters are preparing:

Immigration enforcement agents do not legally need a judicial warrant, issued by a court, to make an arrest in a public space. If they have reason to believe someone is in the country unlawfully, they can detain the person on the street. However, entering private areas like offices, kitchens or the grounds of a mosque or church requires a signed judicial warrant. Still, immigration advocates warn that many agents present administrative warrants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security instead, which do not authorize entry. 

That distinction has shaped recent training sessions at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Manhattan, the largest soup kitchen currently operating from the grounds of an Episcopal church in the city.

"We certainly have done some internal preparations just so that our staff knows what to do in the event that [immigration agents] show up," said Elizabeth Starling, Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen director of development. "We went through a training about the need for them to have a specific judicial warrant because, well, you're not coming on our property for a fishing mission — that's not going to happen." 

People are fighting back.  MOTHER JONES' Isabela Diaz reports:

Marcelo Gomes da Silva is still trying to get back to his old life. The 18-year-old, who was born in Brazil, wants to enjoy the summer before his senior year at Milford High School in Massachusetts—go to pool parties, hang out with friends. Since his arrest by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he has been praised for his strength. “But that’s not really what I want,” he told Mother Jones on a video call. “I want everyone to think of me as Marcelo Gomes da Silva, just as I was before.”

On a Saturday morning in late May, ICE arrested Gomes da Silva on his way to volleyball practice. At first, when he noticed a white Ford Explorer trailing his car, he thought little of it. But when Gomes da Silva pulled into a friend’s driveway, an ICE agent walked up, knocked on the window, asked for his documents, and eventually handcuffed him. The officer asked Gomes da Silva if he knew the reason for his arrest. He said he did not. “Because you’re illegal,” the agent told him, “you’re an immigrant.”

Gomes da Silva had never thought of himself as undocumented. He came to the United States at age 7 as a visitor and later obtained a now-lapsed student visa. “I was just in shock,” he said. “I didn’t know what was going on and I was kind of questioning God…Why is this happening to me? Did I do something? I never really understood why I was there.”

The Department of Homeland Security said ICE officers “never intended to apprehend” Gomes da Silva but were instead looking for his father, the owner of the car, whom they accused of having a “habit of reckless driving.” To the US government, Gomes da Silva was an accidental target in the wrong place at the wrong time. These so-called “collateral arrests”—often warrantless apprehensions of immigrants without a criminal history—have become more commonplace as the Trump administration pushes the legal limits of its deportation dragnet.

“I didn’t say he was dangerous,” acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said of Gomes da Silva at a press conference days after his detention. “I said he’s in the country illegally and we’re not going to walk away from anybody.” Gomes da Silva was taken to ICE’s Boston field office in Burlington, where he was detained for six days until a judge released him on bond in early June.

Fortunately, the young man's community said "Hell no" and got to work:

After practice, school administrators gathered everyone in the locker room and shared the news. There was a deep silence. Some players cried. One of them threw up. “I knew it was happening in Milford, but I didn’t really know anybody who was detained,” said Greco’s son Colin. “That’s when emotion just hit everybody and we were like, ‘This is real.’”

The Archbishop of Miami, Father Thomas Wenski, issued a lengthy statement which included:

It is alarming to see enforcement tactics that treat all irregular immigrants as dangerous criminals. Masked, heavily armed agents who do not identify themselves during enforcement activities are surprising - so is the apparent lack of due process in deportation proceedings in recent months.

Along these lines, much of the current rhetoric is obviously intentionally provocative. It is unbecoming of public officials and corrosive of the common good to speak of the deterrence value of “alligators and pythons” at the Collier-Dade facility. Common decency requires that we remember the individuals being detained are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters of distressed relatives. We wish to ensure that chaplains and pastoral ministers can serve those in custody, to their benefit and that of the staff. We also raise concerns about the isolation of the detention facility, which is far from medical care centers, and the precariousness of the temporary “tent” structures in the Florida heat and summer thunderstorms, not to mention the challenge of safely protecting detainees in the event of a hurricane. 

