Today is the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. On that long-ago day, Americans fought beside soldiers from many allied countries to save the world from fascism. Very few of those heroes are still alive today.
Joe Picard perched atop a precarious mound of 300-plus-pound high-explosive shells as his ship churned toward Normandy’s beaches. The teenager had been at sea only once before, to cross the Atlantic, and now he was sailing across the English Channel to pile into the breach that Allied forces had opened in Hitler’s defenses weeks earlier, on D-Day. Smoke from the fighting still rose on the horizon, but Picard’s eyes scanned the gray water below for signs of German U-boats. “You know,” he told the soldier next to him, “if we ever get hit with a torpedo here, they won’t ever find a trace of us.”
More than 80 years later, few men like Picard remain: those who participated in the boldest military operation of the 20th century and can lay claim to membership in the “greatest generation.” Less than 0.5 percent of the more than 16 million Americans who served in World War II are still alive. Before long, the great invasion of France that began on June 6, 1944—and the Second World War itself—will be recounted only in documentaries and books alongside other historic conflicts such as the First World War and the American Civil War. The immediacy of personal experience will vanish. But Picard, now 100 years old, can still recall the feel of the straw he stuffed into his mattress, the blast of a mine soon after he landed on Utah Beach, negotiations in French for the use of a château, and a friend’s death in a cold forest in Germany.
“A lot of people have said to me, God, how do you remember all that stuff?” Picard told me when we spoke at his retirement community in Rhode Island, near where he grew up. “I don’t remember what happened yesterday, but I remember what happened 80 years ago.” The memories have “always been vivid ever since the day they happened.”
Picard is still doing his part to maintain D-Day as living history. He has become, in his later years, the narrator of his own war experience. He speaks with classes of schoolchildren, constantly amazed that they care enough to listen. He has revisited and reminisced on the battlefields of Europe with the Best Defense Foundation, a nonprofit that returns veterans to the places where they served. His repetition of war stories across the years has also become a marker against which to measure how much he, and the country, has changed.
Back then, he and millions of others joined the military as volunteers or draftees. Most viewed fighting as a duty to be discharged before real adulthood began. The experience of war may have defined their lives but did not determine them. And the veterans were lauded for their service by grateful citizens, whether in France, in Germany, or at home.
Today’s service members are professionals, many of them dedicated to a career in uniform, separated to some degree from civilian life. The rancor and fissures in society run so deep that Picard finds it hard to imagine the national unity and resolve that would be required to risk millions of conscripts’ lives in pursuit of the liberation of others. “I hope that this type of situation won’t happen again,” Picard told me, with New England understatement, “because here in the U.S., I think our attitude is off a bit.”
The article is fascinating and well worth reading.
As an example of the current official attitude toward the D-Day anniversary, our so-called president chose to mark the day by posting an AI video of himself behaving like the childish idiot he is. I won’t share it here, but you can find it on Bluesky.
On the blood-soaked morning of June 6, 1944, the fate of World War II hinged not only on generals but also on thousands of ordinary people who fought their way onto the beaches and into the skies over Normandy, France, or otherwise joined in what became the largest seaborne invasion in history.
Over the years, the ranks of those who witnessed D-Day have thinned, and the event has receded from living memory into the realm of archives — and obituaries.
Here are the stories of some of those The New York Times has commemorated in recent years. They serve as a poignant reminder that the liberation of Europe required courage that transcended race, class and gender.
1921-2014
Walter Ehlers
Mr. Ehlers was the last survivor of 12 soldiers who were awarded the Medal of Honor — the highest American military decoration — for their actions during the Normandy campaign. (Nine of the medals were given posthumously.) On the 50th anniversary of the invasion, in 1994, he gave an address and walked along Omaha Beach with President Bill Clinton. Read his obituary.
1923-2023
Maureen Flavin Sweeney….
On her 21st birthday, June 3, 1944, Maureen Flavin, who worked in a post office recording weather data, unwittingly helped determine the outcome of World War II. Though she was unaware of it at the time, her weather reports were noticed by Allied military leaders. While working a late shift that day, she registered the likelihood of stormy weather on June 5, causing General Dwight D. Eisenhower to delay the invasion of Normandy by another day. Some say the effort would have failed if she hadn’t noticed the potential for disaster. Read her obituary.
1924-2025
Charles Norman Shay
“I saw there were many wounded men who were floundering in the water, who could not help themselves, and I knew that if nobody went to help them, they were doomed to die,” Mr. Shay recalled of his experience as a 19-year-old medic on Omaha Beach. One of about 175 Native Americans fighting for the Allied troops there, he repeatedly saved soldiers from drowning by turning them on their backs, dragging them ashore and tending to their wounds. Read his obituary.
1908-1998
Martha Gellhorn….
One of the first female war correspondents, Ms. Gellhorn hid on a hospital ship on D-Day and then sneaked ashore. She later accompanied British pilots on nighttime bombing raids over Germany. When the Allies liberated the concentration camp Dachau, she wrote of what she saw: “Behind the barbed wire and the electric fence, the skeletons sat in the sun and searched themselves for lice. They have no age and no faces; they all look alike and like nothing you will ever see if you are lucky.” Read her obituary.
1922-2023
Léon Gautier….
Mr. Gautier was the last surviving member of France’s elite Kieffer Commando unit, which was among the first wave of Allied troops to storm the heavily defended beaches in the northern part of the country. As they sprinted up the beach, they cut through barbed wire under a hail of bullets. They spent 78 days on the front lines, and of the 177 who waded ashore, only two dozen escaped death or injury. Read his obituary.
Trump sent Pete Hegseth to France for the D-Day anniversary. His message to our allies was that they are letting too many immigrants into their countries.
