Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Joyce Carol Oates

Andrés Seoane (El Mundo) reports on Joyce Carol Oates:

 
Following her successful 'Butcher', book of the year for La Lectura, the American writer continues to unsettle readers with 'Mr. Fox', a detective novel starring a pedophile who uses his charm to manipulate everyone. "I don't know if it's always good to know the truth".

"There was never a time when I was not in love with Mr. Fox. There was never a time when Mr. Fox was not my life." These words are written by Eunice, 13 years old, one of the girls abused by the seductive and perverse Francis Harlan Fox, a charismatic and charming professor who is at the same time a predatory pedophile who uses his position to access his victims, his "little kittens", as he refers to them.
"I wanted to write about an academic community that allows a predator to act with total impunity, without necessarily wanting to know, a kind of denial. Something that I feel is typical of current life. We have politicians in high positions whom the community allows to remain in power, even when it is known that they may be evil or dishonest," explains to La Lectura, smiling and serene through the screen, the writer Joyce Carol Oates (Lockport, New York, 1938), a prolific master of exploring those dark corners of society where we avoid looking or our blindness prevents us from seeing.

Fragile, almost transparent, she lights up when talking about morality, fear, and violence. "The issue of child abuse and exploitation is very relevant in the United States due to the infamous Epstein case and others similar. I wanted to write about a predator and how he manages to get away with it," insists the author who, for the first time in her nearly 60 novels - in addition to other 80 works of essays, theater, poetry, stories, etc. - includes a detective plot. "The idea came to me while hiking in a swamp near my house. I often walk and see American vultures in the sky, very beautiful, flying in circles with a kind of laziness. I thought: What if I followed their trail and found a person's corpse?."

Joyce Carol Oates.  I like her.  I don't love her.  I love Margaret Atwood who pulls in a lot of science elements into her books and Octavia Spencer who was the best sci-fi writer ever.  I wish I liked Joyce more.  I've enjoyed some of her writing.  But her book on Marilyn Monroe?  When it was turned into that trashy movie, that piece of filth that treat Marilyn like filth?  And instead of calling it out she was praising it?  That's when I really don't like Joyce Carol Oates. 

Books.  I love them.  I feel like I let the community down.  We'd had a steady stream of book reviews for a few years now.  I really argued for it to continue last year and then again this year.  And this year it died.

Ava and C.I. have enough to do without discussing each book with us for a piece at Third.  And worse?  They were catching flack from some of their friends over some of the books.  Because we'd be reading something about one of their friends -- usually C.I.'s friends.  

And I didn't think about that.  I started this site in 2008 and C.I. did nothing but give me support.  There were times I wrote stuff here that I know she disagreed with and she would still defend and support me when people complained.

And they had 3 books to cover when they stopped.  One -- I didn't do any of those last three reviews -- had the reviewer defending a friend of C.I.'s on a topic the friend just wanted to go away.  Another had a friend of C.I.s being defended but didn't want it raised because she was trying to live down the previous set of attacks when the movie in question came out.  She was savaged by the press and it was unfair but going through that was only going to hurt her.  I don't remember on the third book in question.  And that really became a grind because C.I. was getting so many complaints from friends.  

And they were tired as everyone else.  So doing this book chat every week was taxing on them. 

I'll try to figure out what we can do -- for those who want to -- in 2026.  


Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Monday, December 15, 2025.  Who's running the Justice Dept?  I think you mean: Who's ruining it?




Ben Meiselas: Donald Trump's FBI screwed up again.  They brought the wrong person into custody following the mass shooting at Brown University.  The FBI turned over surveillance and identified who they claimed was the person of interest in the shooting at Brown and again it was the wrong person.  Ka$h Patel keeps on screwing this up over and over again.  They had to release the person who was in custody.  This is not something that normally happens but this happens all the time under the incompetent Trump regime.  


For more on the Brown University shooting you can refer to this live update page at THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL. 




Senate Democrats appear likely to deal yet another blow to Lindsey Halligan, President Donald Trump’s embattled pick to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

A federal judge has already ruled that Trump illegally appointed Halligan—a former beauty contestant and insurance lawyer with no prior prosecutorial experience—as interim U.S. attorney and threw out her cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James.
A federal judge has already ruled that Trump illegally appointed Halligan—a former beauty contestant and insurance lawyer with no prior prosecutorial experience—as interim U.S. attorney and threw out her cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James.


The Justice Dept sure has a lot of problems these days.  Ka$h is part of it, Lindsey's part of it.  And Pam da Bimbo Bondi heads it.  


 Discrimination doesn’t have to be intentional to cause harm.

That’s the principle the federal government has long used to investigate and remedy disparities based on race, color or national origin in education and other programs receiving federal funds. But no longer, according to a new rule Attorney General Pam Bondi posted last week.

The regulation does not “sufficiently serve the public interest” and violates President Trump’s executive order about promoting meritocracy, she wrote. The law, she said, “promises that people are treated as individuals, not components of a particular race or group.”

The provision stems from Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in education, housing, health care and transportation. Historically, federal agencies used the law to warn districts that they could lose federal funds if they didn’t comply with orders to desegregate schools. Under the Department of Justice rule, officials could use data to determine whether discrimination exists.

In a 2014 case, for example, an investigation in New Hampshire showed that under the Manchester district’s policy for assigning students to Advanced Placement and honors courses, Black students were enrolled in those classes at far lower rates.

While Title VI applies to multiple programs and activities, from access to advanced classes to enrollment procedures, school discipline has been at the forefront of the debate over using data to prove discrimination exists. Federal data consistently shows that Black students are disciplined at higher rates than their peers, disparities that districts have been under pressure to address.

Bondi’s move to rescind the 50-year-old rule means that the government will no longer hold schools responsible for any neutral policies or behavior that, according to data, negatively affect students of a certain race or nationality. The action, without offering any opportunity for public comment, aligns with the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from the nation’s schools. Fear of a federal investigation, conservatives argue, can interfere with districts’ ability to manage their schools.

Others argue rescinding the rule decreases the chances all students will receive an equal education.

Pam doesn't see herself as serving the American people, she is put in plce to protect Donald Chump and We The People be damned.  