We call on all people of goodwill to pray for our government officials, for those in immigration custody and their families, for those who work in enforcement, and for justice for all in this nation, whose prosperity immigrants have always contributed to. 

Mark Cuban wants us to 'meet in the middle' on this hideous program.  He wants Democrats to co-sign off on it, thereby giving Republicans cover and the ability to claim both parties supported this evil plan. No.  This needs to be fought and people across America grasp and see what Mark Cuban can't or won't.

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

ICYMI from June: Senator Murray Statement on Protests in Response to Immigration Arrests in Spokane

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, released the following statement on the news, reported by the Spokesman-Review, that federal agents arrested and searched the homes of Spokane residents who took part in a protests in Spokane on June 11^th. The protests in June were sparked by the sudden detention of two asylum-seekers whose work visas were abruptly revoked days before.

“The Trump administration is abusing the force of the law to intimidate Americans exercising their First Amendment rights—whether you are a Democrat or Republican, this is wrong and we all need to speak out against this disturbing perversion of justice.

“If you are as angry as I am about Trump’s unconstitutional and cruel assault on immigrants, we need to speak out peacefully against inhumane policies. We lose our democracy when our voices fall silent.

“Let’s be perfectly clear about Trump’s unconstitutional immigration crackdown: he is diverting limited federal resources away from pursuing violent criminals to instead round up individuals with no criminal record—and now, apparently, he’s going after peaceful protestors as well. We cannot be silent and I will be contacting DOJ directly regarding this gross abuse of federal resources.”

###

 Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Pam Tries Another Lie" went up yesterday.   The following sites updated:

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That crooked and scary Supreme Court

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Pam Tries Another Lie" 

I love that comic.

At the start of the month, Michael Waldman wrote a really important piece at The Brennen Center for Justice:

The 14th Amendment guarantees that all children born in the United States are citizens. It aimed to undo the notorious Dred Scott ruling, which held that some people born here -- Black people, to be precise, free and formerly enslaved -- nevertheless were not citizens. As you’ll recall, just hours into his term, President Trump signed an executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship. The order was, and remains, unconstitutional. 

The Supreme Court chose this case, out of all the possible cases, to strip judges of a key power used to stop illegal actions. 

Instead of ruling on the merits in Trump v. CASA, the justices chose to rule on the legality of universal injunctions, among the strongest tools that lower courts use to block flagrantly unconstitutional policies like these from taking effect while cases play out. These injunctions grant relief not only to the person who brought a lawsuit, but to all affected by the ruling. Instead of every soon-to-be parent affected by the order having to bring a lawsuit to secure citizenship for their baby, only one litigant would have to obtain a universal injunction — guaranteeing relief from an unconstitutional order for all. The six justices of the conservative supermajority decided that such rulings go beyond the power of federal courts when they’re not necessary to give the plaintiffs themselves full protection of the law. 

By allowing Trump’s order to partially take effect in 30 days absent further action by the lower courts, the Court has effectively resuscitated Dred Scott, at least for some people, at least for now.

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned, “No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.” 

We at the Brennan Center are still analyzing the ruling. It’s vague at key points. In some respects, it is as great a gift to executive overreach as last summer’s ruling on presidential immunity. On the other hand, alternative avenues to obtain nationwide relief from illegal conduct remain.  

Read on and grow more depressed.

I really can't forgive US House Trash Rashida Tlaib.  She destroyed our country -- it's her country too.  She destroyed it.  And she's done nothing to take accountability.

She worked to defeat Kamala Harris. 

We all knew by November 2024 that the presidential race ended only one of two ways -- Kamala was our president or we were putting The Convicted Felon back in the White House.  And we knew about Project 2025.  Black women had told us about it.  C.I., for example, had sounded the alarm in 2023 and kept sounding it.  Taraji P. Henson warned us.