PARIS, June 6 (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned on Saturday that Europe faced what he called an invasion of dangerous ideologies arriving by sea, linking immigration to the legacy of the D-Day landings in remarks in Normandy.
His remarks echo criticisms often made by the administration of President Donald Trump about Europe, a region Washington argues is hampered by weak defences, inability to tackle immigration, needless red tape and “censorship” of far-right and nationalist voices to keep them from power.
“Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different, dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive,” Hegseth said in a speech at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer.
“When will European capitals do something about that invasion or is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not,” he said.
Hegseth was speaking during commemorations for the 82nd anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, when U.S. and Allied forces crossed the English Channel to launch the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi occupation.
U.S. officials, including Trump — and Vice President JD Vance as recently as Friday — have often criticized European countries for failing to control immigration.
Other than Native Americans, everyone in the U.S., including our “founding fathers,” either came here as an immigrant or descended from immigrants. Trump married two immigrants. This anti-immigrant attitude is just plain sick.
This is a shocking story that demonstrates how the Trump administration’s anti-science policies are affecting U. S. scientific research.
Five diabetes researchers, including the editor of a leading journal, were removed from the field’s premier conference in New Orleans on Friday morning, after handing out copies of an editorial criticizing the TrumpNI administration’s “dismantling” of the biomedical research enterprise.
The incident occurred outside a conference hall where a keynote address had originally been scheduled to be given by Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, at a gathering organized by the American Diabetes Association. A group of about 10 researchers, including some of the field’s leaders, were quietly handing out printouts of an editorial published in Diabetes Care, a journal the association publishes, according to three of the participants. Security and police told them to leave at the direction of event organizers and confiscated some of their lanyards and ability to attend the conference.
One of those ejected from the meeting was Steven Kahn, a University of Washington professor of medicine who is the editor in chief of Diabetes Care and the director of a federally funded diabetes research center. Kahn said in an interview that he had 1,000 copies made of an editorial that he had co-authored that called scientists to action to oppose changes to federal biomedical research funding that endangered diabetes research.
“A number of people who come to this meeting are scientists, who feel their livelihoods are threatened by what NIH is doing to science,” Kahn said.
Bhattacharya had been scheduled to give the keynote address, but it was instead given by Richard Woychik, a senior adviser to the NIH director for the agency’s Make America Healthy Again strategy. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident.
Kahn said he was set to present a poster, give a talk and chair a session at the ADA Scientific Sessions meeting, which runs from Friday until Monday — but has since been informed by the scientific society’s leaders that he has been relieved of those duties.
Irl Hirsch, a University of Washington endocrinologist who was among the group handing out the editorials but did not have his badge confiscated, said that the group was peaceful and that there were no signs or chants. Hirsch described the situation as “censorship” by the scientific society — of leaders in the diabetes field who were sharing an editorial that pointed out that the NIH’s stewardship of biomedical research was having a destructive effect on diabetes research.
“It’s going to take generations to fix where we are now,” Hirsch said.
NEW ORLEANS — Members of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) were escorted by police out of the convention center in New Orleans during the organization’s annual meeting on Friday as they handed out copies of an editorial criticizing Trump administration changes to U.S. biomedical research.
Among them was Steven Kahn, MBChB, the lead author of the editorial, which published online in late April in the organization’s flagship journal, Diabetes Care. Kahn is also the editor in chief of the journal.
Kahn, Aaron Kelly, PhD, past ADA president Desmond Schatz, MD, Justin Ryder, PhD, Irl Hirsch, MD, and at least one other member were handing out printed copies of the editorial outside of a keynote speech given by an NIH official. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, was supposed to give the talk, but pulled out at the last minute, Kahn told MedPage Today.
Kahn said ADA leadership had inserted a statement in the editorial that the organization “had nothing to do with the writing of this manuscript. That is their insert.”
ADA’s media team confirmed that five registrants were removed for violating code of conduct rules that they agreed to when registering for the meeting.
“These attendees were escorted out by our onsite event security because they demonstrated behavior not consistent with this code of conduct,” the media team said in a statement. “They were respectfully given the opportunity to cease this behavior and chose not to which is why they were escorted out.”
I don’t even know how to react to this–professional organization so fearful of Trump that it won’t stand up for its more prestigious scientists. We may never recover from the cowardly actions of organization that are bending to the will of an ignorant, bigoted “president.”
There’s some good news from California, where the primary votes are slowly but surely being counted.
Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who was practically an afterthought until the final weeks of the California governor campaign, will advance to the November election after a top-two finish in this week’s primary, The Associated Press determined on Friday.
Steve Hilton, a Republican former Fox News host, and Tom Steyer, a Democrat and former hedge fund manager, remain locked in a close race for the second spot as election officials continue counting millions of ballots. In California’s nonpartisan primary, the top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the November election.
Mr. Becerra’s primary performance caps his extraordinary come-from-behind surge in the tumultuous race and positions him to become California’s first Latino governor in the modern era if he wins in November. In interviews, voters said they appreciated his long career in government, which distinguished him from a sprawling field of less experienced competitors.
Mr. Hilton led in initial returns this week, but he was the beneficiary of Republican voters who turned in their ballots early. Many Democrats said they waited until the final week of voting because they found it difficult to choose among their party’s candidates and wanted to see how the race evolved up to Election Day.
The race was called on Friday when Mr. Becerra passed Mr. Hilton and moved into first place in returns. It remained to be seen whether Mr. Hilton could stave off Mr. Steyer, who has gained ground since Election Day but may remain stuck in third.
On what could happen next:
Mr. Becerra, 68, would be an overwhelming favorite if he were to face Mr. Hilton in the general election. No Republican has won a statewide office in California since 2006, and Mr. Hilton would be further hamstrung by his endorsement from President Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in California.
