Monday, August 11, 2025

Dementia Donald thinks Alaska is part of Russia

 David Badash reports on something I saw on a video:


During his nearly 90-minute Monday morning press conference declaring an “emergency” and announcing that he is federalizing the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police force despite crime being at a 30-year low, President Donald Trump appeared to confuse the U.S. state of Alaska with Russia—twice—leading critics to again express concerns.
“This is a tragic emergency,” Trump told reporters packed into the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. “And it’s embarrassing for me to be up here.”

“You know, I’m going to see Putin, I’m going to Russia on Friday,” Trump said, stressing “Putin” and “Russia.”

“I don’t like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once-beautiful capital was. With graffiti all over the walls,” he complained.

But the President’s remark about going to “Russia” was incorrect. The meeting on Friday with the Russian President is scheduled to be in Alaska, not Russia.
[. . .]

“Trump is going to Alaska on Friday, which the Kremlin has been demanding back recently. Maybe that’s the ‘territorial concession’ Trump keeps ranting about,” observed political commentator and Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky.

“He’s going to Russia? This doddering old man has no idea where he is or what he’s talking about,” snarked U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell.

“Looking forward to all the articles about Trump’s cognitive decline,” wrote the political commentary account Blue Georgia.

“Since there are so many reporters in the briefing room listening to Trump ramble and rant and gaffe and dissemble, I assume there are going to be tons of stories about how mentally compromised the United States President is,” remarked The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell.

Okay, this is the video where I saw the news above this afternoon while I was eating lunch.





Rebecca and I have never gone this long before doing our summer book review.  But we do have until Labor Day.  Don't worry, we're not pushing it that long.  We hope to do it at the end of this week.  I had honestly forgotten.  Rebecca asked me Sunday, "Didn't we pick a book?"  I think she's right that we did pick one but I can't remember what we picked.  So we'll plan to do it this weekend.  Fingers crossed. 


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


Monday, August 11, 2025.  PARAMOUNT tries to smear Colbert, Donald Chump goes to war on homeless people, though he scrapes his shoes repeatedly Epstein remains stuck to the bottom of them, his war on immigrants continues to see massive pushback, and much more.


Whores always reveal themselves.  They have to because they're whoring for a living so they have to advertise that they're open for business.  Erik Swann of CINEMA BLEND is nothing but a cheap whore.  Stephen Colbert is not losing support from "fellow stars."  That's a hit piece that PARAMOUNT spent last week shopping around and everyone said "pass."  Until it was offered to Erik Swann who moved in to grab it like the dirty whore he is. He knows it's not true and he knows who shopped it to him (I do as well).  

This an attempt to downgrade Colbert.  We've gone over this for years.  When a network wants to devalue a talent.  We charted the effort in depth when NBC tried to undermine Katie Couric's reputation enough so that CBS wouldn't want her.  Erick Swann sold out to be a corporate whore.

Colbert is actually stronger right now with "fellow stars" than he has ever been.

PARAMOUNT is bothered by the support he continues to have and they're also aware that the merger that's supposed to take place will means heads roll.  Mergers like this always leave positions redundant.  And when Colbert is gone from PARAMOUNT and the new suits are in charge, the question will be, "What the hell did you do?"  Because what's been done, the firing of Colbert, makes PARAMOUNT a much weaker property.  The merger/buy out should be stopped immediately.  PARAMOUNT is not the successful venture its been portrayed as.  Their assets are over valued and greatly misunderstood  

I am advising a friend who's part of Colbert's legal team so I am an not going to be discussing any of that here.  But this is something we've long covered, how when an outlet is losing talent and realize it's their mistake, they work to devalue the talent.  



US President Donald Trump has said homeless people must "move out" of Washington DC as he vowed to tackle crime in the city, but the mayor pushed back against the White House likening the American capital to Baghdad in Iraq.

The Republican president has also trailed a news conference for Monday about his plan to make the city "safer and more beautiful than it ever was before".

Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said: "We are not experiencing a crime spike."

Trump signed an order last month making it easier to arrest homeless people, and he last week ordered federal law enforcement into the streets of Washington DC.

"The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY," Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social on Sunday. "We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong."

Alongside photos of tents and rubbish, he added: "There will be no 'MR. NICE GUY.' We want our Capital BACK. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

The specifics of the president's plan are not yet clear, but in a 2022 speech he proposed moving homeless people to "high quality" tents on inexpensive land outside cities, while providing access to bathrooms and medical professionals.


Chump has lied that this is due to an increase in crime.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser says no spikes are taking place.


 


Chump is refusing to address homelessness in this country.  You can't make it illegal for someone to be homeless.  You have to provide living spaces and, no, tent cities are not living spaces.  When Tulsi Gabbard was still pretending to be a Democrat and to care about people, she made a big show about how tiny homes might be a serious housing answer and something that the government could focus on -- she even went on Joe Rogan's program to discuss this.

So grasp that even if Chump doesn't know better, members of his administration do.


Robert Mackey (GUARDIAN) notes Chump's announcement on social media about arresting the homeless:

The post was illustrated with four photographs, all apparently taken from the president’s motorcade along the route from the White House to his golf course. Two of the images showed a total of 10 tents pitched on the grass along a highway on-ramp just over a mile from the White House. The third image showed a single person sleeping on the steps of the American Institute of Pharmacy Building on Constitution Avenue. The fourth image showed the line of vehicles that whisk Trump to his golf course passing a small amount of roadside litter on the E Street Expressway, near the Kennedy Center.

