I haven’t been following the Antony Fauci story at all. I heard that his diaries were released, but I assumed it was just some wingnut thing. But today Fauci appeared in front of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, headed by Covid conspiracy theorist Rand Paul. In a surprise move, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions.
Dr. Anthony Fauci declined to answer senators’ questions at a hearing Wednesday on the origins of Covid and the government’s handling of the pandemic, saying he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right to avoid the possibility that Republicans could try to use his testimony to prosecute him for perjury.
The surprise decision shook up the hearing, which was expected to be contentious given Fauci’s previous public clashes with Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky.
Antony Fauci is swarn in Wednesday.
In his opening statement to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Fauci pointed to Paul’s “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me” and his decision to publicly release the doctor’s personal journal.
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something — anything — that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words — quote — ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said.
“Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion,” he continued. “Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions.”
Despite Fauci’s refusal to respond, Paul still used his time at the hearing to ask the doctor a series of questions.
Fauci answered each question with the same line: “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”
At the end of his questioning, Paul told Fauci that he would face “repercussions” for not answering questions.
“The committee will have to consider after this hearing what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so,” Paul said. “It’s against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today.”
I guess Rand Paul doesn’t understand the Fifth Amendment.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has released more than a thousand pages of journal entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci, teeing up what is likely to be a contentious hearing with the nation’s former top infectious disease expert on Wednesday about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paul, who heads the Senate Homeland Security Committee, subpoenaed Fauci to appear before the committee as part of the panel’s investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Paul, who has pushed the theory that the virus emerged from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China rather than spilling over from animals to humans naturally, has long accused Fauci and other government officials of misleading the public and Congress about the source of the outbreak.
The journal entries date from December 2019, in the days leading up to the U.S. declaring a public health emergency, until December 2022, when Fauci stepped down as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position he held for nearly four decades….
Many scientists believe the evidence suggests that the virus emerged naturally from infected bats before it circulated to other species and spread to humans who were handling those animals at a market in Wuhan, where the first human cases appeared in late 2019. But the FBI has assessed the coronavirus “most likely” emerged in a “lab incident in Wuhan.” In January 2025, the CIA issued a new assessment that favored the “lab leak” hypothesis, though it said the finding was made with “low confidence.”
Some of Fauci’s diary entries reflect early uncertainty about the source of the pandemic. In January 2020, he wrote that “we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier,” though he added that “somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.” About a week later, he referenced a conference call in which several top infectious disease experts thought the coronavirus might not have originated in nature.Paul on Monday accused Fauci of saying one thing to “Dear Diary” while telling the public “it’s implausible that it came from the lab, and we’re really convinced it came from these wild animals in the marketplace. But that level of dishonesty is really astounding.”
On Saturday afternoon, as part of this ongoing inquiry, Paul published a thread on X describing the release of a string of what he called diary entries made by Fauci from December 2019 through December 2022. Paul commented on X at the start of the posts, “What [Fauci] wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.” [….]
Felicia Goodrum, a virologist at Dartmouth College who spoke to NPR from the American Society for Virology meeting in Minneapolis, says that it’s possible that Fauci may have been less certain in private with his colleagues as they were racing to learn about the new virus than he was in public where he had to assure a population that was panicking over the rapidly emerging pandemic.
David Schertler, center, an attorney for infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci, right, is removed by Capitol Police from a Senate hearing Wednesday. Maxine Wallace, The Washington Post
For years, Paul and Fauci have differed over the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Fauci has asserted that the scientific evidence points to a spillover — whereby the virus would have found its way from an animal into its first human host, and then spread at that point from human to human.
Proponents of this theory point to the wet market in Wuhan where potentially infected animals were waiting to be sold. “There’s very good evidence that there are two lineages [of SARS-CoV-2] that emerged,” according to Goodrum. “Both of those lineages were present at the market, and susceptible animals were present at the market.”
Goodrum says the market was cleared before it was possible to take any samples. However, she says the genetic data “maps all initial cases to that market” and “none to, for example, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where they have accused the virus of having been created or released.”
Most scientists in the virology community share this view, according to a survey published in February 2024 by the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, a nonpartisan U.S.-based think tank that studies potentially catastrophic events.
Paul has advocated for an alternative explanation. He says the possibility that the virus was engineered in a lab should not be discounted. Two years ago, during a full Senate committee hearing, Paul said, “Do we know for certain it came from the lab? No, but there’s a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the lab.”
So Rand Paul didn’t get what he wanted today. What’s next?
Anthony S. Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment during a Senate hearing Wednesday where Republicans pressed the retired government scientist on whether he was sufficiently truthful in past testimony about the coronavirus pandemic.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), a longtime adversary of Fauci, concluded the nearly three-hour hearing by saying the committee is planning a vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress.