If Mr. Becerra were to face Mr. Steyer, he would endure a blistering intraparty fight over the next few months. Mr. Steyer, a billionaire who ran a hedge fund, spent $216 million of his personal fortune in the primary, and he has shown no indication that he would slow down in a general election. His spending helped make California’s primary the most expensive governor’s race in American history, according to an analysis by AdImpact, an ad tracking firm.
In the final stretch of the primary, Mr. Steyer attacked Mr. Becerra with negative ads. One suggested that Mr. Becerra could be indicted by the Trump administration because two of his aides pleaded guilty in the past year to corruption charges for siphoning off Mr. Becerra’s own campaign funds. Mr. Becerra has said he was unaware of the transfers, and federal prosecutors described him as the victim of his aides’ crimes.
Other attacks portrayed Mr. Becerra as beholden to special interests because the California Chamber of Commerce and other business interests put about $54 million into campaigns opposing Mr. Steyer and supporting Mr. Becerra.
I hope Steyer loses. He’s just another entitled billionaire.
In Maine, Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is facing a storm of controversy. I don’t know if you’ve been following the story, but Platner has been accused of troubling behavior with women, and his controversial Nazi tattoo is back in the news.
Democrats are at each other’s throats about Graham Platner after his latest scandal. They don’t know what to do about it.
The New York Times released a report Thursday with disturbing accounts from several of Platner’s ex-girlfriends, just days before he is set to win the Democratic nomination to face GOP Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, a critical Senate battleground. One woman described Platner grabbing her in ways that left marks and once locking her in a room. She also claimed he knew that his tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol when he got it — something he has repeatedly denied.
The report — on the heels of last week’s news that Platner had sexted other women while married — left Democrats torn. Some view Platner, whose campaign has persisted despite a series of scandals, as their only chance to take down Collins. He continuously led Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in primary polling before she suspended her campaign in April, and has led the Republican senator in public head-to-head polls.
“Several donors I know are still all-in for Platner because he’s not Susan Collins and he’s a Democrat,” said Alex Hoffman, a Democratic strategist and donor adviser. “The line that keeps being thrown around is the double standard that exists between Republicans and Democrats, where if this was a Republican, they’d all be getting behind him.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who is scheduled to campaign with Platner on Friday, reiterated his support. And some Democrats online were quick to cast the ex-girlfriend of Platner who spoke on record to The Times, Lyndsey Fifield, as a partisan activist because she has worked in Republican politics.
Still, others warned that he’s a loose cannon and there’s no predicting what other information about his past will spill into public view. What has already come to light, they argued, might already be enough to sink his candidacy, not to mention undermine the party’s core values.
Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, moved to quell mounting Democratic anxieties about his candidacy on Friday, telling supporters in a defiant speech that his past behavior was being “weaponized” by his political opponents.
A day after The New York Times reported that three women — a conservative and two Democrats — who had been romantically involved with Mr. Platner described volatile and “toxic” relationships, Mr. Platner addressed a crowd at a theater in Bar Harbor, expressing confidence that Maine voters would stick by him.
“When politically motivated, serious and false accusations are made against me, Maine, you have my back,” Mr. Platner said. “The state of Maine raised me, and the state of Maine saved me, and to all of you out there, Maine, I will always have your back.”
Mr. Platner’s appearance came at a tense moment in one of the year’s premier Senate races. With just days left before Maine’s primary on Tuesday, revelations about Mr. Platner’s personal history have caused escalating discomfort within his party, while drawing intensifying attacks from Republicans.
The rally also took place less than a week after The Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, had sought to warn his campaign last year that her husband had been exchanging sexual messages with multiple other women.
Onstage, Mr. Platner referred to Ms. Gertner by name, drawing chants of “Amy!” It was one of the strongest responses from a supportive but relatively sedate crowd that included attendees who said they were anxious about Mr. Platner’s candidacy and still getting to know the candidate.
Mr. Platner said from the stage that he had gone through a period of “darkness” after his military service.
“Now, as every single piece of that past and journey gets dug up, litigated and weaponized, you have my back,” he said.
When Platner first threw his hat in the ring last year, there was a reasonable argument for his candidacy — here was a political outsider with a fresh perspective who represented a new generation of political talent for Democrats.
But everything we have learned about Platner over the past several months suggests that he is a moral and political trainwreck, with enough skeletons in his closet to fill a graveyard.
Indeed, since Platner announced his candidacy last year, there has been an unceasing drumbeat of scandals about him. He filled a Reddit message board with sexist, racist and off-color comments. He has exaggerated his working-class background and appears to have spent most of his life living off handouts from his parents. But above all, there was the revelation last fall that he had gotten a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo on his chest two decades ago — and by his account only realized it was a Nazi tattoo in the fall of 2025, as he began his campaign for the U.S. Senate.
In recent days, the stories about Platner have taken on a darker, more troubling hue. Last week, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times revealed that soon after his marriage in 2023, Platner was caught by his wife sexting as many as a dozen women. His profile page on Kik, an anonymous social media site often used for dating, was still active.
“I have an urge to stockpile toilet paper.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m going to start with something a little different. This is Heather Cox Richardson’s conversation today. The Historian’s headline caught my eye. She was asked a question and provided her answer. “What would have to happen for me to concede that the United States is beyond hope?” Her answer was simple. “The end of the world.” She explained that we have the ability to try to make the world a better place. I agree.
She’s right to argue that democracy and humankind have always been deeply flawed. And yet, we persist. In the long term, from a historical perspective, our ancestors have persisted. I always feel that I would fail the six direct relatives of mine who signed the Declaration of Independence, and George Washington, whose stepson is also a direct relative of mine. The Custis family has always been a group of fighters, and they were right there in the movement and the war to free slaves. I think about them a lot these days. Perhaps it is because of my age. More likely, it’s because I need to remind myself that it’s my turn to protect the family. I do not want to leave this shit to my grandchildren or anyone else’s.
