Days Gone By

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Attribution: A SIMPLER TIME by Dave Whamond 9/21/20*

Dave Whamonds work has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest and many more. He has won 7 Silver Reubens from the National Cartoonists Society and several book awards. Dave has written and/or illustrated over 50 books and his syndicated comic, “Reality Check”, has appeared in newspapers since 1995.

*2020 – McConnell & Graham denies Obama replacing Garland for Ginsburg vacancy

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109 thoughts on “Days Gone By”


  2. Now the clock keeps turning,
    But it sure doesn’t feel kind.
    I keep the simpler days,
    Hidden in the back of my mind.
    [Chorus]
    Take me back to when the sun moved slow,
    Take me back…over the rainbow.
    Won’t you take me back before the difficult times,
    Please just take me on back, to the…simpler times.

  4. from WAPO Senate again confronts the challenges of an aging membership
    Lindsey Graham’s death and Mitch McConnell’s hospitalization are reviving hard questions, including what happens when members can no longer serve but don’t resign.

    For the second time in a month, an ambulance was sent rushing to the home of a sitting U.S. senator.
    The first arrived on a June morning at the home of Sen. Mitch McConnell, 84, the Kentucky Republican and formerly his party’s leader in the chamber, and for weeks his office declined to explain what sent him there. On Sunday, a month later, McConnell broke his silence, saying in a statement that he had fallen at home, was ‘briefly unconscious’ and had been treated for pneumonia.
    The second ambulance arrived this weekend at the home of Sen. Lindsey Graham, 71, of South Carolina, who died late Saturday.
    Both men were members of a Senate that was one of the oldest in American history.
    The Senate has always been a chamber of older men and women. And it has always had to reckon with the effects of age and illness. But it has never built the necessary rules and procedures to deal with such problems, according to experts in congressional history. Its members have served through comas and strokes, vanished for years and died in office — and each time the institution has improvised, only to move on without a rule.
    Age in itself is not the problem, experts say. Graham was working to the end, just back from Ukraine, and many senators serve into their 80s undimmed. But the Senate has provided no answer for when its members inevitably can no longer serve — and no requirement that anyone say so.
    Members of Congress must, by law, disclose the stocks they trade. Nothing requires disclosures about their health, whether they can still do the job, whether they are still conscious or, in at least one case in history, whether they were even known to be alive.
    McConnell’s disclosure came only after a month of unanswered questions and mounting online rumors. His account differed from what emergency dispatch audio from June 14 initially suggested. That audio referred to an unnamed unconscious person in cardiac arrest at his address. McConnell’s letter said he was ‘briefly unconscious’ after a fall and that doctors ruled out a heart attack.
    The average age in Congress has steadily risen, with a few sporadic exceptions, since the early 1980s. Today, the 119th Congress is the third oldest in American history, and the three oldest in the nation’s history have all convened since 2017.
    In the early days of the republic, being a member of Congress was viewed as a temporary occupation rather than a long-term career, historians note. In the mid-1800s, for example, the average tenure in the Senate was three to five years, compared with roughly 11 now. The average member of the House was in their mid-40s and the average age of senators was around 50, while now the average House member is 58 and the average senator is almost 64.
    One factor is the perks of incumbency, according to experts. The longer senators stay in office, the more powerful they become — with seniority and committee chairmanships — and the more able they are to steer money toward their states.
    McConnell chaired the Senate Ethics Committee and Senate Rules Committee before becoming the longest-serving party leader in Senate history. Graham, who was running for a fifth term at the time of his death, chaired the Budget Committee.
    Graham’s death temporarily deadlocks that committee, while his death plus McConnell’s absence could deeply complicate the Appropriations Committee, leaving Republicans with a 13-14 disadvantage until McConnell returns. And until that happens and Graham’s replacement is sworn in, Senate Republicans are governing with a slimmer voting margin — 51 to 47.
    With age comes greater potential for illness. And the people with the power to make rules on requiring health disclosures or how to handle situations when a senator can no longer serve are the same 100 senators who would have to abide by them.
    In more than two centuries, they never have.
    [continues]

  5. pics of Mitch remind me of another time pic of another “live” dead guy

    Mao Zedong swimming in a river in 1966 was a big deal.
    In 1966, Mao Zedong, China’s communist leader and the founder of the People’s Republic of China, was rumored to be in failing health. The devastating policies of his Great Leap Forward (1958-1962) — which forced millions of peasants to work tirelessly on government farming communes and by manufacturing crude steel — resulted in the greatest famine known to human history, costing anywhere between 23 and 55 million lives.
    Mao wanted to leave behind a powerful Communist legacy, like Marx and Lenin before him. And in order to do so, he needed to connect with the younger generation before he died. So after announcing his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, he swam across the Yangtze River. Mao had done the same swim 10 years earlier to prove his vitality, and he hoped it would work again.
    His “Cultural Revolution” was a call to hunt down and eliminate his enemies, and reeducate China’s youth with the principles Maoism. Led by the fanatical Red Guards, the Cultural Revolution was a devastating 10-year period in Chinese history that didn’t end until Mao died in 1976.

  6. TRUMP MAKES GRAHAM’S DEATH ABOUT HIS SAVE ACT:
    Sets up blaming Lindsey for its failure, says the voter suppression bill might not pass without Graham.

    “He literally called me about the SAVE America Act,” Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper by phone early Sunday. “He’s traveling for many, many hours. That’s a long flight. That’s a long trip. And he calls me about the SAVE America Act. He said we’re going to get it passed. This is a big blow to the SAVE America Act, let me tell you.”

    On Meet The Press, Trump told NBC News’s Kristen Welker:

    “What makes it even stranger is that I got a call last night sometime in the early evening… and he called and he said, ‘We’re all set for the SAVE America Act,’ “He was pushing the SAVE America Act like crazy. He said he just landed from Ukraine… But he wanted to pass the SAVE America Act, and I said, ‘Well, we’re going to get it done Lindsey. We’re going to get it done.’ I thought we might even meet today.”