Trump’s post promoted a previously announced news conference on Monday, which he has promised, “will, essentially, stop violent crime” in the capital district, without explaining how. In a subsequent post, he said that the news conference at 10am Monday, “will not only involve ending the Crime, Murder, and Death in our Nation’s Capital, but will also be about Cleanliness”.

The Free DC movement, which advocates for self-determination, immediately scheduled a protest on Monday to coincide with Trump’s news conference.

Despite Trump’s claims, there is no epidemic of homelessness or violent crime in the capital.

According to the Community Partnership, which works to prevent homelessness in Washington DC, on any given night there are about 800 unsheltered persons sleeping outdoors in the city of about 700,000 people. A further 3,275 people use emergency shelters in Washington, and 1,065 people are in transitional housing facilities.

Trump’s repeated claims that it might be necessary to federalize law enforcement in the city to make it safe also ignores data collected by the Metropolitan police department, released in January by the federal government, which showed that violent crime in Washington DC in 2024 was down 35%

“We are not experiencing a crime spike,” Washington DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, told MSNBC on Sunday. “We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low.” She added that Washington DC police statistics show that violent crime is down a further 26% so far this year.



Trump's use of his authority to deploy National Guard troops to D.C. now to deal with "crime and beautification" contradicts his claim that he was unable to deploy troops on January 6th while insurrectionists attacked the Capitol Building.

The announcement comes just days after a Trump executive order implementing a national treatment-first approach to homelessness, which essentially provides grant funds for municipalities to forcibly institutionalize unhoused individuals in mental health and alcohol and drug abuse treatment centers. 


In other news, this is week six of the Epstein news cycle.  Donald Chump remains unable to shake the story of his 15 year friendship with the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted pedophile.  

J..D. Wolf (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) reports:

On January 31, 2024 during his presidential campaign, Donald Trump posted a link on Truth Social to a video interview between Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly in which Carlson defended Trump’s legal troubles by invoking the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

“They protect Epstein until they have to murder him in his cell,” Carlson said, comparing the alleged cover-up around Epstein’s death to what he claimed was political persecution against Trump. “The charges against Trump are not real… It’s insane, and it’s all on public display.”

Just a reminder that Epstein died in prison on Trump’s watch. Trump offered no pushback — instead, he amplified the message as part of his 2024 campaign, once again using the lack of Epstein transparency to deflect attention from his own indictments.

Yet in 2025, Trump has done nothing to advance the transparency he once implied was missing. He refuses to call for the release of the FBI’s Epstein files, has attacked supporters demanding accountability, and has shifted focus to grand jury materials that are harder to access.

Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted accomplice, has been moved to a minimum-security prison to the shock of Epstein’s sex trafficking victims and their families.


The public past is not friendly to Chump.  Will Neal (DAILY BEAST) reports:


President Donald Trump’s shocking defense of a champion boxer who raped a teenage girl has resurfaced as the president faces intense scrutiny of his relationship with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

In a 1992 clip from Late Night with David Letterman being circulated online, the future president tells the show’s host that he doesn’t think Mike Tyson ought to have been sentenced to six years in jail for the rape of beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington, who was 18 years old at the time.

“It’s ridiculous,” Trump says, referencing the fact the crime took place late at night after Washington had been “dancing” for Tyson.

[. . .]

A second clip from Trump’s appearance the same year on The Charlie Rose Show features him questioning Washington’s account of the crime itself, saying she “was raped perhaps, perhaps not.”

Both videos have resurfaced at a time the president is facing public backlash over his administration’s handling of the Epstein files.


This story is not going away and Chump looks worse each day.  This is from a letter to the editors of THE SHEBOYGAN PRESS:


It is alarming that Trump’s former personal lawyer met with convicted sex trafficker (of minors) Ghislaine Maxwell while she is in prison. Why? This is not necessary. Just release all the files, immediately.

If we’re against corruption and want to drain the swamp, then that must include everyone, at all levels, left or right. This is about protecting children.

Sheboyganites don’t always agree on politics, but we strive to do our best, to tell the truth and do the right thing, even when it’s tough. Step up, call your representatives: U.S. senators Tammy Baldwin (202-224-5653) and Ron Johnson (202-224-5323), and U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman (202-225-2476), and tell them to release all the Epstein files. No exceptions. Let the chips fall where they may.

Ryan Holzem, Ph.D.


Maxwell.  The ugliest evidence against Chump.  He ignores the victims but sends a Deputy AG to meet with the convicted liar.   Anahita Dua (MSNBC) observes:


Indeed, amid the news of a prison transfer for Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and the latest developments over whether documents will be unsealed, the victims are still suffering all the same. While much of the focus lately has been on the prominent figures that may have taken part in the sex trafficking scheme, we must never forget to focus on the health of the victims. We must confront more than criminal wrongdoing; we must also reckon with the lifelong physical and psychological devastation wrought on the victims.

The stories of survivors and those trafficked by Epstein and his accomplices cannot be reduced to scandalous headlines or footnotes in celebrity exposés. Their experiences demand national reckoning and action to protect future children and bring justice to the victims.

