Nothing gets done............

Senate GOP braces for a Trump August pressure cooker

Conservatives are already vowing to carry on the GOP’s intraparty fight over the president’s election bill priority.

By Jordain Carney

Senate Republicans want to spend August fighting to keep their majority and training their fire on Democrats. Donald Trump might have other plans.

The GOP’s desire to move on from a monthslong intraparty squabble over Trump’s No. 1 priority comes after senators left town early Saturday without advancing any form of his election security bill. Republicans don’t have the votes to pass the SAVE America Act and punted a framework for a third party-line spending bill that includes parts of the measure rather than have a failed vote.

Whether Trump accepts that explanation is entirely unclear.

Some Republicans are prepared for the mercurial president’s yearslong obsession with the election measure to resurface over the five-week recess and risk further inflaming the party’s base just months before GOP senators need those same voters to turn out.

“That would be consistent with his approach,” Sen. Mike Rounds said about the possibility that Trump could spend August criticizing Republicans for not passing the GOP election overhaul.

But, the South Dakota Republican added “we also know the votes aren’t there.”

The Senate’s moves over the weekend — which conservatives say were signed off on by Trump — likely push a third GOP spending bill until after the November election.

And instead of voting again on the SAVE America Act, which some Senate Republicans oppose due to its restrictions on mail-in voting, for example, Majority Leader John Thune called up a vote on a simpler voter ID bill offered by Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio that received unified GOP support.

Some, like Utah Sen. Mike Lee and other Senate conservatives, have vowed to renew their fight for the GOP bill once the chamber returns.

But privately some GOP senators believe for now their actions are not enough to satisfy Trump, given his relentless focus on it that has derailed congressional business in the House and Senate at several points this year.

One GOP senator, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said Thune wanted to hold a vote on the voter ID bill because “he thinks it will give us cover with the president.”

“I think he’s wrong,” the senator said, adding that Senate Republicans were “not factoring in the president’s reaction.”

Asked if he thought the Senate’s actions on the narrower voting bill would satisfy Trump, Thune said in an interview, “good question, but I think if they want votes, we’ll try and get votes,” adding, “I can’t guarantee outcomes.”

Trump and his allies’ continued focus on a bill that doesn’t have the votes to pass has frustrated Senate Republicans. Some Republicans also see Trump’s focus on the election bill as a back-door way for the president to accomplish what they think he really wants: getting rid of the filibuster, which a critical mass of Republicans also opposes.

“At the end of the day, all Republicans need to start getting satisfied with everybody pretty quickly, so that we can get the voters to be satisfied with us, and we maintain our majority at least in the Senate,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said when asked about Trump.

He added that “I hear what the administration is saying. I look at political data almost every day of the week. …I don’t see [the SAVE America Act] as one of the major factors that are going to get out to the polls.”

Senate Republicans suggested to Vice President JD Vance during a closed-door lunch last week that he could speak to the president on their behalf about the realities they were facing on the budget resolution and other parts of their pre-August to-do list, according to two attendees. Vance, however, said Senate Republicans should speak directly with the president themselves.

A day later, Senate conservatives spoke with Trump who, according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), blessed punting a vote on a budget resolution into the fall rather than forcing one before leaving that would have failed.

Such a vote would’ve also put a target on the backs of the GOP senators who opposed it and, potentially, only further frustrated Trump, who has lashed out repeatedly in recent weeks at the Senate GOP’s inability to pass the elections measure.

“We’re in total agreement. There was no argument about it. …He would like a better reconciliation bill. That will take more time, so he was completely supportive,” Johnson said about the conversation with the president.

Thune, asked about the conservatives’ conversation with Trump, added that “I think everybody for the most part is on the same page.”

But Johnson’s conversation with Trump, Lee and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, comes after the Wisconsin senator acknowledged to reporters late last month that Trump “probably wouldn’t like that too much” if Republicans left town without advancing a budget resolution.

“Nor would I,” Johnson added. “Nor would a lot of people who support us."

Shrink recommended vaccines

Trump redoubles effort to shrink recommended vaccines ahead of midterm elections

It is unclear whether the latest effort will withstand legal challenges.

By Cheyenne Haslett, David Lim and Sophie Gardner

President Donald Trump on Monday reignited his effort to overhaul the government’s vaccine recommendations with an executive order directing federal agencies to reduce the number of recommended vaccines children get and spread the shots out over more doctors appointments.

The move comes months ahead of the midterm elections on an issue that Trump’s own pollsters have warned is unpopular, but that the president has long shown a personal interest in. The president’s endeavors have been thrown into high gear by his allegiance with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has questioned vaccine safety for decades.