Paul acknowledged to GOP colleagues that there are legal questions about whether Fauci could be held in contempt — citing President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardon of Fauci last year — but contended that Fauci should have just answered questions on Wednesday, even if it meant admitting to a past lie or other wrongdoing.
After that surprise move, Paul and other Republican Senators asked Fauci numerous questions.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) peppered Fauci with basic questions, such as the day of the week and what color tie he was wearing. Fauci declined to answer those questions, too. At times, senators grew heated, with Hawley alternately using a mocking tone — repeatedly referring to Fauci as “doc” — and raising his voice to lace into him.
At one point, a Hawley staffer propped up an image of a magazine cover for which Fauci posed in September 2020. “You became a narcissist and a megalomaniac and a liar,” Hawley said.
Democrats, meanwhile, praised Fauci as a hero and thanked him for his work fighting infectious diseases.
Fauci’s lawyer alleged that Paul was fixated on Fauci after their clashes at the height of the pandemic — referring to a 2021 incident in which the two men traded accusations of lying — and that the senator’s sole purpose for the hearing was to punish Fauci and see him in prison.
“The accusations that Chairman Paul continues to propagate are false and disgraceful, and we will examine all options to hold him accountable,” David Schertler, Fauci’s attorney, said in a statement.
There’s more funny nonsense from the Republicans, if you’re interested. I made this a gift article just in case.
In other news, the Iran war continues, even though Trump tries to pretend otherwise.
Donald Trump has unleashed an expletive-ridden threat to “beat the f****** s***” out of Iran following its “surprise” missile attack against US bases in the Middle East.
“We’ll be hitting them hard. They’re going to get a beating,” the US president told Fox News as he responded furiously to the strikes.
The US military announced on Tuesday night that it intercepted Iran’s latest “surprise attack” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after Trump’s meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.
CENTCOM later said the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces aided the US military in a separate military effort Tuesday after “Iran-aligned” terrorists launched more than 30 drone attacks in the last 72 hours.
Saudi Arabia also joined US strikes on Iran-backed groups in Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 20 soldiers as war spread throughout the Middle East.
The strikes on targets inside Iraq come as Oman proposed a new regional deal aimed at resolving the conflict over the critical Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flowed before the war.
Saudi Arabia and the US have carried out strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq, in a potential escalation of the Middle East conflict.
US Central Command (Centcom) said the strikes were against “Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure”.
Iraqi security and emergency personnel work at the scene of a strike in Muqdadiyah, Diyala province on Wednesday
Iraq’s paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which is dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias, said at least 20 of its members had been killed in US-Saudi strikes on its bases.
It came hours after Centcom said Iran had launched missiles at US forces in the Middle East in an “attempted surprise attack”, ending a lull in hostilities.
The US said the Iranian attack occurred at 17:45 EDT (21:45 GMT) on Tuesday, with all missiles “successfully intercepted”.
The IRGC said it had targeted a US air base and a command centre in Jordan “in response to the acts of aggression of the American child-killing army”.
It also said that naval forces had struck three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz after they “ignored warnings” and sailed along what it described as an “unsafe and illegal route” through the vital Gulf waterway.
When asked by a Fox News correspondent on Wednesday about the Iranian attack on Jordan, US President Donald Trump said in an expletive-laden response that US forces would be “hitting them hard”, adding: “They’re going to get a beating.”
Remember the old days when we had dignified presidents?
American and Saudi fighter jets attacked Iranian-linked militias and their Iranian advisers in Iraq on Wednesday, and Iran fired missiles at military bases in Jordan . It ended a dayslong pause in direct fighting between the United States and Iran and further widening the scope of the war.
Since the collapse of a cease-fire between the United States and Iran this month, Iran-linked groups across the region have opened new fronts and reopened old ones, embroiling forces in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan in the war that until recently had been contained to countries along the Persian Gulf.
The United States accused the Iranian military on Wednesday of directing its allies in Iraq to attack “U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.” The Iranian foreign ministry condemned the U.S.-Saudi strikes as an attempt to broaden the conflict.
Ships transiting through the Gulf of Oman on Saturday.Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
On Wednesday, the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement that the country was not seeking escalation but would respond to any aggression.
Mr. Trump said Iran’s latest strikes were a surprise in an interview on “Fox & Friends.” American forces had only a few minutes’ notice to shoot down the incoming Iranian missiles, he said. “We’ll be hitting them hard,” the president said.
Also on Wednesday, the Jordanian military said it had shot down five missiles that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed were fired in retaliation for American aggression.