In fact, I wonder what the world would be like if all these however great-grandfathers of mine had just shrugged it off. Or the farthest back, however, great-grandfather MacDuff had not killed Macbeth. For that matter, I have my father who bombed NAZIs out of France and Belgium to help liberate Europe from Fascism, or the great-great-grandfathers and uncles that fought for the Union during the Civil War. What about all the women who fought the war by doing everything their sons and husbands couldn’t help with anymore? And yet, they all persisted. So, I can and must too.
I hope her words give you the motivation to carry on.
“What would have to happen for me to concede that the United States is beyond hope?”
This is from the Washington Post. Meryl Kornfield has this essential read today. “Trump officials planned to mark 2.7 million living people as dead, whistleblower claims. A former Social Security executive said the plan, which was not carried out, would have used a death database to pressure immigrants to leave the country.”
The Trump administration had plans to classify 2.7 million living people — including some U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents — as dead as part of its immigration enforcement efforts, according to a former senior Social Security executive.
The previously unreported plan, which the Social Security Administration said was not carried out, would have used one of the government’s most consequential identity databases to effectively erase people from the financial system, potentially cutting them off from wages, banking, government benefits and other services.
Jeremiah Schofield, who worked at Social Security for 25 years and helped lead the agency’s IT modernization efforts before leaving in October, said he refused to help implement the plan after agency lawyers warned that falsely marking living people as dead could violate federal law. Schofield said he realized the plan’s possible intent — to intimidate and worsen the finances of immigrants — as well as its potential unlawfulness after taking a sample of people from the 2.7 million and discovering they were all alive. Some were U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, teenagers and senior citizens, including one widow who was a legal permanent resident receiving survivor benefits.
Schofield has provided details on the plan in a 49-page whistleblower disclosure to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is on the Senate Finance Committee, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the ranking member on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The disclosure was reviewed by The Washington Post, and it offers the most detailed account yet of howofficials from Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service sought to use Social Security data in service of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
In an interview with The Post, Schofield said he is speaking publicly for the first time because he believes Americans need to understand how government data can be misused and, in some cases, already has been.
Social Security carried out a smaller version of such an effort last year, The Post previously reported, moving 6,100 immigrants into its “Death Master File” — a database used by banks, employers and government agencies to determine whether someone is alive. Some of those people later showed up at Social Security field offices to prove they were alive and were restored in agency records.
In a written statement, a Social Security spokesperson who did not provide their name said the agency “did not add a list of 2.7 million names to the Death Master File. SSA maintains the highest level of internal controls. This includes having all appropriate policies and procedures in place to maintain the integrity and accuracy of agency records.”
Schofield’s whistleblower complaint describes a tumultuous period inside Social Security, as career officials questioned the legality of such efforts and watched DOGE officials gain access to some of the government’s most sensitive databases. In one meeting, Schofield said, a DOGE official working with the Department of Homeland Security described the goal of declaring 2.7 million living people dead: making immigrants so miserable that they self-deported or went to Social Security offices for help, where they could be arrested.
“That call was one of the most disappointing calls I’ve been in in my 25-year career,” Schofield told The Post. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
Before he was announced as President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US intelligence community, Bill Pulte did not have a security clearance granting him access to highly-classified information – meaning he lacked what has long been considered a basic prerequisite for the job he will soon occupy, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
On Thursday, days after Trump’s announcement that Pulte would serve as acting director of national intelligence, the office he is expected to lead – at least temporarily – initiated the vetting process for his security clearance by requesting a background investigation, one of the sources told CNN.
Pulte — a wealthy businessman who was confirmed as Federal Housing Finance Agency director last year— already appeared to be an unusual choice for acting DNI given his lack of demonstrated experience in national security matters. A staunch Trump loyalist, Pulte played an extraordinary role in pushing the Justice Department to pursue some of its most eye-popping cases against the president’s personal foes.
Evidence that Pulte did not have access to classified material before he was announced as Trump’s top intelligence official this week underscores just how atypical his credentials are compared to nearly every other DNI that came before him.
“The director of national intelligence has access to all of our most classified intelligence,” Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, told CNN.
There is no evidence that Pulte “would respect those classifications,” Warner said.
Sources told CNN there is no evidence that Pulte previously maintained even the lowest form of security clearance before he was tapped as acting DNI.
Incompetence and lack of basic knowledge of your job are not even part of the vetting process for Orange Caligula. Wicked amounts of blind loyalty and eye-popping stupidity appear to be.
And of course, it wouldn’t be Trump if he wasn’t out to destroy every American monument, institution, and historical and nature-based asset of the country. This is from Torrence Banks writing at NOTUS. “Trump Is Eyeing Control of Smithsonian’s Budget. The administration is creating a conflict with how Congress intended its money be spent.” He can’t stand anything that’s not saturated by his presence. He also has no respect for the separation of powers. Feeding his narcissism and insecurity is the basis of all decisions.
A directive from the Office of Management and Budget could force the Smithsonian Institution to change its spending plans to match President Donald Trump’s priorities — or risk not getting some of the money Congress appropriated for its operations.
An apportionment — documents that direct federal agencies on how to spend congressionally approved money — approved by OMB in May is aimed at compelling the Smithsonian to spend congressionally appropriated funding in a way that’s “consistent with the FY 2026 President’s Budget” in order to receive it. The president’s budget differed widely from what Congress ultimately chose to fund.
OMB also instructed the Smithsonian to submit a request “specifying each activity and the associated estimated federal obligation amount.”
Trump has repeatedly tried to reshape the Smithsonian, insisting its prior offerings were too “woke” and insufficiently patriotic. The May directive puts the Smithsonian in a major bind, creating hurdles to access congressional funding, experts said.