“Today we’re proud to officially announce the United States of America’s gold standard childhood vaccination recommendations,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Monday before he signed the order.

“Effective immediately, my administration is recognizing gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations for only 11 core vaccinations against the most serious and dangerous diseases, along with the MMR, which hopefully will be split up,” Trump said.

There are two versions of the combined MMR vaccine currently available for use in the U.S. — but no individual shots on the market. It is unclear if or when vaccine makers would be able to market individual shots, a process that would likely require new Food and Drug Administration approvals.

It is also unclear how the overarching directive — which overlaps with past actions by the Trump administration that have run into legal challenges — will change the current vaccination recommendations.

Dorit Reiss, a law professor at the University of California College of the Law at San Francisco, said the latest effort will likely face similar legal challenges.

“The president’s familiarity with the administrative law is limited,” Reiss said. “The problem is that this isn’t likely to hold up in court.”

Comet 10P/Tempel 2

Which of these is not a comet? You guessed it - the one on the right is a globular star cluster. The diffuse greenish coma of periodic comet 10P/Tempel 2 is at left in the frame. In fact the globular star cluster is Messier 30, also known as M30, or the 30th entry in astronomer Charles Messier's catalog of things which are not comets. The well-known 18th century astronomer kept a list of objects he observed, now his famous Messier Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters, which did not move from night to night against the background stars and so were not the comets he was hunting for. So the famous comet hunter would get the correct answer too, even though his telescope would show both 10P/Tempel 2 and distant star cluster as similar looking faint and fuzzy objects in his field of view. Recorded on July 29, this modern telescopic image captures periodic comet Tempel 2 as it briefly swept close on the sky to M30. While the periodic comet's faint, narrow, orbital dust trail seems to pierce the globular star cluster, Tempel 2 was a mere 3.5 light-minutes away. Messier 30 is some 28,000 light-years distant.

Pairs

Each of these pairs of galaxies is different. The two galaxies at the top are likely not interacting, at least presently. However, the top galaxy with the blue stripe, NGC 4650A, is a polar ring galaxy and may be the result of a past galaxy collision. The two galaxies in the middle of the featured image appear like they could be interacting gravitationally -- but their relative speeds make this unlikely. Of these two, the larger galaxy, NGC 4650, is a spiral galaxy with a bright bar of stars across its center. The two galaxies at the bottom are actively interacting. Possibly in a billion years or so, NGC 4622A and NGC 4622B will merge and become one single galaxy. All of these galaxies are likely members of the larger Centaurus Galaxy Cluster.

War on Immigrants

The Quiet War on Immigrants, Round Two

Exclusive: Sen. Ed Markey’s new report says the system hasn’t been torn down—it’s been hollowed out.

Isabela Dias

In 2019, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) denounced a “stealth anti-immigration campaign” by the first Trump administration. Through a combination of high-profile policy changes like the travel ban on foreigners from Muslim-majority countries and less visible administrative tweaks, a report from the senator comprehensively documented that the Republican president “surreptitiously remade” the immigration system to fulfill a “perverse vision that erases the existence of immigrants in the United States.”

As it turns out, that was only the beginning. Now, seven years later, the second Trump administration has expanded those “under the radar” attacks against the entire US immigration system, as the senator again details in a follow-up report shared exclusively with Mother Jones. Those efforts, the report says, have “destabilized lawful presence, expanded enforcement, and reengineered adjudication to accelerate and prioritize removal.”

“This report shines a light on Trump’s cruel project to dismantle due process, strip immigrants of their lawful status, and turn our immigration courts into deportation machines,” Sen. Markey told Mother Jones. “The Trump administration must be held accountable for its attacks on our immigrant neighbors.”

The report reveals an administration that is pulling all levers to completely reorient the immigration system—including the elements that had been intended to support immigrants. The sweeping goal appears to be destabilizing the lives of noncitizens in the United States and boosting deportations. “Refugee admissions have effectively stalled, humanitarian protections have been withdrawn or narrowed, work authorization has become more tenuous, and avenues to secure or retain lawful status have grown increasingly uncertain,” the report reads.

The Trump administration has not only stripped the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, but it has also made the process of seeking lawful status and even citizenship more burdensome and riskier. (Not to mention the ongoing crusade to undermine birthright citizenship.) For instance, last August, the Department of Homeland Security’s agency in charge of visas and immigration benefits rolled out a policy expanding the “good moral character” standard requirement for citizenship applicants, a requirement that introduced more subjectivity and unpredictability into the process.