The U.S. military said that the strikes in Iraq were in retaliation for more than 30 drone attacks by Iranian proxy groups in the past 72 hours. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said the strikes killed about 20 Iranian military and technical advisers.
The next big Senate news will be the Judiciary Committee vote on Todd Blache’s confirmation as Attorney General.
GOP Sen. John Cornyn said Wednesday, less than 24 hours before a critical committee vote, that he is “not prepared” to support Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general as the two continue to tangle over the fate of a controversial DOJ-brokered settlement agreement involving President Donald Trump.
Blanche did not appear for a planned morning meeting in Cornyn’s office, and the senator told reporters that time was running out for Blanche to meet his demand to formally modify the settlement Trump reached with the IRS earlier this year — a key ultimatum the Texas Republican set out after Blanche’s confirmation hearing earlier this month.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Grapevine, Texas, U.S. March 26, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Cole
“Hopefully they now recognize the seriousness of this,” said Cornyn, who recently lost his bid for renomination to a fifth term to a Trump-backed challenger. “Maybe they think I’m just going to give up or, you know, go along, but they’re mistaken.”
A DOJ official said the department shared a “written proposal” with Cornyn’s staff Tuesday. “We look forward to further discussion around any outstanding concerns,” said the person, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.
Cornyn said Wednesday that he has yet to see “a single piece of writing that is responsive to what I’ve requested.”
His comments came ahead of a scheduled Thursday vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he has been seen as the pivotal vote. Opposition from any one Republican could sink Blanche’s chances of confirmation, and another potential GOP swing vote, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, said this week he would follow Cornyn’s lead.
Cornyn said Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) had told him he needed to know by 4 p.m. Wednesday if the vote could go forward, putting the Trump administration on a tight timeline if it wants Blanche confirmed before the Senate starts its summer recess next week.
One more important story. On Saturday, I posted an article about Trump ordering signs posted outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to inform visitors of the “inaccurate information presented in the Museum.” This is from Noel Sims and Rebecca Crosby at Popular Information: The fake historian advising Trump’s anti-Smithsonian crusade.
Last Friday, President Trump released an executive order directing officials to install signs outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) informing visitors that the museum presents history inaccurately.
The order is the latest attack in a lengthy campaign by the Trump administration to discredit and control the Smithsonian Institution. The Trump administration has argued that the institution, which includes 21 museums and the National Zoo, has a liberal bias.
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History
he order cites a 162-page report released by the White House on July 4. The report, written by the White House Domestic Policy Council, argues that the “Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of American History in particular, under its current leadership and current interpretive ideology, cannot be trusted to tell America’s story honestly and in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic.” The report criticizes the NMAH for “extreme political activism,” “anti-White activism,” “transgender activism,” and supporting illegal immigration.
The executive order states that the temporary signs outside the museum should tell visitors that exhibits should be altered to reflect the report’s findings and “direct visitors to locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history.” It does not specify where visitors will be redirected.
Trump’s war against the Smithsonian began shortly after the start of his second term. In March 2025, Trump issued an executive order entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that stated that the Trump administration would “restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.” The Trump administration has since threatened to withhold federal funding, ordered a comprehensive review of eight museums, and released a list of exhibits it did not agree with.
According to the article’s authors, important sources of Trump’s hostility to the Smithsonian are David and Tim Barton, a father an son who founded an organization called “WallBuilders.”
The father and son are founder and president, respectively, of WallBuilders, a Christian nationalist advocacy organization founded in 1988. WallBuilders aims to “teach US history and how our beginnings were overwhelmingly rooted in Christian ideology.”
Despite having no degree in history, David Barton calls himself a historian. He has amassed a large collection of documents related to America’s founding and published several books. For decades, he has pushed the view that the founding fathers never intended for there to be a separation between church and state. David Barton’s work has been rejectedrepeatedly by actual historians. Most notably, a book he published in 2012 about Thomas Jefferson was pulled from the shelves by its publisher after a group of historians from Christian universities accused him of including distortions and false information.
This has not prevented David Barton from gaining political influence. In Texas, David Barton has advised the Texas State Board of Education on public school curricula. According to Barton’s own social media posts and statements, he has attended several meetings at the White House during Trump’s second term and has been in communication with Trump officials about the “crazy stuff” in the Smithsonian museums.
Read the rest at Public Information.
Those are the stories that caught my attention today. I hope you found something of interest here. What other stories have you been following?
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Is it just me? Or does the guy getting choked look like Lindsey Graham?
Ok, I have several links below that are from instagram…so if they are not imbedding properly, just reload the page.
I don’t know if you are aware of the drama going on with the famous eagle pair in Big Valley?