  7. Trump’s making the most of Graham’s death.
    NBC”S WELKER: Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is closed. CENTCOM says it’s open. Which is it?
    TRUMP: It’s open, and I don’t want to talk about because I want to honor the life of Lindsey Graham, so I don’t want to talk about it. I told you that before the call.

  11. *Senator Mitch McConnell, is either alive or dead, depending on the observer. He is Schrödinger’s Senator. When SNL comes back, they definitely need to do a “still dead” throwback…unless he’s alive.
    Either way, he is incapable of doing the job he was elected to do, so Beshear needs to have a special election.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalissimo_Francisco_Franco_is_still_dead

    “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead” is a catchphrase that originated in 1975 during the first season of NBC’s Saturday Night (now called Saturday Night Live, or SNL) and which mocked the weeks-long media reports of the impending death of Francisco Franco. It was one of the first catchphrases from the series to enter the general lexicon.

  12. SC GOP sues to close primaries to registered Republicans

    The South Carolina Republican Party sued this week to close primary elections after legislation creating a closed system failed to advance at the Statehouse this year.

    The party has been pushing for years to require party registration in elections. After hinting about a lawsuit for months, party leaders announced plans for a legal challenge in May but said they wanted to wait to submit court filings until after last month’s statewide primaries, which included a question about party registration.

    The federal lawsuit, officially filed Monday but announced Wednesday, argues the party has a right to choose who it does and doesn’t associate with under the First Amendment.

    *It’s their 1A right to choose their voters???

  13. https://www.newsweek.com/forged-deed-claims-emerge-in-fight-over-kushner-resort-site-12185763

    The allegations center on Miami-based businessman Artur Shehu, who sold a stretch of Albanian coastline in April to Albania Land Development, a company tied to the developers of the Kushner-backed resort. Prosecutors suspect the land was acquired using falsified ownership records and have frozen proceeds from the sale while the matter is investigated. Shehu denies the allegations.

    *Jared got grifted???

  14. Latest word from my SC intel: Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette actively pursuing. She recently ran for governor with the support of Gov. McMaster and President Trump, but lost. “She’s a major 2020 denier who wants maximum voter suppression”

    here’s the Kalshi odds:
    Kalshi market for the South Carolina Republican Senate special primary.
    The live market odds for the top contenders break down as follows:
    Pamela Evette: 42% implied probability (trading at 41¢)
    Ralph Norman: 40% implied probability (trading at 40¢)
    Russell Fry: 17% implied probability (trading at 18¢)
    https://kalshi.com/markets/kxscrsens/south-carolina-special-republican-primary/kxscrsens-26

  15. Thanks for the SC insight, Poobah. Those polls between Andrews and Lindsey are real teasers. It figures that the SC Repugs think they can go to court to get what they could not get from the voters. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that there is no right in the Constitution to do anything based upon party affiliation.

  16. Nice catch BlueD, on the SC open primary.

    Democrats could make mischief and put Nancy Mace over the top? But there could be a wrinkle — the Election Commission will have to decide if this upcoming GOP primary is a separate thingie or an extension of last month’s primary. If an extension, then Dems who’ve already voted can’t play.

  18. Economic news from Maine

    The data below suggest is why so many Maine voters are angry about the economic policies of the Trump and the GOP.

    It is also one reason why so many Maine voters appear to be ready to reject the economic policies of “establishment” or “centrist” or “corporate” Democratic politicians, whatever you want to call elitist Democratic politicians, who are “liberal on social issues but conservative on economics.

    According to data available online, over the last 5 years, the percentage increase in the income of full time workers in Maine was 23.4%

    Now consider this…

    From the “Portland Press Herald” (07/13/26)

    Maine’s median home sale price was $436,000 last month, according to recent data from the Maine Association of Realtors. That’s a new record.

    For the first six months of 2026, the average median home sale price was $405,395.
    The median means that half the homes sold for more and half sold for less.

    This is the first year there’s been a January-June median above $400,000, despite sub-$400,000 medians for the first few months of the year.

    At the same time in 2021, the average median was $277,208. That’s a 46% increase in five years.

  19. Looks like the technology exists, so the main problem is standing in the way of in-depth autopsy.

    “Wiki” The “heart attack gun” is a clandestine, CIA-developed weapon from the 1960s designed to fire a virtually undetectable poisoned ice dart. The projectile melted instantly in the victim’s bloodstream, leaving only a tiny red mark and mimicking the symptoms of a fatal natural heart attack.

    Public Reveal
    The weapon became infamous when the Church Committee—a U.S. Senate committee investigating CIA abuses—held hearings in 1975. CIA Director William Colby presented the weapon to Congress, clinically describing it as a “nondiscernible microbionoculator,” but he did not confirm whether it was ever actively deployed against any targets
    More:

    Historical Predecessors
    While the CIA weapon used a frozen dart, the concept of an untraceable heart-attack weapon was previously utilized by the KGB. In 1961, KGB assassin Bogdan Stashinsky defected and revealed he had used a poison-spray gun loaded with hydrogen cyanide vapor to assassinate two Ukrainian emigre leaders in West Germany, which also caused them to suffer fatal heart attacks.

  24. Scepticism Grows Over Casual Details In Image
    The release of the image has led to questions from some online about its content and presentation. Commentators have highlighted McConnell’s choice of casual jeans rather than a hospital gown. They have also noted the complete absence of visible medical equipment such as intravenous drips, heart monitors or oxygen lines, despite the senator having spent nearly a month in care.

  28. Re: McConnell photos…look at the pattern the creases and folds create in his shirt. They are like a finger print.

  31. Portland Press Herald (from 2 hours ago)

    Witness says Biddeford shooting victim told police ‘I tried to stop’

    One resident says he heard the shots and saw as agents pulled the man out of the vehicle.

