July 2, 2026

What Are the Trump Toadies Doing Today? ~~~

1. FBI Analysts Drop Everything to Pursue Phantom 2020 Election Conspiracy Theories. Nick Corasaniti, et al., of the New York Times: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation is assigning an army of 260 investigative analysts to a 'priority' investigation related to the 2020 election in Fulton County, Ga., a reflection of President Trump’s ongoing push to prove his baseless claims that the 2020 election there was rigged. The effort is outlined in an internal memo obtained by The New York Times and confirmed by a person familiar with the investigation. The memo says that the surge is part of a “priority” effort by Kash Patel, the director of the F.B.I. The analysts will work to complete 'approximately 708 records checks,' according to the memo. The type of records being checked is unknown. The deployment of such a large number of F.B.I. personnel to the most populous county in Georgia comes amid the Justice Department’s ongoing criminal investigation into the 2020 election in the state.

“In January, the F.B.I. raided an election warehouse in Fulton, seizing more than 600 boxes of election materials — including original ballots from the 2020 election. But an unsealed affidavit that was used to obtain the search warrant for that raid relied heavily on debunked claims about ballot anomalies in 2020. Those claims have been revived inside the White House by Kurt Olsen, an election denier who works in the Trump administration and who set off the current investigation, according to the affidavit.” MS NOW's report is here.

2. Her Boss Is a Serial Criminal, But U.S. Attorney Boxwine Indicts an Olympics Star. Campbell Robertson & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “A former Olympic canoeist who had been arrested in June on charges that he had vandalized the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been indicted, according to court documents. He is charged with 'destruction of property $1,000 or more,' a felony.... [Donald] Trump blamed vandals for the problems following a quick and costly makeover of the pool, and the canoeist, David Carter Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Md., was among the first to be charged. The U.S. Park Police had arrested Mr. Hearn near the pool on June 19, and accused him of destroying government property. Past administrations have wrestled with leaks and algae in the pool, but experts said the recent problems could have been caused by the pool’s hasty makeover.... On Thursday, Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, said in a news briefing that prosecutors had 'tremendous evidence' underpinning the indictment, and she condemned what she called 'unchecked vandalism and civil disorder.'... Mr. Hearn has acknowledged immersing his hand and touching the peeling sealant during a pause in a bike ride, but he has said that is all he did.”

Zach Montague of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Thursday confronted a Justice Department lawyer about ... [Donald] Trump’s plans to build a championship-level golf course on a peninsula in Washington, after she ordered the department to come before her with more specific details about possible construction. Judge Ana C. Reyes of the Federal District Court in Washington grew impatient during a hearing in which Michael Robertson, the government lawyer, struggled to provide a timeline or vision for what appeared to be accelerating efforts by the president to start work on transforming the East Potomac Golf Links. It was the latest in a long series of standoffs and mistrustful interactions between federal judges and the Trump administration over the president’s second-term efforts to remake parts of the capital.”

David Fahrenthold & Andrea Fuller of the New York Times: “A company with deep ties to ... [Donald] Trump is organizing some of the biggest events in Washington this weekend, including the Great American State Fair and the record-breaking fireworks display planned for Saturday. Those events will be funded, in part, by $68 million in taxpayer money. But because the Trump administration has routed those funds through an opaque nonprofit, it is unclear how much the company close to the president will receive. Event Strategies, Inc., a Virginia-based company, is run by former Trump campaign aides and veterans of what is informally called the political advance industry, meaning they set up speeches and rallies for candidates. The firm helped organize Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign kickoff in 2015, and handled logistics for the rally on Jan. 6, 2021, where he urged supporters to march on the Capitol....

