Bruce
Johnston, a member of The Beach Boys for over sixty years, has
announced his departure from the group. Johnston, who is 83 years old,
joined the group in 1965, originally filling in for Glen Campbell, who,
in turn, acted as a replacement for the songwriter and co-founder Brian
Wilson, who quit touring due to mental health struggles associated with
the constant traveling.
In a
statement shared with Rolling Stone on Thursday, Johnston revealed he is
stepping away from the group — but has no plans to retire. "It's time
for Part Three of my lengthy musical career!" Johnston told the
publication. "I can write songs forever, and wait until you hear what's
coming!!! As my major talent beyond singing is songwriting, now is the
time to get serious again."
Johnston went on to
reveal he plans on doing more speaking engagements in addition to
music, and will be collaborating with actor John Stamos, who has
sporadically performed with the group since 1985.
"I’m
currently working on developing a speaking-engagement chapter of my
career — inspired in part by Cary Grant, who long ago made a similar
move after his movie career," Johnston's statement continued. "With a
ton of help designing what I speak about from John Stamos, I’ll be doing
appearances and events of my own."
The
Wilson brothers were the heart of the group -- Brian, Dennis and Carl.
All three are gone now. Bruce Johnston put his time in and his touring
up until now as "The Beach Boys" was nothing to quibble over. However,
I really do believe that this is the end of the band.
Al
Jardine was a founding member and he could come back, I guess, and
perform under the Beach Boys moniker. But he's 83. The only way I see
the Beach Boys remaining a concert act at this point is if Brian
William's daughters (Wendy and Carnie) decide to take on the project.
Despite that reality, someone's planning continuing to tour as the Beach
Boys per Madz Dizon (PARADE):
To
fill Johnston’s spot on the road, the Beach Boys are bringing in Chris
Cron, the lead singer of the tribute band Pet Sounds Live. Cron has
already begun performing with the group in select shows and is known for
faithfully recreating the vintage Beach Boys harmonies that fans love.
Johnston’s
departure marks the end of an era: for the past 28 years, except the
2012 reunion tour, he has been the only original member touring
alongside Mike Love. His influence on the band extends beyond
performance; during a brief hiatus in the 1970s, Johnston wrote the hit
song I Write the Songs for Barry Manilow” and released a solo album
titled Going Public.
"Happy
Days" was one of the biggest sitcoms of the 1970s, and Arthur "Fonzie"
Fonzarelli was its biggest star. The Milwaukee-based heartthrob was
known for his many girlfriends, but he fell hard for a former flame
named Pinky Tuscadero. In 1976, Roz Kelly played the pink lady in a
three-part story arc on the ABC sitcom called "Fonzie Loves Pinky." The
characters appeared to be a match made in motorcycle heaven, but their
love story was cut short when Fonzie realized he didn't want to be known
as Mr. Tuscadero alongside his demolition derby queen.
Enter
Pinky's kid sister, Leather. That's right, another Tuscadero turned up
in Milwaukee, and she brought her band with her. In the 1977 episode
"Fonzie, Rock Entrepreneur," Pinky's sister and her girl group — aka
Leather and the Suedes — did an audition at Arnold's, the malt shop that
was featured on the show. The appearance would spawn six more episodes
for Leather, giving her a much bigger recurring role than her older
sister had. This is the actor that played her.
In
the early 1970s, Suzi Quatro was a musician with fans all over the
world. She started out in her sister Patti's glam rock band, The
Pleasure Seekers, and in 1973, they released "Can the Can," which shot
to number one in four countries, per AZ Central. Other hits included
"Devil Gate Drive" and "The Wild One."
While
Quatro was known for her raging rock band overseas, it was "Happy Days"
that got her noticed stateside. Armed with her bass guitar, she logged
seven episodes on the show, from 1977 to 1979, per IMDb. She later had
small roles in "Minder," "Dempsey and Makepeace" and "Absolutely
Fabulous."
In 1978, thick in the middle of her
recurring role as Leather, Quatro released a duet with Chris Norman,
"Stumblin' In." The song became a major U.S. hit, thanks, in part, to
her 'Happy Days" fame. "'Happy Days' came along, and of course I played
Leather Tuscadero, and then it was nationwide television," she told the
AV Club in 2020. "Number one show — I'm on there doing some of my hits,
playing the bass guitar, being me. So I kicked down the door as Suzi
Quatro, then I kicked it down again as Leather Tuscadero. ...However it
happened, it happened. It doesn't make any difference to me. I mean, I
sold 55 million records, so I'm not kickin'."
Diana Ross made a riotously entertaining disclosure about Stranger Things after her 1980 song Upside Down was used on the show.
The sci-fi series, which is set in the 1980s, dropped its final season on Netflix last year with one episode prominently featuring Ross' beloved disco single.