    Daniel Boucher was getting ready for work Monday morning when he heard what sounded like fireworks going off outside of his home near downtown Biddeford.

    He rushed to the window, where he saw an SUV trying to ram a small white car in the intersection. Moments later, agents in vests stopped the car and pulled the driver out.

    “He was bleeding profusely from the head,” Boucher said later Monday morning. “He was talking. He said, ‘I tried to stop.’”

    Boucher watched in disbelief as the man’s legs stopped moving as he lay on the ground. He believes he watched him die.

    The man, who has not been identified by authorities, was apparently shot by immigration agents, according to a House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, who represents Biddeford.

    Across the intersection of Hill and Pool streets, a resident named Em heard a gunshot around 7:15 a.m., followed by about seven more pops. Her first thought was that it was a drive-by shooting. She hadn’t heard any yelling before the shots rang out.

    Em, who asked to be identified only by first name because of her fear of ICE, watched from her window as the small white car circle in the intersection as if the driver had no control.

    “Two plain clothes ICE agents with vests on pressed up against the driver’s side door trying to guide it to not hit anything,” she said. “All of a sudden it seemed like six people with vests on were running down the street. I didn’t know where they were coming from.”

    Em said agents appeared to crash a vehicle into the smaller car to get it to stop, then the driver was pulled out.

    “No one went to him and no one did anything,” she said, her voice choking with tears.

    After Biddeford police and an ambulance arrived, Boucher said he saw someone appear to start CPR on the driver. Boucher went out to his front door, where the ICE agent he believed fired the shots walked past him.

    “I said ‘This was awful’ and he said, ‘He was trying to ram me,’” Boucher said.

    Boucher said the man’s body lay uncovered in the street, “an awful thing to see.”

    “I wouldn’t want anyone to see what I witnessed,” he said. “I wish they had covered the body.”

    Boucher said he called Biddeford police after the shooting, but doesn’t plan to talk to the FBI or ICE because “they’ll sweep this under the rug like they have so many times before.”

    Hours after the shooting, both Boucher and Em said they keep thinking about the man who died. Boucher, who stopped several times while describing the scene to compose himself, kept coming back to the words he heard the man say.

    “He was saying he was trying to stop and then he died. Why? Because he was driving a car?” he said.

    “I don’t know who this man was, but he didn’t deserve to be executed in the street,” Em said. “I’m pretty (expletive) tired of people dying in the streets.”

  32. Today in the Diner:
    Lorenzo Salgado ICE Raid & Biddeford Maine Fallout

    Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed by ICE in Houston, and Biddeford Maine sees similar tragedy. We cover the fallout and Donald Trump’s latest move.

    We are tracking the deadly federal raids escalating across the country. From the tragic death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston to the latest chaotic ICE agent shooting in Biddeford Maine, the aggressive enforcement tactics are drawing massive backlash. Texas State Representative James Talarico is finally calling it what it is, and Maine Senate President Troy Jackson is publicly demanding accountability.

    While federal agents flood local neighborhoods, Donald Trump is busy working the phones. We look at his bizarre call pushing the Save America Act to Lindsey Graham right after Graham returned from Ukraine. Plus, we do some live forensic research using Gemini Pro on that highly suspicious photograph of Mitch McConnell to see if the image is just a terrible digital manipulation.

    Live Chat: https://trailmix.cc/chat
    Website: https://trailmix.cc
    Alerts: https://trailmix.cc/alerts

    00:00 Intro Trump and Lindsey Graham
    04:16 ICE raid hits Biddeford Maine
    08:11 Houston and Lorenzo Salgado
    16:01 Tom Homan and Barack Obama
    28:29 Troy Jackson on federal agents
    30:39 James Talarico speaks out
    38:46 Mitch McConnell Gemini AI test
    56:49 George W Bush Medicare Part D

  33. lol @ “here is the isolated publish-ready text”

    hooray society of frauds

    must be impossible to be a principled high school teacher or college professor now

  34. From the Bangor Daily News

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were involved in a fatal shooting in Biddeford.
    That’s according to Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, a Biddeford Democrat, who released a short statement about Monday morning’s shooting near Pool Street.

    Beyond that, Fecteau had few other details to make public, saying that the Maine State Police are at the scene gathering details. He expects the FBI to take over the investigation.

    “These are the details that I have at this time. I will provide further updates, as they are relayed to me,” Fecteau said.

    A witness told the Biddeford Gazette that he was driving by the intersection of Pool and Hill streets about 7:20 a.m. when he saw an unmarked Ford Explorer with flashing lights and two officers wearing green ICE vests. The witness, Biddeford resident Lucas Scott, told the media outlet that he heard four shots after the officers surrounded a white sedan with weapons drawn.

    U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat who represents Maine’s 1st District, where the shooting happened, said Monday that her office is working to get details about what happened. She urged Mainers to follow the guidance from local authorities.

    Videos and photos circulating online appear to show at least two men wearing green vests emblazoned with “Police” and “Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” One photo showed a white Ford Explorer up against a white Kia sedan with apparent front-end damage on the driver’s side.
    Protests were quickly organized in the aftermath of the shooting, with one rally planned for noon at Mechanics Park on Water Street. Community members have shown up near the scene of the shooting carrying signs critical of ICE.

    The Maine attorney general’s office could not comment Monday morning on the shooting. Messages to the Maine Department of Public Safety, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI weren’t immediately returned. Multiple calls to the FBI Boston field office’s media line went straight to voicemail.

    Monday morning’s shooting is at least the 11th fatal shooting involving ICE or U.S. Border Patrol agents since the beginning of the second Trump administration. That includes this month’s fatal shooting of 52-year-old Lorenzo Araujo, a construction worker, in Houston, according to the Guardian.