One Jane Doe, speaking in court in 2019, testified that she and the other victims “will always carry irreparable damage and pain throughout our lives after this.”

Victims typically enter exploitation during critical stages of their physical, emotional and cognitive development. Many children are targeted simply because they are children: young, naive and vulnerable. Young girls who become victims of sex trafficking have been tricked or forced into sexual exploitation by acquaintances, employers or even family members. Epstein’s victims were coerced by wealthy and influential men and women. Staggering power imbalances make self-escape nearly impossible. In the case of Epstein’s victims, that is adult versus child, man versus girl, wealthy versus poor. 


At THE OC REGISTER, Rafael Perez writes:

Reportedly, some of these Trump officials have been resisting the idea of releasing the transcripts in favor of simply letting the story die on its own. The problem with this strategy is that the administration was incredibly vocal about how much transparency they were creating by interviewing Maxwell. 

By refusing to release the transcripts, they are only making the administration seem increasingly guilty of covering for pedophiles (in the minds of those who believe in the conspiracy) despite the fact that the transcripts are unlikely to contain any interesting information. 


 The plan's to let the story die out?  This is week six, they grasp that, right?  And the victims will be heard.  Chump wants this over but it's not over.  It's not going away this week.  And it might be time to start asking about Alien Musk.


Alien Musk's most recent bread crumbs tossed to the public were about how records might be on computers.  Flight records maybe.  


And that begs the question of how does Musk know this?


It's a good guess.


But is that all this has been -- just good guesses on Musk's part?


He's known a lot more than should have been shared with him.  Where did the info come from?  Did his employees pull it in when they were being allowed to rummage through US government computers with no oversight at all?



That would be the most likely explanation as to how Musk knows what he knows.  Is it time for Congress to start asking that question -- and revealing to the country just how much our national security was put at risk by Donald Chump giving Musk free and full access to government computers and data bases?


Let's turn to John Oliver and immigration.



Chump's war on immigrants continues.  Tatum Todd  and Yesenia Amaro  (THE OREGONIAN) report:


Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers on Thursday arrested a group of farmworkers near Woodburn as they headed to harvest blueberries, according to Oregon for All, an immigration rights advocacy group.

The incident marks the first publicly known ICE arrests of fieldworkers in Oregon since President Donald Trump took office for his second term. Last month, immigration authorities arrested a parent as he was dropping off his child at a Beaverton daycare, and in June ICE agents arrested workers from a Yamhill County vineyard services company.

[. . .]

Oregon for All in a news release said witnesses reported ICE agents broke the driver’s side window of the van.

“These tactics will only scare folks from working during the peak harvest,” said Reyna Lopez, executive director of PCUN, Oregon’s farmworker union. “This not only affects farmworkers’ ability to support their families, but also the many growers who rely on migrant labor and our collective ability to put food on our tables.”

Guembes said she learned about the arrests around 9:30 a.m. Thursday and immediately contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to locate the group.


This just gets worse and worse each day.  It has nothing to do with national security.  It has nothing to do with the law.  It has to with revenge and fear.  Hate mongers foster it and Chump has to court the hate mongers because thinking people -- Democrats or Republicans -- long ago rejected the Convicted Felon. 

Lives are being destroyed.  


And around the country more and more people are standing up and calling this cruelty out.  The National Nurses Association issued the following: 


National Nurses United condemns the detainment of fellow registered nurse, Amanda Trebach, by federal agents. We call for her immediate release and a full dismissal of all the charges brought against her. 

All over the country, people have been standing up to the Trump administration’s immoral and unjust immigration raids, which have sowed intense fear and chaos in immigrant and migrant communities. In the absence of due process that protects Constitutional rights, people like Amanda Trebach – a RN and former member of California Nurses Association, an affiliate of National Nurses United – have taken up the essential role of monitoring ICE and Border Patrol, to protect the rights of community members and observe and document abductions by masked officers. While Amanda was participating in a community patrol Thursday morning, she was confronted by masked individuals believed to be ICE agents, pushed to the floor face-down, and violently detained. Her arrest is a direct and intentional attack against the constitutional right to protest. 

“As nurses, we advocate for our patients both at the bedside and beyond. Like all the violent escalations we have seen this year – including, but not limited, to using hospitals as a site for ICE law enforcement and arresting labor leaders and elected officials for demanding due process – they are meant to silence concerned Americans into accepting these authoritarian tactics,” said Sandy Reding, RN, who is a president of California Nurses Association and a vice president of National Nurses United, which is the nation’s largest union of registered nurses. “We refuse to stand by and watch as our patients and our community members are caught in the dragnet of the Trump administration’s cruel deportation schemes. Amanda must come home, and so must all the innocent people whose lives and whose families’ lives have been devastated by this administration.”

National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.


Some horror stories register a lower emotional reading.  Maybe even cause some to chuckle?



When someone supports cruelty aimed at hundreds-of-thousands it's only fitting that the cruelty be turned on them.  It's the whole point of the phrase F**k Around and Find Out.  Matt Durr (MASS LIVE) reports:


One of the owners of the controversial Trump Burger restaurant franchise is facing deportation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Despite his perceived allegiance to President Donald Trump, ICE arrested Roland Mehrez Beainy on May 16 and placed him in detention, The Hill reports.