As we were noting on Friday, Attorney General Pam da Bimbo Bondi keeps attacking the judiciary and pretending she's done everything by the books when, in fact, she hasn't.  Judicial review happens in every administration; however, if Pam feels it's happening more for her, maybe she could stop breaking the laws and stop lying?  Eric Tucker (AP) reports:

The Justice Department violated the constitutional rights of a close friend of James Comey and must return to him computer files that prosecutors had hoped to use for a potential criminal case against the former FBI director, a federal judge said Friday.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly represents not only a stern rebuke of the conduct of Justice Department prosecutors but also imposes a dramatic hurdle to government efforts to seek a new indictment against Comey after an initial one was dismissed last month.


Pam's department "violated the Constitutional rights" of a US citizen.  And Pam feels persecuted?  The Constitution is the highest law of the land.  Pam took an oath to uphold the Constitution and yet, not even one full year in as AG, she's violated the Constitution.  She's lawless and she's ignorant and she's a huge fake ass. 

And all she does is lie.  Under her, the Justice Dept lies non-stop.  Emily Prescott (THE KANSAS CITY STAR)  notes:

NYU law professor Ryan Goodman claimed to have found dozens of rulings where judges claimed the DOJ provided false information. Goodman said, “We found over 35 cases in which the judges have specifically said what the government is providing is false information.” Goodman added, “It might be intentionally false information, including false sworn declarations time and again.”


That kind of record?  We've talked about it before.  When you get that kind of record, the courts should take every claim you make with a grain of salt.  The burden of proof in any case should be even more on you because of the fact that you have knowingly and repeatedly lied to the court.  It's the sort of thing that Pam could lose her license over and should.  

She doesn't stand for America and she doesn't stand for democracy.  She's a disgusting whore who violates her oath to serve Convicted Felon Donald Chump and not the American people.  SOUTH PARK rightly portrays her as such a brown noser to Chump that she has s**t on her nose.  


Warnings are being made but I don't know that people are paying attention.  Thomas E. Brzozowski (LAWFARE) reports:


The Dec. 4 Bondi memo—leaked earlier this month—is confusing when you first read it.

On the surface it looks familiar: another directive on “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” sprinkled with the right statutory citations and the usual disclaimers about respecting First Amendment rights. But taken together with Trump’s executive order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), and a string of European “Antifa cell” designations, the memo does something more serious. It quietly turns domestic terrorism authorities into a standing program for targeting one broad ideological camp while the administration’s own National Security Strategy claims, almost in the same breath, to reject “ideological monitoring” and “pretextual” uses of power.

That contradiction has real consequences. It signals that the formal rules that grew out of the Church Committee era—the rules that resulted in things such as the Privacy Act, the Attorney General’s Guidelines, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) —are now being hollowed out from within.

For 10 years, I served as counsel for Domestic Terrorism in the National Security Division. Before that, I worked in the FBI’s Office of General Counsel and as an Army judge advocate. My work was to help the government stop genuine threats without slipping into domestic intelligence work that treats belief itself as the problem.

I left when I could no longer tell myself that line still held.

Domestic terrorism investigations and prosecutions are inherently fraught. The line between protected speech and association as well as true threats and acts of violence is vanishingly thin, so every step carries real civil liberties risks. The system functioned, roughly, because the government had rails to run on: the Attorney General’s Guidelines, the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, FISA, the Privacy Act, and lessons taken from the Church Committee. Those guardrails stood for a simple proposition: investigate and prosecute conduct tied to crime or violence, not ideas and beliefs.

The Bondi memo takes that settlement and bends it.

Use the link and read on to really be disgusted by da Bimbo Bondi. You can also refer to the US Communist Party's REVOLUTION article:

On December 4, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued an extremely dangerous memo to federal law enforcement agencies. The memo's subject is "Implementing National Security Presidential Memorandum-7: Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence." 

If you have been wondering when “the outlawing and crushing of dissent” part of fascism comes fully into force, read this memo. And if you want to do something—urgently—to prepare to fight against that and prevent it? Then not only read the memo, but read this article and get it out to others.

A major U.S. law firm, Arnold & Porter, described this memo from Bondi as "one of the most consequential internal directives in recent years—an aggressive operational blueprint directing federal law enforcement agencies to implement [Trump’s] National Security Presidential Memorandum-7..." This Justice Department memo "reshapes how domestic terrorism will be defined, investigated, charged, and resourced across the federal government.”

“The key message is unmistakable: federal law enforcement will target individuals, organizations, and funders whom the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) contends are ‘domestic terrorists,’ under a definition that links political violence to ‘anti-fascist’ ideologies.” (Boldface in original; italics added.)


Bondi is an embarrassment but she is so much more than that.  She's actively defying the Constitution.  She is rejecting the oath she took to uphold it and she's trying to destroy it.  This is not a one time thing, this is something she pursues on a daily basis.  David Kurts (TPM) notes:


In two of the high-profile cases where Bondi tried to sidestep the judges and lost, she continues to try to come up with workarounds to control the appointments herself, rather than ceding the power to the district judges.

In New Jersey — even after the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in the Giraud case that Alina Habba was not validly appointed as U.S. attorney and she resigned this week — Bondi took the unusual step of appointing a troika of attorneys on Monday to run the U.S. attorney’s office.

In a Dec. 8 memo approved by the Office of Legal Counsel, Henry C. Whitaker, who serves as counselor to the attorney general, wrote that the appointment of three lawyers who hold titles as special attorney, special counsel, and executive assistant U.S. attorney would be in compliance with the Constitution’s Appointment Clause: “This proposed order would divide the responsibilities of the United States Attorney among three officials so that the district may have continuity of leadership while the Department considers next steps in the Giraud litigation.”

On one level, you can understand why the administration would not want to cede appointment power to judges before it has decided whether to appeal the Third Circuit’s decision on Habba. Once it gives up that power and an interim U.S. attorney is appointed by the judges, the administration can’t get it back. But when you step back a bit, the pattern of refusing to yield to the statutory scheme that gives federal judges a role in naming interims after 120 days becomes more clear.

In the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan’s name continues to appear on government legal filings as interim U.S. attorney despite a court ruling that she was invalidly appointed. Federal judges in the district have called her out in recent days, and one judge went as far as saying Halligan should resign like Habba did. “That’s the proper position, in my view,” U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said during a hearing Tuesday. 