Jackie (the female) went missing for a couple weeks, and it turned out she was in a fight with another sub-adult eagle. Jackie is very sick. Things have been critical. This is the latest:
“It’s incredible watching Donald The Prophet profiting.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The headlines today are full of failed policies. Orange Caligula hasn’t quite found a distraction to take the voters’ minds off everything he’s done this term. We have a failed war and an economy choked by inflation. His main focus is on rigging the election and disenfranchising minority voters and women. He’s been after Senator John Thune to get his SAVE Act passed. However, the more people know about it, the less they like it. So, it’s time to start lighting up your Congressional Critters’ phones.
This is the headline from Politico‘s Jordain Carney. “Trump tells Thune to keep Senate in session to pass SAVE America Act. The president also again urged the Senate GOP leader to nix the filibuster.” Republicans are always keen on the filibuster until it’s used against them.
President Donald Trump ramped up pressure Monday on Majority Leader John Thune, telling him to keep the Senate in session until a GOP election bill passes.
“John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Monday.
Democrats, he added, will nix the filibuster themselves when they regain power “and can’t believe how lucky they got with this Senate leadership. Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!”
Trump’s Truth Social post comes after he urged supporters last week to call Thune about the SAVE America Act, then said Friday that he wanted Senate Republicans to adopt a blueprint for a $95 billion party-line spending bill, which would include some election-related funding, before they leave town for the August recess as planned on Aug. 6.
Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said over the weekend that they believed the Senate should stay in town until the election bill is passed. Lee has previously called for the Senate to stay in session through prior recesses to pass the SAVE America Act but has not forced the issue on the floor.
Despite Trump’s pressure campaign, the elections bill doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate and there isn’t enough support within the Senate Republican conference for nixing the filibuster, which requires 60 votes for most legislation to advance.
When Trump says he has a dream, it’s basically to ensure Black Americans can’t get to the polls. There’s no better time than this midterm to turn out and punch that voting machine selection with your middle finger. This analysis at The Hill has part of the explanation why Republican Senators can’t find their spines to buck the MAGA agenda. Alexander Bolten has the lede.
Senate conservatives, led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), are calling on Senate Majority Leader John Thune
(R-S.D.) to cancel the August recess so they can debate the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, a sweeping election reform bill that President Trump has made his No. 1 legislative priority.
Lee warned in a social media post to Thune last week that he would “object to any effort to put the Senate into recess in August — at least until such time as the Senate has passed the SAVE America Act” and requested a roll call vote to adjourn the Senate for five weeks over most of August and early September.
Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), who’s up for reelection in November, said she would prefer to stay in Washington in August instead of returning to her home state for an extended period to meet with constituents.
“I didn’t come to the United States Senate because I needed something to do. I’m serving because there are things we need to get done for the American People. The Senate needs to stay in session until we can get the SAVE America Act to the floor and passed,” Moody posted on X.
Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), another Trump ally, said he’s ready to cancel the five-week recess to debate the SAVE America Act, which has already failed several times on the Senate floor.
“I’m all for it. We don’t need a recess. Let’s pass the Save America Act. It’s more important than taking a break, taking a recess,” Banks told Fox News.
“I’m back in Indiana for the weekend, I head back to Washington tomorrow. I’ve heard from people everywhere I go, from the diner this morning to the grocery store, ‘Pass the SAVE America Act.’ We have to get it done,” he said.
The Senate has already spent several weeks of floor time debating the SAVE America Act, which would require people to show documented proof of citizenship when registering to vote and show photo identification when voting, and it would restrict mail-in ballots.
Down here in the yahoo state, we have Senator Kennedy to go all Hee-Haw on us. Samuel Chamberlin has this headline (deep breath) from the New York Post. “GOP Sen. John Kennedy warns John Thune is ‘being too cautious’ as Trump agenda hangs in the balance.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) needs to get to work on passing the rest of President Trump’s agenda with fewer than 100 days to go before the midterm elections, a key member of the GOP’s rank-and-file warned Sunday.
“Look, I mean no disrespect. I love John Thune. He’s my leader. He’s got a big brain. He’s better looking than me, but I think he’s just being too cautious,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” adding that the majority leader “wants to spend the rest of our time talking with [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer about shutting down government, and the Graham Platner wing of the [Democratic] party is, his party, is not going to let Schumer agree with us.
“They already want to give Schumer a bathrobe, a Popsicle, and an early bedtime, and have him retire. I don’t think Chuck can agree with us,” Kennedy predicted. “I think he’s going to shut down government.”
“We need to put the, the House budget resolution on the floor,” Kennedy told host Margaret Brennan. “It’s the only chance we have to get money to defense, the farmers, and to take another crack at the SAVE Act. We need to add Iran to the [Lindsey] Graham Russian sanctions bill and vote on it. We need to put the cryptocurrency market structure bill on the floor and vote on it.”