    Earlier this year, Maine became the latest state to see a surge in ICE agents as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Catch of the Day. That surge was cut short amid a nationwide pushback against the agency’s tactics following the fatal shootings of two protesters in Minneapolis.
    Of the nearly 200 detained in Maine during the January ICE surge, only 11 had criminal convictions, undercutting the Trump administration’s claim that it was targeting the “worst of the worst.”

  36. Dr. Who would call this “ai” tech a “technological cul-de-sac”

    ain’t enough energy in the world to power it

  37. Here’s the analysis of the Mitch photo from Gemini Pro VEO in our chatroom today:

    Accuracy Score: 3/10
    Rationale: Exhibits definitive synthetic markers, including typographic gibberish and the structural blending of the subject’s anatomy into the newspaper.
    Confidence Assessment:
    While the visual evidence documents severe typographic and anatomical anomalies frequently associated with digital manipulation, no reliable signals were detected indicating how the content was created. You should look for other supporting evidence from trusted sources to verify the true origin of this image.
    Forensic Analysis
    Anatomical and Biological Logic: Both subjects exhibit a waxy, overly smoothed skin texture. McConnell’s right hand lacks structural definition where the fingers interact with the newspaper; the digits blend directly into the paper rather than gripping the edge distinctly.
    Physics of Light and Shadow: The directional lighting from the right maintains general consistency across the environment. Cast shadows exist beneath collars and behind the subjects. However, Chao’s face displays an unusually uniform, flat illumination that contrasts with the heavier directional shadowing on the surrounding elements.
    Background Coherence: Background elements, including the pillows and the chair armrest, maintain structural integrity. The folding patterns of the fabric and the curvature of the blue chair arm show no obvious spatial warping or depth-of-field failures.
    Fine Details and Typography: The newspaper held by McConnell presents severe visual anomalies. The printed text consists entirely of nonsensical squiggles and blurred characters that form no recognizable words in any language. Furthermore, the small white patch stitched onto the lower right of McConnell’s shirt features indiscernible marks rather than clear text or a readable brand logo.

  38. BoD was right to suggest Gov. Beshear call for habeus corpus on McConnell, that’s the kind of hardball the rightwingers would play

    nothing unfair about it

  40. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/12/trumps-deportation-drive-tests-gop-gains-in-texas-00993955

    Texas Hispanics swung hard to Trump. A new poll shows they’re furious at his deportations.

    The chaos of the past year-and-a-half has convinced Melendez to abandon his support for Trump and Republicans, and instead back the Democrat in this year’s U.S. Senate election, state Rep. James Talarico.

    “How can we continue voting for someone that is targeting our community?” Melendez said. “There’s no way possible we’re going to support that. No way.”

    One in five Hispanic business owners in Texas say they’ve had an employee deported in the past year, according to a new survey commissioned by the U.S. Hispanic Business Council and shared first with POLITICO. Seven in ten said their businesses had been impacted by Trump’s tariffs. Among those surveyed, Talarico holds a seven-point lead over Attorney General Ken Paxton, the GOP nominee, even though a plurality of the over 1,000 respondents self-identify as Republican.

    Almost one quarter who supported Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary now say they’ll back Talarico, while over half say they’ll back Paxton.

    *Wow, JT still has some work to do.

    Meanwhile, Paxton, long an immigration hardliner, has doubled down, touting his support for a controversial Texas immigration law and suing to stop publicly funded legal defense for undocumented immigrants.

    The Texas Senate race will be one of the nation’s most watched — and most expensive — this cycle. Early polling shows it in a dead heat: A New York Times/Siena poll released last month showed Paxton and Talarico tied. Among Hispanic voters, Talarico led by 32 points. In 2024, Trump won Texas Latinos by 10 points.

    In a statement, Paxton spokesperson Madison Cercy said Hispanic voters want “lower taxes, less regulation, affordable energy, and a strong economy.”

    *And they won’t get any of those things from a Republican.

  41. Craig – Just look at the faint gingham imprint over his wife’s wrist, the pillow and sheet on either side of her wrist. Yertle’s neck also seems to be gingham.

    Stan: Governor Beshear! Dead or alive (he ain’t alive), he is incapable of fulfilling his duties, which is all KY requires. Hold a special election!

  42. Now, let’s do the pic of Yertle hold a physical printout of the Ai picture. FFS! If he’s really sitting up and smiling, send in Anderson Cooper, Andy Beshear, and hell, Andy Cohen in to talk to Mitch and do a quick, live feed. If three Andys can confirm proof of life, I’ll believe it.

  43. The Republicans are busy handing you the weapons you need to destroy them and what do you do? Turn away and run off going ooooooh shiny shiny shiny. You are like my niece when she forgets to take her adderall. quit chasing the stupid conspiracy theories and focus.
    Or not and enjoy being a loser.
    In the whole scheme of things, McConnell alive, McConnell dead, it doesn’t matter. He is on his way out and is yesterdays (last years maybe?) news. Give it a break and concentrate on what is important. Focus people.

    Jack

  44. it’s low-resolution, not ai

    y’all will lose your minds scrutinizing every bit of info, no one will know what to believe, then the tech lords will just program everyone

    observe that millennials and younger don’t even know what information is

  45. I don’t have a hard time believing they could prop Mitch up for 30 seconds

    Like you are saying BiD, if he is incapacitated and can’t do his job he should be replaced

    The shoe will be on the other foot eventually with someone else

  48. If three Andys can confirm proof of life, I’ll believe it.

    funnier than anything you’re gonna write today Jack

    and you’re too late because the techlords own our society now and you already know it because you’ve already said it

    with slightly different phrasing

    reelecting Trump at the worst possible time was a bad fucking idea

  49. Anon, it happens with regularity, incompetent elderly Senators aren’t rare. Diane Feinstein comes to mind. As I remember that one cause a problem because the Democrats really needed her vote on a committee. Most of the time they prop them up in the corner, Strom Thurmand comes to mind. So this is mostly a nothing story, especially if it distracts from more important things.

