Democrat News

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Thank goodness Sen. Adam Schiff nailed the nauseating corruptness of Emil Bove, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, currently a deputy attorney general and now nominee to a federal appeals court. As Schiff pointed out in a previous video, Bove is almost certainly being set up for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court as well.

We can hope that Schiff’s questioning nipped that latter promotion in the bud. At the very least it highlighted what a slimy liar Bove is.

Schiff began his questioning in Wednesday’s confirmation hearing by asking about a whistleblower’s allegations that, among other things, Bove instructed DOJ lawyers to tell the courts “fuck you.” Schiff reminded Bove that he was under oath, then asked, “Did you say anything of that kind?”

“Senator, I have no recollection of saying anything of that kind,” Bove dodged.

Schiff had a great follow-up.: “Wouldn’t you recall, Mr. Bove, if you said or suggested during a meeting with Justice Department lawyers that maybe they should consider telling the court ‘Fuck you?’ It seems to me that would be something you’d remember unless that’s the kind of thing you say frequently.”

Bova started wriggling. “Well, “I’ve certainly said things encouraging litigators at the department to fight hard for valid positions that we have to take in defense.”

“And have you frequently suggested that they say ‘fuck you’ and ignore court orders?” Schiff pressed. Is that also something you frequently do such you might not remember doing it in this occasion?”

“No,” Bove began.

“So did you or did you not make those comments?” Schiff continued.

Bove now stalled. “Which comments, Senator?”

“You really need me to repeat it?” Schiff “asked.” Then he again asked, using the expletive again, whether Bove had suggested that DOJ tell courts “fuck you” and ignore orders.

Bove used wiggle words. “I did not suggest that there would be any need to consider, um, ignoring court orders. At the point of that meeting there were no court orders to discuss.”

“Well, did you suggest telling the courts, ‘fuck you,’ in any manner?” Schiff began.

“I don’t recall,” Bove repeated.

“You just don’t remember,” Schiff said, with obvious skepticism.

Shiff moved on to question allegations from the whistleblower that Bove wanted deportation planes to take off in spite of a judicial order to the contrary.

Again, Bove tried and failed to wiggle out. Then he claimed not to recall. “I don’t recall the specific words that I used.”

Again, Schiff made it clear how obviously dishonest this answer was. “Wouldn’t you recall saying that if you had instructed that the planes needed to take off no matter what, including whether the court ordered otherwise?” he asked, “You wouldn’t remember that?”

Bove claimed there had been no court order (despite having just said he didn’t recall his “specific words”).

Schiff did a great job of destroying Bove there, too. He asked that the committee be provided notes on the subject.

“I defer to the committee and to the executive branch,” Bove replied.

Schiff also demolished Bove over allegations of a quid pro quo when the DOJ dismissed corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

I highly recommend watching the entire video and sharing it.

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WASHINGTON — Between June 6 and June 22, immigration enforcement teams arrested 1,618 immigrants for deportation in Los Angeles and surrounding regions of Southern California, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS did not respond to requests for information on how many of those arrested had criminal histories and a breakdown of those convictions.

As immigration arrests have occurred across Southern California, demonstrators have protested the federal government’s actions and bystanders have sometimes confronted immigration officers or videotaped their actions. Between June 6 and June 22, 787 people have been arrested for assault, obstruction and unlawful assembly, a DHS spokesperson said.

Figures about the Los Angeles operation released by the White House on June 11 indicated that about one third of those arrested up until that point had prior criminal convictions.

The “area of responsibility” for the Los Angeles field office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the Central Coast, as well as Orange County to the south, Riverside County to the east and up the coast to San Luis Obispo County.

Data from the first days of the Los Angeles enforcement operation show that a majority of those arrested had never been charged with or convicted of a crime.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Monday that 75% of nationwide arrests under the Trump administration have been of immigrants with criminal convictions or pending charges. But data published by Immigration and Customs Enforcement show that figure is lower in recent weeks.

Nationally, the number of people arrested without criminal convictions has jumped significantly and many of those are nonviolent offenders, according to nonpublic data obtained by the Cato Institute that covers the period from last Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year, to June 15. The most frequent crimes are immigration and traffic offenses.

Serious violent offenders account for just 7% of those in custody, according to Cato.

Immigration enforcement officers have recently intensified efforts to deliver on President Trump’s promise of mass deportations. In California, that has meant arrests of people in courthouses, on farms and in Home Depot parking lots.

But, with a daily goal of 3,000 arrests nationwide, administration officials still complain that agents are failing to arrest enough immigrants.