“The Great American State Fair drew sparse crowds after it opened on June 25 [on the National Mall.]...” MB: Everything is going very smoothly. Almost all of the performers scheduled for opening night backed out when they learned the fair would be politically-charged; numerous states chose not to participate, and most state exhibits appeared to be thrown together at the last minute. The ferris wheel, which seems to be the main attraction, lost power and didn't run on its debut night; the food is awful and ridiculously expensive; and a mock-up of the Arc de Trump started falling apart in the rain. Thursday, we learned that Trump & his cronies may have engaged in public "corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemes." We also learned that "the stage for Freedom 250's July Fourth celebration fell apart during rehearsals Thursday, with a large component of the structure's ceiling falling roughly two stories down and landing behind a group of dancers and musicians. Miraculously, no one appeared injured." (Thanks to RAS for the lead.) Maybe the MAGA crowd enjoys seeing death-defying acts, but generally these acts are planned stunts, not potentially-deadly structural failures visited upon unsuspecting performers.

Maxine Joselow of the New York Times: “A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that the Trump administration could continue removing signs and exhibits about slavery, climate change and other fraught topics at national parks across the country, at least for now. The decision reversed a lower court’s ruling that blocked the National Park Service from carrying out ... [Donald] Trump’s directive to remove all 'negative' displays. It was a temporary victory for Mr. Trump, who has sought to purge national parks, Smithsonian museums and other federal sites of what he has called 'woke' ideology. In practice, it means that the Park Service can continue deleting materials while the appeals court considers the legality of the president’s directive, an executive order titled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.'”

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Marie: I've had only a vague idea of how Trump managed to hijack the 250th celebration. The Guardian article linked next helps fill in the blanks. ~~~

⭐~~~ David Smith of the Guardian: “Donald Trump staged a hostile takeover of the US’s 250th anniversary celebration to enrich political allies, harvest voter data and promote Christian nationalist ideology, according to a congressional investigation released on Thursday. The interim report, 'From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday', outlines a web of alleged corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemes orchestrated through a shadow corporation embedded within the National Park Foundation (NPF). The document was produced by Democratic staff of the House of Representatives’ natural resources committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee. It has not been officially adopted by the committee. 'Under President Donald Trump, this anniversary has been hijacked and perverted into a hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment,' it states, contending that the machinery built for a national commemoration was converted 'into an apparatus for raising and spending money in service of the President’s ego, political ideology, and pet projects.'” Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Here's the Congressional Democrats' report. In the executive summary, Democrats allege, "Freedom 250 may have conducted wire fraud by luring unsuspecting donors who intended to support
the congressionally chartered foundation and giving them Freedom 250 bank information instead." ~~~

~~~ Ben Binday & Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: “Some donors who intended to give money to a bipartisan effort to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary were, instead, steered to a White House-backed initiative under false pretenses, House Democrats allege in a report released Thursday morning, citing whistleblower interviews and newly obtained documents. The donors meant to give money to America250, a congressionally chartered initiative to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial, according to Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee. They instead were given routing and account numbers that directed their funds to Freedom 250, which ... Donald Trump established last year to organize anniversary events, the report says.... In interviews, Democrats ... said their report ... shows how the president transformed a bipartisan celebration of the nation’s anniversary into an initiative that benefited him and his allies.” MB: Donald Trump sure finds a lot of ways to steal other people's money.

What does the best Air Force 1 ever need to make it truly superlative? Why, rows of fake leather-bound books to show off exactly how classy its principal criminal rider is: 

~~~ Kathianne Boniello of Mediaite: “A sharp-eyed social media user called out an unusual feature on the new, $400-million Air Force One after the aircraft’s Wednesday debut: a shelf full of apparently fake books. The critique was sparked by a bubbly X post from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who included a trio of images of herself and ... Donald Trump on or in front of the new jet.... The main image showcased a beaming Leavitt sitting at a table aboard the plane, with shelves full of books surrounding a screen in the wall behind her. X user @nickmmark ... re-posted Leavitt’s happy post and zoomed in on the bookshelf — revealing tome after tome with the label 'LIBRARY' on the spine. 'Of course a plane full of people who have never read a book has a bookshelf of fake books with titles like “Library,”' he wrote.” 

Must Be Joe Biden's Fault. Jeff Cox of CNBC: "The U.S. economy saw job creation cool sharply heading into the summer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. Nonfarm payrolls for June increased by a seasonally adjusted 57,000 for the month, slower than the downwardly revised 129,000 added in May and worse than the 115,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast. The unemployment rate, however, dropped to 4.2%, slightly ahead of the 4.1% where it was a year ago."

