July 10, 2026

Alec Hernandez of Politico: “Graham Platner has formally withdrawn his candidacy from the Maine Senate race, according to election officials — triggering the process to name his replacement on the ballot. 'The Secretary of State’s Office today confirmed that a formal notice has been received from U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner,' the office said in a statement Friday. 'Because the candidate officially withdrew before 5 p.m. of the 2nd Monday in July, ... his name will not appear on the ballot, and his political party may replace him.'”

Ana Ley, et al., of the New York Times: Even though health inspector were not allowed beyond the food prep areas, they found plenty of dangerously unsanitary conditions and unsafe food storage practices at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey. (MB: It kinda makes you sick just to read the report.) MEANWHILE, DHS Secretary Markwayne seems to be living the life of leisure & luxury.

AP: “... Donald Trump has chosen not to sign a sweeping housing affordability bill on Friday, in protest of Congress not approving a strict voter ID bill that does not have enough support to pass. 'I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,' Trump posted on social media. Still, the housing measure could become law on Friday without Trump’s signature, as he had 10 days to issue a veto and stop the measure.” ~~~

     ~~~ Julia Manchester of the Hill: “'THE SAVE AMERICA ACT’S non-passage is CRAZY, and a serious threat to any politician who votes against it!' Trump exclaimed in a lengthy Truth Social post.... Trump’s comments come just hours before the bipartisan housing legislation ... is automatically set to go into law at midnight if the president does veto the bill. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said that Trump will not stop the legislation even if he doesn’t sign it.”  

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Rachel Chason & Suzan Haidamous of the Washington Post: “U.S. forces hit 90 targets overnight, mostly along Iran’s coastline with the Strait of Hormuz, stepping up renewed strikes after ... Donald Trump said he thought a tentative truce was 'over.' Iran, in turn, launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Jordan and countries in the Persian Gulf. The intensifying tit-for-tat strikes, now in their second day, came after huge crowds in Tehran vowed revenge against the United States during elaborate funeral rites this week for their assassinated supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and after Trump called Iran’s leaders 'scum.'” ~~~

~~~ Max Bearak, et al., of the New York Times: “American military officials say they hit about 170 targets in Iran during strikes on Tuesday and Wednesday, 15 times the number struck during a previous round of attacks in late June. U.S. Central Command said the strikes had hit air defense systems, drone and missile storage sites and logistics infrastructure along the Iranian coast. The goal, military officials said, is to degrade Iran’s ability to threaten ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Health Ministry said that U.S. attacks over the past two days had killed at least 14 people and injured 78 others across five provinces. Iran said it had responded by firing at U.S. military bases in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. Jordan said it had also intercepted Iranian attacks. The attacks ... have raised the prospect of a return to the full-scale war that began in late February....”

Tyler Pager, et al., of the New York Times: “The new Air Force One, which ... [Donald] Trump flew on earlier this week to Turkey, lacks the same defensive countermeasures that were security features of the old model, including its advanced antimissile capabilities, according to multiple officials who have been briefed on how the jet was retrofitted. Experts say the absence of those capabilities on the Boeing 747-8 aircraft, which was donated by Qatar, creates potential risk in using the jet abroad, a dynamic underscored by the abrupt decision on Wednesday for Mr. Trump to leave Turkey on the old Air Force One at the urging of the Secret Service.

“The episode is intensifying the focus on Mr. Trump’s demands to rapidly retrofit the donated 747 to replace an aging fleet that had served as the official presidential planes. Lawmakers have called on the administration to disclose whether the overhaul of the Qatari plane, which the Air Force oversaw in the course of the last year, provided sufficient security upgrades. The safety of the aircraft is critical not only for the president, but also for the large entourage of White House staff, Secret Service officials, journalists and guests who fly aboard.... Mr. Trump pushed for the new plane to be put into use as quickly as possible and frequently complained that the old presidential aircraft was not impressive enough to take on international trips.” Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday.) Update: the link has been changed to one that appears to be a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Gosh, Trump sure doesn't seem to understand that the POTUS is supposed to be a modest representative of the ordinary people who elected him to public office. Why, it's almost as if he'd rather be a king or a dictator lording it over the hoi polloi than a humble servant seeing to the rights and needs of the citizens of the nation. ~~~