Democrats and immigrant community leaders argue that agents are targeting people indiscriminately. Despite the chaotic nature of the raids and protests in Los Angeles, 1,618 arrests by DHS in southern California over more than two weeks is about 101 arrests per day — a relatively small contribution to the daily nationwide goal.

Perhaps the bigger achievement than the arrests themselves, advocates say, is the fear that those actions have stoked.

Times staff writer Rachel Uranga contributed to this report.

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Britannica: “On June 25, 1876, a battle occurred at the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, U.S., between federal troops led by Lieut. Col. George A. Custer and Northern Plains Indians (Lakota [Teton or Western Sioux] and Northern Cheyenne) led by Sitting Bull. Custer and all the men under his immediate command were slain.”

This battle has been covered extensively in books, television, and movies.

At noon on June 25, in an attempt to prevent Sitting Bull’s followers from escaping, he split his regiment into three battalions. He sent three companies under the command of Maj. Marcus A. Reno to charge straight into the village, dispatched three companies under Capt. Frederick W. Benteen to the south to cut off the flight of any Indians in that direction, and took five companies under his personal command to attack the village from the north. That tactic proved to be disastrous. In fragmenting his regiment, Custer had left its three main components unable to provide each other support.

Midday Open Thread.

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Ted Cruz and Fox News’s Jesse Watters attacked CNN’s reporting that Trump’s bombing of Iran didn’t destroy all their nuclear sites.

Stinky jockstrap Jesse Watters was upset that CNN ran the story. Cruz saw an opportunity to get people to forget his loss to Tucker Carlson, and attacked CNN as “part of the Democratic party.”

Oddly, Fox News’ own Jennifer Griffin reported on Monday that the Trump administration has no idea where the enriched uranium is as well as having no idea “what the bomb damage assessment at Isfahan, with its hardened tunnels some 600 feet deep, really were.” No one at the White House let alone Ted Cruz had a comment on that accurate report. Hmm.

WATTERS: The IAEA says there’s probably contamination. They saw everything caved in, the entrances, the whole thing’s rubble. Why do you think CNN would do this? (Why did Fox News do it too?)

CRUZ: You know, look, I think it’s who they are.

CNN and, and much of the corporate media, Donald Trump broke them and, and they’re just, they have panels together discuss is Donald Trump the devil or is he Adolf Hitler?

That’s, that’s just where they are. It’s why nobody watches them anymore because it’s just, you know, it’s just who they are. And I think people are frustrated. We know that they hate the president and it’s, look, they’re an extension.

They are the left wing of the Democrat party and the Democrat party right now, they have no positive agenda for the country.

They are a party of anger and hate. They hate the president. We just saw an incredible military strike that successfully took out Iran’s nuclear weapons capability.

There is no confirmation that the bombs took out Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities. Cancun Cruz knows this too, but he’s speaking to the MAGA rubes. Trump claiming total destruction from the bombs is juvenile, but predictable.

Any media that dares to question Trump is called “scum.”

Ted Cruz then told the cult that Trump’s airstrike weren’t really about Israel.

And, and, and Jesse, one of the important things to understand, the attack that president Trump carried out this weekend, yes, it was supporting our friend and ally Israel, but much more importantly, it was defending America because when the Ayatollah chants death to America,

Angry rhetoric is now justification for massive airstrikes.

If CNN is part of the Democratic party, what does that make Fox News? Right-wing propagandists who lie and mislead viewers for Trump.

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proves once again that she’s very good at her job, while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proves he’s very bad at his.

“How is that happening?” Gee, maybe the person who’s supposed to be in charge could find out.

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THE HAGUE — President Trump offered robust support for Europe and a rebuke of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the NATO Summit in The Hague on Wednesday, capping a visit that came as a relief to anxious allies across the continent.

The gathering was designed by NATO leadership to appease the president, and it delivered, with nearly all members of the transatlantic alliance agreeing to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense — a historic increase that had been a priority to Trump for several years.

“We’re with them all the way,” Trump said of NATO, sitting alongside its secretary general, Mark Rutte. He later added to reporters, “if I didn’t stand with it, why would I be here?”

Rutte was obsequious throughout the visit, at one point referring to Trump as “daddy” disciplining childlike nations at war with one another. But addressing reporters, he defended his praise of the president as well-earned.

“When it comes to making more investments, I mean, would you ever think this would be the result of this summit, if he would not have been reelected president?” Rutte said. “Do you really think that seven or eight countries who said, ‘Somewhere in the 2030s, we might make the 2%,’ would have all decided in the last four or five months to get to 2%? So doesn’t he deserve some praise?”

While at the summit, the president faced repeated questioning over the success of U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend, which were designed to supplement an Israeli campaign to effectively end Iran’s uranium enrichment program. But Trump expressed confidence in the mission, stating that intelligence continues to come in supporting the conclusion that its facilities were “obliterated.”