Upside Down subsequently experienced a thunderous 373 percent bump in on-demand streams, according to a report in Billboard.
However when Ross, 81, performed the song recently in concert at The Wynn Las Vegas, she revealed not only that she had never seen the show, but that she was in fact not entirely certain it was a show at all.
'You
know that song is a hit all over again,' she said onstage to a round of
applause: 'with that movie, that television show - what is it, a movie?
Stranger Things?'
Shen then cheerfully
asked an audience member: 'What is that movie about?' in footage posted
by TV producer John Pascarella at his Instagram handle @jpasc24.
'STRANGER THINGS may be a global hit … And
may have helped Diana Ross’ UPSIDE DOWN race up the charts again … But
she hilariously revealed during a recent Las Vegas show at The Wynn that
she doesn’t know much about the show ….,' Pascarella captioned the
video when he uploaded it Thursday.
The
Queen of Motown was playing Las Vegas as part of her international
Diana in Motion tour, which will whisk her off to the UK and Japan later
this year.
And Pru asked me why I never noted last fall that Carly Simon's "Coming Around Again" charted this year in the UK? Because I didn't know until Pru told me. So I Googled and this is from a report Hugh McIntyre did for FORBES on August 19th:
Carly Simon is regarded as one of the most celebrated female voices in
pop music history, both for her pioneering work as a songwriter and for
her slew of hit singles. While Simon hasn’t released a new album in more
than 15 years, she remains a legend and is highly regarded, especially
among fellow singer-songwriters. Thanks to an exciting recent re-release
of one of her most popular tunes, Simon is back on the charts in the
United Kingdom — not with something brand new, but rather with a
decades-old cut that has found a second life.
Simon’s “Coming Around Again”
reappears on both the Official Singles Sales and Official Singles
Downloads charts this week. On the U.K.-based rankings, the pop classic
returns at No. 20, which now marks its all-time high point on the two
lists, which are built entirely around purchases.
[. . .]
Many of Simon’s most famous tracks performed well on the Official
Singles Chart, the main ranking of the most consumed songs, which
predates any specific sales lists by many years. On that tally, she
collected four top 10s, including “Coming Around Again,” which peaked at
No. 10 during its initial run.
Thursday, March 5, 2026. Pete Hegseth dishonors the fallen, Chump has
no plan for the war he's started with Netanyahu, Kristi Noem cannot
admit she was wrong, Congress calls more people to testify about Jeffrey
Epstein, and much more.
"He's no where near prepared to be Secretary of Defense," Joe Scarborough declared today on MORNING JOE.
Chief
Warrant Officer 3 Robert M Marzan, 54, Maj Jeffrey R O'Brien, 45, Capt
Cody Khork, 35, Sgt Noah Tietjens, 42, Sgt Nicole Amor, 39, and Sgt
Declan Coady, 20 are the six fallen who've been named. The six fallen
troops that Hegseth couldn't honor yesterday. Joe and Mika are right to
call Hegseth out on this.
Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes in the video below that there's talk of the war on Iran lasting through September.
Ben
also notes the CIA distortion that Kurds in Iraq were leading an
uprising against Iran. The Talabani family, to name just one of the two
major players in the Kurdistan, is and remains very tight with the
Iranian government.
Chump has no plan for
this war. Netanyahu announced to the White House that he was going to
war with Iran and Chump jumped on board. No questions asked.
Tomorrow,
munitions makers will meet at the White House with Chump imploring them
to heavily increase their production because, oops, Chump doesn't have
the weapons needed to carry out the war that is going to last more than a
week.
There was no going to Congress for authorization. There was no planning at all. As Mike notes this morning in "Chump protects the oil but not the American people," Americans are stranded throughout the Middle East. And they're told not to go to the local embassies.
They've been abandoned. Let's note this from US House Rep Ted Lieu's office:
With commercial flights canceled due to war with Iran, many Americans are unable to book trips back to the U.S.
Congressmembers call for Secretary of State Rubio to use charter
flights, military operations and all other resources possible to help
stranded Americans leave; lawmakers also criticize Administration for
failing to have evacuation plan already in place
WASHINGTON
– Due to the war with Iran, U.S. Reps. Grace Meng (D-NY) and Ted Lieu
(D-CA) late today led a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging
the State Department to help stranded Americans leave the Middle East
and return to the United States.
The State Department
has advised Americans in 15 Middle East countries and territories to
leave due to serious safety risks, and the agency has instructed them to
depart using commercial transportation. But with airlines cancelling
commercial flights out of the region, and airports there closed, most
Americans are unable to book a trip home. The State Department has
announced charter flights from just three of the countries on the list.
The
letter to Rubio, which is signed by 61 Members of Congress (including
Meng and Lieu), calls for charter flights, military operations and all
other resources at the State Department’s disposal to be used to bring
Americans back to the U.S. safely and quickly. It also asks the
Department to issue updated guidance including making sure Americans
know what expenses they are responsible for in the case of evacuation.