Before leaving for its August recess last week, the House of Representatives passed a stopgap measure that would fund the government until Dec. 4. Some Senate Republicans, including Kennedy, want to tack the Trump-endorsed SAVE America Act, which would require Americans to show proof of citizenship before registering to vote and provide photo identification before casting a ballot, onto the budget resolution.
Currently, a shutdown is set to begin at 11:59 p.m. ET Sept. 30.
It’s amazing how people with perfectly good educations and seemingly functional minds can go all bat shit crazy when they get themselves elected/appointed to anything within the Beltway. I’ve been around here long enough to remember when Foghorn Leghorn was a member of the Democratic Party. He switched parties in August 2007.
Meanwhile, we’ve finally uncovered a bit more truthiness from our human cost in Trump’s war against Fishing Boats. (Psst, have you sent the FBI to your sons, Orange Caligula, if you really want a successful coke bust? This is from the Washington Post. “Deadly U.S. boat strikes have failed to curb cocaine supply, Pentagon and DEA officials say. The president says Operation Southern Spear has virtually ended drug trafficking by sea. Pentagon and DEA analysts have concluded otherwise.”
The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former U.S. and foreign officials.
In a recent assessment reviewed by The Washington Post, DEA analysts found the strikes had failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States and had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines, where U.S. forces are less likely to open fire. In a closed-door briefing last month, Pentagon officials told lawmakers the strikes in international waters off South and Central America had not reduced its purity.
Traffickers are also relying more on aircraft, which take off from clandestine airstrips along the Colombian-Venezuelan border and head east to Guyana and Suriname to avoid U.S. forces, according to the DEA assessment.
“When you squeeze the balloon on one side, it always expands on the other side,” one DEA official told The Post. “They always find the weak spots and exploit them.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Meanwhile, giant corporations are getting rich at what they do best. As usual, they’re cutting costs by denying their workers a living wage, so those workers must rely on public assistance. This strategy is one of America’s worst legacies. This is from Popular Information. Judd Legum has the story.
American taxpayers are spending billions every year providing Medicaid benefits to hundreds of thousands of employees of Amazon and Walmart, a new analysis by Popular Information reveals.
Amazon and Walmart are two of the largest and most profitable companies in the country — collectivelygenerating $100 billion in profits in 2025 — but many of their employees still qualify for Medicaid because their take-home pay hovers around (or below) the poverty line.
As taxpayers keep their workers afloat, the wealth of the two companies’ largest shareholders is increasing exponentially. The Walton family, the largest shareholders of Walmart, saw their collective wealth increase from $238 billion in 2021 to $513 billion at the end of 2025. Meanwhile, Amazon founder and current executive chairman Jeff Bezos saw his net worth increase from $187 billion to $255 billion over roughly the same time period.
Popular Information calculated the public subsidy to Amazon and Walmart by cross-referencing several publicly available data sources. Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report examining the top 25 employers of Medicaid enrollees in six states: Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island. This provided state-level Medicaid enrollment for Amazon and Walmart workers in all six states, with the exception of Amazon in Maine.
Popular Information compared these figures to the total number of employees working for Walmart and Amazon in each state, sourced from company disclosures, to establish an average Medicaid enrollment rate for each company. The average Medicaid enrollment rate was then used to establish an estimated Medicaid enrollment for employees of each company in the remaining states.
Using this methodology, Popular Information estimates that, nationwide, over 156,000 Walmart employees are enrolled in Medicaid at an annual cost to taxpayers of approximately $1.04 billion.
Of course, you can read more at the links. The weather all over the country continues to break records and be miserable. I hope you’re managing to avoid the worst of it. I’ve developed a keen fashion sense that includes cotton under shirts and cut-off jeans, accentuated by bare feet. I can’t make iced tea fast enough, nor can I keep the animals’ water bowls filled with water and a few ice cubes. This article from The Guardian shows the widespread phenomenon. JJ and I are under a “heatwave dome.” BB sent me her forecast, which really is wild. “Super El Niño Could Combine With Rare Atlantic Niña: See MA Impacts.”
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
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HUGE WIN IN KATIE PHANG’S EPSTEIN FILES LAWSUIT: Judge Emmet Sullivan is making the DOJ prove its case. Todd Blanche must now submit the unredacted Epstein Files documents for in-camera review along with evidence supporting the government’s redactions.
Elias: They’re not going to persuade voters, and they’re not really going to turn out their own voters. Elections are a game of inches. Their way of gaining those inches is not to increase Donald Trump’s popularity but rather to decrease the number of Democrats who are able to vote.
