Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude: a hate merchant loses a primary (and general hospital)

8/12/2026

a hate merchant loses a primary (and general hospital)

daniel villarreal ('lgbtq news') reports:

Republican Jadon MacCormack, a New Hampshire State House candidate who literally wants to execute all LGBTQ+ people, decisively lost his primary race last night against his competitor, Anthony Emilio. MacCormack won only 90 votes, less than 20% of the total votes cast for both candidates. Emilio will face five-term Democratic incumbent Pat Boyd in the November general election.

Shortly after being endorsed by his party at a district convention, MacCormack published a post proclaiming June as “Straight Month” in which he pledged to “stand firmly against the Transgender and LGBT movement that has for too long corrupted our families, undermined parental authority, and eroded the foundational values of our society.”

MacCormack’s post also promised to “fight relentlessly in the state legislature to protect our children from premature medical interventions, indoctrination in schools, and the normalization of perverse ideologies that threaten the innocence of the next generation.”

In a July interview, he repeatedly compared LGBTQ+ people to “pedophiles and mass murderers,” said that Pride month “promotes sodomy,” and claimed that LGBTQ+ culture is more important than the child sex abuse epidemic in churches.

good that the hate monger lost the primary. it needed to happen. and then some. we don't need hate merchants like that in public office.

'general hospital'?

willow went over to the quartermaines to confront michael . gio was in the room and they fought in front of him. she told michael she knew she'd been drugged and he denied drugging her. she said it was his girlfriend jacinda who drugged her and she went by the hospital had a blood draw so that she could prove she was drugged. he's blown it this time, he's not going to have custody of their kids anymore.

gio. you know i don't like gossips. i am so turned off by gio right now. he left and immediately felt the need to tell kye and trina what he saw. just shut up. stop being such a damn gossip.

this leads kye and trina to decide that they have to tell michael that willow shot drew and how they know it. they weren't honest with him in that they didn't tell him that they went to alexis during the trial to tell her that they knew and she advised them to be silent about everything.

i'm so tired of the gossips and so tired of the half-assers who finally get honest but only to a point.

michael told kai and trina that he could use the information that they provided without getting any 1 else involved.

isaiah and portia talked about the case - curtis beating isaiah up - and wondered how they were going to handle raising des? (that's portia and curtis' newborn.) jordan and curtis talked about her sidwell offer to cassadine.

drew told scout that he did listen to her but that he was her father and danny was too immature and out of control to be around her.

danny talked to scout a little but then went to sonny's where he talked about a number of things including his guilt over shooting ross and sonny reminded him if he hadn't done that then 2 people (jason and britt) would have been dead. danny talked about charlotte and how she was moving in with her father (because he lets her do whatever she wants, danny said). he felt bad because he and charlotte were not getting along and maybe that's why his mother agreed to let charlotte go live with cassadine.

let's close with c.i.'s 'The Snapshot:'

Wednesday, August 12, 2026. Chump grows more unpopular, his cowardly actions are noted, he continues his war on immigrants and on reality, two cry babies who voted to support Todd Blanche becoming Attorney General now want to pretend that they ave backbones, and much more.

Peter Baker (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:

The threat to Air Force One was seen as so dire that they sneaked President Trump off the jet in a catering container to keep him safe. But the same dire threat did not stop them from then sending Air Force One into the skies anyway with a planeful of senior officials, government employees, reporters and military personnel serving as decoys, some unwittingly.

If the Iranians were trying to shoot down the presidential plane last month, as U.S. officials concluded at the time, then the subterfuge in Ankara, Turkey, that protected the president also may have made targets of dozens of others who flew aboard the jet, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the senior aides Stephen Miller and Steven Cheung.

The government has on rare occasions engaged in sleight of hand to safeguard presidents from possible jeopardy, particularly for journeys to hazardous locations, such as when George W. Bush or Barack Obama flew to Iraq during days of war or when Bill Clinton made a brief visit to Pakistan with its history of terrorism. The Trump team’s ruse in Ankara, however, stands out not only for its misdirection but also for the way it shifted the evident peril to others and was kept secret long after Mr. Trump was out of harm’s way.