“The budget guys at the Smithsonian, it puts them in a ridiculous position,” a former Hill staffer and appropriations expert who would only talk on the condition of anonymity told NOTUS. “If they spend money that OMB tells them to spend, then they’re in violation of the Antideficiency Act, which dates back to the Civil War. It involves an agency or a person spending money that’s not been appropriated, and it has criminal fucking penalties, man.”
“And if they don’t spend money Congress told them to spend, then they’re in violation of the Impoundment Control Act, which does not have criminal penalties. But it’s a pretty good constitutional crisis.”
Speaking of Constitutional amendments, check this one out. This is from The ReligiousNews Service. “Defense Department to drop atheists, pagans, 175 others from list of military faiths. The new list includes 31 recognized faiths, most of them Christian denominations.” Weird cultural indoctrination, anyone? Adelle M. Banks and Yonat Shimron share the lede.
The Department of Defense is substantially reducing the number of religions it officially recognizes, reportedly excluding atheists, pagans, humanists and New Age faiths, an independent military-focused news website reports.
The reduction of recognized faith groups represents the first time the military has revised the list since 2017, when it vastly expanded the list of recognized faith groups to about 211. The new list includes 31 recognized faiths, as first reported by Military.com on Thursday (June 4).
The outlet said its report was based on a May 20 memorandum it obtained after it was issued by the undersecretary of defense.
The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request from RNS for additional information, including the specifics of who was included on the list and how such decisions would affect military members of other faiths who might desire assistance from a chaplain.
But the report seems to reflect developments previously announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
In a March video, he introduced upcoming Pentagon plans relating to reforms of the chaplain corps and recognition of religions.
“The previous system had ballooned to well over 200 faith codes,” Hegseth said. “It was impractical and unusable, and many codes were never used at all.”
“Our internal review committee recommended that going forward the department use 31 religious affiliation codes,” he added.
Molly Jong-Fast put a smile on my face with this Op Ed at the New York Times. “It’s No Wonder Grads Are Booing Their Commencement Speakers.” Now there’s our sweet freedom of speech value.
Commencement address season hasn’t been going well — for the commencement speakers.
I’m sure you’ve seen the videos on social media. The big shots who have been brought in to inspire a next generation of graduates have used their speeches as opportunities to extol the limitless possibilities that artificial intelligence will bring. They’re speaking to graduates who are entering a shaky job market and are already burdened by tens of thousands of dollars of student debt. However, companies of all stripes are using A.I. as an excuse to slow entry-level hiring and lay off workers. Tech executives have been warning (though it sometimes seems as if they are bragging) that their technologies will be job destroyers.
Gloria Caulfield, a real estate executive who spoke at the University of Central Florida’s College of Arts and Humanities, told graduates that “the rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.” Scott Borchetta, the chief executive of the record label Big Machine, told the graduates of Middle Tennessee State University that “A.I. is rewriting production as we sit here.” In each case, the students expressed their displeasure at the speakers’ blatant A.I. boosterism the best way they could: with loud boos.
When Eric Schmidt, a former chief executive of Google, told graduates at the University of Arizona about their A.I.-shaped future, the shouting got so intense that he paused and said that graduates feared “that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics are fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create.” Mr. Schmidt told them to make the best of it. “The question is not whether A.I. will shape the world. It will. The question is whether you will help shape artificial intelligence.”
Mr. Schmidt’s solution to world-upending technological change is … what? To pull yourself up by your bootstraps? His approach is peak billionaire brain, directed at the young people who have, for the better part of a decade, been treated as woke, lazy, avocado-toast-eating snowflakes. All these speakers just don’t get it. The problem isn’t woke; the problem is work. It’s a lack of social mobility. It’s that college may no longer elevate a graduate to the middle class. It’s that nobody even bothers to pretend that a house, a good job and the ability to start a family are at all guaranteed.
Think of this from the graduates’ perspective: Wealthy old people telling you your future is being pulped by acres and acres of electricity-sucking, water-guzzling data centers feels dystopian because it is. Companies are trying to automate your future away. No wonder you’re furious.
Young people are facing what M.I.T. Technology Review calls a “looming crisis in entry-level work,” and college, once assumed to be a prerequisite for a secure job, no longer feels worth it. The general gestalt coming from a certain sliver of affluent Americans is that college graduates are more liberal trouble than they’re worth and perhaps could be replaced by bots. Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist and G.O.P. megadonor, mused to Joe Rogan that a bot “never gets drunk, never gets sick, never gets high” and “never files H.R. complaints.” (It never boos a smug commencement speaker, either.)
I highly recommend reading this thought-provoking Op-Ed. The link is gifted. I also proffer this. The only expendable thing in this country that matters right now is Orange Caligula.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
This video performance features Keith Richards and my dear friend and neighbor, Washboard Chaz. His dog and Temple are bestest of buddies, too.
“Get Up, Stand Up! Stand up for your Rights! Get up, Stand up! Don’t give up the Fight!
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Trump had his 4th physical exam this term last Tuesday. The White House claims he is in excellent health, but he hasn’t been seen in public for 7 days since the checkup. He has been posting on Truth Social, but no public appearances.
President Trump has no public events on his schedule again today. That means it has now been one week since he has appeared publicly for anything besides a pre-taped interview. His last public event was his cabinet meeting last Wednesday, one day after his trip to Walter Reed.
The Mirror US reports that Trump last held a public event on May 27, when he met with his cabinet.
The meeting came a day after Trump had a medical exam at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, an exam that the president said showed that he was in tip-top shape.
But critics aren’t buying it.
“They are lying to us about Donald Trump’s health,” one social media user said.