Beainy came to the U.S. in 2019 from Lebanon on a non-immigrant visitor visa. However, it is alleged that he overstayed his visa and is now subject to deportation. Beainy was supposed to leave the U.S. in 2024, according to ICE. 

Since coming to the U.S., Beainy helped open a small chain of burger restaurants in Texas known for stamping “Trump” into the top of its burgers. The menu and decor of the restaurants all heap praise on the president. The company recently opened its fourth location in Texas. 

Maybe when he's deported to Lebanon, he can take comfort in the fact that his fellow hate mongering Chump supporters are happy his life got destroyed too.  You know, the way he was happy to root on the destruction of other immigrants?  That's if they remember him at all.  His landlord has already seized the greasy burger joints (saying Beainy wasn't making the payments on the lease) and renamed them to MAGA burgers.  Ramon Antonio Vargas (GUARDIAN) notes:


Trump Burger gained national attention after Beainy opened the original location in Bellville, Texas, in 2020, the same year Trump lost his bid for a second presidential term to Joe Biden. Replete with memorabilia paying reverence to Trump as well as politically satirical menu items targeting his enemies, Beainy’s chain expanded to other locations, including Houston.

Trump won a second presidency in January, and his administration summarily began delivering on promises to pursue mass deportations of immigrants. Political supporters of Trump in the US without papers, at least in many cases, have not been spared.

One case which generated considerable news headlines was that of a Canadian national who supported Trump’s plans for mass deportation of immigrants – only for federal authorities to detain her in California while she interviewed for permanent US residency and publicly describe her in a statement as “an illegal alien from Canada”.

In another instance, Ice reportedly detained a Christian Armenian Iranian woman who lost her legal permanent US residency, or green card, after a 2008 burglary conviction and incarcerated her at a federal detention facility in California despite her vocal support of Trump. Her husband, with whom she is raising four US citizen children, subsequently blamed the couple’s plight on Biden’s “doing for open borders”, as Newsweek noted.


They cheered it on until it happened to them.  Now they refuse to face reality with one idiot even blaming Joe Biden.  That's the sickness in America, the stupidity that drags us all down.  Even when slapped across the face by reality, some people prefer to delude themselves.  


People are fighting back with their voices.  The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, for example, is staging a protest against ICE raids on August 12th, starting in the morning at MacArthur Park and winding up in the evening outside a detention center.  They're fighting back because Los Angeles continues to be targeted.  Clara Harter, Brittny Mejia and Noah Goldberg (LOS ANGELES TIMES) report:


Federal agents detained day laborers outside of a Home Depot in Van Nuys during two raids Friday morning, raising questions over whether their actions may violate a court order that bans agents from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate immigration arrests.

The operations took place around 7:35 a.m. and then again at 11:50 a.m. outside the Home Depot on Roscoe Boulevard, according to Maegan Ortiz, executive director of Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California, which runs a resource center for day laborers directly next to the store. 

[. . .]

A number of unmarked white vans started circling the parking lot and immigration agents began "grabbing people first and then asking people for ID" said Ortiz, adding that her organization has confirmed 10 people were taken.

"[The agents] came straight for the day labor center," Ortiz said. "It is very clear they are targeting day laborers and they are targeting the organization."

Ortiz said immigration agents conducted another raid near a Home Depot in Cypress Park on Saturday. Ortiz said she was aware of a half-dozen arrests during the incident. Further details were not immediately available.

 
They're protesting in Kansas City.  Samantha Boring (KCTV) reports:


On Saturday, dozens lined the streets in Overland Park in support of the immigrant community after recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in the metro.

This was a ‘No ICE’ protest, including Indivisible and Boots on the Ground Midwest. Protest organizers says the rally extended from 80th to 103rd street with about 1,000 people involved.

This comes after multiple workers were taken from ICE on Wednesday, July 30, from two restaurants in Lenexa and one in Kansas City, Kansas, as well as a Lenexa City Councilwoman sharing that her citizenship was questioned.






The following sites updated:


Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, August 9, 2025

Dementia Donald

Dementia Donald is just getting worse.  Charlie Jones (Irish Star) reports:

Donald Trump's mental ability is only going to get worse, an expert has warned, as concerns about the 79-year-old's cognitive state continue.

Trump's team has repeatedly denied any concerns with the President's health. In April, the White House physician, Dr Sean Barbabella, wrote that the president “exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health and is fully fit to execute the duti
But psychiatrists have said Trump's erratic behavior suggests something else.

John Gartner, a former assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, said: “What we see are the classic signs of dementia, which is gross deterioration from someone’s baseline and function."
es of the commander-in-chief and head of state”.

But psychiatrists have said Trump's erratic behavior suggests something else.

John Gartner, a former assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, said: “What we see are the classic signs of dementia, which is gross deterioration from someone’s baseline and function."


The dementia has to be the reason he keeps mistakenly thinking he can trick the American people about his long relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.  Michael Daly (DAILY BEAST) reports:


In an era when one political dumpster fire follows another, President Trump is striving to address a rekindled scandal that initially seemed more of a mattress fire.

As any firefighter can attest, a mattress fire might seem to be extinguished as easily as one in a dumpster, only for it to continue smoldering deep inside and then suddenly reignite.

But in recent days, the mess over Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and the supposed Epstein files has persisted despite Trump repeatedly dismissing it as “total bulls--t” and a “HOAX.”