But Black women?  Oh, they never listen to us or respect us.  Which was why it was so easy for White people -- and, yes, Rashida is White -- to trash Black women and, specifically, to trash one Black woman.

We could've had Kamala. But Rashida didn't want Kamala.  

So we got Chump.

Someone please break the news to Rashida, Palestinians are still being killed in Gaza.

So she didn't save the Palestinians and she didn't save the US.  She screwed us both over.  

Maybe Rashida should now spend time brushing up on Japanese rituals?  Specifically:

"Hari-kari" and "seppuku" refer to the same traditional Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment, historically practiced by the samurai warrior class. While both terms are sometimes used interchangeably in the West, the preferred and more formal term in Japan is "seppuku". "Hari-kari" is a less formal term that means "belly-cutting," while "seppuku" translates to "self-disembowelment" and is typically reserved for documents and formal situations. 

Might as well.  Her actions have pretty much killed democracy.

We have got to win in the mid-terms -- we, the Democrats.  That's the only way to save this country.  

And we've got to get serious about saving the Court.  And that means if we take back the Senate, we Merrick Garland any and every Supreme Court Justice that Chump nominates.  None go through.  Not one.  We can't afford it. 

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, July 15, 2025.  Grifters fall in line with Chump, his crooked administration continues to prove that they are the dumbest and the dimmest, GOP take our John Kerry please, and much more.

MORNING JOE today exposes the grifters.

Are they all as feckless as Charlie Kirk and Laura Ingraham?  

Chump gives the marching orders to drop the topic and they fall in line.  

I'm sorry, it's not that simple.  If they're going to finally drop the lies, fine.  Honestly fine.  Right after you acknowledge you have been lying for a decade about this bulls**t and after you apologize for these years of lying and after you tell us how you're going to prevent yourself from taking part in a massive lie like this again.

Hillary Clinton.  

Joe's talking about "men."  No, the lies also dragged Hillary Clinton into this nonsense, the lie called her a pedophile.  It's hilarious, isn't it, how they spent the 90s forward calling Hillary a "cold fish" and making her out to be sexelss only to turn around and start up nonsense about her being in an EYES WIDE SHUT pedo ring.  And Stanley Kurbrick!  Your lies had Stanley murdered.  Remember that?  Your lies had brave Stanley Kubrick making EYES WIDE SHUT as an expose and being murdered for it.

But EYES WIDE SHUT wasnt about a pedo ring, was it?  

No. 

It was a really bad movie that was dead if it wasn't one of the few minutes Nicole Kidman was onscreen.  Tom Cruise was never so sexless onscreen.  

You lied.  

Over and over you lied.  You dragged innocents like Tom Hanks into your lies.

And they were lies.

Right, Charlie?  Right, Laura?

You were lying.

And you knew it.

Otherwise, you wouldn't be dropping it now, right?

Unless, oh, my goodness, are Charlie Kirk and Laura Ingraham part of a pedo ring!  Are they Epstein enablers!!!!!  They are!!! That's why they're covering up now!!!!

You want people to drop the topic of Epstein.  Then explain why.  Explain to your audiences that you lied. Explain that you lied because you will say anything to distort reality and to advance your right wing goals.  Confess that you're just cheap little hustlers who actively set out to deceive people in order to influence them.  

You know, I had more respect for these whores when they were lying that Tom Hanks was molesting and sacrificing children.  Tom Hanks.  If Tom Hanks has a flaw, its that he's too damn nice.  

But that's how insane you were and what big liars you were. 

I get it.  You had a product to sell: Donald Chump.  

A non-Christian, failed businessman with multiple bankruptcies repeatedly accused of sexually assaulting women and beating a wife.

That was the product that you were selling.  To sell that garbage, you had to invent something worse.  So you lied bout people and smeared them with the worst lies you could think of.