    Jack

  51. It’s not a “nothing” story if Democrats can get Senate and House control before the midterms dude

    Unlikely maybe but more likely every time one of these people die unexpectedly

    much more likely than it was two months ago

  53. It’s a political blog. People are gonna talk about a fucking comatose Senator dude.

    why what should we be focused on?

  54. I don’t know when the last time congressional power was so evenly divided (52-48 Senate and what 220-215 House?) with so much at stake

    So yeah an incapacitated Senator is news

  55. It is about the election. Right now the Democrats can blame everything bad on the Republicans. If by chance the Democrats should be in power before the election then it is all their fault. So for a couple of months of useless control the election is lost.
    A simplification, but not much.
    Jack

  56. It’s kinda hard to craft national messaging for state level races, why someone like Susan Collins has such an advantage

    So if you got the national messaging, give it to Craig, he will make a YouTube out of it

    Mainers don’t care about my “Trump is an existential threat” messaging for their Senate race that Trump isn’t involved in, kind of just gotta cross your fingers on something like that, right

  59. do you even want these people anywhere near power honestly

    I just wanted not Trump

    too late

    womp womp

  60. Mitch is dead, he just hasn’t realized it yet. One or more of those pictures are fake. Doesn’t matter, if he’s in a rehab facility he’s as good as dead or better politically – for Senate Dems. It’s now 48-50.

    The Guardian. (Via MSN)

    A federal judge on Monday nullified an agreement the government reached with Donald Trump and his sons over the leak of his tax returns. The judge lambasted the government and president’s lawyers for using the judicial process to try to concoct a beneficial arrangement for the president.

    The ruling from US district judge Kathleen Williams in the southern district of Florida blocks a widely criticized arrangement the government and the president’s attorneys reached earlier this year to resolve a $10bn lawsuit by Trump and his sons over the leak of the president’s tax returns. The government never responded to the lawsuit and then announced it was settling the suit by creating a $1.8bn slush fund to compensate victims of “government weaponization” and giving the president, his family, and related entities immunity from tax audits.

    Amid bipartisan backlash, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, announced the justice department was scrapping the fund, but the tax immunity provisions remained in place.

    In her ruling on Monday, Williams, who was nominated to the bench by Barack Obama, said there had never been a genuine controversy in the case – a requirement for any lawsuit – since Trump controlled the treasury department. She also sanctioned Trump’s lawyers for their conduct before the court.

    “The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the president and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law,” she wrote.

    “The court finds that this matter was brought for an improper purpose – to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact,” she added.

    Her ruling blocks both Trump, his sons, and business, and the government from “using, offering, admitting, or citing” anything from the so-called settlement agreement in any kind of proceeding.

    The ruling on Monday comes after Williams took the extraordinary step of reopening the case at the urging of a group of retired federal judges. She previously closed the case after Trump voluntarily withdrew his claims when the agreement was reached.

    In her 56-page ruling, Williams offered evidence for why it was clear the lawsuit was filed in bad faith and the result was collusive.

    For example, one of Trump’s lawyers, Daniel Epstein, never tried to seek permission to appear in the case in the southern district of Florida – something he had done in other cases – and which Williams took as a sign he never intended to pursue the case.

    She also noted that the justice department had never attempted to answer obvious questions about whether such an agreement ran afoul of the emoluments clause of the constitution or a law blocking the president from ordering or ending an audit of a particular taxpayer. And Williams said the fact that the government was able to unilaterally end the slush-fund portion of the agreement suggested the parties were not actually adverse.

    “Acting Attorney General Blanche’s apparent capacity to speak for both plaintiffs and defendants, sign a ‘settlement’ document on behalf of all parties to this action, and then repudiate part of that agreement, demonstrates that there was only one party whose interests were being represented throughout this case.”

    Williams referred one of Trump’s lawyers, Alejandro Brito, to the Florida bar for potential disciplinary action. And she blocked Epstein from appearing on behalf of clients in the southern district of Florida for a year.

    The plaintiffs, she said, should have known the statute of limitations had run out on their claim and that the amount of money they were seeking was “unsupported by facts or law”.

    “This lawsuit was not brought to vindicate rights; it was brought to manipulate the judicial process to pursue benefits unavailable in litigation because the parties were not adverse,” she said.

    She also criticized Blanche and associate attorney general Stanley Woodward, close allies of Trump, for their conduct in the case, and referred them to the bars in New York and District of Columbia, where there are ongoing disciplinary proceedings against them.

    Williams also ordered the parties to pay the legal fees of the retired judges and other third parties who had filed friend of the court briefs.

    Blanche is expected to be asked about the settlement when he faces lawmakers on Wednesday in a confirmation hearing to become the permanent attorney general.

    Critics still want Congress to act to prevent the settlement from ever taking effect.

    “The court’s decision is important, but does not remove the need for congressional action to nullify the entire deal and to prevent any similar attempts at presidential self-dealing in the future,” said Brandon DeBot, policy director at the Tax Law Center.

    Never miss global, independent news with the Guardian app. With no billionaire or big corporate owner, we’re funded by our readers – making our journalists free to report without interference. Download the Guardian app now.

    He didn’t really think that fucking immunity and slush fund would stand scrutiny did he?