“They just didn’t seem to give a second thought to anybody but the president and the few people who were with him,” said Joe Lockhart, who served as White House press secretary to Mr. Clinton during his 2000 trip to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. “We went out of our way to make sure the maximum number of people, especially civilians, were protected and not human shields. They didn’t even think about it. And to me, that’s the big difference.”

Let's move over to John Cornyn, the outgoing US senator from Texas. Rachel Frazin (THE HILL) reports:

Republican Sen. John Cornyn is raising concerns about the Trump administration’s construction of a border wall through national and state parks in his state.

In a letter released on Tuesday, Cornyn warned that the border barrier’s construction could disrupt natural beauty, indigenous sites, wildlife and tourism at Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park, both of which are located in Texas.

“Many residents that live and work around the parks are also concerned that a physical wall, which would be accompanied by lighting systems, access roads, and maintenance corridors, would (1) ruin the beauty, landscape, and wildlife of the park, (2) threaten culturally significant Native American sites, (3) disrupt wildlife migration, (4) limit access to the Rio Grande River, and (5) significantly harm the local economy as tourism is a major economic driver for the region,” he wrote.

So?

What do you want us to do, Cornyn?

You're the one who said that you, as a senator, didn't have the power to rein in Chump. That's what you said as you explained voting for Todd Blanche to become Attorney General.

So you wrote a letter? Like one of your constituents might do? You have no power because you don't know how to exercise power.

In related news, former US Vice President Kamala Harris has spoken out against Chump's SAVE America Act. Ryan Mancini (THE HILL) reports Senator John Kennedy spoke to Sean Hannity about Harris' statements:

“No disrespect, but Vice President Harris is no longer relevant. She had a shot and she missed. She can cozy up to the Lulu Lenins all she wants to,” Kennedy said, referring to Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin. “But she has me confused with somebody who cares what she thinks. I mean, she’s yesterday.”

No, disrespect, Kennedy, but you are no longer relevant. You've been voted out of the Senate, stabbed in the back by Chump. Yet you voted for Todd Blanche to become Attorney General. And in January 2025, you voted for Robert Kennedy Junior to become Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Now Kamala was a senator like you once. But she went out as vice president. Makes her much more relevant than you ever will be and you can blame your cry baby self for that.

Cry babies is all that MAGA's produced from the GOP. The biggest one of all is, of course, Donald Chump and America has grown weary of his constant crying and whining. Fernando Cervantes Jr. (USA TODAY) reports:

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to yet another low since his return to the White House, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll, which also found that just 1 in 3 Americans approve of his job performance.

The survey, released Aug. 11, found that 33% of Americans approve of Trump’s performance, down 3 percentage points from the previous week. This marks the lowest approval rating the president has seen in YouGov tracking since he returned to office in 2025.

Apart from his continued slump in the polls, a majority of Americans, 60%, said they perceived the president as "not honest and trustworthy". According to the newest poll, 65% of respondents said the country is headed in the wrong direction, up 2 percentage points from the Economist/YouGov’s poll in late July.

65% of Americans feel that "te country is headed in the wrong direction." The country's rejecting Chump.

And this poll was taken before the country learned of Chump's cowardly action of switching planes and leaving reporters and White House staff at risk of an attack on the plane that they were in.

What should have happened, if he had to be whisked away in a catering truck, was that he ot on the third plane and flew off and it was announced that the plane Rubio, reporters, et al were on had some sort of a mechanical issue and was not departing just yet. And when Chump was safely in England, it could be announced that due to the mechanical problem, he flew on another plane. Then the plane that would carry Rubio, et al, could take off and anyone wanting to bomb it because Chump was on it would know Chump was not in the air.

And that's what he should have insisted upon.

Instead, he risked the lives of others. He put other people at risk. That's not a leader.

There's an important report coming out today. Jeff Cox (CNBC) reports:

An important inflation report Wednesday could give the Federal Reserve a little breathing room in its battle against inflation.