“It’s been obliterated, totally obliterated,” he said. “We’ve collected additional intelligence.
We’ve also spoken to people that have seen the site, and the site is obliterated.”

An initial Defense Intelligence Agency report, first reported by CNN, cast doubt on that conclusion. But an Israeli official speaking with The Times said that its preliminary findings from an on-the-ground assessment gives them confidence that the program has been set back by several years.

“You can see that the intelligence was very high quality in the execution of this operation — that gives us confidence in the information we have on the different facilities,” the Israeli official said.

Addressing reporters at a news conference, Trump seemed to commit to enforce Article 5 of the NATO charter, a critical provision of the alliance that states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. In the past, Trump has cast doubt on his commitment to the pledge.

“As far as Article 5, look — when I came here, I came here because it was something I’m supposed to be doing,” Trump said. “I watched the heads of these countries get up, and the love and the passion that they showed for their country was unbelievable. I’ve never seen quite anything like it. They want to protect their country, and they need the United States, and without the United States, it’s not going to be the same.”

The visual was moving, the president said.

“I left here saying that these people really love their countries,” he added. “It’s not a rip-off. And we’re here to help them protect their countries.”

Trump also gave himself praise for helping to broker ceasefires around the world — most recently between Israel and Iran, but also between Pakistan and India, as well as Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — while expressing frustration with Russia’s president for what he described as “misguided” views that have perpetuated Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

He described a bilateral meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as “very nice” — “he couldn’t have been nicer,” Trump said — while offering choice words for Putin, an uncharacteristic position for a president who has repeatedly referred to the Russian leader as a potential friend and partner.

“Vladimir Putin has been more difficult,” Trump said, telling one Ukrainian reporter that he is looking to provide Kyiv with Patriot missile defense batteries — long a request of the Ukrainian government.

Trump also said he was open to sending additional defense funds to Kyiv if Putin fails to make progress toward a ceasefire. “As far as money going, we’ll see what happens — there’s a lot of spirit,” he said.

“Look, Vladimir Putin really has to end that war,” he added.

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Van Jones spewed another head scratching and mind-boggling diatribe on CNN when he scolded progressives and demanded they get behind Trump’s bombing of Iran.

Did Scott Jennings suddenly possess Van Jones’ brain?

JONES: I was also in the Holy Land very recently. I think progressives underestimate how dangerous Iran is. Iran is not a normal country.

Normal countries don’t blind women because they showed some hair. They don’t empower little gangs and proxies to surround a country and fire rockets and rape people. Iran, two things are clear.

The what, they cannot have a bomb.

And the why, because they say death to America, death to Israel, and death to all the Jews. One of those should offend you, if you’re a progressive.

And so the question, though, is the who and the how. Is Israel going to take out this nuclear capacity by dropping people there who blow it up? Or is America going to take it out by dropping a bomb that blows it up?

But the what and the why are clear, and I think progressives should get on board with that.

We cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran. I was in the region.

You were in the region.

This is a very dangerous power that cannot get a nuclear weapon.

I’m so happy VJ was “in the region.”

Progressives understand the abrasive and horrific nation Iran is, especially towards women, and Israel.

But that does not mean we support an egomaniacal moron bombing them out of a need to be in the spotlight at all times while he attempts to burn down the country’s health care system, CDC, economy and everything else he touches.

Did Van Jones forget Iraq?
Did Van Jones forget masked ICE raids.
Did Van Jones forget Trump calling in the military against US citizens?
Did Van Jones forget economy busting tariffs?

Van Jones, wake the f*ck up.

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THE HAGUE — Days before NATO was set to convene in the Netherlands, one of its top commanders, Pierre Vandier, tasked with transforming the alliance for the next fight, put out a call: Britain will need to step up its intelligence contributions to the alliance going forward.

“The UK has this in its DNA,” Vandier said.

It was an acknowledgment that the United States, pivoting toward a far greater intelligence threat from China, may leave its European allies behind in their own existential fight with Russia. A lack of reliability on the world’s leading AI superpower, European officials say, will render the continent vulnerable in a race for intelligence superiority set to revolutionize global battlefields.

The rush toward artificial intelligence has been a strong undercurrent at the NATO summit in The Hague this week, which has served not only as a gathering for leaders of the alliance, but also as a defense industry forum for emerging power players in Silicon Valley, treated in Holland’s gilded halls as a new kind of royalty.