Said another: “Six days between public appearances feels like a long time for a president. Wonder if something is up or if this is just how his schedule works now.”
It’s been a troubling week for Trump regardless of the speculation over the medical exam.
The president in recent days has canceled a planned America 250 concert after a number of performers dropped out and he also pulled the plug on his $1.8 billion fund to compensate Americans who claimed to have had the federal government “weaponized” against them.
There have also been questions raised about Trump’s staging of a UFC match on the grounds of the White House.
But eyebrows were raised when the White House took longer than usual to release the results of the exam.
US Navy Captain Sean Barbabella, Trump’s doctor, said the president “remains in excellent health” and has “strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and overall physical function.”
But some doctors said that the report was almost too good to be true for a man of Trump’s age.
There’s more at the link.
Today, Trump again has no public events on his schedule.
Concerns over Donald Trump’s health are mounting as the president goes more than a week without making any public appearances
Trump, who turns 80 next week, has a packed schedule on Wednesday. He will start the morning by participating in “executive time,” followed by in-town pool call time, the daily arrival or briefing time for the rotating journalists covering the President.
He will then participate in a policy meeting from 11am until 2pm, before signing executive orders in the Oval Office at 3pm and having another policy meeting at 4:30pm. Finally, he will attend a dinner with his so-called Rose Garden Club at 7pm.
But there’s something unusual about the schedule for his busy day, every single event, with the exception of the in-town pool call time, is closed to members of the press. Trump has not made any public appearances since May 27, when he attended his Cabinet meeting.
Since that time, the president has only been seen in a pre-taped interview. His last public appearance came just a day after he made an hours-long visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center — his third such visit within a year.
President Donald Trump had another medical exam on Tuesday, his fourth publicly disclosed medical exam since he returned to office for a second term.
The 79-year-old president spent more than three hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what the White House described as preventive medical and dental checkups.
In a social media post after the visit, Trump said that he had just finished his “6 month physical” and that “Everything checked out PERFECTLY.”
Trump, a Republican, turns 80 next month and was the oldest person elected U.S. president….
For a president of Trump’s age, a complete physical would be expected to include advanced heart testing, screening for common cancers and a cognitive assessment, along with basics like height, weight and blood pressure, according to Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman.
“President Trump is the sharpest and most accessible President in American history who is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises, and he remains in excellent health,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement.
Several days went by before the White House released a report on Trump’s physical, and some doctors were skeptical about its contents.
look at how swollen the area under Trump's right eye is in his latest podcast appearance
Doctors who reviewed Donald Trump’s latest medical report say it is conspicuously short on the clinical specifics that would support its rosy conclusions.
Trump’s personal physician, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, wrote in a memorandum that the 79-year-old president “remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function,” after a roughly three-hour examination at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Trump’s neck rash
The memo reported a perfect cognitive score, enviable low cholesterol levels, and a heart that an AI analysis estimated to be 14 years younger than the rest of him….
That last claim drew immediate ridicule from cardiologists.
“When I discuss [sic] this with some of my colleagues in cardiology, everyone laughed!” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who was former Vice President Dick a cardiologist, told CNN’s Laura Coates Live.
The memo cited results from a coronary CT angiography, an echocardiogram, and the AI-enhanced electrocardiogram—but omitted the specific metrics physicians said they would expect to see from those tests. There was no calcium score, no description of arterial plaque, and no CAD-RADS score, which would assess arterial narrowing. The report simply stated there is “no arterial obstruction or structural abnormalities,” language doctors said could mean only that there is no total blockage, not that the arteries are clean.
“If I was creating a report to send to another physician, I would have mentioned a little bit more about the carotid ultrasound,” Dr. William Shutze, a Texas vascular surgeon, told The Wall Street Journal. “What amount of plaque there is going to be—because almost all of us are going to have some buildup there.”
The echocardiogram results were similarly sparse. Trump’s 2018 report included an ejection fraction, the percentage of blood the heart pumps with each contraction, but this one did not….
The report was also notably silent on Trump’s neck rash, which appeared earlier this year and prompted a memo from Barbabella saying the president was using a preventive cream for an unspecified skin condition. Prior physicals noted sun damage and benign skin lesions in some detail, while this one didn’t mention the rash at all.
Trump’s bruised left hand without makeup. I don’t think that’s from handshaking.
The report did note bruising on Trump’s hands, which Barbabella attributed to “frequent handshaking” and aspirin therapy.
On his leg swelling, a condition diagnosed last year as chronic venous insufficiency, a common circulatory problem in older patients, the report noted “slight lower leg swelling” and “improvement from last year” without explaining why….
The cholesterol numbers were exceptional: an HDL of 70 mg/dL and an LDL of 53 mg/dL. “He’s got like the best cholesterol numbers you’ll see,” said Dr. Daniel Torrent, a Georgia vascular surgeon, who called it unusual for medication to produce such results. “We don’t usually manage people to the point where they’re that good.” [….]
Trump’s physical included a prostate-specific antigen score, reported at 1 ng/mL, elevated from prior scores but still well within a healthy range.
Taken together, the doctors said, the Trump report paints an oddly perfect picture with suspiciously little supporting evidence.
“That report is almost too good to be true for somebody of his age,” Shutze said. “This seems to be a filtered narrative.”
If Trump is in such great health, why has he disappeared from public view? I’m sure the White House is lying. There is a long history of presidents’ medical problems being covered up by their doctors. But we can’t avoid noticing the problems that can easily be seen in the photos I’ve posted.Trump is nearly 80 years old. He has observable issues–the bruised hands, the gait problems, his falling asleep in meetings, and his verbal difficulties–incoherent rambling and general inability to stay on topic or even finish a sentence. And why are they giving him a dementia test with each physical? This is the fourth one that has been reported. That suggests that they are monitoring the progress of his dementia.