The consumer price index, due at 8:30 a.m. ET from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is expected to show only a modest increase for July — 0.1% on the all-items headline number and 0.2% for the all-important core reading that excludes volatile food and energy prices, according to the Dow Jones consensus. On an annual basis, they are expected to show 3.4% and 2.5% respectively, both down 0.1 percentage point from June.

While that will still keep annual inflation rates well above the Fed's 2% goal, two straight muted monthly readings could help buy Federal Open Market Committee policymakers a little time before making a move on interest rates.

AFP adds:

Oil prices bounced around before finishing higher Tuesday while global stocks were mixed as markets awaited a key inflation report expected to influence upcoming monetary policy decisions.

Crude prices initially rose more than two percent on hardening rhetoric between the United States and Iran on the prospects for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which is vital to the world's flow of petroleum shipments.

[. . .]

All eyes will be on Wednesday's consumer price index report for July.

"It's a wait-and-see day," said Sam Stovall of CFRA Research, who sees the most recent lackluster jobs data as denting the odds of an imminent interest rate hike.

As the economy continues to tank under Chump's leadership, voters reject Chump and, yes, embrace SNAP. Aliss Higham (NEWSWEEK) notes:

Democratic and Republican voters across a series of politically competitive states and congressional districts broadly agree that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits should be increased, new polling shows, as grocery prices continue to put pressure on household budgets.

Surveys conducted across 11 states and 28 competitive congressional districts found that a majority of voters from both major parties supported higher SNAP benefits for people living alone. Most Democrats also backed increased assistance for single mothers, while Republican support for raising those benefits was more mixed.

The findings come as Americans continue to contend with food prices that are significantly higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, despite a slowdown in inflation in recent years.

SNAP, commonly known as food stamps, is the largest federal food assistance program in the United States and provides monthly grocery benefits to households with low or no income. The new surveys indicate there is considerable bipartisan appetite for increasing that assistance.

Chump's ICE the intimidators. Nicholas Lentz (CBS NEWS) reports:

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar says a Homeland Security Investigations agent was outside her monthly town hall meeting in Richfield, Minnesota, on Thursday.

Omar posted a letter she sent to Michael McCarthy, interim special agent in charge of HSI's office in St. Paul, Minnesota, regarding the incident on social media Monday afternoon. The document said a Richfield police officer noticed a young woman sitting in a Ford Explorer as people arrived at an area community center, where the meeting took place, and "became suspicious of the way she was monitoring the building."

According to Omar's letter, the officer then ran the plates attached to the Ford and found they were registered to a different vehicle. They then approached the woman in the SUV.

"I understand that she initially identified herself as security, and after Richfield Police confirmed with my security team that she was not part of our operation, she called her supervisor and explained that she was an HSI agent and was outside the community center as part of an undercover drug operation in the area," Omar said in the letter.

The woman left the property after speaking with her supervisor, according to Omar's letter.

"Instead of monitoring the area for those who might wish harm to me and my constituents, Richfield Police were required to devote time to investigating why an HSI agent was outside of a Congressional event in a vehicle with mismatched plates," Omar said in a written statement on Monday. "It also raises serious and uncomfortable questions about the purpose of HSI's presence outside of my event."

Now Homeland Security is spying on political townhalls led by members of Congress?

Chump's war on immigrants is a very ugly and very mean-spirited action. It's impcating all areas of the country -- including the decrease in travel to the US by foreigners who kept the hospitality industry -- among others -- rolling in the money until Chump's war. The crackdown on immigrants is impacting the economy. Pedro Camacho (LATIN TIMES) reports:

Industry groups representing construction, agriculture and other labor-dependent sectors are warning the Trump administration that its immigration crackdown is worsening worker shortages and could conflict with other economic priorities, including lowering housing costs and maintaining food production.