Last night was the make-up date for the White House Correspondents Association Dinner. I didn’t know it was happening, and I can’t imagine why the journalists felt it was necessary. The first one–in April–was cancelled because of Cole Thomas Allen, who supposedly attempted to assassinate Trump, but didn’t get anywhere near him.
One possible reason for the redo was the awards that were handed out–mostly for negative coverage of Trump. Trump had to sit there and pretend to be a good sport. The top award–the Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability–went to The Wall Street Journal for the story on Trump’s crude 50th birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein. The photography award went to Andrew Harnik of Getty Images for the famous photo of Trump standing staring into space after a guest collapsed in the oval office. You can see the photo and the rest of the awards here.
President Donald Trump returned to the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Friday night, delivering a rambling, hour-long speech that praised some journalists, took potshots at others, made jokes about public figures’ weight and intellect, and quipped about a third presidential term….
Trump’s return to the correspondents’ dinner — and his promise to come back next year as well — represented a notable moment in his relationship with the news media, which he has attacked, sued and taken administrative action against since he began his second term early last year. Among the audience members were reporters he had denounced and barred from events.
Trump’s sometimes off-color speech, which lasted just over an hour, was full of vague potshots directed at individuals he doesn’t like — from Jane Fonda to Bruce Springsteen to “Barack Hussein Obama.” The audience, reacting at first with some friendly laughs, slowly quieted to scattered titters as the insults piled up.
Among other targets of Trump’s humor: Late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel; Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; California Gov. Gavin Newsom; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and Trump’s own speechwriters, whose jokes he sometimes criticized even as he delivered them. Some of the comments flirted with racism.
The president also spent some time expressing pride in the ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, formerly the Trump International Hotel. “It’s great to be back at a place that I know very well, because I built it,” Trump said….
He made a brief mention of the Iran war and several remarks about the ballroom he is building at the White House. He also used the occasion to joke about the possibility he would serve a third term — something barred by the U.S. Constitution’s 22nd Amendment.
“Just like my presidency, the second time is always better,” the president quipped. “And the third time will be better yet.”
He added: “I’m only kidding.” Then, at the end, he donned a red cap that said “Trump 2028” and delivered the “scoop” that he was running again.
As often happens with his stump speeches these days, the president lost his audience. Phones were gazed at, silence ensued. Never more so than when he embarked on a tiresome bigoted diatribe against the Democratic representative from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, one of his frequent targets….
Instead of the vast auditorium at the Washington Hilton – the dinner’s venue for several decades and once the site of an attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan – the Astoria Waldorf was chosen to stage a drastically scaled-down dinner, with just 700 guests attending, compared with the 2,600 who were at the original event in April….
Trump, when he spoke – after being forcibly humbled by the dishing out of awards to a succession of journalists for their unflattering portrayal of his presidency – quickly established that humility would not feature strongly in his speech.
His first comment on the changed venue was to observe that he had once owned it, when it was the Trump International Hotel.
“This has not been an easy evening. All these awards. Do I have a say?” he asked. “But it’s great to be back at a place that I know very well because I built it, and I’m very proud of it because I built it for $2.9bn less than the Federal Reserve Building, which is a lot smaller, by the way.”
More from Trump’s speech:
From there, it was on to the insults, taunts, jokes – and grievances. Some of it was amusing and drew laughter, notably when he jested at the expense of the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
“I hope that everyone finally got to enjoy their entire, very delicious beef tenderloins, very special beef,” he said. “And I want you all to know that Bobby Kennedy, who’s right here, personally ran over the cow and he cut it
up, and he brought it here for you to eat tonight. Bobby also suggested appetizer featuring his favorite cut of male raccoon roadkill, but we drew the line at that.”
Adam Schiff, the Democratic senator for California and a particular Trump bete noire, was mocked as “watermelon head because he has the largest head I’ve ever seen with the smallest pencil neck”.
Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert, all comedians who have mocked Trump unceasingly, were derided as “people without talent”….
“I hope you all know that I believe in the free press more than anyone in this room,” Trump told the gathering later, overlooking the fact that his administration had filed subpoenas for several New York Times reporters and their relatives after the paper had reported on security breaches on the new Air Force One jet, gifted by Qatar.
“You people have no idea how lucky you are. When I’m gone, you’re all going to be broke. There’s not going to be anybody to report on.”
President Trump was entranced. It was a few weeks into his second term, and he was on the tarmac of the Palm Beach airport, getting a tour of a luxury Boeing 747-8 that had been flown from Doha for his perusal.
The double-decker jet, which had been outfitted for the Qatari royal family, had a spacious bedroom adorned with leather and wood and a lounge featuring a chandelier and another with suede seats.