Here’s a video of Trump’s gait issues.
In my opinion, the bruising on Trump’s hands is likely caused by medicine being given to him by infusion, likely for dementia. The neck rash and the bumps that periodically show up on his face I have no clue about.
I know I’ve spent a lot of time on this issue, but I think it’s important and the legacy media organizations should be covering it more.
In other news, there were primaries in several states yesterday, and Democrats generally did well. The big races California are still undecided. For now, I’ll just post this gift article from The Washington Post by Theodoric Meyer, Dan Merica, and Hannah Knowles: Nine takeaways from a big primary night in Iowa, California and more.
Here are nine takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries:
1. A Schumer critic loses in Iowa
Turek defeated state Sen. Zach Wahls, a Schumer critic, in the Democratic primary for an open Senate seat in Iowa.
Turek will face Rep. Ashley Hinson, who won the Republican primary, in November. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) decided not to run for reelection.
2. Trump’s pick for Iowa governor flames out
Trump endorsed Feenstra last week in the race to succeed Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) — but Feenstra lost to Zach Lahn, a businessman and farmer whose slogan is “Iowa First.”
It marked a rare primary defeat for Trump, whose endorsement typically carries enormous weight in Republican contests.
3. Hilton, Becerra lead in California governor’s race
The race to succeed California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was rocked in April when Rep. Eric Swalwell, one of the leading Democratic candidates, was accused of sexual assault and dropped out. His exit made room for Becerra, a former congressman and state attorney generalwho served as President Joe Biden’s health secretary, to rise in the polls.
Hilton and Becerra were leading the wide field of candidates early Wednesday morning. Tom Steyer, a billionaireDemocratic donor and former presidential candidate, trailed behind them. California is often slow to count ballots, and the results could shift as more are tallied.
4. Political newcomer advances in South Dakota governor’s race
Toby Doeden, a car salesman whose campaign pitch relied on describing himself as a “total political outsider” with fierce conservative values, advanced to a runoff in South Dakota’s gubernatorial race.
His lead has left three other Republicans vying for the second spot in the runoff. The trio includes incumbent Larry Rhoden, who became South Dakota governor when Kristi L. Noem resigned to become the homeland security secretary, Rep. Dusty Johnson and state Rep. Jon Hansen. The race has not yet been called, but Rhoden held the second-highest percentage of votes with most counted.
5. A strong night for former Biden Cabinet members
Becerra was not the only former Biden Cabinet member on primary ballots Tuesday. Deb Haaland, who served as Biden’s interior secretary, won the Democratic primary for New Mexico governor. She will face Greggory Hull, the former Rio Rancho mayor, in November but is heavily favored in the Democratic-leaning state.
6. Absent GOP congressman lands an opponent
Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, won the Democratic primary in a swing House seat in New Jersey. She will face Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who has drawn attention for disappearing from public view.
Kean has not voted in Congress or appeared in public in nearly three months as he deals with what he described in April as “a personal medical issue” that he has declined to disclose. Republicans have grown increasingly worried that his absence could cost them his seat — and possibly their House majority.
7. Los Angeles mayor’s race remains uncalled
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, was facing two challengers on Tuesday: Spencer Pratt, a Republican who became famous on MTV’s reality TV show “The Hills,” and Nithya Raman, a Democratic city council member. Pratt lost his home last year in the Pacific Palisades Fire and has aggressively criticized Bass’s handling of the fire and leadership more broadly.
Bass was leading Pratt early Wednesday morning with nearly half of ballots counted, with Raman trailing in third. If no one wins more than 50 percent of the vote, which appears likely, the top two finishers face off in November.
8. An unusual three-way Senate race in Montana
Alani Bankhead, an Air Force veteran, won the Democratic primary for an open Senate seat in Montana — and now the biggest question about the race is whether she will drop out.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana), who was expected to run for reelection, withdrew in March minutes before the filing deadline, denying Democrats the opportunity to recruit a well-known candidate. Kurt Alme, a former U.S. attorney, filed to run for the seat right before the filing deadline after coordinating with Daines and easily won the Republican primary on Tuesday.
Alme and Bankhead will face an independent candidate, Seth Bodnar, former president of the University of Montana who has raised more than $2 million — far more than Bankhead. Bodnar’s strength has fueled speculation that Bankhead could drop out so Democrats could unite behind Bodnar, which she has repeatedly denied.
9. Another Israel critic is likely to join New Jersey’s delegation
Adam Hamawy, an Army veteran, won the crowded Democratic primary race in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D). Hamawy will face Republican Gregg Mele, a perennial candidate, in the general election, but the district is reliably Democratic.
This means the New Jersey delegation will probably gain another vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza. Like Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-New Jersey) — who recently won a special election and secured the Democratic nomination Tuesday for a full term — Hamawy has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
You can read more details at the gift link above, if you’re interested.
Yesterday, Trump named his chosen successor to Tulsi Gabbard–someone even less qualified than she was.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday named an ally with no background in intelligence to oversee the nation’s spy agencies, taking the helm as the U.S. remains at war with Iran after a fresh round of peace talks stalled.
Bill Pulte is the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and in that position, he has helped the Trump administration compile information to fuel investigations into the president’s perceived political enemies.
Bill Pulte
As acting director of national intelligence, Pulte will be the highest-ranking intelligence official, overseeing a vast network of 18 agencies, including the CIA and the National Security Agency. He will also be the president’s principal adviser on intelligence issues and will manage the daily intelligence briefing for the president.
Trump announced on social media that Pulte will remain as director of the housing finance agency, as well as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored enterprises created by Congress to support the mortgage market.