And now that these lies no longer help Chump and now that he's ordered you to drop the subject, you think you can.  In front of everyone, you think you can just drop it and act like it never happened.

It's not that easy and you stand exposed for the cheap liars you truly are, you stand exposed in front of the world.

And guess what?  You can cave all you want but it's not going to go away just because you caved for Chump.

Next topic,  Barack has spoken.  

Early on when Barack Obama was campaigning for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, he offered tough talk that sometimes rubbed those of us in the Black community wrong.  We would wonder if, for example, certain remarks about Black fathers were being made more because his own father abandoned him.  Those remarks were never really forgotten and they popped up throughout his presidency.   I'm not rehashing this, I'm bringing it up for a reason.  In the lead up to the elections, Barack spoke to and of young Black men and the need for them to turnout.  I didn't call him out and I didn't defend him.  I didn't highlight those calling him out over this because to me, his words were straightforward and needed.  But, again, I did understand the reaction because of past reactions when the topic was Black males.  Barack's offered some tough talk again -- for all genders and races.   Arlette Saenz (CNN) reports:

Former President Barack Obama issued a call to action for Democrats at a private fundraiser in New Jersey on Friday evening, urging those frustrated by the state of the country under President Donald Trump to “stand up for the things that you think are right.”

“I think it’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up,” Obama said at the fundraiser, according to excerpts of his remarks exclusively obtained by CNN.

“You know, don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now, so you’re not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something,” he said. “Don’t say that you care deeply about free speech and then you’re quiet. No, you stand up for free speech when it’s hard. When somebody says something that you don’t like, but you still say, ‘You know what, that person has the right to speak.’ … What’s needed now is courage.”

Obama’s comments come as the Democratic Party searches for its path forward in the second Trump term and beyond. Many in the party’s base have called for a more forceful response from Democratic leaders at a time when the party is locked out of power.

As Democrats debate who should lead the party, Obama encouraged them to channel their energy into the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, saying the off-year elections could be “a big jumpstart for where we need to go.”

I agree with one caveat.  Black women.  We were attacked and we were disrespected.  From the right?  Oh, always.  It doesn't even surprise us anymore at this late date.  But in 2024, we were attacked by others on the left.  We were savaged and attacked.  Tabitha at TABITHA SPEAKS POLITICS has documented this at length. So my caveat is that if you're a Black woman and you're taking time to heal and focus on other things after the attacks we suffered, you continue to take care of yourself.  When you're ready to come back, you can.  And that day may never come.  If so, I understand.

For those of us who are back in the battle, I think there's a great deal of wisdom in Barack's words.  

“Stop looking for the quick fix. Stop looking for the messiah. You have great candidates running races right now. Support those candidates,” Obama said, calling out the New Jersey and Virginia elections, according to the excerpts of his remarks.

“Make sure that the DNC has what it needs to compete in what will be a more data-driven, more social media-driven cycle, which will cost some money and expertise and time,” he continued.

Now let's move to a telling statistic.  Andrew Goudsward (REUTERS) reports:

The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies - such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University - has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters.

Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump's election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by former Justice Department lawyers and reviewed by Reuters.

The tally has not been previously reported. Using court records and LinkedIn accounts, Reuters was able to verify the departure of all but four names on the list. 

They've left because of the unconstitutional actions of this administration.  Gabe Whisnant (NEWSWEEK) reports on a firing:

Attorney General Pam Bondi has dismissed the Justice Department's top ethics lawyer, Joseph Tirrell, according to a post he shared on LinkedIn.

Tirrell, a Navy veteran, posted a copy of his termination letter on the platform Friday, noting that it resembled notices received by other DOJ employees. The letter included a typo, misspelling his name as "JOSPEH."