Another federal judge outside Halligan’s district drew attention to Halligan’s zombie status in an order yesterday. In a case related to the Trump administration’s dismissed prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of D.C. noted that Halligan’s improperly filed notice of appearance didn’t include her name but that of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche:

Pam is, of course, up to her elbows in the Epstein scandal. so let's turn to developments there. 





The most unwilling sorority in the country met three months ago on the rooftop of a law firm, just a block away from the White House’s campus. Survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell mingled under the September dusk. Some were meeting each other for the first time. They had ostensibly gathered to make posters for the next day’s rally at the Capitol, but something more meaningful unfolded. Slowly, and without many words, the survivors came to understand their shared trauma and see around them a support network they didn’t know they needed. The realization seemed to harden their resolve, and jelled into one of the most efficient political movements to hit Washington in decades.

“These victims have spoken. They've been very clear about who has caused them harm, and we need to believe these women,” says Lauren Hersh, who founded World Without Exploitation to combat human trafficking and sexual exploitation in 2016. She was the organizer of the gathering, where she served as poster-board distributor and marker replacer. She is also one of the strategists whose efforts on behalf of the women on that roof and those like them helped upended the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.

In short order, these women helped force the hand of Congress, Trump, and all Americans to move toward disclosing the sins of Epstein and Maxwell—and possibly others in power. By Dec. 19, the Department of Justice must, by a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump, disclose what it knows about the sex trafficking operations that sprawled across years and states. Three times this month, judges have sided with those who have asked to see previously secret grand jury records, in part opened because of the Trump-backed measure. And on Thursday, Senate Democrats wrote to Justice’s internal watchdog asking for an independent check to make sure everything is handled properly. 


Friday night on MS NOW's THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE, Alex Wagner selected the late  Virginia Giuffre as her MVP for 2025:


Virginia Giuffre.  If you think of one person sort of single handedly  through the bravery of telling her own story and and, posthumously, though the release of her book, has held the highest -- people at the  echelons of power accountable,  has renewed the debate around accountability has centered -- has re-centered victims and has been, I think, the beginning of the crack in the MAGA façade, it's her.  And she withstood abuse, violence, predation, like everything you could possibly withstand in a  life --  and took her own life earlier this year.  And I do think that if there is anyone who owns the year and should own the year, it's her.

 

 

Friday, the House Oversight Committee released photos.  The Democratic Party wing of the Committee issued this press release:

Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released the following statement after the Oversight Committee received new photos from the Epstein estate. This latest production contains over 95,000 photos, including images of the wealthy and powerful men who spent time with Jeffrey Epstein. Images also include thousands of photographs of women and Epstein properties. Oversight Democrats are reviewing the full set of photos and will continue to release photos to the public in the days and weeks ahead. Committee Democrats are committed to protecting the identities of the survivors. 19 photos can be accessed here.

“It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia. “These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW.”

###


Even with all released on Friday, Democrats withheld some items.  David Gilmour (MEDIAITE) explains what happened Friday on CNN:


CNN host Kasie Hunt was left unnerved after pressing Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) for details on the “disturbing” and “sexually explicit” nature of images from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate seen by House Democrats that they chose not to include in Friday’s release.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Friday released two batches of photographs, offering a new glimpse into the convicted sex offender’s social orbit. The images show Epstein alongside a range of powerful figures, including former President Bill Clinton, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and billionaires Bill Gates and Richard Branson.

President Donald Trump appeared in several of the photos, one of which includes Epstein. Another shows Trump standing with a woman whose face has been redacted, while a third depicts him with six women, all similarly obscured.




The release awaits curating by the media.  Anna Kaufman (USA TODAY) notes one early standout:


Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's ties to Jeffrey Epstein were resurfaced Friday, when House Democrats released a trove of photos from the late sex offender's estate.
"These disturbing images raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world," the Democrats wrote in a post to X announcing the cache of images. Their move comes amid a battle with the White House over the release of the so-called "Epstein Files" – documents from the once-powerful financial adviser's estate connected to his years long abuse of young women.


At THE INTELLIGENCER, Elie Honig writes of ow Attorney General Pam da Bimbo Bondi changing positions -- she insisted she had the ist on her desk (list of Epstein clients) and would be releasing it, she didn't (but she informed Chump he was featured in the files much more than they expected), around the July 4th holiday she insisted there was nothing to release, a handful oof Republicans and all House Democrats stood up to Chump and passed a law forcing the release of the documents, Pam announced they were investigating various Democrats, now Pam and Chump claim they want the documents released:

 
When asked to explain her reversal, Bondi stammered, “Information. That has come, uh, information. Umm. There’s information that, new information, additional information.” (This, folks, is the nation’s top prosecutor.)

So now that the DoJ apparently has opened some new criminal investigation into somebody or something, it will have the power under the new law to withhold any Epstein-related documents that might touch on those probes. Yet we don’t know exactly who is under investigation or how broadly those inquiries might span. Anyone outside the DoJ therefore will be essentially blind. We won’t know what we won’t know, and we’ll all just have to take Bondi’s word for it.

But surely the Justice Department — this Justice Department — isn’t investigating Trump himself. So any documents about his relationship with Epstein wouldn’t be covered by the criminal-investigations clause. And that brings us to the second exception: The law permits the Justice Department to withhold or redact any information that could compromise “national defense or foreign policy” or “the national security of the United States.”

Well, one might reasonably wonder, how could information about Trump and Epstein going club-hopping and female-ogling in the 1990s possibly put the country’s safety at risk? The answer, again, lies with Bondi alone. Couldn’t our servile attorney general conclude that any materials that might embarrass the president — our commander-in-chief and chief foreign diplomat — could harm his standing with other nations, thereby undermining our foreign policy?

Roll your eyes if you will — I’m with you — but that decision, again, will be Bondi’s alone. And, again, neither you nor I, and neither Congress nor the victims and anyone else in any position to object, will know what documents Bondi has chosen to withhold and why. All she needs is a hook, and the new law provides her with enough of those to do essentially whatever she wants.

We’ll see the Epstein files, or some portion of them, next week. We can reasonably expect to learn new details about Epstein’s criminal ring and about bad conduct by prominent men. But the new law, by its broad exemptions, ensures that we won’t get the most important answers — especially when Pam Bondi is the one who gets to decide.