The seemingly never ending Epstein saga is threatening to become more like a lithium-ion battery fire.

Despite all efforts to extinguish it, a smoldering lithium-ion battery can suddenly result in what is called a thermal runaway, resulting in intense fire that goes on for hours, even days. Think Tesla.

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


Friday, August 8, 2025.  As the Convicted Felon attempts to turn the country into Chump Land, every thing is at risk.


Let's start with this:

President Donald Trump hosted a ceremony for Purple Heart recipients at the White House on Thursday and told attendees that “it wasn’t that easy for me either.”

The Purple Heart is awarded to U.S. service members who are killed or wounded.


Well there you have it.  And Chump always carries a purse.  The draft dodger wants the country to know that pretending to have bone spurs to avoid serving in Vietnam was just as painful as if he'd been wounded while serving in Vietnam.  

The draft dodger didn't use his time protesting the war.  He just avoided the war because he was too 'good' to serve his country.  He felt that way then and he feels that way now.

His words were insulting and disgusting.


Convicted Felon Donald Chump suffered another setback this week.  Sonam Sheth (NEWSWEEK) reports:

A federal judge on Thursday ordered a temporary halt to construction at a detention center built in the middle of the Everglades in Florida that has been dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" by the Trump administration.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered a temporary halt to construction at a detention center built in the middle of the Everglades in Florida that has been dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" by the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other administration officials have touted the facility—built by repurposing the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopeé, Florida—as representing the White House's hard-line stance on immigration enforcement and border security.

Critics, meanwhile, have said detainees at the facility are forced to endure unsafe, unsanitary and inhumane living conditions and that Alligator Alcatraz runs afoul of environmental laws. The detention center was quickly created and holds an estimated 1,000 beds. The bunk beds are stacked together in wire-fenced cages.

Alligator Alcatraz is expected to cost Florida about $450 million annually to operate.


Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) adds, "While temporary, this halts a pet project for Trump that has already received accusations of abuse and inhumane conditions for detained immigrants and workers alike."   Aaron Parnas (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes, "The case marks a significant flashpoint in the ongoing conflict between federal infrastructure projects and environmental protection efforts in Florida, particularly in the treasured Everglades region. A formal ruling on the preliminary injunction request is expected in the coming weeks."

There is nothing humane or normal about Donald Chump's war on immigrants.  And things are not going well.  Failed actor Dean Cain, pudgy, fat and over, has become a celebrity promoter of ICE and, who knows, maybe it'll be the thing that finally ends the rumors that Dean's gay?

Dating Brooke Shields didn't end the rumors.  No, people just pointed out that Michael Jackson and George Michael also dated Brooke.

Finally having a child -- one -- from out of nowhere didn't end the rumors.  People just pointed out that Ricky Martin and Sara Gilbert and Jodie Foster and many others were all parents before they came out of the closet.

But, who knows, maybe this will finally do the trick and stop the whispers.  I honestly think the weight gain has done more to destroy the whispers.  

But it won't revive Dean's career because there never was a career.  A teeny bop gets a hit show.  That does happen.  And then the show disappears and everyone wishes the man-boi would do so as well.  

Not really sure who Dean Cain's going to help ICE recruit?  Other life failures?  Who knows?  But Chump and his cronies are getting desperate.  Julianne McShane (MOTHER JONES) explains:


Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is apparently so desperate for staff that they are abolishing the agency’s age restrictions to allow any adult to apply to join the force.

On Wednesday, ICE announced that it would do away with its prior requirements that job applicants be at least 21 years old, no older than 37 to be considered for a criminal investigator role, and no older than 40 to be eligible to be a deportation officer, with few exceptions.

“In the wake of Biden’s open borders disaster, our country needs dedicated Americans to join ICE to remove the worst of the worst out of our country,” the agency’s announcement reads, under an Uncle Sam recruitment photo. In a social media post touting the change, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote: “We’re taking father/son bonding to a whole new level,” alongside an illustration of both a younger and older man in camouflage tactical gear.

Recruits will still need to be at least 18 and go through medical and drug tests, and complete a physical fitness test. The Wednesday announcement also reiterated a slate of perks available to new ICE employees, including a signing bonus of up to $50,000, student loan repayment and forgiveness options, and “enhanced retirement benefits” after the passage of Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill. The legislation allocated funding to hire 10,000 new ICE agents to join the 20,000 currently on staff to help meet the agency’s deportation goals.

The move to eliminate the age restriction comes as the Trump administration scrambles to fulfill his campaign promise to carry out mass deportations—specifically, a goal of one million deportations per year, according to an April report in the Washington Post. So far, the administration appears to have fallen far below that goal: Since February, the administration has deported an average of about 14,700 people per month, according to an NBC News report published last month. The administration’s efforts to bolster those numbers have included reviving old cases focused on immigrants who have since become citizens or died.



At THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, Rian Dundon has a photo essay of ICE in LA.  At the same site, Whitney Curry Wimbish details the way in which Donald's war is harming Americans in need of caregivers:

Nelly Prieto’s home care clients are already afraid. Who will take care of them if they lose her as a caregiver? What will replace the services she provides? The 18-year home care veteran, patient transporter, and immigrant advocate in Washington state said the answers break her heart: no one, and nothing.