  61. Talk today featured dismay + disgust and more at Democratic leadership and likely predictions that Democrats will do nothing when they flip either House of Congress.
    This is opposite of what I expect come January 2027, and Gordon A.I. helped :
    The House is narrowly Republican-controlled. Jamie Raskin is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Robert Garcia is the ranking Democrat on Oversight. Both have said they would become chairs if Democrats win the November midterms, and they plan to coordinate …
    Democrats have told reporters the first moves would be subpoenas and public hearings, not legislation.
    – **Epstein files — day one.** Garcia said Democrats are prepared to subpoena acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and other officials on “day one,” with on-camera testimony, because “we’ve had zero hearings on Epstein” under GOP control. The plan includes demanding bank records and working with Epstein’s estate for more documents.
    – **Use contempt if needed.** Garcia and Rep. James Walkinshaw said they expect refusals and are willing to use contempt proceedings, pointing to a prior move against former AG that led to a new interview date.

    ## Who Raskin and Judiciary Democrats are already targeting

    Raskin has launched several minority-led inquiries in 2026 that signal where a majority investigation would expand:

    – **Universities tied to Epstein.** In June 2026 Raskin sent letters to and Bard College (after earlier requests to NYU and Columbia) seeking records on how Epstein used donations, faculty access, and admissions influence to “expand his sex trafficking operation” and burnish his reputation.
    – **DOJ payments to fired FBI agents.** In May 2026 Raskin opened an investigation into a “scheme inside DOJ to direct millions of taxpayer dollars to FBI agents fired for serious misconduct, many of whom are aligned with Donald Trump” — including agents terminated for leaking classified information, lying about Jan. 6 participation, or refusing to investigate violent extremists.
    – **Payouts to Trump allies.** Related letters demanded documents on a $1.25 million taxpayer payout to Michael Flynn, described as a “blatant and unlawful abuse of public trust”, and cited similar settlements for Carter Page.
    – **Prosecutorial conduct.** In June 2026 Raskin called for an investigation into U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros over the “Broadview Six” case — a failed prosecution of six Democratic officials and activists arrested protesting outside an ICE facility near Chicago.

    Raskin frames this work as mobilizing Judiciary Democrats to “defend American freedom, democratic institutions and the rule of law” and to “block a further descent into MAGA chaos”.

    ## What Oversight Democrats (with Raskin) say they’d add

    Garcia’s outline goes beyond Epstein:

    – **Trump family businesses.** Investigate “Trump family corruption,” including an investment fund run by , large government contracts to companies where Trump’s children hold stakes, and a multibillion-dollar crypto deal with an Emirati state-backed fund — which Garcia called “pure government corruption”.
    – **Homeland Security and HHS.** Probe potential pay-to-play at DHS and the “destruction of vaccine programs” at Health and Human Services.
    – **Outside corporations.** Target companies that “are working with the administration on corruption, or funneling money to the Trump family”.

    ## The broader Democratic House agenda for 2027

    Bloomberg Government’s June 2026 interviews list five priorities Democrats say they’d pursue even with a Republican president:

    1. **Lowering cost of living** — renew ACA tax credits, address housing and groceries
    2. **Fighting corruption** — “stamp out the culture of corruption,” citing Trump’s stock trading, crypto involvement, and investigations of political enemies
    3. **Ensuring voting rights** — Raskin described a “savage attack on the basic right to vote and on democracy”
    4. **Blocking Trump’s immigration policy** — Raskin said “we still have an ICE operation that’s completely out of control, and a trampling of people’s constitutional rights”
    5. **Fixing Congress** — return to regular appropriations, more open amendment process

    ## Why Democrats say they’re doing it — and the Republican counterargument

    – **Democratic rationale:** They argue GOP chairs have ignored Epstein, allowed DOJ to pay political allies, and looked past Trump-family financial ties, so aggressive oversight is needed to restore checks and balances and public trust.
    – **Republican response:** Oversight Chair James Comer dismissed the plans, saying Democrats “just want to try to go after Trump” and are “the biggest hypocrites I’ve ever seen… they’re going to go after Trump. They don’t care about taxpayers”.

    In short, if the House flips, expect Raskin at Judiciary and Garcia at Oversight to move quickly on subpoenas around Epstein, DOJ personnel payments, and Trump-family finances, while pushing a legislative message on costs, voting rights, and immigration — all framed by Democrats as accountability, and by Republicans as partisan retribution.

  62. Angus King says he asked, and DHS says there was no body cams on these latest killer ICE agents. Just like Houston.

    For the record Congress passed a bipartisan law requiring them and provided $20 million to pay for them.

  64. Oversight Chair James Comer dismissed the plans, saying Democrats “just want to try to go after Trump” and are “the biggest hypocrites I’ve ever seen… they’re going to go after Trump. They don’t care about taxpayers”.

    Dex, isn’t that a close paraphrase of what Trump said when asked whether he thought about American budgets and gasoline costs as a result of his Iranian playtoy?

    Those calling for legislative action seem to ignore that even if Dems take the Senate – it will be no more than by a 51-49 margin, and Fetterman is there to make a Dem win a tie to give JDouché the tiebreaker on any issue worth giving a shit about? Only budget or pablum legilation will pass and Dumbass will probably veto anything anyone cares about.

  65. Congress gave ICE $20M for body cams. But when agents shoot people in Maine and Houston, the lenses stay capped. This isn’t a funding problem, it’s a deliberate blackout. What is DHS hiding? Read here:

    Craigtrailmix | SUBSTACK
    Where Are The Body Cams?
    Read on Substack →

  66. Angus King says he asked, and DHS says there was no body cams on these latest killer ICE agents. Just like Houston.

    Well isn’t that convenient? (I don’t believe in coincidence).

  67. it’s funny they got billions of dollars for new GMC Denalis but only 20 million for body cams

  68. Anon – The screenshot here looks low rez, but go to Newsweek or something with a clear image, there are gingham ghosts all over it. Whatever it is, it’s not proof of life.

    Is their a coroner and/or doctor(s) willing to bet their careers on a cover-up? MAGAts can get a pardon, but can they be drummed out of their professions?

