President Trump’s top aides have discussed whether he should kill the administration’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund in exchange for getting immigration enforcement funding passed next month, according to people familiar with the matter.
More than a dozen Republican senators have privately urged top Trump aides to drop the fund since its creation last week, said people familiar with the outreach, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is usually supportive of the president’s efforts.
Administration officials have grown increasingly concerned about the viability of the fund, people familiar with the matter said, which had been expected to provide payouts to an array of Trump allies.
Trump hasn’t agreed to drop the fund, but has told allies that he understands he has political problems with Senate Republicans, the people said. On Friday, a federal judge ordered a pause on efforts to stand up the fund while she weighs a legal challenge in an Eastern Virginia federal court.
Senate Republicans pressed acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on the fund at a contentious meeting last week that Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) referred to as one of the roughest in his years in the Senate. Another person who was at the meeting said it was the toughest grilling of an administration official they had ever seen from Republican senators.
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wtg
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Remarkable use of our tax dollars -
Spain's approach to immigrationLoans? Or visa?
I found the same article on Telemundo. It used the phrase "dos préstamos". I tried three translation websites and they all translated it to "two loans".
I've found the translators to be generally lousy for LIthuanian, but I would have thought Spanish would be a) easier (no noun declension) and b) far more popular so any errors have been corrected.
What does your native speaker of Spanish say about it?
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Spain's approach to immigrationNariola Romo, 34, and her family immigrated to Spain from Colombia, but that wasn’t their initial plan. Their goal was to travel to the United States, but they couldn’t obtain the two loans they needed to make the trip, so they sought a new life in Europe instead.
“Things didn’t work out for us, and we thought it was God’s will that we didn’t get the chance to go there, and, well, here we are,” she said.
Today, as she nears obtaining legal status in Spain, she feels grateful for the turn her life has taken. “Look at how things are in the United States with migrants. It seems like God didn’t want us to be there, because with everything that’s happened, we would have been deported already,” she said.
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Typhoid is making a comebackAn ancient killer has plagued humans for millennia.
Although it's rarely considered a threat in developed countries today, it seems this long-term villain is still very much a danger in our modern world.
Research published in 2022 revealed the bacterium that causes typhoid fever is evolving extensive drug resistance, and is rapidly replacing strains that aren't resistant.
https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-killer-is-rapidly-gaining-resistance-to-antibiotics-study-warns
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The escalation trap and how to get out of itHow to escape the trap by Elli Lieberman
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/escalation-trap-pape-and-lieberman-on-iran-war/
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The escalation trap and how to get out of itRobert Pape. Article from March, but I saw him this morning and he still maintains the position.
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Kennedy CenterPresident Donald Trump on Friday said his administration will transfer control of the Kennedy Center to Congress, after a judge ordered the removal of Trump's name from the iconic Washington venue and blocked his plans to close it for renovations.
Trump said on social media that he instructed the U.S. Commerce Department to "make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution" and give lawmakers responsibility over its operation, maintenance and management.
It was not immediately clear how Trump's directive could be carried out. The Kennedy Center was created by Congress in 1958 and is run by a board of trustees that the president has packed with allies in his second term.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-judge-orders-removal-trumps-name-kennedy-center-2026-05-29/
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CBS Scholarship winner acceptance speech -
Remarkable use of our tax dollarsA federal judge signaled Friday she may reopen a legal case between President Trump and his own government that led the Justice Department to create a controversial $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization fund," ordering the president's lawyers to respond to allegations of "deception" and "fraud."
U.S. Judge Kathleen Williams issued the four-page order after dozens of retired federal judges asked her to reopen the president's lawsuit, arguing the government and Mr. Trump may have "deceived" Williams into dismissing the case.
Williams wrote that the former judges raised "grievous allegations" that Mr. Trump sought to dismiss the case "solely to avoid judicial scrutiny of a lawsuit that 'was collusive from the start' and was only filed to provide the imprimatur of legality for an unlawful settlement."
She directed the president to file a response by June 12, laying out their responses to the former judges' allegations of "collusion" and "deception," and "the question of whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the 'victim of a fraud.'"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-orders-trump-answer-questions-anti-weaponization-fund-fraud/
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Kennedy CenterA federal judge has blocked President Trump from adding his name to the Kennedy Center, saying that the Washington, D.C. arts complex was named for the late president John F. Kennedy. In a ruling on Friday, the judge also temporarily blocked the administration from closing the Kennedy Center for a planned two-year renovation that was slated to begin in July.