For years, the direct care industry, which provides home and community-based services for the elderly and people with disabilities, has struggled to hire and retain workers, and drew heavily from documented and undocumented immigrants. But now, thanks to President Trump’s racist regime and mass deportations, that workforce will shrink even more, just as American society is rapidly aging. 

For the next five years, 10,000 people will turn 65 years old every day, according to AARP. By 2040, the number of people aged 80 to 85, who are the likeliest to need direct care, will reach 14 million, a 111 percent increase from 2022, according to federal data. If Trump’s deportation policies stand, there won’t be enough caregivers to meet the demand for help.
“A lot of clients really are going to lose their lives,” Prieto told the Prospect. She knows that firsthand. When one of Prieto’s clients could no longer use her services because of an insurance change, there was no one else to look after her. “They couldn’t get another provider and my client was left alone. And when she was finally found, she had been left alone for so many days that she was wrapped up in her clothes with her own feces,” Prieto said. The woman was rushed to the hospital. But by then, “she said she didn’t want to live anymore,” and shortly afterward died.

Prieto had cared for the woman for two years. Her voice broke while telling the story.

Advocates, workers, and researchers said the ripple effects of Trump’s deportation policies on the care industry are dire. People who need care but have no one to help them will suffer alone and struggle to maintain their quality of life; some will lose their homes and be driven onto the streets. Americans 50 years and older are the fastest-growing group of people experiencing homelessness, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The number of Americans aged 50 or older who are experiencing homelessness is expected to triple in the next five years.


That's Chump Land.  A convicted felon works daily to destroy our country and our democracy.  

The Cato Institute is a right-wing think tank -- they're Libertarians -- and even they are alarmed by what Chump is doing.  David J. Bier writes:

Illegal profiling accounts for a substantial portion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests in 2025. While ICE has other tactics to arrest peaceful immigrants—such as during immigration hearings, appointments, and check-ins—ICE agents are deliberately targeting workers in heavily Latino jobs and neighborhoods, sometimes based on its community tip line where residents claim to “see” illegal immigrants in their areas, but more often based on nothing at all.

This policy is a threat to the rights of all people in the United States.

ICE Is Arresting Thousands of People with No Reason to Target Them

New data obtained from ICE by the Deportation Data Project drives home how frequently Latino immigrants are arrested off the streets without any recent prior contact with law enforcement. The screenshot below shows what the data look like. Each row represents an individual arrest and provides details about the arrest method, criminal history, and citizenship status. The most notable aspect of the new data is that they provide the exact location of each person’s apprehension.

The key takeaway is that ICE is arresting thousands of people in random locations—what it calls “non-specific” or “general” areas—who had no prior contact with law enforcement: the telltale sign of illegal profiling. Normally, ICE makes arrests only after the suspect has been identified in some other way. For instance, they were arrested by local police and their name was checked against the government data, or they were going to an appointment related to their status, so ICE knew they would be there. But in these cases, ICE is arresting people who weren’t going to appointments or committing criminal offenses that would put them on ICE’s radar, as well as people who had not been ordered removed from the country, giving ICE a reason to seek them out.

Since January 20, ICE has conducted about 15,000 street arrests of immigrants who had no criminal convictions, charges, or removal orders. Incredibly, nearly half (7,000) occurred in the month of June alone: 90 percent of them were immigrants from Latin America.

Street arrests refer to arrests in non-specific locations and exclude anyone in jails, prisons, offices, courts, police departments, detention centers, facilities, or anyone otherwise in the custody of any agency. Because ICE rarely sends agents to specifically arrest noncriminal immigrants whom it cannot promptly remove, and because it is difficult to locate and identify people who have not committed crimes or gone through removal proceedings, this is the likely population of people ICE has targeted through illegal street profiling.


Repeating:

This policy is a threat to the rights of all people in the United States.


Cato's right-wing, I'm left-wing but we can both agree that, "This policy is a threat to the rights of all people in the United States."



Domingo Mendoza Méndez’s eyes fill with tears as he says he hasn't seen his family since July 10, when he went to an appointment with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and was detained.

“I’m in the process for a U visa and they detained me, but I don’t know why they’re detaining me. I’m following all their rules,” Mendoza Méndez, a 45-year-old Mexican immigrant, said in a video call with Noticias Telemundo from the Freeborn County Correctional Facility in Minnesota.

In 2013, Mendoza Méndez, who had crossed the border 13 years earlier, was the victim of a violent robbery in Minnesota, which was recorded and investigated by police. The type of assault he suffered is included in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services list of crimes that qualify for a U visa, a measure designed for victims of criminal acts in the U.S. who agree to help authorities investigate the crime.

However, as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign, some immigrants who've applied and are in the process of waiting for a U visa have been detained.

“I feel sad. I’m trying to gather my strength, but there are so many things happening here. Many of us are having our rights violated,” said the married father of three children, adding that he's been in the process of obtaining a visa since 2021.

Magdalena Metelska, the immigration attorney handling Mendoza Méndez’s case, said that other administrations didn’t take coercive measures against victims applying for U visas, but that has changed with the second Trump administration.

Now, if someone has a visa pending and even been given a work permit notification, like Mendoza Méndez, "it doesn’t really matter because these people are also being arrested and detained,” she said. 



Last night on MSNBC's ALL IN, Ben Rhodes addressed the dangers of ICE.