Epstein is dead.  His criminal co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell remains behind bars -- Chump's transferred the vile woman to a cushy Club Fed prison.  RAW STORY's Matthew Chapman reports:


Disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's longtime accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell has gotten a sweetheart upgrade in prison in return for an interview with the Justice Department in which she distanced President Donald Trump from Epstein's crimes. But living it up in a luxury Texas prison camp likely isn't enough for her, Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown told MS NOW's Ali Velshi on Friday — she wants an outright pardon.
And she may have a strategy in the works to try to force Trump's hand on the issue, she continued.

"Julie, let's talk about Ghislaine Maxwell, because there's a lot of headlines about her," said Velshi. "There's a lot of machination on her part to get commutation of her sentence. Nobody in the administration has said that's a nonstarter. But this is a convicted sex offender who already, as a result of a very unorthodox interview with the deputy attorney general, seems to have been getting preferential treatment."

"What's your sense of what Ghislaine Maxwell's role in this current set of developments can be?" Velshi asked.

"Well, I think that she's aiming for a pardon," agreed Brown. "I think that she has — I think she knows a lot of information. She obviously knows who was involved with Epstein, who helped Epstein. She really can provide a key for exactly how it operated. But of course, during her trial and even after, she's claimed she didn't know anything, she had no information."



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


NEW FROM JEC: Declining Canadian Tourism is Harming American Businesses in States Along the United States-Canada Border

ICYMI THIS WEEK: Senator Murray Grills Trump’s Trade Representative Over Administration’s Reckless Tariffs Driving Up Prices, Devastating Small Businesses

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, released the following statement in response to a new report from the U.S Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC) which found that Trump’s tariffs on Canada and trade war provocations with our neighbor and close ally have led to a steep drop in Canadian tourism that is harming American businesses in Washington state and other states along the United States-Canada border.

The JEC report found that every state along the United States-Canada border is facing declines in tourism and rising economic pressures. Many states along the border, like Washington state, are home to hundreds of businesses that rely on Canadian tourism to survive. Canadian tourism contributed $20.5 billion to the U.S. economy and supported 140,000 jobs in 2024. In 2025, between January and October, the number of passenger vehicles crossing the United States-Canada border declined by nearly 20 percent compared to 2024. In Washington state, passenger vehicle border crossings were down more than 24 percent for that time period.

“While Trump hikes up tariffs via tweet and threatens to annex our close allies—businesses and communities in the United States are the ones who suffer. It’s both stupid and wrong. In Washington state, so many small businesses along the border rely on Canadian tourism and trade to survive—but Trump’s attacks on Canada have pushed our neighbors away and forced business and tourism to plummet.

“I’ve heard firsthand this year how many small businesses in our state are being forced to raise prices or close their doors altogether. This isn’t just bad economic policy, it is real American families’ livelihoods being hurt, lost revenue for local businesses, less hotel demand, fewer visitors at events, lost jobs, and fewer dollars being invested into our Northern border communities. Trump doesn’t know the first thing about trade, and businesses and consumers in Washington state are being forced to pay the price. Here’s what people need to understand: we could end this pointless trade war with Canada tomorrow if Republicans would stop blocking a simple vote to reverse Trump’s tariffs and reclaim Congress’ power over trade. Republicans need to stop bending the knee to Trump and start listening to their own constituents who are begging them to put an end to these tariffs.”

In Washington state, the JEC report found:

  • Estimates have found Seattle will see an almost 27 percent decrease in international overnight stays in 2025 compared to 2024, almost exclusively driven by the loss of Canadian tourists.
  • Spokane saw 33 percent fewer visitors in March 2025 than in March 2024.
  • Ridership on the Clipper between Victoria and Seattle is down 30 percent this year, causing Clipper Navigation to have to lay off a quarter of its workforce.
  • Over 30 businesses in Bellingham reported losses due to a decline in cross-border travel.
  • The Bellingham Chamber of Commerce has found the city has seen a drop in visits, overnight stays, and spending by Canadian travelers—a downturn which has been devastating for many businesses.

Kevin Coleman, Executive Director of SeaFeast in Whatcom County, told JEC that the area has seen a drastic decline in Canadian traffic: “Since March of this year, we have not only seen Canadian traffic drop drastically, but we have also seen a drop in our number of attendees at our festival this year in late September. We knew that after March, we could not rely on our Canadian business because of fear at the border and lack of understanding of what is happening with tariffs and Canada drawing a strong line of promoting Canada first.”

A nonpartisan analysis by the Washington State Office of Financial Management found that if the current Trump tariffs stay in effect for the next four years, they will cost Washington state up to 25,000 jobs—and if Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs are fully implemented, they would cost Washington state $2.2 billion and 31,900 jobs over the next four years and significantly drive up the cost of food, clothing, cars, and much more.

Washington state has one of the most trade-dependent economies of any state in the country, with 40 percent of jobs in the state tied to international commerce. In 2024, Washington exported $57.8 billion of goods to the world, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), making Washington state the 9th-largest state exporter of goods last year. Washington state is also the top U.S. producer of apples, blueberries, hops, pears, spearmint oil, and sweet cherries—all of which risk losing vital export markets due to retaliatory tariffs from key trading partners, including Canada.

Senator Murray has been vocal in responding to Trump’s trade war, holding events in every part of Washington state, and hammering the Trump administration for driving up the cost of just about everything through their chaotic and thoughtless trade policies. When Trump first announced new tariffs, Senator Murray brought together leaders across Washington state to discuss how Trump’s trade war threatens Washington state’s economy, and spoke out on the Senate floor against Trump’s chaotic trade war, calling on Republicans in Congress to join Democrats in reasserting Congress’s power over trade. She has held several events across Washington state to hear directly from constituents and small business owners about how Trump’s tariffs are harming them—including in Tacoma, Yakima, Vancouver, Seattle, Skagit County, and Blaine, just across the border from Canada. On August 1st, as Trump hiked “reciprocal” tariffs on some of our closest trading partners, Senator Murray held another virtual press conference with Washington state businesses to sound the alarm. She held another roundtable with small business owners in Vancouver in September, and slammed Trump for the new port fees that had been hitting ships at West Coast Ports as a result of Trump’s trade war with China. Last month, Senator Murray released a statement criticizing Trump’s tariffs and calling on Republicans to step up to put an end to them after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the legality of Trump’s disastrous tariffs.

Earlier this week at a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing, Senator Murray grilled U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on how President Trump’s trade war with Canada is hurting Washington state businesses and consumers—VIDEO HERE.