~~~ Josh Marcus of the Independent: “Israel reportedly recently shared intelligence with the U.S. about potential plans by Iran to kill ... Donald Trump.... 'They want to take out the U.S. leader — me,' Trump said. '... These are evil, sick people. And we have to root out that cancer. That cancer. You know what you do? You’ve got to cut out cancer early....'... Iran has long vowed to avenge Qassem Soleimani, a top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general that Trump had killed in his first term. The U.S.-Israeli campaign has continued to target Iranian leaders throughout the war, most notably assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the longtime supreme leader of Iran, in February.... Officials familiar with the intelligence dialogue told CNN that the U.S. had not vetted the alleged Iranian plot and suggested the warning could be viewed in part as an effort to sway the Trump administration towards Israel’s perspective on the war.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I do know equal treatment is too complex for Trump to understand, but if Iranian leaders are "sick, evil people" who are a "cancer that you've got to cut out" because they are plotting to assassinate Trump, isn't Trump implying that he himself is a "sick, evil" person who is a "cancer that you've got to cut out" since he actually did kill numerous Iranian leaders? 

Arc de Trump, Ctd. Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: “A federal commission Thursday advanced ... Donald Trump’s triumphal arch project after hearing nearly three hours of public opposition, delivering a key win for the president’s hope to begin building the towering 250-foot-tall structure. The National Capital Planning Commission’s vote does not represent final approval for the controversial project, which would be constructed in Memorial Circle, a traffic roundabout near Arlington National Cemetery. The commission also requested that administration officials and architects provide more information about the project before final consideration, which its chairman said could come in September.” (Also linked yesterday.)

“Spectacular”! Kyla Guilfoil of NBC News: “'A very big day in Palm Beach, Florida, where it was my Great Honor to have the Palm Beach International Airport be renamed, by a spectacular vote, The President Donald J. Trump International Airport,' Trump wrote Thursday evening on Truth Social. This will soon be one of the Greatest and Most Spectacular Airports anywhere in the World!' Earlier in the day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke at an unveiling ceremony in Tennessee, where the Legislature passed a law last year renaming multiple bridges and roads, including designating a bridge in Jefferson County as the President Donald J. Trump Bridge. It was previously known as the Francis Burnett Swann Memorial Bridge.” MB: Considering all the damage Trump has done to this country and to other peoples around the world, one would think Trump would be hiding out, not reminding people of his presence. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The bridge was actually named for Frances (with an "e") Burnett Swann, a local woman who lived with her husband between this bridge and the Colonel Alfred R. Swann Bridge, as well as the Swann's Marina. Alfred R. was Frances' husband. "At the Swann Cemetery, at French Broad Baptist Church, Frances Burnett Swann and her husband rest side by side, and in the distance, you can see the Donald J. Trump Bridge." Since Alfred was born in 1843, I presume he was a colonel in the Confederate army, though I don't know that for a fact. I suppose the Trumplodytes would not have wanted to expunge the name of a Confederate soldier, but "just a woman"? Meh. 

Behind the Tarp. Anastasia Tsioulcas of NPR: "On Wednesday, a federal appeals court denied ... [Donald] Trump's request to stop the removal of his name from Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center. The signage on the building has been covered with tarp and scaffolding since June 13, but in a court filing last month, the center's current executive director said that Trump's name has been removed. In their decision, three judges from the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that the president had failed to prove that the arts center would be 'irreparably injured' without Trump's name attached to it."

Dyland Stableford of Yahoo! News: "David 'Davey' Hearn, a former U.S. Olympic canoeist, pleaded not guilty on Thursday after being charged with alleged vandalism to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool." MB: From this report and from others I saw on the teevee, it appears algae have returned to the pool. "The president suggested that someone 'put fertilizer in the water,' causing the algae. On Sunday, [Interior Secretary Doug] Burgum seemed to contradict Trump's claim, saying the algae was residual and came from reactivated supply lines." Since the pool is fenced off and guarded, maybe vandals used drones to drop fertilizer or other algae-feeding substances into the pool. So enterprising! 