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Trump Flaunts His Grandest Emolument. Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: Donald “Trump on Wednesday boarded his first flight aboard the new Air Force One, a Boeing 747-8 that the government of Qatar gave to the United States last year, raising ethical questions. 'This will be the first flight of what I think is maybe the greatest commercial plane ever built,” Mr. Trump told reporters before climbing the stairs to the plane, which was painted red, white and blue.... The plane is not only among the largest gifts from a foreign government ever made to the United States, but under the terms of the deal, it would be donated to Mr. Trump’s presidential library when he leaves office..., potentially making it available for his personal use after 2028. Since accepting the plane as a gift, the U.S. government has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into refurbishing it to make it secure enough to carry the president.... Mr. Trump’s inaugural flight comes just one day after financial disclosure reports showed that the president had pulled in at least $2.2 billion in 2025, the first year of his second term....” ~~~

     ~~~ Heather Cox Richardson: “Trump told reporters he was 'excited about the first flight. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. They just completed it, they made it appropriate for a president — that means the security and all the different bells and whistles they put on — very complex stuff. But it’s really quite something.... Frankly,' he said, 'we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollars.' As Marina Dunbar of The Guardian noted, the plane is a retrofitted Boeing 747-8, built in the United States.... Trump’s announcement he would accept the $400 million plane from a foreign country raised a bipartisan outcry. The Pentagon then stepped in to say it would accept the plane. So, officially Qatar gave the plane to the Pentagon, but a source told Aileen Graef of CNN they expect the plane, newly painted in red, white, and blue like Trump’s private jet, to leave the service of the United States when Trump leaves the White House, going to Trump’s presidential library.”

Richardson goes on to recount more of Trump's unparalleled corrupt schemes, all of which have been recently reported: for instance, “... economic analyst Steve Rattner graphed the gains and losses of the Trump family and investors in crypto ventures. The numbers show the Trumps taking about $2.3 billion in income since the beginning of Trump’s second presidency. The numbers show investors in those ventures losing about the same amount.”

It is hard to wrap your head around that the president of the United States would engage in this level of self-enrichment at the expense of so many of his supporters.... This is a president of the United States who has made more money off crypto since he took office than he made in any prior year in his entire business career. -- Lee Reiners, a former Federal Reserve Bank examiner ~~~

~~~ Eric Lipton, et al., of the New York Times: “The president’s 927-page financial disclosure showed how Mr. Trump and his family reaped huge financial rewards in 2025 through his money-losing Trump Media venture and a separate cryptocurrency firm called World Liberty Financial, even as routine investors suffered vast losses. He also amassed hundreds of millions through deals that involved foreign governments or corporations with agenda items pending before the Trump administration. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump dismissed questions about how much money he had made after returning to the White House, suggesting that he left personal financial decisions related to his investments to others.” The link appears to be a gift link.

In the first year of his presidency, Trump made more money than in the rest of his life combined... Meanwhile, most Americans worked hard to just break even. This is the cost of corruption. -- Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), on social media ~~~