    Just hold a damned, special election in KY, and if Mitch can appear before then, live and in person, then call it off. Until then, Beshear needs to move forward. If he doesn’t, he certainly doesn’t have what it takes to run for POTUS.

  70. https://apnews.com/article/ice-shooting-maine-immigration-dhs-f26f8c2256aa6f0748582ea4adbb515c

    ICE shot and killed motorist in Maine. Advocates say he’s a 26-year-old man from Colombia

    After the shooting, his family contacted the Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, executive director Mufalo Chitam said.

    Mary Hayes, who lives close to where the shooting happened, said the man lived nearby with his wife and daughter.

    “I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body on the ground,” Hayes told the AP as she held a piece of cardboard with “No ICE Stop ICE” written on it. “I watched a little girl crying with a little pink backpack on because she’s never going to see her father again.”

    *Susan Collins has never been concerned about anyone other than Susan Collins. Let’s see Dems really step up to the plate, now.

  73. If Repugz are down 2 Senators, while Dems are only down by that overgrown, turncoat, John Fetterman, can a budget get pushed through or will there be a shutdown?

  74. RE: ICE shooting in Biddeford, Maine.

    There might not have been body cameras but there are witnesses. Reporters from the two major newspapers in Maine each found a witnesses easily. One witness actually observed the shooting.

    I don’t trust the FBI, but the Biddeford Police and the Maine State Police were there, so we will have their reports.

    Troy Jackson, one of the possible Democratic challengers to Susan Collins’s reelection, has already called this killing “murder.” He also said, “This shit has to stop.”

    Democratic politicians have to learn how to speak like that, and not like graduates of Harvard Law School.

    Let’s see how many leaders of the Democratic Party in DC refer to it.

    I’ll bet they will call it “An unfortunate incident that needs to be investigated,” or some other BS way of dodging the issues these killing raise.

  78. Just like Houston. First they lied about the victims legal status, now we get the truth. This morning they said the guy had been ordered deported and they were executing the warrant.

    BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) – Homeland Security secretary said man killed by ICE in Maine was not the target of warrant, Maine Sen. Angus King says.

  79. Call your Senators & Rep: ICE out! Body camera on! Flock cameras off! They’re putting us in a digital jail, but then don’t record what ICE is doing to folks. Efffff every Repug and MAGAt.

  80. The Reflecting Pool has been drained.
    Quick, Craig, go get pictures of the ~ripped liner~ while the pool is empty.

  81. Don’t give up on Jake Tapper. He’s covering Epstein Zorro ranch story right now, interviewing the New Mexico Attorney General accusing DOJ of withholding evidence

  82. The US has no standing to charge ships in international waters. And then, let’s say they paid for entry, is Iran going to charge them to leave?
    Every member of Congress, every scumbag in this administration, and every SCOTUS justice who lied under oath at their congressional confirmation hearing, are also responsible for everything Orange Adolf has done.

  83. BiD
    As Anon pointed out, correctly, imo, this election is about local politics. As Tip Oneil said”all politics is local.
    If you put as much effort into your local race as you do your conspiracies you might actually flip your local Congressional seat. Plus get acquainted with a whole lot of like minded Urban KC people.
    You said that you are in the 4th district, under the new redistricting plan all of liberal KC got rolled into it.
    Here is a candidate that has labor’s support, Interesting website well constructed smart writing.
    Jordan Herrera
    You could probably even get a ride if you need one.

    Jack

  85. Todd Blanche’s already turbulent AG confirmation hearing just hit a massive Epstein snag. New Mexico’s AG is accusing him of burying the Zorro Ranch files, forcing Blanche to answer for the stonewalling under oath this Thursday.

  88. Shenna Bellows comments on Biddeford, Maine ICE shooting.

    From the Guardian…

    The shooting in Maine marks the 11th person fatally shot by federal immigration officials since the Trump took office in his second term.

    It is also be the fifth person of those 11 to be killed by ICE while driving a vehicle.

    Shenna Bellows, the Maine secretary of state who is running for the Democratic nomination for a US Senate seat, referred to that number in a post on X on Monday.

    “It’s time to get ICE off our streets,” Bellows said.

  90. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/10/at-trump-dojs-demand-judge-reluctantly-drops-jan-6-case-against-proud-boys-00993884

    At Trump DOJ’s demand, judge reluctantly drops Jan. 6 case against Proud Boys

    The Justice Department’s most significant case stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol — the seditious conspiracy convictions of high-ranking members of the far right Proud Boys — has officially been erased.

    U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who presided over the six-month trial that led to the jury convictions, reluctantly granted a Justice Department motion to drop the case on Friday, concluding that he had no power to second-guess prosecutors once they decided to abandon it.

    *Karma never drops a case. Sometimes there’s a backlog, but eventually…

  92. He’s Pete Hegseth’s Wealth Manager. He Also Pushes “Pro-Israel Policies” Like War With Iran.

    He’s Pete Hegseth’s Wealth Manager. He Also Pushes “Pro-Israel Policies” Like War With Iran.

    How the man working to make the defense secretary richer helped lay the groundwork for Trump’s disastrous attack.

    “No one is more pro-Israel than Pete.”

    In March 2022, Pete Hegseth, then a Fox News analyst and host, spoke at a dinner put on by the Israel Heritage Foundation, a conservative Jewish group that has worked to boost US support for the Israeli far right.

    Hegseth singled out the IHF’s honorary chairman, Jonathan Burkan, saying they had become friends.

    Burkan, who works at Morgan Stanley, remained Hegseth’s wealth manager after the TV personality became defense secretary last year. A person with knowledge of the arrangement said Burkan works most closely with Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer Rauchet, who manages the couple’s finances and also functions as a Pentagon adviser.

    Burkan is also a founding member and director of another group, the Israel Justice Organization (IJO), that describes itself as working to “influence executive actions” to “promote pro Israel policies.”