Ken Dilanian of MS NOW: “FBI Director Kash Patel has been demanding special perks from bureau employees during his taxpayer-funded travels throughout the country, including helicopter tours and jet ski excursions, according to whistleblower accounts given to Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary committees.... An FBI spokesman disputed the allegations. But the Democrats are not alone in their concerns about Patel’s use of public resources; MS NOW has also viewed a letter to Patel from Republican Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley written in May demanding that Patel turn over information about his flights on FBI aircraft and about the FBI’s purchase of BMW vehicles.... 'For each trip where you used an FBI aircraft for personal travel, have you reimbursed the FBI as required by law?  If yes, please provide the records,' the Grassley letter says.... Grassley, who has consistently defended Patel publicly, asked the director in the letter to 'please explain why you decided to purchase BMW vehicles instead of Chevy Suburbans.'”

Rigging the Election, Ctd. Erica Green of the New York Times: “The Trump administration has forced out the three remaining members of an independent, bipartisan commission that supports states in administering their elections, the White House confirmed on Thursday. The move comes as President Trump seeks to cast doubt on the outcome of the upcoming midterms and impose control over how ballots are counted. Mr. Trump terminated, effective immediately, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, two members selected by congressional Democrats to serve on the Election Assistance Commission, and accepted the resignation of a Republican member, Christy McCormick. The board has no other remaining members, as its fourth commissioner resigned this spring. An unidentified White House official ... pointed to the recent decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump had the authority to fire most independent regulators for any reason, ushering in a vast expansion of presidential power. Mr. Trump had hailed the decision as 'the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years.'” The NBC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Jacob Knutson of Democracy Docket: “Max Flugrath, a voting rights advocate with Fair Fight Action, said the firings fit into a broader effort by Trump to pressure the EAC to change election rules after Republicans failed to pass the SAVE America Act through Congress. 'Since he took office, Trump has pressured the Election Assistance Commission to change election rules to effectively implement the SAVE Act — because they can’t pass it through Congress,' Flugrath wrote on social media. 'It’s another power grab by a desperate president who doesn’t want a fair midterm election.' In an anti-voting executive order last year, Trump directed the commission to add a proof of citizenship requirement to a federal voter registration form, make changes to the standards it uses to certify the voting systems used in all U.S. elections, and withhold federal funds from states that did not comply with other requirements.” ~~~

     ~~~ Rick Hasen on his Election Law Blog: "... the ... question is what Trump might try to do with the EAC without commissioners. Most boldly (and I would argue illegally) Trump could try to direct the commissioner-less EAC to do his bidding, for example by stating that the EAC must amend the federal voter registration form that states must accept for federal elections to include documentary proof of citizenship. Trump’s first voting-related EO tried to do this, and he was stymied. But that was acting through the commissioners and before the Slaughter case[; i.e., the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that the president could remove members of independent agencies]. If he tries anything like this, it will be high profile and very important litigation that will end up at the Supreme Court on the emergency docket over the summer."