The director of national intelligence was created after 9/11 and is a Cabinet-level role that requires Senate confirmation, but naming Pulte in an acting capacity allows the president to bypass that process for now. It was not immediately clear if Pulte will be Trump’s permanent pick for the job.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, slammed the decision, saying in a statement that Pulte was not only unqualified, but that he was chosen “precisely because the White House believes he will provide the narrative it wants, not the intelligence we need,” Warner said.
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte would become acting director of national intelligence. Pulte is stepping in to replace Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned from her post last month. Though Trump claimed his appointee “has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America,” he’ll take the position with literally zero relevant experience for coordinating 17 American intelligence agencies’ work.
But Pulte’s appointment makes slightly more sense when you consider his place in Trump’s orbit. The 38-year-old heir to his family’s massive home construction company shares the president’s love of social media bullying, golf and abusing power for personal gain. In currying Trump’s favor, he’s become the boy who cried “fraud,” using his limited portfolio to find leverage against the president’s enemies. With the broader remit his new perch provides, Pulte could do much more harm that he already has, opening the door to threats both foreign and domestic….
Before Tuesday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche would have been the slam-dunk pick for most dangerous sycophant Trump has installed. Pulte’s new appointment challenges that claim. Since stepping into his role at the FHFA — which he will still hold while overseeing America’s intelligence operation — he has acted as though he is part of the president’s law enforcement team.
Over the past year, Pulte has referred at least four members of Trump’s enemies list — New York Attorney General Letitia James, then-Rep. Eric Swalwell, Sen. Adam Schiff of California and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis — to the Justice Department for investigation for alleged mortgage fraud.
In all but one of the cases he has passed on to prosecutors, no charges have come about — a testament to the flimsiness of the evidence Pulte provided in his. A federal grand jury handed up charges against James in Virginia, but they were later thrown out and two subsequent grand juries refused to indict her. Undeterred, Pulte pushed a new criminal referral against James for alleged insurance fraud earlier this year.
It should be obvious that drawing predetermined conclusions, then searching for evidence, isn’t ideal when dealing with the life-and-death stakes of foreign intelligence. Pulte appears to have done just that from his position overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, prompting concerns from internal watchdogs about just how he gathered the mortgage documents he then passed on to prosecutors. Last year, the Government Accountability Office opened an investigation into Pulte’s actions and a federal grand jury began investigating whether he illegally shared grand jury information, though neither have issued any conclusion.
Pulte has also stretched beyond the confines of his remit in the name of pleasing Trump. Last year, Pulte inserted himself into the president’s war against the Federal Reserve’s then-Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates quickly enough. The New York Times noted in July that he would leap to echo any of Trump’s gripes about interest rates “with a post demanding Mr. Powell’s resignation.” The Times also reported Pulte drafted a letter for Trump to fire Powell that was never issued, but made its way to the Resolute Desk. Alongside the previously mentioned fraud claims, he has also targeted Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook for investigation. (Any wrongdoing proved on Cook’s part freeing up her seat for Trump to appoint a replacement would surely only be a knock-on effect.)
Since Pulte will be acting DNI, he won’t have to be confirmed by the Senate. We just have to hope that some Republicans will push back on this appointment.
One more big story: you probably heard that CBS has fired 60 Minutes star Scott Pelley because he criticized the network’s changes to the long-time new program.
CBS News fired Scott Pelley on Tuesday, jettisoning one of the network’s best-known journalists in a clash over the future of “60 Minutes,” the country’s top-rated news program.
Mr. Pelley, 68, a “60 Minutes” correspondent and a former anchor of “CBS Evening News,” joined the network in 1989. At a staff meeting on Monday, he accused the network’s editor in chief, Bari Weiss, of “murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” citing the ouster last week of the program’s leadership team and two on-air correspondents.
Scott Pelley
“We have parted ways with Scott Pelley,” Nick Bilton, the tech journalist who was hired last week as the new “60 Minutes” executive producer, wrote in a memo to the show’s staff on Tuesday night.
CBS News declined to comment. In a formal letter to Mr. Pelley, which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Bilton wrote that the correspondent had been “terminated for cause effective immediately.”
Mr. Pelley, in a telephone interview on Tuesday evening shortly after he was fired, said he had devoted decades of his life to “60 Minutes,” which he said he still cared about deeply.
“I have been in combat in Afghanistan,” Mr. Pelley said. “I have been in combat in Iraq. I have been in the war zone in Ukraine multiple times, risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast.”
The firing of Mr. Pelley is among the most consequential moves of Ms. Weiss’s rocky tenure at CBS. And it is almost certain to spike tensions that have coursed through the network for months.
It also raises the stakes of Ms. Weiss’s surprising decision to replace the entire leadership team at “60 Minutes,” CBS News’s most successful franchise, and hire Mr. Bilton, who has no experience in broadcast TV, to oversee the show. The program’s viewership was up 9 percent this past season from a year prior, and the show is routinely among the nation’s highest-rated weekly broadcasts, according to Nielsen.
Those viewers are accustomed to familiar faces like Mr. Pelley, who has contributed to the program since 2004. The “60 Minutes” staff prides itself on autonomy, and it is not clear how the show’s production team may react to the firing of Mr. Pelley.
At the staff meeting on Monday, which Ms. Weiss did not attend, Mr. Pelley repeatedly pressed Mr. Bilton about the network’s decision to fire Tanya Simon, the show’s previous executive producer. He also told Mr. Bilton that he had “slender” qualifications to oversee the show and that he would “never be welcome” at “60 Minutes.”
It’s not just 60 Minutes that is being murdered. It’s CBS itself.
That’s all I have for today. What stories have you been following?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Kahn said he was set to present a poster, give a talk and chair a session at the ADA Scientific Sessions meeting, which runs from Friday until Monday — but has since been informed by the scientific society’s leaders that he has been relieved of those duties.
On what could happen next:
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