Another approach with sweeping consequences with which the administration is changing the playing field can be seen in the politicization of the immigration courts, which are part of the Department of Justice. In addition to firing more than 100 immigration judges and replacing them with temporarily assigned military lawyers, the administration has transformed the make-up of the Board of Immigration Appeals, which reviews judges’ decisions. This body, in turn, has issued precedent-setting rulings that restrict immigrants’ access to due process and relief from deportation.

Even without formal legislative changes and while ostensibly keeping protections on the books, Sen. Markey concludes, President Donald Trump has nonetheless managed to create “not an openly dismantled immigration system, but one transformed from within, appearing legally intact” in which “individuals are not only more likely to become vulnerable to enforcement, but less able to avoid or defend against it.”

Americans have already paid more than $75 billion in additional gasoline and diesel costs

The Iran War’s Other Bill—And You’re Paying It

The costs go way beyond gas. Delivery fees are up and diapers, baby wipes, and stuffed animals are likely next.

Amanda Pike

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently told Congress that the US government has spent an estimated $37.5 billion to date on the Iran war and requested an additional $67 billion in emergency funding. 

But there are several hidden costs that don’t factor into Hegseth’s accounting—ones that the rest of us are actually paying.

The most obvious example is increased fuel prices. As of this writing, Americans have already paid more than $75 billion in additional gasoline and diesel costs—more than $570 per household—since the war began, according to a live tracker from Brown University’s Climate Solutions Lab.

The jump in fuel prices has raised the cost of airline tickets, and delivery fees for Amazon, UPS, FedEx and the US Postal Service have gone up as much as 8 percent. Because trucks carry more than 70 percent of goods in the US, higher diesel prices affect almost everything on store shelves, including groceries.

Oil is used to make plastics and petrochemicals, so higher prices are already starting to work their way into the cost of everything from stuffed animals, diapers, and baby wipes to crayons, bottled water, soft drinks, and clothing.

And because K-12 schools in the US spend more than $8 billion a year on energy—their second-largest expense after teacher salaries—rising utility costs will likely strain already-stressed public schools.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has also caused the price of fertilizer to skyrocket. About 70 percent of US farmers said they were unable to afford all the fertilizer they need, according to a survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation. In the US, that will likely eventually mean higher food prices. In other parts of the world, the UN is warning that the war in Iran is driving historic levels of global hunger. The head of the World Food Programme recently said the organization is being forced to “take from the hungry to give to the starving.”

Of course, the impact of the cost in human life is incalculable. At least 18 US service members have been killed and more than 100 wounded. In Iran alone, human rights groups have documented at least 1,700 civilian deaths, with the regional toll likely thousands more.

Ultimately, the cost of the war doesn’t end when the last shot is fired. Veterans will draw care and disability payments for decades. Historically, these costs don’t peak until 30 to 40 years after a war ends. Meanwhile, US weapons stockpiles will need replenishing and American facilities in the Middle East—damages to which are reportedly more extensive than the Trump administration has acknowledged—will need to be rebuilt. 

Taken all together, $37.5 billion isn’t anywhere near a final number. It’s more like a down payment—one that all of us are making.

Not Funny

 

Ousted by a Republican challenger

GOP Rep. Andy Ogles ousted in Tennessee primary

His loss makes him the second Donald Trump-endorsed candidate to lose a primary this week.

By Andrew Howard

Tennessee GOP Rep. Andy Ogles was ousted by a Republican challenger on Thursday, a blow to President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson who tried to boost his campaign in the final days.

Former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher won the GOP primary for the 5th District after outraising Ogles, receiving a late endorsement from GOP Gov. Bill Lee and seeing a flood of outside money on his behalf from a renewable energy super PAC.

Ultimately, that spending, coupled with a newly redrawn district that forced Ogles to reach new voters, helped end his reelection bid. Ogles has also faced a number of controversies since he was first elected in 2022.

He deleted a homophobic social media post that was denounced by members of his own party in June, and he drew severe backlash for another post in which he said “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” In 2024, the FBI searched Ogles’ phone during an investigation into campaign finance records, which came after a watchdog group filed an ethics complaint into his use of campaign funds. And in 2023, he faced scrutiny for false claims about his resume.

Ogles’ loss makes him the second Trump-endorsed candidate to lose a primary this week, after a Michigan House candidate who had the president’s backing fell to a challenger who had already dropped out.

Hatcher will face the Democratic mayor of Columbia, Tennessee, Chaz Molder, in November. Molder has posted strong fundraising hauls, while Hatcher will basically be starting from scratch.

But Republicans redrew the seat to favor Trump by 23 points after the Supreme Court severely limited the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, leaving Hatcher as the front-runner.

Tiny dick, tiny brain. Feels inadequate...