Well, I think we always suspected -- and certainly expected -- that Pam Bondi is illiterate and doesn't know how to read.  That may be why she has her 'vetting' problems.  Back to the article:

"Until Friday evening, I was the senior ethics attorney at the Department of Justice responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General directly on federal employee ethics," he wrote, in part, on LinkedIn. "I was also responsible for the day-to-day operations of the ethics program across the Department.

"I led a small, dedicated team of professionals and coordinated the work of some 30 other full-time ethics officials, attorneys, paralegals and other specialists across the Department of Justice, ensuring that the 117,000 Department employees were properly advised on and supported in how to follow the Federal employee ethics rules."

She'll run everyone out that she can and, all the while, pretend she's doing her job.  I really marvel, by the way, and I've noted this before, over all the sex whispers that attach to her in DC.  Is the really the dominatrix that rumos insist she is?  

Related, Little Marco's on a firing drive at the US State Dept.  

That was Friday evening on NBC NIGHTLY NEWS.  Thursday night/Friday morning, Mike posted "RAW STORY better stop publishing COMMON DREAMS whoring plus FettyCrap, John Crap Kerry."

Speaking of stupid, John Kerry.  May he rot in hell for this.  He's a back stabber and he always has been (he was my US senator for years).  He cheats on his wife and pretends he's so moral.  All he ever does is stab the backs of people who've helped him.  That's his wife, that's the voters, that's the Democratic Party.  He'll turn 82 years old this year.  It's time for him to sit his tired ass down.  It's also past time for him to stop having plastic surgery.  It was bad in 2013 but his work since then is only more ridiculous.

And if John Kerry wants to flap his useless gums again, how about he call out the way Rubio's destroying the Secretary of State post?  Or has John forgotten he himself was once Secretary of State?  He's forgotten a great deal as he rushes to praise Chump. 

John is a backstabber to the extreme.  He hasn't been so disgusting since his I-was-for-the-war-before-I-was-against-it b.s.  He was Secretary of State.  He needed that post after his stupid mouth ensured he would never be president.  Following his 2004 run, Kerry went to California and made a 'joke' in his mind about how students better do well in high school or they'd end up in Iraq and since the country was still actively deploying to Iraq, his remarks offended many.  As we noted the day he pulled that nonsense, his chance to ever be president was gone.  He could have ended up just a senator who tried but never moved beyond that; however, Barack made him Secretary of State.  And last week, when John should have been defending the State Dept employees, he was instead found praising Donald Chump.  

 

John Kerry owed it to them to stick up for them.  Instead, he wasted his time defending Chump.  We see you, John.   And you're someone who disgusts so many of us who are Democrats with your actions that always advance you and not the party.

Chump has the worst and most unqualified administration of all time.  The worst and the dimmest?  The dumbest and the dimmest. 

Economists Robert Reich and Dean Baker both weighed in yesterday.  Robert writes:

The conventional explanation for why Trump’s second term is far more extreme than his first (which was extreme enough) is that the guardrails are now gone.

The people who occupied significant roles in the White House and Cabinet during his first administration — who talked him out of (or subverted) his illegal and unconstitutional cravings — are no longer there. In their places are loyalists who will do whatever he wants.

But this conventional view overlooks a more important explanation.

He’s more extreme this time because he’s attracted people around him who are also extreme and pushing him to new levels of malevolence.

I’ve served under three presidents and advised a fourth. In every case, I’ve seen the same pattern: A president acts as a magnet, drawing into the highest levels of his administration people who not only share his values but amplify them.

When a president wants to do a decent job — at the least, respecting democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law — the magnet produces an administration of people who respect our institutions of self-government.

But when a president is malevolent, those drawn to him are among the most fanatical and dangerous in the land.

Richard Nixon — the most malevolent president in recent American history before Trump — drew to the White House a collection of bottom-feeding crooks: H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Attorney General John Mitchell, Chuck Colson, Egil Krogh, G. Gordon Liddy, and E. Howard Hunt. They amplified Nixon’s worst paranoid and criminal tendencies.