Getting Rid of Scientists. William Broad of the New York Times: “Omar Yaghi, an immigrant to the United States who shared last year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has left his faculty post at the University of California, Berkeley, for one in China, where he will lead an institute using artificial intelligence to accelerate the discovery of new materials. Dr. Yaghi’s move comes amid the Trump administration’s continuing disruptions of U.S. science funding and China’s efforts to woo international scientists with hefty budgets. Last week, Tsinghua University in Beijing welcomed Dr. Yaghi in an appointment ceremony, calling him one of the world’s foremost chemists. The university said he saw his new post as an opportunity 'not to slow down, not to repeat what has already been done, but to do science with more energy, more intensity, and more ambition than ever before.'” MB: Once again, an incident to bolster my suspicion that Trump is a foreign agent. He is certainly, in this matter, a Chinese asset. Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Alex Woodward of the Independent: “Immigration authorities are asking witnesses to self-deport after a federal agent in Texas fatally shot a Mexican man who had lived in the U.S. for 35 years, according to an advocacy group supporting the men and their families. The men who witnessed the shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — his brother and two of their co-workers — spoke to their family members while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, where officers are urging them to sign paperwork for their removal from the country, according to Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Proaño, speaking to The New Republic, said the men 'hold the key to what actually happened.' He told MeidasTouch that ICE is 'trying to get rid of them as witnesses.'... The officers 'had not been issued body-worn cameras' due to partial government shutdowns that the administration has blamed on congressional Democrats, according to a statement from Homeland Security.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It seems everything DHS says is bull. Their blame-the-victim story is the same false boilerplate scenario they used to describe people ICE murdered or shot to kill in Minneapolis, Chicago & elsewhere. The story that they couldn't afford body cams is false; ICE had a huge, dedicated tranche of cash available throughout the federal shutdown. ~~~

     ~~~ ⭐Update. Yup. Arelis Hernandez of the Washington Post: “The three men who were arrested during an immigration operation that resulted in the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo said a federal officer fired at them almost immediately after exiting his vehicle and that at no point did the driver veer in his direction. The migrants are disputing key elements of the Department of Homeland Security’s account of what transpired during a chaotic traffic stop in a predominantly Mexican American neighborhood in Houston on Tuesday. They spoke from immigration detention with attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, who shared their written and oral accounts with The Washington Post. DHS released a statement hours after the deadly shooting saying that Salgado Araujo had rammed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle and 'weaponized' his white work van 'in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.' 

“'That is a lie,' wrote Jose Trinidad Rojas, 51, in a handwritten statement. 'It is impossible for them to say that they were going to get run over … there were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. They were on the sides.' Balderas-Ibarra spoke to Rojas, Daniel Tirado Pantoja, 43, and the shooting victim’s brother, Victor Salgado, 44, and said he heard the same story from each as he interviewed them separately. ” MB: We live in a country where it's reasonable to assume that federal officials are coldblooded murderers and that ordinary people we've never heard of are far more credible than are top-level officials. This is part of the legacy of Donald Trump. ~~~

~~~ Edgar Sandoval & Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: “Federal immigration agents who killed a man during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday had been searching for a different person, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman. The targets of the ICE investigation were two people from Guatemala, one of whom the agents believed was in a white van being driven by the man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who were not permitted to speak about the case. But the Guatemalan immigrants were not in the van. Mr. Araujo, a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the United States without authorization for 35 years, was on his way to work with three other men. When agents tried to stop the vehicle, the encounter quickly escalated, and an agent shot Mr. Araujo in the abdomen. He died at a hospital hours later.” (Also linked yesterday.) Update: the link has been changed to one that appears to be a gift link. ~~~

~~~ José Olivares of the Guardian: “Salgado’s death marks the 10th fatal shooting by federal immigration officials nationwide since the second Trump administration took office.... From July 2025 to January 2026, the Wall Street Journal identified over a dozen incidents of federal immigration officials firing at people in vehicles.... Last month, Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights released a report calculating that in the first 500 days of Trump’s second administration, 52 people died in ICE custody. The United Nations high commissioner for human rights has raised alarm about the increasing number of deaths in US government immigration custody.” ~~~

~~~ Michael Adkison of Houston Public Media: "A crowd of hundreds marched in Houston's Magnolia Park neighborhood 36 hours after a federal immigration officer shot and killed a man along that very street. They called for an end to such immigration enforcement operations in Houston." 

Josephine Walker & Esteban Hernandez of Axios: "Mexico plans to file criminal complaints in the United States over the deaths of Mexican nationals in ICE custody, Mexico's Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez said Thursday.... Mexico had already made diplomatic complaints about the deaths, but taking the United States to court would raise the stakes for the Trump administration as foreign governments and rights advocates continue to scrutinize ICE deaths.... 'We're going to do everything we can in our power,' Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters at a Thursday morning press conference. 'What we can't do is neglect the Mexicans who have died in ICE operations or who were detained in detention centers…that's why we're pressing for more action.' Velasco Álvarez said Mexico will move beyond previously used diplomatic channels and file complaints directly with U.S. prosecutors, asking them to investigate the incidents as criminal matters."

What is the point of a man who has acquired more riches than anyone else on Earth yet lacks basic cultural knowledge and is steeped in South African racism and debilitating egoism? ~~~