###

 

The following sites updated:


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Thursday, December 11, 2025

Chump loses again

Not sure how much you might remember about when Chump insulted Governor Tim Walz.  Chump used the r-word.  It was an offensive remark.  And it immediately unleashed hell on Chump because he wanted Indiana to redistrict before the mid-terms next year.  One of the state representatives has a child who is challenged.  And he did not appreciate Chump's use of the r-word or his mocking of people with challenges.  He publicly stated that it was wrong and that Chump had lost his support -- the state rep was a Republican -- in the redistricting push. 

He might have gotten the support among Indiana law makers if he had apologized for what he said but Chump never does that.  

So this morning, Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling (The New Republic) reported:


 Donald Trump’s big mouth could cost him more Republican votes in Indiana as he pushes the Hoosier State to redistrict.

Anxious about the 2026 midterms, Trump issued directives to several red states, including Indiana, to redraw their congressional maps in order to bolster Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House. In Indiana’s case, that unprecedented, longshot effort would win just two more seats in the U.S. House.

On Thursday, hours before the state Senate is set to vote, Trump issued another nasty missive, attacking more local leaders while threatening to back primary opponents for anyone who votes against his plan. This time, the ire of Trump’s focus was Senate President Pro Tem Rod Bray, who has formed a coalition of allies averse to the measure that very soon could see its death knell.

“Every other State has done Redistricting, willingly, openly, and easily. There was never a question in their mind that contributing to a WIN in the Midterms for the Republicans was a great thing to do for our Party, and for America itself,” Trump wrote in a lengthy Truth Social rant Wednesday night. “Unfortunately, Indiana Senate ‘Leader’ Rod Bray enjoys being the only person in the United States of America who is against Republicans picking up extra seats, in Indiana’s case, two of them.” 


And what happened later today?  

 

 

As MeidasTouch News explains in the video above, Indiana held their vote and . . .  No redistricting!  Chump lost.


Like he always does.


Because he's a loser. 


Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Thursday, December 11, 2025.  Chump continues to be at war with everything -- including the truth -- is Kristi Noem about to be fired or will she continue to oversee terrorizing the nation? 


This morning, Ben's covering a lot at MEIDASTOUCH NEWS -- including censorship at Head Start where Chump's created six pages of 'banned' words -- including such 'offensive' words as "race" and "women."


Chump is destroying the country and has focused on attempting to divide it.  But Kinsey Crowley (USA TODAY) explains how Chump's unpopularity might be the only thing binding the nation together at this point:


Trump has a net positive approval rating in 22 states, according to Morning Consult, which gathers polls over the course of three months to get a look at state-level data among registered voters. The Dec. 5 update has two fewer above-water states compared to the previous month's update.
Ohio and Iowa, which were considered Republican strongholds in the 2024 election, were the two states where Trump lost his standing with voters, according to Morning Consult. The pollster also found Trump's disapproval grew to second-term highs in these 2024 swing states: Arizona (51%), Georgia (50%), Michigan and North Carolina (52% each) and Wisconsin (54%). His approval rating is negative in all the swing states.

In Pennsylvania, 47% approve of Trump's job performance and 50% disapprove. In Florida, 50% approve of Trump's job performance, compared to 46% who disapprove. 


It's doubtful anyone caught Tuesay night's speech and thought, "Oh, honey, I'm in love with that grotesquely fat man!"  Sophia Tesfaye (SALON) observes:

Donald Trump’s midterm reboot was supposed to be the triumphant return of a political heavyweight. After Democrats saw impressive gains in off-year elections across the country in November, White House advisers promised the president would return to the campaign trail to storm the 2026 midterms with the same “fire and dominance” he claimed to wield in 2024 — infamous weave and all. But if his Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, rally is any preview of what the GOP should expect, Trump’s promise should be read as a threat. Far from a comeback, his return rally was a flop.
Trump’s team clearly hoped the blue-collar community in one of the country’s most important swing states would give him a friendly launchpad. While I expected a crowd of a few thousand with the nostalgic sound of MAGA chants echoing off metal bleachers, I tuned into Fox News Tuesday evening to find the president in a conference center ballroom inside a local casino that appeared to hold, generously, 200 people. And even that small crowd seemed hesitant, almost resigned, as Trump ranted for nearly an hour. Fox News, of course, dutifully avoided any wide shots. But the truth was clear on screen: The MAGA magic had vanished.

Trump marched onstage insisting he was ready to make America “affordable again,” a line crafted to evoke Reagan-era economic populism that instead conjured Jimmy Carter calling for personal austerity. Trump declared he had “no higher priority” before launching into his usual misdirection by blaming the rising cost of living on his predecessor, Joe Biden. 
Even a local waitress brought on stage to support Trump lamented that her paychecks no longer stretch far enough. “Pretty much everything I make goes towards paying the bills,” she said. In response, Trump offered advice in the style of Marie Antoinette.  

“Americans must learn to adjust to a lower standard of living,” he told the crowd before suggesting a specific solution to prices hiked by his tariffs, which he continues to insist are a success. “You can give up certain products. You can give up pencils…You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice.”

Chump is so out of touch, he honestly believes that is an answer.  He and insulated and isolated administration, think that is an answer failing to grasp that most Americans have been buying cheaper for months now.  There comes a time when, for many Americans, 'tighten your belt!' no longer works because there is nothing left to tighten.  Sarah K. Burris notes this trend:

Amid the president's messaging melee, Politico reported Wednesday that their recent poll conducted in November "paint(s) a grim portrait of spending constraints: More than a quarter, 27 percent, said they have skipped a medical check-up because of costs within the last two years, and 23 percent said they have skipped a prescription dose for the same reason."

The numbers show that more than one-third of people (37 percent) are starting to make cuts in their spending on recreation. Nearly half (46 percent) say that they couldn't pay for a vacation if it involved air travel.

And that is where Chump has taken the country.  Our economy is in the tank and he lies to people about that reality and he lies to the country about that reality.   NPR's Joe Hernandez  notes:

Now it's President Trump who's trying to persuade the public that the state of the economy is sound, after prices rose 3% in the 12 months ending in September and with consumers spending less on big-ticket items.

Betsey Stevenson, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, says making that argument could be a tall order in the face of rising costs for a number of goods and services.