Representatives have raised their concerns directly with the White House and the departments of Homeland Security, Labor and Agriculture, CNN reports. The administration's effort to end deportation protections for roughly 1.3 million people who had been authorized to work in the U.S., combined with increased immigration enforcement, has intensified existing labor shortages, industry groups said.

"These two things might be working against each other at the moment," Jim Tobin, president of the National Association of Home Builders, said of Trump's immigration and housing agendas. The residential construction industry is already short between 200,000 and 400,000 workers, he told CNN.

Foreign-born workers accounted for more than a quarter of the U.S. construction workforce in 2024 and more than half of workers in several trades, including roofing, drywall installation and painting. "The more we squeeze labor, the more we're going to increase home prices," Tobin said.

The concerns have contributed to internal debate over worksite enforcement. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has called for changes to employment visa programs while maintaining that undocumented workers should be deported, drawing criticism from immigration hardliners.

Agricultural groups have raised similar concerns, particularly about industries requiring year-round labor that cannot rely on existing seasonal visa programs. Republican lawmakers have also urged changes to the H-2A agricultural visa system.

Evidence of broader economic effects has emerged elsewhere. A Los Angeles County analysis published in February found widespread business losses following immigration enforcement operations, while studies of Houston and Chicago have linked enforcement surges to reduced employment and disruptions in construction-heavy labor markets.

These actions will be felt for years to come. And they send the wrong impression to the world. A. Scott Bolden (THE HILL) argues:

Leaders of enemy nations seeking to harm the U.S. economy and worsen the affordability crisis plaguing American families would love to deprive our country of hundreds of thousands of essential workers.

Fortunately for our enemies — but unfortunately for our country — this is exactly what President Trump is doing with his irrational anti-immigration policies, which primarily keep out and deport hardworking immigrants of color.

The latest example of this is the Trump administration’s move to revoke the legal status of more than 300,000 Haitian immigrants and about 50,000 immigrants from other countries living lawfully in the U.S. under a program called Temporary Protected Status.

A Supreme Court ruling in June said the government could revoke the work permits of these temporary status recipients and begin deportation proceedings against them July 27. The ruling overturned a lower court decision that found the move to curtail the status was “in part” based on “racial animus.”

As a result of the Supreme Court decision, employers have already begun firing Haitian employees who have lost the protection of Temporary Protected Status.

Trump has demonized unauthorized immigrants for years and claimed in an executive order on the first day of his second term that they are staging a dangerous “invasion” of the U.S.

The president even said such immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He later denied knowing that Adolf Hitler used the same language about the 6 million Jews his Nazi regime murdered in the Holocaust.

Despite the Supreme Court upholding birthright citizenship, Chump's issued an executive order targeting it.

!

Maureen Groppe (USA TODAY) reports:

Civil rights groups that successfully fought President Donald Trump’s first attempt to curtail birthright citizenship are targeting his latest effort.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups asked a federal judge on Aug. 11 to make it “unquestionably clear” that Trump’s new directive can’t be enforced.

“Trump's executive orders are a ham-handed attempt to distract the American people from the Supreme Court’s clear holding: that birthright citizenship is protected by our Constitution,” Carol Rose, executive director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement.

In June, the Supreme Court affirmed that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present in the country are citizens at birth. The few exceptions to birthright citizenship are for children of foreign diplomats or babies born to enemies in occupied territory.

And Chump's also spending a fortune on new weapons for ICE. Maanvi Singh (GUARDIAN) reports:

ICE plans to spend up to $20m (£15m) to purchase thousands of gloves for officers and agents that can deliver painful electric shocks by March, according to a notice published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security.

The devices, called Glove (Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter), are manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC of Lexington, Kentucky.

According to the manufacturer, “the discomfort associated with the stimulation is usually effective in bringing individuals into compliance in less than three seconds and leaves no burns, marks or scars”. The company has advertised the device as a “humane, low-optics, de-escalation solution for many situations facing our men and women in uniform”.

On ICE, let's note this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

Senate investigation revealed ICE has attempted to deport 282 veterans and their relatives; could be violating law that prevents the use of military against civilians

“Service members must have confidence that their sacrifices will be honored, not used against them or to target their loved ones.”