~~~ Declan Harty of Politico: “... Donald Trump on Wednesday pointed to the stock market’s rise as the fuel behind his mammoth financial windfall in 2025, saying 'everybody’s profiting.'... But the president didn’t make the more than $2 billion he reported on his financial disclosures on the backs of blue-chip stocks.... Instead, his earnings were propelled by a string of Trump-backed cryptocurrency ventures that accounted for more than $1.4 billion of his 2025 income.... And while those digital assets companies paid off handsomely to early supporters like Trump, many of the traders who followed him into the market are saddled with investments that are deep in the red, with few signs of hope. The $TRUMP memecoin ... has plunged 98 percent from its January 2025 peak. First lady Melania Trump’s own memecoin has similarly cratered in value. And another crypto asset from the Trump family-backed firm World Liberty Financial is down 87 percent from its all-time high price from September.” ~~~

~~~ Insider Trader Number 1. Donald Shaw of Sludge: "The day before ... [Donald] Trump announced a 90-day pause on his sweeping tariffs, sending markets exploding higher, his investment accounts quietly purchased hundreds of stocks near the market low, trades that were not publicly disclosed until more than a year later despite federal disclosure requirements. The purchases, finally disclosed in a 927-page annual financial disclosure filed with the Office of Government Ethics on Monday, reveal a churn of transactions that was quietly playing out all last year: Trump's accounts were actively trading stocks throughout 2025 while he was making policy decisions that moved markets, and the public had no idea. On April 8, 2025, the day before Trump announced the tariff pause, the disclosure shows 327 individual stock purchases worth as much as $12.8 million, one of the largest single-day stock buying sprees disclosed in the filing.... The S&P 500 jumped nearly 10% the following day when Trump announced the pause, one of the largest single-day gains in the index's history.

"Federal ethics law requires executive branch officials, including the president, to publicly disclose securities transactions worth more than $1,000 within 45 days.... Trump filed no such reports covering the April trades—or virtually any of the thousands of stock trades his accounts executed throughout 2025. A note from an OGE reviewer on the cover page of the annual filing states: 'The filer paid late filing fees related to transactions not previously reported on 278-Ts.' The late fee under federal law is capped at $200."

Trump Thumbs His Nose at Customary Ethical Standards. Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: Donald “Trump returned to the White House with an epiphany about mixing business and politics during his first term in office. 'I found out that nobody cared,” Mr. Trump told The New York Times in January, revealing a remarkable indifference to potential conflicts of interest.... Mr. Trump has ... smash[ed] through the few norms he paid even glancing attention to in his first term, like having his family restrain its international business activity. 'I got no credit in the first term,' he said in January.... One Pew Research Center survey from September found that more than 60 percent of Americans felt that Mr. Trump in his second term 'definitely or probably' had 'improperly' used the office of the presidency to enrich himself, friends and his family. The same poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans believed that Mr. Trump had not set a high moral standard for the presidency....

“Mr. Trump told reporters on Wednesday morning before boarding the luxury plane donated by Qatar that now serves as Air Force One, 'You know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market is going up.'... The stock market’s movements ... do not explain the bulk of his financial haul in 2025, including when an investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates bought nearly half of the Trump family’s main crypto company.” The link appears to be a gift link.

I know more about that museum than the people that built it. -- Donald Trump, speaking of the new Theodore Roosevelt Library

Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald “Trump traveled [to North Dakota]with a large entourage to oversee the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, at the foot of the national park named after the 26th president.The library was the passion project of Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, when he was North Dakota’s governor. He was there proudly leading the president around. Many conservationists have objected that Mr. Trump and Mr. Burgum are the wrong stewards of Roosevelt’s legacy, given their own environmental records. At the library’s opening, Mr. Trump described people opposed to oil drilling as 'environmental lunatics.' He also complained about his Supreme Court losses and attacked Democrats in vicious terms, taking an event that could have been an agreeably happy tent-pole moment of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations — people love Teddy Roosevelt — and pumping it full of hot political invective. Not that the crowd seemed to mind. It was full of Trump fans.... [Some] wore T-shirts that said 'Jesus Is My Savior, Trump Is My President' and hissed at the cameramen of the 'fake news.'” ~~~ 

~~~ Nicole Charky-Chami of the Raw Story: During his remarks, Donald Trump told the "a crowd about how he talked to the nation's 26th president, who died in 1919. 'I even had a conversation with Theodore Roosevelt. I asked how do you feel about the fact that the Democrats gave the Panama Canal away to Panama for $1,' Trump said." Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This seems to be a window into how some of the worst people in the world deal with their never-ending string of bad behavior: they live so completely in a fantasy world that they can't distinguish fact from fantasy, even when their fantasies are impossible. Trump so wants to associate himself with a real President who is generally well-regarded that he pretends their friends who chat about president-y things. Anyway, the current POTUS* is a madman. ~~~

     ~~~ Update: So here's sort of an explanation of why Trump thinks he talked to Teddy Roosevelt. As RAS suggested yesterday, his public remarks on the "conversation" are still bizarre. He continues -- IMO -- to seem like a befuddled old man. Bush I lost re-election largely because he was perceived as being "too out of touch" because he didn't know how a supermarket scanner worked. Trump thinks an AI-generated construction of Teddy Roosevelt is the real Roosevelt returned from the dead just so he could talk to Trump. 

Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: “When ... [Donald] Trump’s annual financial disclosure was released on Tuesday, it showed that he reaped at least $2.2 billion from his various businesses last year, a singular haul for a president. Many of the gains stemmed from ventures that intersect with his administration, posing unparalleled potential conflicts of interest. Here are some of the biggest moneymakers for Mr. Trump and how they could be affected by his administration’s policies[.]” The link appears to be a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I don't get why these obvious conflicts are almost always called “potential conflicts of interest” or “ an appearance of conflict of interest.” If you make money on a deal in which you have the power to regulate one or more of the parties, it is a conflict of interest, whether or not you let your own self-interest affect how you regulate the parties. ~~~

~~~ Robert Reich: "How can we possibly expect that he’s working for the people of the United States rather than for himself? Trump doesn’t have any conflicts of interest. That’s because he really has only one interest: Trump."

Trump Ruins Everything, Ctd. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: “Presiding over a series of fenced-off or under-construction festivities ahead of the country’s 250th celebration is ... [Donald] Trump, who does not seem to mind that some of the nation’s most enduring symbols of liberty and expression are closed off and militarized.... In his drive to “beautify” the nation’s capital, Mr. Trump seems to have turned portions of the city into either a construction zone or an armed camp as he seeks to prove that he alone can improve a city he interacts with primarily from his armored limousine or presidential helicopter.... As the hunt for [Mr. Trump's imaginary] vandals continues, federal officials have effectively closed off access to the Reflecting Pool.” MB: Yes, there's nothing more beautiful than aluminum chain-link fences unless it's troops, brightly-striped barriers and traffic cones defending the streets against ordinary people wishing to see the sights on their vacations. ~~~ 

~~~ J.D. Wolf of Meidas News: “The safety data sheets (SDS) for multiple Rhino Linings products reportedly used during the recent renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool warn that their uncured components are 'toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects.' One of products seen in a large barrel at the reflecting pool was RHINO 405 A thixotropic high viscosity epoxy resin, which was used as part of a multi-layer coating process. The warning for the product applies to the materials during handling, application, spills, and before they have fully cured.... Several dead ducks were found in or near the pool....” (MB BTW: I read the Raw Story's report on this before reading Wolf's report. The Raw Story report-on-the-report is riddled with errors and misstatements of Wolf's report.) ~~~

~~~ Jake Spring of the Washington Post: “Fireworks for this year’s July Fourth celebration are expected to cause hazardous levels of pollution around the National Mall and 'very unhealthy' conditions in central D.C., according to internal National Park Service documents.... The show, billed by the Trump administration as the largest pyrotechnic display in history, will include some 850,000 fireworks in a roughly 40-minute show expected to start at 10:30 p.m. or 11 p.m., according to organizers.... Donald Trump will speak as part of the event, which marks the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.... A draft air-quality analysis, based on the National Park Service’s modeling, states that people should 'avoid prolonged exposure' to the pollution around the Mall.... The Park Service, in a separate document..., said that people should 'wear an n95 mask when outdoors' and 'remain indoors as much as possible during and after the show.'” Update: the link has been changed to a gift link.

Sarah Blaskey & Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Post (June 30): “White House officials last year secretly awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million for the construction of the East Wing ballroom in an unusual arrangement that sidestepped typical contracting procedures designed to control costs.... The White House routed the contract through the Executive Residence, the document shows, an office that is exempt from rules that require federal agencies to solicit competitive bids and disclose details to the public. The office is typically responsible for routine repairs, entertainment expenses, and the purchase of furniture, art and other items for the executive mansion.... Records also show that ... Donald Trump was directly involved in negotiating some costs for the project.” (Also linked yesterday.)

AND akaWendy found out that Trump hasn't given up on affixing his name at the top of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In fact, he (or probably his legal advisors) have had a Plan B in place for a while in case Plan A -- just doing it -- fell through: ~~~ 