Hellbent on putting Fauci in jail, Rand Paul wants to skip a Senate vote

The Kentucky senator and nemesis of America’s Covid czar says he’s taking his case straight to the attorney general.

By Simon J. Levien and Robert King

Rand Paul wants to fast-track prosecution of former Covid czar Anthony Fauci.

The legal process will be fraught.

After the Kentucky Republican pushed a contempt of Congress resolution through his Senate committee on party lines Thursday morning — saying Fauci had impeded his investigation of the pandemic by refusing to answer questions last week — Democrats demanded he take it to the full Senate for a vote they could filibuster. Paul said he’s going to instead take it straight to the attorney general.

For Fauci, the difference is massive. A failed Senate vote to hold him in contempt would show he’s still got defenders after Republicans released a diary showing his enthusiasm for fame and then grilled him while he took the Fifth. A referral to the attorney general puts a decision on prosecution in the hands of a Trump Justice Department that has shown it’s willing to play politics.

“Maybe he should” be prosecuted, President Donald Trump told reporters about Fauci on Thursday, referencing the contempt prosecutions of two of his allies, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, that began when Democrats controlled Congress. “What he did is far more serious than a lot of crimes.”

After his committee voted, Paul said he’s sick of waiting to hold his pandemic nemesis accountable. “This way we don’t sit a month waiting to determine whether or not to bring it to the Senate floor,” he told reporters. “It will immediately be referred over, and I think it’s important for them to look at.”

But the committee vote is no criminal charge, and Paul’s shortcut opens several legal pitfalls. It’s far from certain, legal experts say, that a committee can trigger the contempt process without a full Senate vote. It is also unclear whether the pardon President Joe Biden issued Fauci, barring federal prosecution for any of his official actions from 2014 till Biden’s last day in office, meant Fauci couldn’t take the Fifth. Paul contends it does. Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a hearing before Paul’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week more than 100 times.

Paul is in a “legal netherland,” according to Stan Brand, the former counsel to House Speaker Tip O’Neill who also represented Navarro and another Trump aide, Dan Scavino, during contempt proceedings over their refusal to testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The House held both Navarro and Scavino in contempt in a floor vote. Navarro was later convicted on contempt charges while the Justice Department declined to prosecute Scavino. Unlike the Senate, the House can pass contempt resolutions on simple majority votes. The Senate standard is 60, usually requiring bipartisan support.

Brand doubts Paul’s gambit. “This is just another example of boys gone wild, tearing loose from the mores of procedure, regular order, constitutional doctrine to vindicate some political vendetta,” Brand said. “And it’s going to fail like all the others have failed.”

He added that a grand jury cannot pursue a contempt indictment without the approval of the Senate or its leader. “Without that, it’s flawed ab initio.”

The procedural question could turn on the wording of federal statute. In an interpretation favorable to Paul, U.S. Code may permit a contempt resolution to go through the Senate president when Congress is not in session. In this case, the fate of Paul’s resolution would be in Vice President JD Vance’s hands. Vance, who also serves as Senate president, would have to choose to certify it and then refer it to the U.S. attorney for D.C., Jeanine Pirro.

But the law does not clearly resolve whether a committee vote alone is sufficient — or what kind of recess makes Congress “not in session.” The Senate is expected to be out for more than a month.

That makes the committee-only approach “a little bit of a gray area, so I think you could try that,” said Jonathan David Shaub, a professor of law and public policy at the University of Kentucky’s Rosenberg College of Law. “It would really be up to the Justice Department to decide if that was valid or not.”

Even if Vance certifies a referral, the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington could be another stopping point. A congressional referral does not itself compel the Justice Department to charge anyone. It would be up to Pirro’s office whether to open a probe and seek an indictment. Shaub said prosecutors could decline if they conclude the referral has procedural issues or that Fauci validly invoked the Fifth Amendment. And if prosecutors do bring a case, Fauci’s attorneys could argue these procedural concerns before a judge.

Regardless, Paul has not indicated tapping Vance is a route he would pursue. He has also not been successful in previous demands that the Biden and Trump administrations investigate Fauci.

While Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said a contempt vote “ought to be available to us,” he has given no sign he would exercise the so-called “nuclear option,” a drastic rule change to eliminate the 60-vote requirement. Thune has resisted calls from his colleagues and Trump to make that change to pass other legislation.

The merits of a federal case against Fauci would present a separate debate about whether taking the Fifth Amendment shielded him from his responsibility to answer questions before Paul’s committee. The criminal contempt of Congress rules can and have punished witnesses who refuse testimony during hearings. Republicans argue Biden’s pardon removed Fauci’s risk of federal prosecution for the conduct senators wanted to examine and so he had to testify.