    Burkan vocally supported the US’ decision to wage war with Israel against Iran. In a March op-ed he co-wrote for a pro-settler media outlet, Burkan and IJO chair Joseph Frager praised Trump for launching airstrikes. “President Trump has prevented a Holocaust in both America and Israel,” they wrote. “One day the world will give him the credit he deserves.”

    Critics of Israeli influence in Washington have long focused on groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that help tilt US domestic politics toward Israel. But those organizations, with traditionally bipartisan lobbying operations, are relatively mainstream compared to more hardline groups that have focused on building the alliance between the Israeli and American right. That includes Christian evangelicals, who have long been targets of Israeli influence operations.

    Through his work since 2008 running prolific junkets for prominent conservative Americans to visit Israel and its West Bank settlements, Frager, a New York gastroenterologist, has sought to build influence at a personal level. His ties to top Trump administration officials appear to mostly rest on the trips. In a 2015 interview, Frager told an Israeli outlet that “our efforts here in America are extremely valuable for the land of Israel, and I believe that this is my tafkid in America,” invoking the Hebrew word for divinely ordained purpose. “That’s why I’m still here, and not living in Israel where I should.”

    Hegseth joined Frager at private dinners and trips to Israel in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. In 2021, Frager began organizing trips through the Israel Heritage Foundation, a new entity he and fellow religious zionists created within a longstanding Hudson Valley rabbinical seminary.

    The IHF, which did not respond to requests for comment, describes itself as nonpartisan. But it has hosted a swath of mostly right-leaning or Trump-friendly politicos at its events and trips to Israel, including former New York Mayor Eric Adams, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisc.), Mike Pence, Kari Lake, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), and Michael Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chair now running for Senate in North Carolina. Trump himself attended a 2023 IHF gala.

    The unprovoked attack sent gas prices soaring, costing American consumers well over $100 billion. It has killed and injured thousands of civilians.

    Trump’s decision to attack followed an extraordinary feat of personal advocacy by Netanyahu. After failing to persuade past presidents to back Israeli strikes on Iran, Netanyahu convinced Trump to join a bombing campaign, despite ongoing Iranian efforts to negotiate with the US over their nuclear program.

    Mike Huckabee, now US Ambassador to Israel, took his first trip to the country with Frager in 2008, while he was running for president and courting religious conservatives. The former Arkansas governor went on to take more than a dozen additional trips with him, Frager boasted to Queens Jewish Link in November 2024.

    That travel appears to have helped cement Huckabee’s adoption of the politics of the Israeli settler movement, a success that is evident in an ambassador who is steeped in the politics and language of Israel’s far right. Huckabee has even disputed the legitimacy of Palestinian identity: “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria,” he’s said.

    Following a 2018 Huckabee visit to Israel, Frager arranged and accompanied him on a trip to Doha, Qatar. A federal filing by a lobbyist for Qatar shows Huckabee was paid $50,000 for coming, and $50,000 went to Frager for setting it up. The Qataris fund governance efforts in Gaza, and Frager has claimed the goal of the trip was to win their help retrieving the bodies of two fallen Israeli soldiers held in Gaza.

  94. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/13/marco-rubio-dismantle-international-criminal-court

    Marco Rubio launches campaign to dismantle international criminal court

    Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, launched a campaign to dismantle the International criminal court (ICC) on Monday, claiming that the global tribunal was interfering with US military and law enforcement operations at the risk of American sovereignty.

    Rubio invoked images of US Border Patrol agents and elected leaders being “dragged before an international court” and tried by judges from around the world in a lengthy op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal Monday.

    *Because this regime’s version of “American sovereignty” means doing whatever the helk they want to anyone, anywhere in the world.

    *Where is that asteroid?!?

  99. pine nuts are expensive is the reason for pecan substitution, ill freeze in portions

    uh so a few of my basil was just starting to flower so that’s why i’m doing it now, took like 60% of height off each plant, should get a second harvest

    flowering diminishes leaf quality

  100. Pecans for pine nuts- GREAT sub. I’ve loved pecans since I picked them up and filled my helmet after football practice in peewee Y football. And my aunt turned me onto roasted pecans – sweet and savory. Still buy and roast pecans. Am going to try smoking them. Growing up in Bama, pecans and … peanuts rule. Love them both.

  102. tastes like pesto 🤷

    1st batch needed more salt

    got 8 1/2c portions now, should last through a winter on the prairie

    oxidizes very fast so have your containers sorted and handy, i’m using plastic zipper bags, not proud, it’s what i have

    prolly $60 worth of product for $10 in ingredients

    tough gardening year with the heat so i’ll
    gladly take the W on this, good use of basil if you grow a lot

  103. https://www.alternet.org/trumps-upcoming/

    Legal experts alarmed as Trump plans to claim Georgia’s Dem senators are illegitimate

    Trump is reportedly planning on delivering a speech in the near future amplifying his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him — and social media users on X are raising the alarm.

    “If this is true it just shows that Trump is becoming more and more authoritarian, but the stupid kind of authoritarian who can’t even mask regime lies in a convincing way and so it’s obvious to everyone that he is terrified of his opponents (Ossof [sic] is a viable presidential candidate for Dems, one with more appeal than Vance) and also the average voter, which is why he keeps shamelessly pushing the SAVE America Act,” Gonzalez argued.

    “Things are about to get very, very, very bad,” posted podcaster Chris Mowrey. Similarly Shannon Watts, the New York Times bestselling author of “Fired Up,” wrote that this means there will be “a Civil War instead of midterm elections.”

    Journalist Pedro L. Gonzalez struck an ominous note by pointing out that Trump also plans on declaring Georgia’s two senators, Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, to be illegitimate.

  105. It’s ridiculous that the entire world is crumbling because of one, demented, dying dipshit and a bunch of greedbots who don’t mind the taste of his boot leather.

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