"My personal takeaway from the experience we had [in 2024] was that you can't tell people that prices aren't up when they're up," she said.

While the prices of some items such as gasoline have fallen on Trump's watch, the overall cost of living has continued to climb. For example, grocery costs are up 2.7% for the year ending in September and electricity costs have jumped more than 5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"Trump's claims about inflation are false," Stevenson said, "and you can go to the grocery store and see it yourself."

But, in a wide-ranging speech to supporters on Tuesday, Trump both defended his administration's track record on the economy and said that talk of affordability was overblown. Trump told the crowd in Mount Pocono, Pa., that he believed the term "affordability" was a "hoax" perpetrated by Democrats. Trump's recent assertions dismissing inflation are not backed by official government economic data.


He continues to lie but people can see with their own eyes that prices are rising.  That's why he's uable to trick them the way he's tricked people on so many things over the years.  Not this time. Linley Sanders and Will Weissert (AP) report::

President Donald Trump’s approval on the economy and immigration have fallen substantially since March, according to a new AP-NORC poll, the latest indication that two signature issues that got him elected barely a year ago could be turning into liabilities as his party begins to gear up for the 2026 midterms.

Only 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds. That is down from 40% in March and marks the lowest economic approval he’s registered in an AP-NORC poll in his first or second term. The Republican president also has struggled to recover from public blowback on other issues, such as his management of the federal government, and has not seen an approval bump even after congressional Democrats effectively capitulated to end a record-long government shutdown last month.

 
Instead of dealing with reality, he attacks reporters.  He attacks CNN.  He takes calls from people trying to see that their son gets control of CNN.  

 

 



That is so unethical but he doesn't care about ethics, he never has.  He's a stupid moron who only cares about himself.  



His dementia makes it difficult for him to grasp how the American people see him  David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports:


Democratic strategist James Carville suggested President Donald Trump was effectively "over" after he held a "politically dumb" rally-style event in Pennsylvania this week.

Carville pointed out that Trump was telling people the economy was "great" despite evidence to the contrary.
"It is not only a kind of insane message from somebody, I don't think, is honestly, I think anybody would say that Trump is particularly sane. It's a politically dumb message," he explained. "It's pretty amazing if you think about it. ... He's trying to argue that you're not feeling what you're feeling."

"He's not getting away with it," he continued. "He's done. We just got to butter this toast and slice it and eat it. ... It's over. You're a loser, dude! You're losing everywhere, and you're going to lose more because you, my friend, are a loser!"


Part of Chump's war on the United States is his war on immigrants which has expanded to targeting and torturing non-migrants as well.  Senator Alex Padilla's office issued the following:

Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, joined a bicameral spotlight forum to denounce the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) unlawful arrests of U.S. citizens. U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ranking Member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and U.S. Representative Robert Garcia (D-Calif.-42), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, convened the forum to receive testimony from five of these American citizens, including three Californians, whom DHS agents have violently arrested and detained.

DHS continues to lie about its treatment of American citizens. In October, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem falsely claimed, “[t]here’s no American citizens that have been arrested or detained,” and the account @DHSgov posted just last week, “ICE does NOT arrest or deport U.S. citizens.” On the contrary, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in California and across the country have repeatedly arrested and detained American citizens, including veterans, at times using violent physical force.

Padilla emphasized that the Trump Administration’s militarization of American cities, starting with Los Angeles, to conduct indiscriminate immigration enforcement was the test case for President Trump’s mass deportation campaign across the country. ICE and CBP agents have repeatedly violated due process rights and profiled individuals — including U.S. citizens — who they claim “look like” noncitizen enforcement targets.

Padilla asked all five U.S. citizens at the spotlight forum what they would say if President Trump, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, or other Trump Administration officials were in front of them. He heard emotional pleas from California witnesses to stop scapegoating immigrants and racially profiling American citizens. The witnesses included:

  • Javier Ramirez (California): Mr. Ramirez was violently assaulted by DHS agents and held for four days, where he was denied adequate treatment for diabetes, leading to severe complications.
  • George Retes (California): Mr. Retes is a U.S. Army veteran who was violently arrested and detained during a raid at his job site in Southern California and detained for three days, during which he was refused the ability to contact his family and missed his daughter’s birthday.
  • Andrea Velez (California): Ms. Velez was on her way to work in downtown Los Angeles when she got caught up in an immigration raid and was falsely charged with assaulting an officer, a charge that was later dropped. 
  • Wilmer Chavarria (Vermont): Mr. Chavarria, a school superintendent, was detained after returning to the United States from visiting family overseas, interrogated for hours, and even faced demands to search his personal and school district devices, which contained sensitive information about students and faculty.
  • Dayanne Figueroa (Illinois): Ms. Figueroa was sideswiped while driving to work and then violently pulled from her car by DHS agents who pointed guns at her; while detained for hours, she suffered internal trauma, having recently undergone two kidney surgeries weeks before the incident, as well as injuries to her wrists from being handcuffed.

Padilla also heard from Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, about how the Trump Administration’s diversion of resources to immigration enforcement makes all Americans less safe.

Key Excerpts:

  • PADILLA: If you had the Administration up here, if you had Donald Trump, if you had the Secretary of Homeland Security, if you had other officials from the Trump Administration up here, what would you tell them?
  • WILMER CHAVARRIA: I would say that we’ve seen this before. We see it right through you. We’ve seen leaders dehumanize entire communities, entire races, entire peoples. And we know why you dehumanize us. And I will say, we will come out of this, and we will come out of it stronger.
  • JAVIER RAMIREZ: They should be ashamed of themselves. I don’t want to raise my kids in an America where they have to be careful, you know, just by being their skin color.
  • PADILLA: Mr. Melnick, I know you come to this conversation from a different perspective given your role and expertise. Let me ask you a different question. … The argument from the Administration is that they’re going after the worst of the worst. We see in reality that that’s far from the case. The fear and intimidation they’ve stoked in so many communities across the country is clear in my mind. Has this mass deportation agenda made any community or country safer?
  • MELNICK: There’s no evidence that this is making us more safe. In fact, it’s the other way around. I testified in front of Congress on this issue before. By diverting resources away from child exploitation, by turning ICE Homeland Security Investigations into just one other arm of ICE’s enforcement and removal operations, they are making us less safe. They are taking counterterrorism operatives and telling them to go out on the street and arrest migrants. They’re taking people whose job it is to investigate pedophiles preying on children, and telling those officers to go round up dishwashers instead. And that doesn’t make us safer.