~~~ Janay Kingsberry of the Atlantic: “Department of Justice lawyers representing the Kennedy Center yesterday urged a federal appeals court to restore Donald Trump’s name to the institution, arguing that taking it down jeopardizes “hundreds of millions” of dollars in gifts and pledges tied to an entity, unheard-of until this month, called the Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Foundation.... Bylaws for the foundation (which DOJ lawyers first mentioned in a June 12 filing in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit) require that gifts be 'returned, refunded, or terminated' if the president’s name is removed from the building, its branding, or other affiliated materials, the Kennedy Center wrote in a filing yesterday. Seeking an emergency stay to restore the president’s name to the building, the center argued that donors had pledged generous sums because Trump’s name was attached to the institution.” Read on. There are, of course, complications. Thanks to akaWendy for this gift link.

Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: “The humanitarian crisis gripping Venezuela after last week’s earthquakes is testing ... Donald Trump’s claim of American leadership in the Western Hemisphere, as officials tout their surge of U.S. money and manpower to the country after gutting America’s foreign assistance apparatus early in the administration.... The U.S. aid presence now in Venezuela — including search-and-rescue teams along with military and civilian logistical support — is an example of the big, brash displays of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief that the administration says it favors over slower-paced development work.

Raja Abdulrahim & Falih Hassan of the New York Times: “The United States has resumed some air shipments of U.S. dollars to Iraq, several months after it suspended them in a bid to pressure the government to distance itself from Iran, according to two aides to Iraq’s prime minister. The Trump administration stopped the flow of dollars to Iraq’s cash-based economy in April, withholding the country’s own money earned from oil sales. It was an extraordinary measure in light of the longstanding alliance between the two countries.... The punitive measures were taken at a moment when Iraq was in the process of selecting a new prime minister and the United States was trying to block candidates viewed as sympathetic to Iran. Washington was also demanding that Iraq’s government rein in an array of Iran-linked militias that operate largely outside of government control and have periodically attacked U.S. targets in the country.”

Emily Chang & Molly Nagle of ABC News: "The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the U.S. will not renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a key trade deal that ... Donald Trump negotiated in his first term.... The USMCA was negotiated by Trump to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed during the George H.W. Bush administration, which allowed free trade among North American neighbors. In a statement on the decision, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer pointed to 'shortcomings and our trade deficits with these countries' as the reason for the U.S. decision not to renew the USMCA. Instead, officials indicated the U.S. will pursue new trade deals with Mexico and Canada."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Since late last year, senior officials at the Justice Department and their allies in the news media have been unabashedly discussing a pair of investigations into John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, who has long been one of ... [Donald] Trump’s most reviled political enemies. On Wednesday, Mr. Brennan’s lawyers publicly fired back, putting the Trump administration on notice that if prosecutors bring charges against their client, they intend to fight them by claiming they are an act of vindictive retribution. The warning came as part of a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Washington that asked a judge to force Mr. Trump and top officials at the Justice Department to preserve any records or communications they might have related to the inquiries into Mr. Brennan.... The request for a judicial order requiring officials to keep records about a case that has not even been filed was somewhat unusual.” An Axios report is here.

Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: “Federal immigration officials have detained more than 10,000 people in the last five days, a major surge that has stemmed from a push within Immigration and Customs Enforcement to increase arrest rates.... ICE officers have arrested people at check-ins with immigration authorities, during traffic stops and on the street. The push has apparently yielded results, with recent arrest numbers roughly doubling from the 1,000 picked up each day earlier this year.... The rise in arrests suggests that ... [Donald] Trump is determined to meet his pledge of mass deportations, a goal that is popular among his conservative supporters but that has fueled a political backlash amid the administration’s heavy-handed tactics.... Top ICE officials were told to make sure that as many officers as possible were working seven days a week, and to put 80 percent of their officers on arrest operations....”