He also noted that the idiot Tulsi Gabbard has discovered nothing despite her running around onstage without panties while screaming she's the new Christopher Columbus.

Every factoid that she fingers and molests was already known and addressed by the US Congress.  Marco Rubio was part of that process.  She lies because she's a cult member.  Don't put cult members into the US government.  She prays to guru Chris.  The forty-four year-old woman is on her second childless marriage and all she has in her life is Guru Chris.  Her healer and leader.  She worships him in the way a religious person might worship Jesus.    But Donald Chump thought this idiot was fit to serve as DNI head.  


 

 



Three weeks after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard tried to discredit Donald Trump’s Russia scandal and started throwing around words like “treason,” the conspiratorial DNI has certainly succeeded in generating some conversation.

On the one hand, Republicans and conservative media outlets have seized on Gabbard’s accusations as proof that the entire controversy surrounding the president and Russia’s efforts in support of his 2016 candidacy is a “hoax.” On the other hand, every independent analysis of Gabbard’s findings have pointed in the opposite direction: There was no “hoax”; the underlying scandal remains real; and the DNI’s claims are “ludicrous.”

Officials from Democratic and Republican administrations urged the public to recognize Gabbard’s conspiracy theories as obvious nonsense, while intelligence officials launched a behind-the-scenes effort to discourage the DNI from even releasing her discredited claims in the first place.

Gabbard appeared this week on Fox News — a network that has embraced her latest allegations with considerable enthusiasm — and was asked a straightforward question.

“Now, director, you said there was ‘irrefutable’ evidence that [Barack Obama] was the mastermind of this intelligence manipulation and the perpetuation of the Russia hoax,” host Laura Ingraham said. “What is that irrefutable evidence for our viewers tonight?”

Gabbard responded by pointing to a National Security Council meeting, held in December 2016 — after Trump was elected and during the presidential transition process — that Obama called to discuss Russia’s operation. As part of that meeting, the Democratic then-president made some standard directives to intelligence officials. Gabbard added:

If Gabbard was under the impression that this made sense and her on-air comments constituted persuasive and “irrefutable” evidence that justified her bizarre allegations of treason, she was mistaken.

For one thing, we’ve known about that National Security Council meeting for years. It was discussed in some detail in the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee’s report, and as Media Matters’ Matt Gertz explained, the GOP-led panel didn’t find anything remarkable about Obama’s instructions.

On the contrary, the committee reviewed the assessment that Obama sought and concluded that it was “coherent and well-constructed,” featuring “proper analytic tradecraft,” and that its authors experienced “no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions.”

But what about Gabbard’s claim that officials were told to put together an intelligence assessment that detailed “how,” not “if,” Russia targeted the election? That’s not scandalous either: By December 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies had already compiled voluminous evidence, collected over the course of months, documenting Moscow’s efforts.


As Ben Rhodes rightly noted last night on MSNBC, it's all an attempt to distract from Donald's relationship with the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 


Tuesday, we noted the planned secret meeting where the administration would strategize on how to address the criminal issues arising from Donald's personal relationship with Epstein -- and, no, that's not a presidential issue and shouldn't have been handled by the administration.  Yesterday we noted that the meeting was called off.  It was not.  It took place -- despite lies from JD Vance and others -- on camera lies -- at a different location. 

Last night on MSNBC, Lawrence O'Donnell addressed the secret meeting.




As did Jen Psaki.


 


Kaitlyn Tiffany (THE ATLANTIC) writes:

Jeffrey Epstein’s “client list” is the conspiracy theory that may never die. A secret document detailing all of the elite clients that Epstein allegedly sex-trafficked minors to—it’s something of a grail for QAnon adherents, TMZ watchers, and serious news readers alike. There is no proof that such a thing exists.

Yet President Donald Trump himself suggested that it did during his campaign, and pledged to release it before a disastrous backtrack from the Department of Justice last month. Now, in a poll released Monday, nearly two-thirds of Americans said they believe that the Trump administration is hiding something, and 71 percent said they still believe that the list is real. Meanwhile, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has demanded that the list be released, Democrats are pushing the narrative that the Trump administration is orchestrating a cover-up, and yesterday the House subpoenaed the DOJ for additional files related to the case.

To be clear, many unanswered and valid questions remain about Epstein. Before his death, he was charged with trafficking and abusing, as it read in the indictment, “a vast network” of dozens of underage girls. Many still wonder why he was permitted to carry on with his crimes for so long, whether other people who were complicit in them have escaped justice, and how much President Trump may have known while the two were friends. Trump’s name reportedly appears in files that have been redacted by the FBI, though he has repeatedly denied personal knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and says their relationship ended in 2004.

The specific idea of a client list, though, has taken on a life of its own. No one can demonstrate that the list doesn’t exist, so people will continue to insist that it does—that it is being kept from them. There’s a certain logic to their belief, because a similar document has been seen already. In 2015, Gawker published Epstein’s address book, which was full of names of celebrities and politicians. He apparently kept meticulous records and liked putting all of his famous contacts together in one place. And so the idea of a client list feels plausible to many people because they’ve had a mental image of it for 10 years now.

Moreover, Trump has created a “where there’s smoke there’s fire” effect in the past several weeks. The president has vacillated among suggesting that he has no obligation to talk about Epstein, speculating that political foes may have fabricated parts of the Epstein file, attempting to placate his supporters by ordering the release of grand-jury testimony about the case (which cannot be unsealed, a federal judge ruled), and deflecting (“you ought to be talking about Bill Clinton”).

