The Trump Administration: The Clusterfuck Continues (Part 2)

[Monty]

Insurrectionists fall into line to get government handout.

Less than a week after the Justice Department announced a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate those who allege they were wrongly targeted under the Biden administration, Jan. 6 defendants and allies of President Donald Trump are lining up to seek their share of the unprecedented compensation fund.

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The fund was created by the DOJ in exchange for President Trump agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS as well as two civil claims for $230 million related to the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate – prompting House Democrats to blast the arrangement as “collusive litigation to force the American people to put … money into his pockets, and the pockets of his family and friends.”

But will it happen?

“All of this is outside of the Constitution,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “All of it is outside of congressional spending power, and so it is illegal. It is unconstitutional.”

The process for submitting claims to the compensation fund is set to be created in the coming months, with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche given 30 days under the settlement agreement to create the fund and appoint five commissioners. On Thursday, however, some Senate Republicans – including some vocal Trump supporters – lashed out against Blanche behind closed doors, telling him they believed the fund could cost Republicans their Senate majority in November, sources said.

Medic! Medic! Medic! Crickets (The bolding is mine)

The Army has canceled dozens of medical training courses as the service moves to manage a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall that is rippling across the force, according to multiple U.S. officials and internal documents reviewed by ABC News.

At least 34 medical-related courses have been canceled during the second half of the Pentagon’s fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, according to the documents.

The cuts come from the Army Medical Center of Excellence, the service’s hub for its medical training, headquartered at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

Those cuts come as commanders are being told to closely scrutinize their spending as the service faces ballooning operational costs, including those related to the war in Iran and skyrocketing fuel costs.

Many of the canceled medical training programs are tied to frontline combat casualty care. An internal memorandum describing the reductions cites “funding shortfalls and limited resources.”

Other cuts include leadership and certification courses for senior medical officers, including training for officers preparing to command helicopter medical evacuation units. The service also canceled courses related to animal care, behavioral science, food safety inspections and operating in radioactive environments, according to internal service plans.

The felon and his co-conspirators ordered to obey the law.

A federal judge is ordering the White House to follow the Presidential Records Act, rejecting the Department of Justice’s recent opinion that the Watergate-era law is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled that the law – which for decades ensured that presidential records become public after a president leaves office – is likely constitutional and that a group of historians that brought suit successfully showed there is a “substantial risk” that the White House is not complying with the law.

“In sum, the original public meaning of the text of the Constitution, canons of interpretation, Supreme Court precedent, general principles of property law, and almost 50 years of practice confirm that Congress has the enumerated power to regulate presidential records under the Property Clause,” Bates wrote.

In a 54-page ruling that invoked the words of George Orwell and William Shakespeare, Judge Bates emphasized the importance of presidential records becoming public.

“To adopt the government’s position that the Act is unconstitutional would disable Congress and future Presidents from reflecting on experience, in defiance of the very words engraved on the National Archives Building in Washington: ‘What is past is prologue,’” he wrote.

She’s right.

Former White House official Stephanie Grisham called on Congress and President Donald Trump’s cabinet to do something to stop the Department of Justice’s $1.8 billion “slush fund” that could benefit Jan. 6 rioters and other Trump allies.

Grisham served as White House press secretary and communications director during Trump’s first term before going to work as chief of staff for First Lady Melania Trump. When the Capitol riots broke out in 2021, Grisham became the first senior official to quit the administration in protest.

“I resigned on Jan 6 & lost everything & live in fear,” Grisham wrote Thursday on X. “I watched these criminals get pardons, see new corruption from the WH every day, & now taxpayer $ set aside to reward them for their loyalty & maintain his own personal army. Where are you Congress? Cabinet? Anyone???

He thinks his words are the best because, of couse, he makes them up.

President Donald Trump had some difficulty sounding out words while delivering a long-winded commencement address. While speaking at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, during its graduation, Trump, 79, slurred part of his remarks, appearing to have trouble speaking. “Our national slengtheses is back,” he told the graduates, as he jumbled up the word “strength.”

That’s the whole blurb for the linked video.

How soon before he calls a Black reporter what he really wants to?

For the second time in recent weeks, President Trump has lashed out at a Black woman journalist questioning his expensive building projects. The latest blowup, over a question about the ballooning cost of the new White House ballroom, adds to a long pattern of Trump attacking female journalists, often women of color, whose reporting he doesn’t like.

Trump’s latest personal attack against a woman reporter came as the president took questions before departing for a trip to China. In an exchange shared across social media, MS Now reporter Akayla Gardner asked Trump about the ballooning budget of the ballroom that Trump is attempting to build after he controversially tore down the East Wing of the White House.

“I’ve doubled the size of it because we obviously need that,” Trump said of the ballroom project. “And we’re right now on budget, under budget and ahead of schedule.”

As Gardner asked a follow-up question about the cost of the ballroom doubling, Trump cut her off, leaned toward her and snarled, “I doubled the size of it, you dumb person. I doubled the size. You are, you are not a smart person.”