Two planes being built by Boeing to replace the aging Air Force One fleet were years behind schedule, and Mr. Trump’s team had asked the Air Force to find a temporary aircraft. This was the one, the president decided.
Mr. Trump’s February 2025 tour of the Qatari jet led to a frantic sprint inside the White House and the Pentagon. The administration sought to upgrade the plane in time to meet his demand for it to be ready by the nation’s 250th birthday this summer, with an accelerated retrofit.
An investigation by The New York Times found that the president’s push to get the luxury aircraft quickly led to ballooning costs and trade-offs in safety features that potentially left Mr. Trump and others who travel with him on Air Force One vulnerable.
Some of the findings of the investigation:
— Mr. Trump was personally engaged in making decisions about the retrofitting of the donated plane, giving the final approval on the features and security measures that would be included, according to people familiar with his role. They and others interviewed for this article described the sensitive information about the process and the plane on the condition of anonymity.
— Several key security and safety features on the Boeing planes that have been used for decades as Air Force One are not visible on the upgraded jet, including a lower-level exit for high-risk situations, additional backup power capacity and an advanced antimissile system, public Air Force records and photographs examined by The Times show. The planes currently being built to serve as the permanent presidential fleet are all set to have such features, federal records show.
— The 747-8 plane was overhauled on a compressed timeline of just about eight months. Experts said the jet would have needed several years for a full upgrade.
— Because the Qatari jet was being pushed into service so quickly, some White House officials initially expected it would only be used for domestic travel or to visit allied countries with U.S. military bases.
–The government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase equipment needed to train pilots to fly the 747-8 plane so quickly, on top of the approximately $400 million cost of the upgrades that the administration has publicly acknowledged. The Pentagon has tried to mask the total price tag — including from Congress — by taking the funds from a classified budget for nuclear modernization.
I hope Congress will prevent him from taking the plane with all those secret security upgrades with him. How can that possibly be permitted?
The president on Friday ordered that “warning” signs be placed in front of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to inform visitors of the “inaccurate information presented in the Museum.”
The executive order comes after a White House report released July 4 claimed the museum “cannot be trusted to tell America’s story honestly and in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic.”
Trump said in March 2025 that he intended to force changes at the Smithsonian Institution, signing an executive order that sought to target federal funding for programs that present “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology.”
In his order on Friday, Trump wrote that the “Smithsonian leadership does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a ‘prime tool’ to advance ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of our society.”
He wrote that the leadership of both the institution and of the museum “cannot be trusted to tell America’s story with honesty and gratitude.”
What the new order says:
Trump directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to work alongside the National Park Service to install “temporary signage along the NPS-maintained sidewalks and walkways used by the public to access the Museum.”
The signage will “inform visitors” of the July 4 report and Trump’s demand that the report findings be enforced in accordance with his March 2025 executive order, Trump wrote.
Trump said that the signage will correct “inaccurate information presented in the Museum” and direct visitors to “locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history.”
The president directed that Burgum, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and the administrator of the General Services Administration alongside the assistant to the president for domestic policy shall “use all available authorities” to promote the order’s policies.
It’s going to take decades to repair all the damage Trump is doing.
Yesterday, in a press availability in the oval office, Trump was asked when it will be safe to eat lettuce again. His response was
“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it. It’s the first time I’ve been asked that question.
“Well I think what we’re going to do is we’re gonna put a major tariff on Mexico because of the lettuce, and we’re going to put a big tariff on Canada because of the smoke.”
There is usually some lettuce on those fast food burgers he likes. Regardless of Trump’s uncaring attitude, the Cyclospora situation is getting very serious.
President Donald Trump’s former top food safety official is calling for an independent review of the federal government’s response to a cyclospora outbreak that has sickened thousands of people this summer.
“This one deserves a lot of questions, and it is starting to approach a catastrophic level in terms of how mismanaged it’s been on multiple fronts,” said Frank Yiannas, who served as the Food and Drug Administration’s deputy commissioner for food policy and response during both Trump and former President Joe Biden’s administration from 2018 to 2023.
He pointed to the outbreak’s magnitude, the widespread consumer confusion and the “lack of strong federal leadership” as well as what he described as uncoordinated messaging from federal authorities.
“My point is not to find fault, but to find facts on how we can further strengthen the system,” Yiannas told POLITICO. “It’s not being critical of any particular agency, but it is being critical of the system. In some respects, I think there’s been some dismantling of the system.”
Yiannas’ call for an independent review of the government’s response adds to pressure facing the FDA since the agency scrambled to do damage control this week after announcing a positive lab test linked a new batch of Taylor Farms lettuce to the outbreak — only to reverse course to say final test results contradicted the initial finding.