~~~ Daniel Mendelsohn in a New York Times op-ed: “In the buildup to the release of Christopher Nolan’s $250 million, all-IMAX retelling of Homer’s 'Odyssey,' the director revealed that he had chosen the Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o to play Helen. A firestorm of controversy followed, fueled largely by self-appointed guardians of the Homeric epics who consider the casting of a Black woman as Helen to be a grotesque violation — a 'woke' gesture designed to 'destroy Western civilization and everything that helped create it,' as one voice on X put it. X’s owner, Elon Musk, used the platform to accuse Mr. Nolan of 'pissing on Homer’s grave,' referring to the director as an 'anti-White racist,' and suggesting that he chose Ms. Nyong’o in a cynical bid to win over Oscar voters. ('He wants the awards.')” ~~~

     ~~~  Marie: First of all, you flouncing ignoramus, Homer was not a person; "he" was an oral tradition. So no grave to piss on. Second, the Greeks literally "did not see color." Mendelsohn himself notes that "the Greeks didn’t have a concept of race in the way that we do." When the Greeks categorized people, they did so not by Black and White, but by "Greek" and "barbarian." And that distinction developed, appropriately enough, just before Odysseus's epic efforts to return home. "Thucydides notes that, prior to the Trojan War, the name ‘Hellas’ (the Greek word for ‘Greece’) was not ‘universal’. He cites Homer’s omission of the term ‘barbarian’, attributing this is to ‘the Grecians’ being ‘not yet distinguished by one common name of Hellenes’ (Thuc. 1.3.1-4)." So STFU, Elon, you useless mofo. All due respects. 

If you think you are better than the richest man in the world, you are most lightly right. ~~~

~~~ Paul Krugman listens to some ordinary people.

Heather Cox Richardson's post today is pretty interesting. Read to the end: "And yet in 2026, here we are." MB BTW: I don't think I've ever realized that the Fourteenth Amendment was so imstrumental in putting the kibosh on states' rights.  

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Maine Senate Race. Milking It Till the Last Minute. Holly Otterbein of Axios: "Graham Platner privately told staff that he is planning to officially file paperwork to end his Senate campaign on Monday — the drop-dead deadline for him to exit the race.... Though Democrats largely appear to think Platner is done with his bid, his last-minute timing is likely to cause a final pang of anxiety within the party.... Platner made the comments to his team Wednesday night shortly before he announced publicly he was suspending his campaign."

~~~ Here's what appears to be a gift link to a NYT story about the rise & fall of Graham Platner. I linked the story yesterday with a standard link. It's worth reading. (Also linked yesterday.)

Tennessee & Arizona. Ja'han Jones of MS NOW: “... some conservatives are resorting to anti-Asian racism and anti-Chinese xenophobia as the Republican Party faces a potential shellacking in this year’s midterms.... [A] campaign ad featuring Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican and gubernatorial candidate, in which she crushes fortune cookies while vowing to 'hunt down' communists and 'crack down on China,' is a prime example. Some observers ... noted that modern fortune cookies weren’t invented in China, but rather in the United States by Japanese immigrants.” [There's a gong sound at the end of the ad.]... Anti-Asian racism has also roiled the Arizona Republican Party. The state’s GOP primary race for schools chief was recently rocked by a racist incident in which a dark-money group put out a bigoted ad with gong noise and stereotypical Asian imagery that labeled candidate Kimberly Yee, who is Asian American, as the 'empress of DEI.'... And ... a top official for Arizona-based Turning Point USA, Tyler Bowyer, has faced condemnation after he questioned whether a Republican state lawmaker who escaped Vietnam as a child can speak English.”