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with Representatives Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), and Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas) led a bicameral letter pressing the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Veterans Affairs (VA), U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on their efforts to coordinate to arrest, and detain, and deport hundreds of veterans and military families.In April 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rescinded its long-standing policy that treated military service a “significant mitigating factor” when deciding whether to pursue immigration enforcement, and replaced it with a new policy stating that military service alone “does not automatically exempt” non-citizens from enforcement actions.

In September 2025, Senator Warren opened an investigation into the impacts of these policy changes on military families. The investigation revealed that ICE has attempted to deport 282 veterans and their relatives. But DHS refused to disclose the number of active-duty troops and their families who have been threatened by the administration’s policy.

But new reports indicate that DoDand DHS appear to be coordinating to convert military bases into “traps” for individuals this administration deems deportable and has detained non-citizens during routine check-ins, visits, and drop-offs at or near military installations. At the same time, DoD has continued to recruit new service members with the promise of immigration protections.

Recent reporting by the Associated Press reveals that, since January 2025, more than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members have been detained, and at least six have been deported. ICE’s statistics show that the agency has arrested 16 non-citizen armed forces members since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2026. Some service members have reportedly needed to take leave or delay deployment because ICE detained their families.

“These efforts imperil military readiness, weaken service members’ morale, and betray America’s promises to the people who put their lives on the line for our nation,” wrote the lawmakers. Alarmingly, DoD has been reportedly targeting individuals at military installations, detaining them on military property, and turning them over to ICE — effectively converting military bases into “traps” for noncitizens. For example, a 22-year-old military wife was recently detained while attempting to obtain a military spouse I.D. Military officials allegedly called DHS and held her in a room until ICE agents arrived to take her to a detention center.

“DoD’s participation in civil immigration enforcement activities raises both ethical and legal concerns, including potential violations of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits using the armed forces of the military for civilian law enforcement,” wrote the lawmakers.

The coalition warned that if service members were to be swept up in any of these enforcement actions, it could separately constitute a violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which provides protections to all members of the United States military on active duty, including non-citizens, from civil actions—such as immigration proceedings—that interfere with their military duties.

“Service members must have confidence that their sacrifices will be honored, not used against them or to target their loved ones,” wrote the lawmakers. “DoD’s new anti-immigrant practices risk deterring future recruits and damaging the credibility of military recruitment efforts—which promised to care for service members even after their time in uniform.”

The lawmakers requested that the agencies explain the enhanced coordination between DoD and DHS, restore long-standing immigration protections for family members of service members, and explain what steps they are taking to protect troops, veterans, and their families from unjust immigration enforcement by August 23, 2026.

The letter was signed by Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Representatives Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), André Carson (D-Ind.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Sean Casten (D-Ill.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Daniel Davis (D-Ill.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Bill Foster (D-Ill.), Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Chuy García (D-Ill.), Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), John Larson (D-Conn.), Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Kevin Mullin (D-Calif.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.), Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.), Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.), Mark Takano (D-Calif.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Marc Veasey (D-Texas), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), and Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.), joined in signing the letter.

The letter was endorsed by the Immigration Defenders Law Center, the Seattle Clemency Project, Common Defense, Repatriate Our Patriots, and League of United Latin American Citizens.

“It is hard to imagine a more profound betrayal than targeting service members, veterans, and military families for deportation,” said Jennie Pasquarella, interim executive director of the Seattle Clemency Project. “This administration is abandoning decades of bipartisan policies that recognized a simple truth: protecting those who serve makes our military stronger and our nation safer. Targeting the very communities that have sacrificed for this country is not just morally indefensible, it is a direct attack on military readiness, recruitment, and trust.”

“This administration has made a conscious decision to abandon its promises to military families and fail those who put their lives on the line for our nation,” said Amanda Schuft, director of legal services at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “We have seen the devastating human cost firsthand. Our client, the father of an active-duty Army service member, was detained by ICE despite suffering from terminal renal failure, forcing his son to take leave from military service to plead for his release and provide evidence of his grave medical condition. The government ignored those pleas. After his health deteriorated in detention, our client was eventually released, only to die within weeks.”