Video of Padilla’s remarks and questioning is available here.

Senator Padilla has been a leading voice in opposition to President Trump’s cruel and indiscriminate mass deportation agenda. He has denounced the Trump Administration’s stops, arrests, detentions, and deportations of U.S. citizens and pressed Secretary Noem on the wrongful targeting of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. In July, Padilla joined a Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee hearing to set the record straight on President Trump and Stephen Miller’s cruel mass deportation campaign, blasting the Administration for intentionally stoking fear and scapegoating immigrants. In September, Padilla joined 60 of his Senate and House colleagues in opening a new investigation into the Trump Administration’s arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen service members, veterans, and military families.

###


Senator Dick Durbin's office issued this video of an American citizen who was attacked by ICE -- starting with them intentionally crashing into her car.


 

Listen to her remarks and ask yourself how this is happening in the United States?  Ask yourself what kind of idiots are ruining this country right now, destroying democracy, attacking rule of law.


The Chump gestapo is controlled by him and wack job Krist Noem.  Laura Esposito (DAILY BEAST) notes:



White House officials are scrambling to do damage control amid growing reports that the president will soon purge some of his most problematic political appointees.

It’s widely believed that Trump, 79, is waiting until the one-year mark of his second term before reshuffling his already-embattled Cabinet—a strategy intended to avoid the revolving-door circus of his first term. Publicly, however, the White House is raging against any such suggestions.

“President Trump has assembled the most talented and capable Cabinet in American history,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Daily Beast on Monday. “These so-called reports are nothing but Fake News.”
This month, three of Trump’s most problematic political appointees have emerged as prime candidates for the chopping block: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Each has been at the center of their own mini-crisis, and each time the White House has slapped down rumors of their potential firings as mere media fabrication.



The image was grotesque.

In March, a camera-ready Kristi Noem posed in front of a group of shirtless, shaved, tattooed men crammed inside a metal holding cell in a foreign prison. The photo-op (and video message) was taken during the Homeland Security secretary’s tour of El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, where the Trump administration had sent more than 230 Venezuelan migrants on flimsy evidence. Noem’s performance at CECOT was a triumphant show of ruthlessness as well as a warning: If you’re an immigrant unlawfully present in the United States, you too could end up shipped off to another country and held in one of the world’s worst prisons—perhaps indefinitely.

The administration’s apparent satisfaction in arranging the CECOT ordeal has been emblematic of the second Trump term’s ever-increasing callousness toward immigrants and willingness to treat the constraints of the law as mere suggestions. Last month, Human Rights Watch and the watchdog organization Cristosal documented evidence that the Venezuelans removed to El Salvador endured “torture” and “enforced disappearance.” (As we reported after their release, and confirmed by the report, men said that following Noem’s visit, they received more beatings and had their food taken away by the prison guards.)

That image of Noem and the saga of the Venezuelans the US government exiled to a notorious gulag—without a semblance of due process—should be seared into America’s collective memory. But in the months since it happened, and as those men are made to live with the trauma inflicted on them, I’ve wondered whether it will.

Displays of inhumanity were a normalized phenomenon in 2025. A peril of having punitive theater as a central tenet of governance is that, eventually, the shock factor and public outrage risk wearing out. The horror may never fully register. When there’s a barrage of previously-unbelievably-unconscionably-legally dubious acts and brutal policies, how does one begin to wrap their head around each uniquely reprehensible episode, let alone a year’s worth of anti-immigration cruelty?


Those images are appalling.  It looks like the Abu Ghraib photos out of Iraq.  But there's Noem smiling and happy and oblivious to issues such as human rights and human dignity.











The Department of Homeland Security just paid nearly $140 million to be in charge of managing its own deportation flights. 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has signed a multimillion-dollar contract to purchase six Boeing 737 aircrafts from Daedalus Aviation Corporation, whose owners already have ties to massive DHS contracts, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement previously chartered planes to carry out deportations. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the Post that owning its own planes would allow ICE to “operate more effectively, including by using more efficient flight patterns.” 

Now the agency would be responsible for managing its own fleet of aircraft, flight crews, and all the logistics involved in transporting immigrant detainees around and out of the country. But John Sandweg, former acting ICE director, said that dealing with all of this might be more trouble than it’s worth.  

“It’s so much easier to issue a contract to a company that already manages a fleet of airplanes,” Sandweg told the Post. “So this move I’m surprised by because what the administration wants to accomplish, by and large, can be accomplished through charter flights already.”


But they've got big plans at Homeland.  The administration won't help Americans with regards to healthcare but they'll build up a new fleet of planes for depurations. 

And when they run out of all the money they've been given, Homeland Security just robs money from other departments.  This is from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

Pentagon’s requested budget for 2026 indicates the Defense Department plans to spend at least $5 billion more for southern border operations alone

Warren: “It’s an insult to our service members that Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem are using the defense budget as a slush fund for political stunts. Stripping military resources to promote a wasteful political agenda doesn’t make our military stronger or Americans safer.”

Cover Letter to the Pentagon (PDF) | Text of Report (PDF)

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative John Garamendi (D-Calif.) released a new report detailing the Trump administration’s diversion of funds and resources from the Department of Defense (DoD) to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for immigration enforcement, and its impact on readiness and morale.

Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), along with Representatives Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) and Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) co-authored the report.

Under a second Trump administration, the U.S. military has become heavily involved in immigration enforcement. Senator Warren’s new report, the first detailed review of the Pentagon’s spending on immigration, found that DoD has committed at least $2 billion to support immigration enforcement through mobilizing and deploying troops to American cities and the Southern border, deporting and transporting immigrants on military aircrafts, detaining individuals on U.S. military installations, and more.

“It’s an insult to our service members that Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem are using the defense budget as a slush fund for political stunts. Stripping military resources to promote a wasteful political agenda doesn’t make our military stronger or Americans safer,” said Senator Warren. “Congress needs to step in and hold the Trump Administration accountable for mishandling billions of taxpayer dollars.”

“When President Trump recklessly diverts our military to support immigration enforcement, our armed forces pay the price. As this report shows, these disruptions come at a significant cost, in both dollars and readiness,” said Representative Garamendi.