Twisted people who surround a twisted president encourage his malevolence.

They also provide him a chorus of group-think approval.

They embolden one another as they destroy norms for how White House and Cabinet appointees are supposed to behave.

Which describes the Chump administration.  Dean offers:

We all know and expect that a president’s top appointees are picked in large part because of their willingness to carry out a president’s agenda. But usually these are people with some experience in the areas that they are overseeing. Insofar as this is not the case, they can generally rely on the high-level career officials in the departments or agencies under their control to make sure that necessary tasks get accomplished.

Unfortunately, this is not the case now. The main and possibly only qualification for Trump’s top appointees is the ability to tell blatant lies with a straight face. He has picked people who not only have no background in the areas they oversee, they don’t even have the most basic understanding of their responsibilities. And in many cases they have fired or marginalized the career people with expertise.

Starting at the top, Trump picked a former Fox talk show host with a drinking problem, Pete Hegseth, to be his Secretary of Defense. Secretary Hegseth apparently didn’t know that he shouldn’t be making war plans on unsecured channels and without knowing who was included in the conversations. He apparently also didn’t know that his wife should not be included in the discussions.

Hundreds of people just died in Texas because of this failure, and we are virtually certain to see far worse in the future.

Trump has a Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who claims he doesn’t know that tariffs (import taxes) are taxes. Since tariffs are among the oldest form of taxes, long predating the income tax, this is a pretty elementary point that a Treasury Secretary would be expected to know.

Kristi Noem, Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary, didn’t know what habeas corpus is. Since that is basic right guaranteed by the Constitution, it would be rather important for the person controlling the largest federal police force to be familiar with the concept.

While knowledge of their areas may not be a strong point for top Trump officials, lying in front of TV cameras is an area of real expertise. We see this constantly.

And he's right as well.  Again it's not the worst or the dimmest serving in the administration, it's the dumbest and the dimmest.  

As  Ben notes at MEIDASTOUCH NEWS, Chump is rotting from the inside and out.

Related, David Kurtz (TALKING POiNTS MEMO) also had a solid observation zooming in on just one department of the administration:

The prospect that the Trump-appointed attorney general, FBI director, and his top deputy could be dragged down over Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories makes my head hurt.

None of them is fit for office. They’ve ransacked the Justice Department. They remain eager to abuse their offices to curry favor with the White House. But in this era that’s not enough to run them out of town. What might be enough is failing to properly perform one of the MAGA cult’s ritualistic dances. Suddenly Attorney General Pam Bondi is on the outs, with her two top FBI underlings threatening to turn on her and join the mob.

For those of us on the outside looking in, it’s not just baffling but enervating. Watching President Trump try to call off the MAGA mob is surreal.

What’s most important about this whole sordid episode is likely to be the lengths Bondi will go to shore up her position in MAGA world. She seems perfectly willing to and entirely capable of committing further transgressions of the rule of law in order to demonstrate her MAGA bona fides and stave off demands that she be sacked.

It’s difficult to parse which of Bondi’s latest outrages were already in the works and which are self-protective. But credit the national political coverage over the past few days with at least acknowledging that there might be a connection between the Epstein blowback and unusual DOJ moves like confirming the criminal investigations of John Brennan and James Comey.

In addition, Bondi has:

• fired another 20 DOJ employees, including prosecutors, support staff, and U.S. marshals, who were involved in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Trump prosecutions
• fired without explanation DOJ’s most senior ethics official, Joseph Tirrell, a career employee who had been with the department for nearly 20 years
• dropped charges against a Utah plastic surgeon who had become a MAGA darling even though jury selection was already underway for a trial on charges he sold fake Covid-19 vaccine cards.

The traditional tools of the Justice Department are now just baubles to be used for self-preservation by the attorney general and ultimately by the president. We are so deep into not normal. 