 

At CNN this moring, Stephen Collinson observes:

The women whom Jeffrey Epstein abused demand to be heard.

And their voices — long suppressed, but now emerging powerfully and with courage — could further fuel the maelstrom around President Donald Trump and aides who dig the scandal deeper each time they try to end it.

These are women who’ve been let down for years, at multiple levels, by a government that was supposed to keep them safe. Their families are victims, too, since abuse sows trauma through generations.

And it’s happening again as the Trump administration refuses to release files about Epstein’s life, which several of its members had promised to make public. CNN has reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed Trump in May that his name was mentioned in the files, among those of other high-profile figures.

Trump has never been investigated or charged over anything to do with Epstein, whom he knew in the 1990s and early 2000s. The White House says Trump threw Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago because he was “a creep.”

But hardly anyone at the White House ever mentions the young women whom Epstein used and abused.

“What they really need is for it to go away,” Sky Roberts, the brother of one of Epstein’s most prominent victims, Virginia Giuffre, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Thursday.

“There’s a lack of transparency here and what we are not hearing is … we are not hearing the survivors’ voices coming through,” Roberts said. “This is a human issue, and I think we need to bring that back because we are dehumanizing survivors by not bringing justice forward.” Giuffre took her own life in Australia, where she lived, earlier this year

In a sign of the administration’s political priorities, there were no Epstein survivors represented at a Wednesday night White House meeting that addressed the crisis, CNN reported. Those in attendance included Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. The meeting was moved from the vice president’s residence amid a media storm.


Just as the administration has been unable to change the topic, they've been unable to come off above board on the Epstein issue.  Steven Bennen points out:

 A couple of weeks ago, Sen. Markwayne Mullin sat down with CNN’s Jake Tapper and did his best to try to deflect blame in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. The effort went quite badly, however, for an important reason: The Oklahoma Republican couldn’t quite remember who was president in 2008.

As the far-right senator tried to argue, Epstein received “a sweetheart plea deal” from prosecutors in the Obama administration, an arrangement that Mullin claimed “has not been exposed.” It fell to Tapper to remind his confused guest that the late millionaire pedophile did benefit from a generous deal, but it was in 2008, that Barack Obama wasn’t president in 2008, and that the agreement was exposed years ago.

The incident did, however, serve as a timely reminder that it was Alex Acosta who helped orchestrate Epstein’s deal — and it was Donald Trump who added Acosta to his White House Cabinet during the Republican’s first term.

It’s against this backdrop that NBC News reported:

The report added that victims of Epstein’s sexual abuse are unhappy that Acosta was not among those subpoenaed.

An attorney for one of his victims said, “How can any genuine investigation into the federal government’s sweetheart deal with Epstein (including the extraordinary grant of blanket immunity to all his named and unnamed co-conspirators) omit Alex Acosta?”

Given the circumstances, that’s hardly an unreasonable question.

As longtime readers might recall, Epstein ended up pleading guilty to a state charge of soliciting sex from a minor in 2008, which led to an 18-month sentence. He was released after 13 months — during which time he was permitted to leave the prison and go to work during much of the day — and he then went back to living the high life.

How in the world did Epstein get such a generous deal, given the number of his underage victims?



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


"Although Elon Musk has departed, his influence remains, as DOGE and its employees attempt to become a permanent part of the federal government"

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along with Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Representative Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), wrote to the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor and Office of Management and Budget Director Rusell Vought, demanding answers about the extent to which Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees have been appointed to key positions across government agencies and to help determine whether the conversion of these DOGE employees could be in violation of civil service laws.

In recent months, reports have emerged of DOGE employees converting into full-time federal workers at the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, and other agencies.

“Although Elon Musk has departed, his influence remains, as DOGE and its employees attempt to become a permanent part of the federal government, scattered across agencies where they can continue to sabotage key functions from within,” the lawmakers warned.

The conversion of DOGE appointees to career roles–even as most agencies remain under a hiring freeze–could violate laws that explicitly ban political considerations and loyalty tests in hiring. Additionally, it is unclear who newly embedded DOGE staff report to and if they truly serve within the chain of command of the agencies they work for.

“(T)he Trump Administration’s hiring of DOGE affiliates to career positions appears to be influenced by overtly political and loyalty-based considerations, putting the effectiveness of the federal government in jeopardy and raising questions about compliance with civil service laws,” wrote the lawmakers.

DOGE failed to lower costs for Americans–instead, it degraded public services and created more waste and inefficiency. The lawmakers reminded OPM and OMB of these failures, and sounded the alarm about the significant conflicts of interests that DOGE employees have with Musk’s companies, raising doubts about their ability to serve the American public’s interests.

“The embedding of DOGE employees is part of a larger, disturbing trend of corruption in the Trump Administration, with individuals and corporations that appear to have done political or financial favors for the President given special treatment, and the President and other executive branch officials—including Elon Musk and other DOGE appointees—serving in important policy positions despite having significant financial conflicts of interest.” wrote the lawmakers.

The lawmakers urged the agencies to implement accountability structures and halted the conversion of DOGE employees to permanent federal positions. They also requested answers about how these personnel decisions were made by August 20, 2025.

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The following sites updated:


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