Despite an unprecedented $170 billion budget allocated to DHS, it’s unclear how much DoD has received in reimbursement for any of its spending on immigration enforcement. Meanwhile, the military is funding these efforts in support of DHS with money allocated for other DoD projects including updates to barracks, maintenance hangers, and military construction projects in the Pacific. Concerningly, the Pentagon has requested an additional $5 billion for further immigration support in its budget request for 2026.

“Diverting the military from its existing missions and thrusting it into immigration enforcement does not make Americans safer. This multi-billion-dollar political stunt is an overt waste of taxpayer resources and undermines national security, military readiness, and resources for our servicemembers,” said the members.

The members’ report found that, in 2025, the Pentagon has committed:

  • At least $1.3 billion for the deployment of troops and resources to the border;
  • At least $258 million to support Trump’s orders to deploy troops to Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and Memphis, along with plans to reassign 600 Judge Advocates (JAGs) as immigration judges;
  • At least $420.9 million for detaining immigrants at domestic military installations and overseas bases like Guantánamo and Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti; and
  • At least $40.3 million for military flights to deport and transport noncitizen detainees.

The report raised concerns that, in addition to the cost of the DoD immigration efforts, it has resulted in “servicemembers…being pulled from their homes, families, and civilian jobs for indefinite periods of time to support legally questionable political stunts,” wrote the members. The deployments also unnecessarily put our servicemembers in harm's way: in November, Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, was killed while her West Virginia National Guard unit was deployed to Washington, D.C, and Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe was critically injured.

The deployment of troops for immigration enforcement has also weakened the military’s ability to respond to emergencies. For example, the 101st Airborne Division — the U.S. Army’s only air assault division — deployed to the border instead of standing ready for national security missions. Additionally, leading into peak fire season, the California National Guard firefighting unit was “understaffed because roughly half its members (were) deployed to Los Angeles.” These deployments may also require units to miss key training exercises necessary to ensure combat readiness, as the Government Accountability Office found occurred during the first Trump administration.

The diversion of DoD funds is having a devastating effect on the military’s ability to improve services for troops and their families. Among the projects impacted by the prioritization of border operations is a $1 billion renovation of military barracks. Secretary Hegseth also diverted funding from elementary schools at Fort Knox and a U.S. military installation in Germany, an ambulatory care center and dental clinic to service Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington, a jet-training facility in Mississippi, and Marine barracks in Japan.

During the first Trump administration, the DoD stopped deploying troops to the border after determining the deployments were hurting military readiness and morale. The border mission appeared to contribute to alcohol and drug abuse among service members, and may have even contributed to a number of tragic suicides among Texas National Guardsmen. The members raised concerns about similar issues arising again, particularly given the lack of clarity around how long deployments will last.

The report also slammed the administration’s failure to adequately inform Congress and the public about the diversion of funds. “The Trump administration’s secrecy leaves many questions unanswered. The administration has failed to provide clarity on basic questions about DoD’s role in supporting DHS,” said the members.

The coalition directed follow-up questions to Secretary Hegseth about the number of troops currently supporting immigration enforcement, how long military units will be supporting DHS, and whether DHS will reimburse the military.

On Thursday, December 11, 2025, the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on deployment of the National Guard across the United States.

###

Time and again, this administration has been confronted with a test of decency and compassion and they have failed each and every times.


Heads need to roll over this.  Maybe they soon will?  Laura Esposito (DAILY BEAST) notes:

White House officials are scrambling to do damage control amid growing reports that the president will soon purge some of his most problematic political appointees.

It’s widely believed that Trump, 79, is waiting until the one-year mark of his second term before reshuffling his already-embattled Cabinet—a strategy intended to avoid the revolving-door circus of his first term. Publicly, however, the White House is raging against any such suggestions.

“President Trump has assembled the most talented and capable Cabinet in American history,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Daily Beast on Monday. “These so-called reports are nothing but Fake News.”
This month, three of Trump’s most problematic political appointees have emerged as prime candidates for the chopping block: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Each has been at the center of their own mini-crisis, and each time the White House has slapped down rumors of their potential firings as mere media fabrication.


Isabel van Brugen (THE DAILY BEAST) acknowledges the whispers that many heads are on Chump's chopping block:

Trump administration officials are quietly floating replacements for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as rumors about her alleged romance with her top adviser spiral out of control.

Publicly, the White House has brushed off speculation that Noem’s job is in jeopardy, while Noem nervously laughed off questions about whether President Donald Trump had weighed firing her over an alleged extramarital relationship with Corey Lewandowski, dubbed D.C.’s “worst-kept secret.”

With each passing hour, the possibility gets more difficult to ignore. Isabel van Brugen (DAILY BEAST) notes:

Trump administration officials are quietly floating replacements for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as rumors about her alleged romance with her top adviser spiral out of control.

Publicly, the White House has brushed off speculation that Noem’s job is in jeopardy, while Noem nervously laughed off questions about whether President Donald Trump had weighed firing her over an alleged extramarital relationship with Corey Lewandowski, dubbed D.C.’s “worst-kept secret.”
Privately, however, an administration official and two people close to the administration told Politico that names have already surfaced as possible successors, including Fox News contributor and former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz and term-limited Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who is set to leave office in January.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment.

One person close to the Trump administration said they had heard “from people that she’s about to leave” but that she likely wouldn’t be fired. She could leave gracefully for “another opportunity” and be able to brag about her success helming Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda, the source said.


Noem is but one crook in an administration filled with nothing but crooks.  David Shepardson (REUTERS) reports:


The top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee said on Wednesday that the head of the Federal Aviation Administration failed to divest his holdings in Republic Airways in violation of his ethics agreement.

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington said FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, who previously served as CEO of Republic Airways, had agreed to divest his holdings within 90 days of confirmation. At the time of his confirmation, Bedford reported holding stock in Republic worth between $6 million and $30 million.

"It appears you continue to retain significant equity in this conflicting asset months past the deadline set to fully divest from Republic, which constitutes a clear violation of your ethics agreement. This is unacceptable and demands a full accounting,” Cantwell said. The FAA said Bedford will respond directly to Cantwell.

Cantwell made public a December 8 letter from the Office of Government Ethics that said Bedford had not complied with the ethics agreement and had sought an amendment to extend the divestiture timeframe for the remaining conflicting asset, Republic Airways. The ethics office said the request did not meet the standard for granting an amendment.


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