Chump can't stop attacking the economy.  Sarah Fortinsky (THE HILL) reports:

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said he supports Democrats’ threats to shut down the government if Republicans proceed with a planned rescissions package, saying his party should use all the leverage they can to prevent cuts to previously approved funding.

“I say it’s time to stand up for the American people,” Subramanyam said in an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday,” when asked what he thinks about a potential shutdown.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. I mean, I’m hearing from both sides. They’re fed up with this administration, and they want to see some changes, not just in this administration, but even in the Democratic Party,” he continued.

“And, so, yes, absolutely, the time to fight was yesterday,” he added.

Republicans are ramping up efforts to pass a rescissions package that President Trump requested last month, which includes more than $9 billion in funding cuts for foreign aid and public broadcasting programs.

Where do you stand on it?  I support bringing it to a standstill.  I support a real and full fight to push back against these cuts. And in terms of public broadcasting, let me note this from a post Ruth did around the 4th:

And you can't talk the economy without talking Chump's war on immigrants.  David Edwards reports:

 

Two Omaha restaurant locations have closed after their owner reported receiving a subpoena from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking the immigration status of its employees.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Fernando's Omaha said it was cooperating with the DHS inquiry. However, the subpoena resulted in the loss of some workers, causing the two restaurant locations to close temporarily.

Without the employees, they can't keep the restaurants open.  How long will the closings last?  How many other businesses will be impacted. 

Immigration?   Ahmad Austin Jr (MEDIAITE) reports:

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten revealed Monday how President Donald Trump’s polling on immigration has plummeted in recent months.

Last week, a new poll from Gallup showed that Trump’s net approval rating on immigration had dropped to a staggering 27%. Among Republican voters, support for reducing immigration decreased from 88% last year to just 48%.

On Monday morning, Enten broke down several other polls to show that, although the numbers weren’t as extreme as the Gallup poll, Trump has been gradually losing support for his immigration crackdown:

Take a look at this: Trump’s net approval rating on immigration. Got five numbers for you across the screen here. A lot of focus on Gallup of minus 27. That’s horrible. Quinnipiac University — minus 16. That’s awful. Marist is bad at minus 9. IPSOS is minus 8. Fox at minus 7. Bad! So going from your left side, bad to just downright terrible on the right side of your screen.

The American people have turned against President Donald Trump on what was his best issue, one in which he had a positive that approval rating for most of his term and arguably the issue that got him, of course, the GOP nomination all the way back in 2016, and one of the issues, of course, he used last year to quite a successful degree.

Enten then flipped to another image on the digital board showing that Trump’s net approval rating with Hispanics dropped to negative 26. Near the beginning of his term, his net approval rating within the group was only negative 2. That earlier figure, as Enten noted, was historically good for Republican candidates.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warrene's office.

The lawmakers blasted the administration for its abrupt notice and illegal freeze of the funds, which has sent school districts and programs nationwide scrambling. 

“We are shocked by the continued lack of respect for states and local schools evidenced by this latest action by the administration… This rash decision will only worsen school working conditions and teacher shortages.”

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), along with 28 of their colleagues, in demanding the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought and Department of Education (ED) Secretary Linda McMahon immediately release the nearly $7 billion in funding for K-12 schools and adult literacy programs across America that is currently being illegally withheld by the Trump administration. 

The abrupt decision by the Trump administration to withhold this funding has left school districts nationwide struggling to find ways to fill the massive budget hole. School districts have made clear they will have to end after-school programs and have already told parents to prepare backup options, while adult literacy programs have already been forced to lay off staff. 

The members note that the 10,000 school programs benefited approximately 1.4 million students across the nation, and the latest report by ED showed significant improvements in student attendance, grades, and teacher reports of student engagement in learning. 

“These centers also help working parents by providing a safe and productive place for their children to be after the school day ends and during the summer months,” wrote the lawmakers. “It is beyond comprehension why the administration would want to jeopardize these outcomes.”