“AI is going to be an important part of warfare going forward, but it’s still very new, and NATO tends not to be at the tip of the spear of innovation — and there is some division within the alliance on how to develop AI, when it comes to AI regulation and safety,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Tech companies don’t hold the same pride of place in the European economic system, and they’re not consumed with the need to compete with China militarily — they are much more focused on Russia,” Bergmann added. “While the U.S. is about winning the AI race, Europeans are watching what’s happening in Ukraine and saying, ‘We just need to deter Russia.’”

So far, for European capitals, that has meant incorporating powerful data collection and processing systems into defense departments and improving the performance of automated surveillance systems and drones — skills well within Europe’s capabilities. Several German and French companies, such as Helsing, Azur and Quantum Systems, are already developing products based on what they are seeing in Ukraine.

But the next fight will require technologies that dwarf existing drone capabilities, experts said.

“We’ve been predicting for a while that there would be integration of AI into military research and development and defense systems, and I expect, for example, that advanced cybercapabilities will play an important role in the coming years,” said Jonas Vollmer, chief operating officer of the AI Futures Project. “Europe has influence, but it is grappling with the difficult reality that they don’t have access or strong domestic development of frontier AI systems, and they are pretty far behind.”

Last year, NATO allies agreed to speed up the adoption of artificial intelligence in its operations. There are signs the bloc senses urgency to do so, signing an agreement with Palantir, a U.S.-based technology company, to incorporate AI into its warfighting systems after just six months of negotiations.

The United States and China are far ahead of competitors in the race for AI superiority, measured in raw computing power and proximity to general artificial intelligence — AI that has human-level cognitive capabilities to learn and develop on its own — and ultimately to superintelligence, surpassing the human mind.

Still, the United Kingdom is a serious player in the field. The kingdom ranks third in government investment in AI research anywhere in the world and maintains strong partnerships with some of the most powerful U.S. players.

In its most recent defense strategy, also published shortly before the NATO summit, Britain committed to integrate artificial intelligence into its “NATO-first” national security approach. “Forecasts of when Artificial General Intelligence will occur are uncertain but shortening, with profound implications for Defence,” the document reads.

Europe’s race for intelligence capabilities is driven, in part, by lessons learned on the battlefields of Ukraine. But Russia is not seen as an AI powerhouse in and of itself. Moscow instead uses low-cost tests of drone incursions and cyberattacks to keep pressure on the alliance, Vandier told the Times of London in an interview. “The aim, I think, is to consume all our energy in purely defensive actions, which are very costly,” he said.

Whether Russia can enhance its own AI capabilities is an open question.

“The key ingredients of being at the frontier with AI are talent and data centers,” said Vollmer, of the AI Futures Project.

“Russia lags far behind on both,” he added, “but they can collaborate with China, of course.”

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The US strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment. Via CNN:

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.

The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.”

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes.

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

Whiskey Pete says the report is “low confidence” and he’s going on another leak hunt:

More now on those comments from Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who calls the US mission to strike Iran’s nuclear sites “flawless”, and adds: “Any assessment that tells you it was something otherwise is speculating with other motives.”

He then directly references an intelligence report which suggests that Iran’s nuclear programme has only been set back by “a few months”. Hegseth says that report is “preliminary” and “low confidence”.

“This is a political motive here”, he adds and tells reporters that a leak investigation with the FBI is under way.

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Rep. Jasmine Crockett asked for unanimous consent to refute Rep. Tim Burchett’s laughable claims that Trump’s poll numbers were soaring.

They are not. In the latest Economist/YouGov poll, Trump hit his low mark of 40% approval rating.

In her remarks, Ms Crockett hit Congressional Republicans and Trump for being in a cult and bashed DOGE as a fraud which somehow made Rep. Burchett lie in his opening words.

Burchett speaks with a pompous accent that he overplays, but which does not fool Rep. Crockett.

After he finished his time, Rep. Crockett jumped in…

I now recognize Mr. Burchett from Tennessee.

BURCHETT: Thank you, Chairlady.

I would remind members of both sides of the aisle that President Trump’s approval rating is soaring, and last I checked, congressional approval is not, and I think that bears witness.

(Some pro-Doge panel members answered some questions, including wanting to go back to the 1990s spending limits.)

CROCKETT: Madam Chair, I have a unanimous consent

This is just from a couple of hours ago.

Trump pivots to distractions as polls show collapsing support for his agenda.

Without objection, so ordered.

The next one is Donald Trump’s approval rating plunges in multiple polls.

Without objection, so ordered.

The next one, Donald Trump’s approval rating new polls show shakeup over Iran bombing.

Without objection, so ordered.

The next one, Trump’s approval rating drops to term low amid Israel-Iran war.

Without objection, so ordered.

Marge the fool had to follow procedures and let Rep. Crockett enter the latest polling into the record without comment.