Calen Razor of Politico: “Last July 4 recess, House Republicans were triumphantly celebrating the massive victory of clearing the party’s tax and spending bill. Fast forward a year and Speaker Mike Johnson can’t even get enough votes to open his chamber’s floor for debate.... A rebellion by a small band of conservatives now jeopardizes members’ top priorities as the legislative calendar ahead of the midterms rapidly shrinks.... Now lawmakers will return July 13 to a chaotic mess of a to-do list.” ~~~

~~~ Meredith Hill of Politico: The voter-suppression-oriented SAVE America Act “can’t even pass the House — at least not the version Trump is pushing.... Speaker Mike Johnson ... and other House leaders have stuck with an older version of the SAVE America Act that focuses on proof-of-citizenship requirements but otherwise lets states run their elections as they see fit.... The added provisions Trump wants include a blanket prohibition on transgender people playing women’s sports, a ban on gender-affirming surgeries for minors and the mail voting crackdown — which could effectively end the no-excuse policies both blue and red states employ to send ballots out widely.... In the Senate, where even the narrower House-passed version of the bill has languished due to GOP divisions and a Democratic filibuster, there is also an understanding that the expanded bill Trump wants is DOA.”

Frank Thorp, et al., of NBC News: “Paramedics responded to a report of a 'cardiac arrest' for an “unconscious” person at a known address for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on the day his office disclosed he had been hospitalized, according to police scanner audio.... McConnell, 84, has faced a slew of health issues in recent years. ”

Zach Montague & Adam Sella of the New York Times: “A federal judge in Washington on Wednesday blocked the United States Postal Service from carrying out changes to its delivery of mail-in ballots, writing that recent policies directed by ... [Donald] Trump ran afoul of legal terms the agency accepted more than four years ago to ensure timely delivery of mail ballots. In a brief opinion, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan pointed to a settlement agreement reached between the N.A.A.C.P. and the Postal Service in December 2021, after the group sued the government arguing that postal delays threatened to disenfranchise voters. At that time, the agency agreed to 'prioritize monitoring and timely delivery of election mail.'... The parties had agreed [the settlement agreement] would run through the 2028 election cycle.” The Guardian's report is here.

Sarah Rumpf of Mediaite: '... for Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, lobbying Congress to pass legislation is an insufficient response to the Supreme Court's ruling [upholding birthright citizenship as a Constitutional mandate]. In a long social media post, Davis accused Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett of having made the 'choice' to 'nullify the 14th amendment and extra-constitutionally replace it with their own language,' and he offered several 'ways forward' from the court's ruling. Among the ideas he shared were having red states refuse to issue birth certificates to 'non-citizens,' packing the court with additional justices, denying entry to all pregnant foreigners, denying entry to all pregnant foreigners, sterilization of all foreign visitors, and even '[d]issolution of the Union,' because '[a] nation which can't even restrict who gets to be a citizen isn't a nation.'" Thanks to RAS for the link.

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Colorado. Jack Healy of the New York Times: “Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado on Wednesday fired two members of his clemency board after they spoke out against his decision to commute the prison sentence of the election denier Tina Peters. The board members, Hannah Seigel Proff and Azra Taslimi, had objected to Mr. Polis’s decision in May to release Ms. Peters from prison after pressure from ... [Donald] Trump. After the commutation, Ms. Proff and Ms. Taslimi revealed that the board — appointed by Mr. Polis — had twice voted unanimously to reject Ms. Peters’s application for a shortened sentence. Mr. Polis, a Democrat, has the final decision, and overruled the board.... They received a letter from the governor saying they were being dismissed for violating the board’s confidentiality standards.... 'He’s saying the public doesn’t have the right to know his own advisory board told him no — twice,' Ms. Taslimi said. 'He’s not protecting a process. He’s protecting himself from scrutiny.'” MB: She's right. Polis should have fired himself -- that is, resigned. Update: the link has been changed to one that appears to be a gift link.

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Ukraine/Russia. David Stern & Kostiantyn Khudov of the Washington Post: “Russia pounded the Ukrainian capital [Kyiv] with airstrikes overnight, killing at least 17 people, injuring more than 90 others and causing fires throughout the city, officials said Thursday. It was the latest major attack on the Ukrainian capital as Moscow finds its war stalling and casualties mounting, with little prospect of renewed ceasefire or peace negotiations.”