“Family readiness directly impacts mission readiness. Behind every military spouse or parent in detention is a servicemember who could deploy at any moment. Without a strong homefront, we cannot have a ready force. Our government must honor its commitments to those who serve,” said Danitza G. James, MSW, President, Repatriate Our Patriots.

Senator Warren has led the fight to hold the Trump administration accountable for mishandling military funds to pursue its cruel immigration agenda and has continuously fought for the safety and well-being of our servicemembers and veterans:

In May 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released new answers from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense revealing the Pentagon’s financial support for the Trump administration’s cruel immigration agenda was far higher than initially reported by DoD.
In April 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), along with Representative Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) and Representative Troy Carter (D-La.), urged the Inspectors General of the Departments of Homeland Security and State to open an investigation into the Trump administration’s attempts to deport people to countries they have no ties to. These deportations use the military to conduct the international deportation flights and detain noncitizens on U.S. military bases within the United States and overseas.
In March 2026, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) led 52 members of Congress in a new investigation into potential corruption in government contracts stemming from the White House’s fast-tracked expansion of inhumane warehouse-based immigration detention facilities using a Navy contracting vehicle.
In March 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released new data obtained from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealing that the Trump administration has attempted to deport hundreds of veterans and their family members after promising immigration protections at the time of recruitment.
In January 2026, following a new report by the Congressional Budget Office revealing Trump’s domestic deployments of the National Guard and Marines have cost at least $589 million — more than double what Senator Warren’s bicameral investigation previously found — she called for the Trump administration to “answer for wasting more than half a billion taxpayer dollars.”
In December 2025, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed Trump’s nominee to be Army General Counsel, on the deployment of the National Guard and reports that senior Judge Advocate General (JAG) officers have been sidelined after raising legal concerns about military operations.
In December 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative John Garamendi (D-Calif.) co-led the release of a new report, along with 11 other members of Congress, revealing the Trump administration diverted more than $2 billion of military funds and resources from the Pentagon to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for immigration enforcement and its impact on readiness and morale. The report also revealed that the diversion of funds was happening at the expense of updates to barracks, maintenance hangers, and military construction projects in the Pacific.
In October 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) joined colleagues in requesting that CBO provide an independent assessment of the projected costs associated with the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard to U.S. cities.
In September 2025, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), along with Representatives Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), and Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.), led 55 members of Congress in opening a new investigation into the Trump administration’s arrest, detention, and deportation of non-citizen service members, veterans, and military families.
In September 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) led more than 60 members of Congress in opening a new investigation into the Trump administration’s practice of detaining and sending immigrants to countries where they have no citizenship or connections of any kind. These deportations use the military to conduct the international deportation flights and detain noncitizens on U.S. military bases within the United States and overseas.
In February 2025, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on the military’s deployment of active-duty forces to the southern border and Guantanamo and the Department of Defense’s (DOD) new involvement in immigration detention and deportation.

###

Meanwhile Chump's having a fit that his false claims got rebuked and fact checked. Thomas Kika notes:

President Donald Trump lashed out with a new social media tantrum this week, taking aim at a think tank report that offered a sharp rebuke of his National Guard deployments, per a report from The Hill.

Trump's post was in response to a July report from the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, which found that his deployment of the Guard to Washington D.C., had "failed to reduce violent crime despite its claims of success." His attack came after the report's author, Chandler Hall, discussed its findings during an appearance on C-SPAN.

Trump's extended post went so far as to threaten the group with a lawsuit, all while also attacking numerous entities he claimed to be funding it, from Walmart to Apple to Goldman Sachs.

[. . .]

The report, published on July 13, argued that "The second Trump administration is trying to take credit for the historic drop in violent crime across America," even though this trend has been ongoing for years, well before Trump's return to the White House. The administration has tried to use that preexisting trend to "justify expanding policies that are unpopular, ineffective and costly."