U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in his ruling that: "The Kennedy Center's organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board's unilateral say-so. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it."
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/29/nx-s1-5839349/president-trump-kennedy-center-name-judge-order
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Ice cream without the junkStopped at the grocery store on the way home from day rehav; Mr wtg's first trip to a grocery store since late February. We decided to celebrate...
Jeni's was on sale for $4.99 a pint. We got the Gooey Butter Cake (not bad but wouldn't buy again) and the Lemon and Blueberry Parfait (am going back to buy three more).
Also got Haagen Dazs Rum Raisin. It was OK, but a bit grainy. Ice crystals.
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More lawfarewtg said:
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has opened a criminal investigation into writer E Jean Carroll, who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault, CBS News, the BBC's US partner, has reported.
The investigation is looking into whether Carroll committed perjury in connection with civil cases she brought against Trump, the news outlet quotes sources as saying.
Carroll, a former magazine columnist, accused Trump of sexual assault and defamation, and successfully sued him in two cases. Both judgements were upheld on appeal, but Trump has since asked the Supreme Court to overturn the first of them.
He has denied the accusations. The BBC has contacted the DOJ and Carroll's lawyer for comment.
The Beeb updates the story, in a pretty significant way.
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Tuner - finally, a movie about a piano tunerh/t bachophile
A book about a piano tuner.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/daniel-mason/the-piano-tuner-2/
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Bloomscrolling--what's in bloom where you are?I have three rose bushes that are of the own root variety, no grafting. All three of them took a big hit this past winter. Two started sending out new shoots pretty early in spring but the third looked like it was toast; I almost dug it up. Lo and behold, probably three weeks later, I saw what appeared to be tiny buds. It hasn't caught up to the others but it is definitely still alive!
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Traffic stopYou have to read the story and watch the video.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kathleen-thomas-texting-while-driving-right-hand-police-bodycam/
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Bloomscrolling--what's in bloom where you are?Common thrift. I need more of these. They bloom all summer and appear to be indestructible.
Yes! I've seen them in commercial plantings, like at shopping malls. They are very cool. I think they prefer a lot of sun, so I'm not sure if they would survive in my yard.
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More lawfareAll ills have a genesis. They are seldom as clear as this one.
Yea, Bill Clinton was sure subjected to his fair share of lawfare. Whitewater, Lewinsky, Marc Rich. I don't even remember most of the stuff they pummeled him with. And who was that guy who committed suicide? (edit: Vince Foster. I had to look it up).
Nixon. Watergate. The enemies list.
There isn't a genesis. It's a continuum.
Or as the story goes, it's turtles all the way down....
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More lawfareWell, Trump had a 1st term and he campaigned on imprisoning his political opponents. "Lock her (Hillary Clinton) up" was one of his campaign slogans. So I don't think he got the idea from Biden.
I think where @mik is coming from (and know he'll correct me if I'm wrong) is the notion that the Dems went after Trump on all manner of legal fronts that weren't justified. Lawfare. There is truth in that.
But that doesn't make Trump some kind of martyr who is justified in fighting back because he didn't get treated well. He didn't need an excuse; this kind of retribution is an essential part of his persona and he's been doing it for years, suing everyone in sight when he feels slighted in any way.
As President he's taken lawfare to a whole new level, using the DOJ to go after his personal enemies, in this case Carroll. I don't know how anyone can't find that horrifying.
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Are deer eating my flowers?It's a bit early for rudbeckia to be blooming.
There are no birds I know that will eat unopened flower buds like that. They might go after the seeds after the plant is done blooming.
I'm almost certain it's rabbits, even if you aren't seeing droppings right there. Once they find a bunch of plants and get going, they will keep after that patch and potentially eat everything to the ground. I have a bunch in a raised bed that's a foot tall and once they found it they climbed into the bed and started chowing down.
You really are down to a choice between an ugly fence or no flowers.
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More lawfareI hate whataboutism. Why not just admit that the current administration is doing some really bad stuff without trying to blunt it with "well the other guys did it "?
It is so sad that we have given up expecting that our politicians and government could do better than the previous lot.