But the pardon covered only federal offenses committed before it was issued in January 2025 — not state charges or new, post-pardon offenses including perjury committed at the hearing. Fauci suggested Paul was setting a perjury trap and gave that as his reason for taking the Fifth. (In recent weeks, several red-state attorneys general have begun their own investigations into Fauci’s conduct.)

Josh Chafetz, a Georgetown law professor who has researched contempt of Congress, said on social media that despite Paul’s “obsession” with Fauci, he had an obligation to testify truthfully. Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who testified in the Clinton and Trump impeachment hearings, said on his website that the pardon’s impact is legally “murky.”

“The odds favor Fauci in a court finding that he can still invoke the privilege,” Turley wrote of Fauci’s decision to take the Fifth Amendment. “In any challenge, a court would likely find that there remains a risk of self-incrimination.”

Paul and his colleagues have said repeatedly Fauci should be behind bars, accusing him of covering up the origins of the coronavirus. Those threats, Brand argued, could be cited as an inadmissible reason to subpoena Fauci in the first place. Fauci’s legal team has taken note.

“The Senate should reject Senator Paul’s meritless and politically-motivated contempt resolution,” David Schertler, Fauci’s lawyer, said in a statement. “It is shameful and wrong that Senator Paul is abusing his power by trying to weaponize the Justice Department against an honorable public servant.”

A criminal contempt of Congress conviction is punishable with a fine up to $100,000 and imprisonment between one month and a year, according to statute.

Big cock block....

Appeals court blocks Trump’s White House ballroom renovation

But the panel temporarily put their ruling on hold to allow the president to seek relief from the Supreme Court.

By Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein

A federal appeals court panel has ruled against President Donald Trump’s attempt to unilaterally demolish portions of the White House to build a massive ballroom, saying the unprecedented project requires congressional approval.

“Executive actions that take control of that property out of the hands of the people’s representatives while irreparably harming the historical and visual architecture of perhaps the most prominent public building in the United States seriously intrude on the public interest,” Judges Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, and Bradley Garcia, a Biden appointee, wrote in a joint majority opinion issued Friday.

The appeals court put its ruling on hold for two weeks to allow Trump to seek relief from the Supreme Court. If the high court doesn’t act by then, above-ground construction at the site would have to halt.

Trump has claimed that security concerns necessitated tearing down the East Wing and replacing it with a ballroom and other features, such as a rooftop launching pad for drones. But the appeals panel’s majority rejected the notion that raising security issues meant the courts couldn’t enforce federal statutes governing funding for such projects.

“The bold assertion that the Executive can act with utter lawlessness, destroying treasured national landmarks and harming the interests of individuals, and that no court can stop it flouts our constitutional order,” Millett and Garcia wrote. “While this court accords great weight and deference to invocations of national security and the safety of the President, such arguments are not an automatic get-out-of-law-free card.”

The ruling is the latest blow to Trump’s effort to remake Washington, D.C., in his image. A federal judge blocked his bid to add his own name to the Kennedy Center, and his effort to revitalize the Reflecting Pool at the base of the Lincoln Memorial has been marred by construction failures and the failed prosecutions of alleged vandals that Trump had blamed for the defects.

Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, dissented, saying the security needs and aesthetic prerogatives of the White House vastly outweigh the concerns raised by the plaintiff in the lawsuit — the National Trust for Historic Preservation — and that the court where the suit was filed had no jurisdiction over the dispute to begin with.

Rao said U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, the George W. Bush appointee who initially ruled against the administration, had abused his authority by seeking to block the ballroom’s construction.

“In deciding the ballroom construction ‘has to stop!’ the district court transgressed the equitable authority of the federal courts,” Rao wrote, needling her lower-court colleague’s penchant for infusing his opinions with exclamation points.

“The district court seized supervision of construction at the White House, and my colleagues affirm this judicial overreach,” Rao concluded. “Because the injunction is beyond the proper province of the federal courts, construction should be allowed to continue.”

Construction crews abruptly demolished the White House’s East Wing last October, before the White House sought approvals from boards and commissions that oversee building projects on federal land in Washington. White House spokespeople noted that Trump had announced the project in July 2025 and posted sketches of the plan online, but critics said that announcement did not indicate the East Wing would be demolished in its entirety.

Trump has said the ballroom is needed because large events such as State dinners are difficult to accommodate at the White House and temporary tenting does significant damage to the lawns and grounds. He has also said the new ballroom will be more secure, although its planned capacity is too small to accommodate many of the major events presidents typically speak at in Washington.