And the lies keep the National Guard stationed in US cities. Steven Beynon (ABC NEWS) reports:

On Aug. 3 last year, the assault and attempted carjacking of Edward Coristine, a 20-year-old programmer known online as “Big Balls” who had worked for Elon Musk’s now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency, became a flashpoint for President Donald Trump’s argument that Washington, D.C., had spiraled out of control.

Eight days later, Trump mobilized roughly 800 National Guard troops to the capital, an extraordinary use of military personnel on U.S. soil. He cast the deployment in dire terms, describing a city overwhelmed by violence and disorder and promising that federal intervention would restore control, even as violent crime in Washington had fallen to its lowest level in 30 years, according to the Department of Justice.

The deployment, dubbed “Make DC Safe and Beautiful,” quickly expanded. Some 4,000 troops from states and territories across the country are now deployed to the capital, down from a summer surge for America's 250th anniversary that pushed the force to roughly 5,000. That number is expected to decline further in the coming weeks, with the mission typically hovering between 2,500 and 3,000 troops.

But even as the force shrinks from its summer peak, the deployment is expected to remain a fixture in D.C. through the remainder of Trump’s term, ABC News was first to report.

The mission is unprecedented in its scale and duration. The deployment is projected to cost an additional $1.4 billion, a staggering price tag even as its effectiveness remains murky. Two soldiers were also killed in an attack near the White House last year. Meanwhile, the Guard is juggling competing demands, with thousands of troops deployed to the Middle East amid the war with Iran and others serving on missions around the world.

Keeping the National Guard in DC through the end of Chump's term? $1.4 billion dollars. He's really spending (wasting) US tax dollars. Hugh Cameron (NEWSWEEK) notes:

According to preliminary figures from the MPD, accurate as of August 10, total crime is down 20 percent in the year-to-date compared with 2025, with property crime seeing a decline of 23 percent driven by a 53-percent drop in motor vehicle theft and a 37 percent decline in “Theft from Auto”—the act of taking property or parts from a vehicle.

However, while homicides are down 31 percent, violent crime has seen a slight increase of 3 percent. This is thanks to a significant increase (41 percent) in the number of assaults with a dangerous weapon that have been recorded, as well as a 2 percent increase in cases of sex abuse, despite a 15 percent decline in the number of robberies.

John Roman, director of the Center on Public Safety & Justice at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, said establishing whether the reduction seen in overall crime rates in D.C. would require corroboration from FBI data and comparison with other cities.

He told Newsweek that the available figures pointed to “among the largest declines in street crimes that a National Guard presence could reasonably be expected to effect,” noting the drop in robberies and homicides. However, he noted that other cities in the United States had experienced similar declines without any National Guard presence.

David Weisburd, a professor at George Mason University’s Department of Criminology, Law and Society, told Newsweek that “establishing a causal relationship between the National Guard deployment and crime is virtually impossible without careful controlled research.”

[. . .]

“Crime, like in U.S. cities that were not subject to the deployments, was actually already decreasing prior to the National Guard deployment in D.C., and this is especially the case for violent crime,” Alex Piquero, a professor of Criminology at the University of Miami, told Newsweek.

“And while property crime, especially auto-related crimes, may have seen some decreases during that time in D.C., it is difficult to link the deployment with actually causing any crime change since the deployment appears to have been targeted at tourist areas,” he said.

Piquero, a former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)—the primary federal agency for recording crime figures—said that the evidence from other cities that experienced deployments “show no effect on crime,” as this was already decreasing in those cities before the deployment began.

“It is important to also note that cities without guard deployments also saw crime decreases, which tends to suggest that the crime decline in the U.S. was a more general phenomenon,” he said.

This was the conclusion reached by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) in a recent analysis, which found that, nationwide, nine of the 13 examined crimes fell in the first half of 2026, part of a long-running trend that has left shoplifting as the only offense now sitting above 2019 levels.

Yet Chump intends to waste $1.4 billion dollars on this.

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