The Trump administration has confirmed it is blocking funding for the following programs, all of which are programs President Trump has requested to eliminate in his budget request, raising serious concerns about this administration’s intentions to simply impound the funding:

• Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants (Title II-A), which support professional development and other activities to improve the effectiveness of teachers and school leaders, including reducing class sizes.

• 21st Century Community Learning Centers (Title IV-B), which support high-quality before- and after-school programs focused on providing academic enrichment opportunities for students.

• Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (Title IV-A), which provide flexible funding for school districts for a wide range of activities, including supporting STEM education, accelerated learning courses, college and career counseling, school-based mental health services, and improving school technology, among many others.

• English Language Acquisition (Title III-A), which supports language instruction to help English language learners become proficient in English.

• Migrant Education (Title I-C), which supports the educational needs of migratory children, including children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers.

• Adult Basic and Literacy Education State Grants (including Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education State Grants), which support adult education and literacy programs to provide the basic skills to help prepare adults and out-of-school youth for success in the workforce.

The letter was also signed by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

Senator Warren launched the Save Our Schools campaign in a coordinated effort to fight back against President Trump’s attempts to abolish the Department of Education:

 

• On July 3, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in submitting an amicus brief for NAACP v. US, arguing to the United States District Court District of Maryland that President Trump’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education (ED) violate separation of powers and lack constitutional authority.

• On June 10, 2025, Senator Warren met with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and delivered over 1,000 letters to McMahon that the senator had received from people in all 50 states who were worried about the Secretary’s efforts to dismantle ED.

• On June 9, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in pushing the Acting Inspector General of ED to open an investigation into new information obtained by her office revealing that DOGE may have gained access to two FSA internal systems, in addition to sensitive borrower data.

• On May 20, 2025, Senator Warren and 27 other senators pushed for full funding for the Office of Federal Student Aid.

• On May 14, 2025, Senator Warren led a Senate forum entitled “Stealing the American Dream: How Trump and Republicans Are Raising Education Costs for Families,” highlighting the consequences of Secretary Linda McMahon’s reckless dismantling of the Department of Education (ED) and President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” for working- and middle-class students and borrowers.

• On May 13, 2025, Senator Warren agreed to meet with Education Secretary Linda McMahon and promised to bring questions and stories from Americans across the country to highlight how the Trump administration’s attacks on education are hurting American families.

• On May 6, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren highlighted the consequences of President Trump and Secretary Linda McMahon’s reckless dismantling of the Department of Education for American families in a Senate forum.

• On April 24, 2025, Senator Warren launched a new investigation into the harms of President Trump’s attacks on the Department of Education, seeking information on the impact of the Trump administration’s actions from the members of twelve leading organizations representing schools, parents, teachers, students, borrowers, and researchers.

• On April 10, 2025, following a request led by Senator Warren, the Department of Education’s Acting Inspector General agreed to open an investigation into the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.

• On April 2, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Mazie Hirono, along with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, sent a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon regarding the Department of Government Efficiency’s proposed plan to replace the Department of Education’s federal student aid call centers with generative artificial intelligence chatbots.

• On April 2, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren launched the Save Our Schools campaign to fight back against the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education (ED) and highlight the consequences for every student and public school in America.

• On March 27, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led a letter to Acting Department of Education Inspector General (IG) René Rocque requesting that the IG conduct an investigation of the Trump Administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.

• On March 20, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders led a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon regarding the Trump Administration’s decision to slash the capacity of Federal Student Aid to handle student aid complaints.

• On February 24, 2025, in a response to Senator Warren, Secretary McMahon gave her first public admission that she “wholeheartedly” agreed with Trump’s plans to abolish the Department of Education.

• On February 11, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Andy Kim sent Linda McMahon, Secretary-Designate for the U.S. Department of Education, a 12-page letter with 65 questions on McMahon's policy views in advance of her nomination hearing.

###

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