Well, I’m not sure I trust that report of a false positive. The Wall Street Journal reported today on Taylor Farms efforts to control the narrative. I can only post a brief section of the story since it’s behind the paywall:
Representatives for produce giant Taylor Farms contacted the White House with an urgent plea: the company wanted to delay announcing a recall tied to one of the largest foodborne illness outbreaks in U.S. history.
The call, during which the company asked for more proof and more time before being linked to the outbreak, illustrates how one of the country’s largest produce suppliers sought to limit its exposure to a public-relations nightmare, while grappling with a costly and complicated recall. Over the past several weeks, health officials have been scrambling to contain the outbreak of cyclospora, which can cause explosive diarrhea. Some current and former government officials have criticized the handling of the outbreak, both by the administration and Taylor Farms.
The massive, multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis has expanded to nine states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
Outbreaks in Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania have now been connected to cases in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, as well as hard-hit Michigan.
The discovery doesn’t necessarily mean that cases are accelerating, but it provides a clearer picture of what’s been so unusual about the record-high number of cyclosporiasis cases this summer.
“We’re getting more complete case data that covers the range of the outbreak,” said Gwen Biggerstaff, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases. “States are completing interviews with people, and we’re filling in the data.”
The CDC has confirmed 1,947 cases in those nine states. Shredded iceberg lettuce sourced from Taylor Farms de Mexico is the likely source, the Food and Drug Administration said last week. The company voluntarily recalled the product from the U.S. market.
“We know it went to many states, to many points of sale,” said Kari Irvin, deputy director of the FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation Network. The FDA watches the CDC’s confirmed case counts closely, she said, “because it will help tell us if the recall is enough, that they’ve recovered all products that need to be removed from the market.”
The clue that linked cases to Taylor Farms came from interviews with people who got sick. Many said they’d eaten at Taco Bell in June, before the waves of cases took off. The restaurant chain pulled lettuce from its menu ahead of the recall from Taylor Farms.
Irvin said FDA investigators are working to determine whether additional growers might have played a role. “The data that we have now really continues to home in on growers that were already identified,” she said.
I hope it stays away from Massachusetts. In any case, I will never buy anything from Taylor Farms. I’ve seen their products when ordering on-line, but have never bought them.
Mitch McConnell is still missing and it’s unclear whether he is alive, brain dead, or dead as a doornail. We have no idea what hospital he is supposedly in, and no indication when he might be back at work in the Senate. Here’s the latest:
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is facing growingcalls to be more transparent about his health nearly six weeks after he was hospitalized.
McConnell, 84, has been absent from the Senate since he said he suffered a fall June 14. His office shared a photo of McConnell holding The Washington Post on July 12, and McConnell said in a statement that he had left the hospital and moved to a rehabilitation center — but he did not say when he planned to return, offering only that he would not “be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet.”
Those scant details have not quieted rampant rumors and online speculation about McConnell’s condition.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said last week that he had heard nothing from McConnell since he was hospitalized, despite sending a letter seeking an update on his condition. He urged McConnell to call into a news station for a few minutes or put out a short video to reassure his constituents.
“When you’ve been in a hospital for a month and you’ve missed all the votes … you owe your boss, like anybody else out there who works, an explanation of what’s been going on and when you’ll get back,” Beshear said.
Scott Jennings, a longtime McConnell ally who worked on some of his reelection campaigns, urged McConnell on Thursday to “routinely update his constituents on how he’s doing” and be transparent about the work he’s doing while recovering. He said he expected McConnell to share an update on how he’s doing in the coming days.
“Truthfully, I think a little transparency on the front end here would have saved him a whole lot of grief,” Jennings told CNN’s “The Arena with Kasie Hunt.” “But that didn’t happen and they are where they are now.”
When even ultra-sycophant Scott Jennings is telling McConnell to stop hiding, you know it’s getting serious. You can use the gift link to read more.
I’ll end there. What do you think about all this? What other stories are you interested in?
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When Trump says he has a dream, it’s basically to ensure Black Americans can’t get to the polls. There’s no better time than this midterm to turn out and punch that voting machine selection with your middle finger. This analysis at 
Down here in the yahoo state, we have Senator Kennedy to go all Hee-Haw on us. Samuel Chamberlin has this headline (deep breath) from the 
It’s amazing how people with perfectly good educations and seemingly functional minds can go all bat shit crazy when they get themselves elected/appointed to anything within the Beltway. I’ve been around here long enough to remember when Foghorn Leghorn was a member of the Democratic Party. He switched parties in August 2007.
Meanwhile, giant corporations are getting rich at what they do best. As usual, they’re cutting costs by denying their workers a living wage, so those workers must rely on public assistance. This strategy is one of America’s worst legacies. This is from 
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