In addition, the correspondence criticizes the Administration for
failing to have an evacuation plan already in place.
“So many Americans want to desperately return home from the Middle East but are unable to do so,” said Meng,
“The State Department needs to step up and help them. Three days after
the war began, the Department says it’s finally working on it. But it
should have already had a plan in place, and now must immediately come
up with one to evacuate these stranded Americans, just like other
countries are doing for their citizens. This needs to happen at once and
I urge the State Department to act as fast as possible.”
“The
Trump Administration has totally failed at planning how they were going
to keep Americans caught in this conflict safe and get them out of
harm’s way,” said Lieu. “The State Department has a
responsibility to help Americans get home but has so far come up short,
leaving United States citizens to fend for themselves. That’s
outrageous. Secretary Rubio and the Trump Administration must do
everything in their power to safely evacuate Americans NOW.”
A copy of the letter to Secretary Rubio can be viewed here.
As President
Trump uses U.S. military force overseas, his calculation has been that
he can launch military operations with the loss of few American lives
and minimal disruption to the economy.
The opening days of the war in Iran are challenging that assumption.
Already,
six Americans have been killed. Gulf allies are under attack. The stock
market wobbled. Gas prices are rising. The U.S. military is spending,
by some estimates, hundreds of millions of dollars per day. In Iran, an airstrike on a girls’ elementary school killed 175 people, according to local health officials and Iranian state media, and the Trump administration says it is investigating who was responsible.
While
no American ground troops have yet been sent to Iranian soil, the
administration has not ruled out deploying soldiers. Defense Secretary
Pete Hegseth on Wednesday suggested the conflict might not be short.
“We
are accelerating, not decelerating,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters,
adding: “More bombers and more fighters are arriving just today.”
[. . .]
Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and former Army Ranger
who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, warned Wednesday that the United
States was headed down the same path of endless war that he had seen
firsthand and that Mr. Trump had campaigned against.
“After trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, decades of
endless conflict, my entire adult life, a quarter of a century of
American war — here we go again,” Mr. Crow said. “Donald Trump
campaigned on ending the wars because he knew at the time that that’s
what Americans wanted, and still want, and yet, here we go again.”
The
Department of Justice has withheld from the public nearly 48,000 files
stemming from investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, after publishing more
than 2 million pages of documents under the Epstein Files Transparency
Act.
A
spokesperson for the Justice Department told the outlets that “47,635
files were offline for further review and should be ready for
re-production by the end of the week.”
People need to be testifying to Congress about the relationships with Epstein. Maegan Vazquez (WASHINGTON POST) reported Tuesday night, "Commerce
Secretary Howard Lutnick, a former Manhattan neighbor of Jeffrey
Epstein, has agreed to voluntarily testify before the House Oversight
Committee as part of its investigation into the convicted sex offender,
the panel’s chairman announced Tuesday. Lutnick has faced growing
bipartisan pressure to testify about his ties to Epstein following the
Justice Department’s release of a tranche of documents that suggested
Lutnick maintained contact with Epstein years after claiming to have
distanced himself from him." Howard Lutnick is a public servant and he
has already deceived the American public once with regards to Epstein. As WIKIPEDIA notes:
Lutnick said in October 2025 interview that he was neighbors with Jeffrey Epstein
but swore in 2005 that he would never be in the same room ever again
with him due to his "disgusting" behavior at a meeting with Epstein,
Lutnick, and Lutnick's wife. As Lutnick explained at that meeting he had
asked why Epstein had a massage table in the middle of his house: "I
say to him, 'Massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you
have a massage?...And he says, 'Every day.' And then he gets, like
weirdly close to me, and he says, 'And the right kind of massage'...[I]n
the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my
wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting
person ever again."[99] Despite this, Lutnick went on to have various
contact with Epstein for many years afterward.[99]
He
shared that false story. In fact, he continued to have contact with
Epstein, he visited Epstein's island -- a photo was circulated last week
-- many years after that claimed 2005 break and he was business
partners with Epstein. All of this was disguised when Lutnick elected
to lie in October while speaking to THE NEW YORK POST's Miranda Devine
on her podcast.
He should be testifying and he's not the only one who should. Nathaniel Rosenberg (CT INSIDER) reports,
"Lesley Groff may be headed to Washington, D.C., later this year to
answer questions from lawmakers on her longtime boss, sex trafficker
Jeffrey Epstein. Groff, a New Canaan resident, on Tuesday was called to
testify as part of the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee's long-running probe into Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's
trafficking ring. Her testimony was scheduled for June 9, according to a
letter sent by committee chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.."
The Recruiter’s Lie – How Lesley Groff Kept the Office Running While the System Fell Apart
In
the shadowy machinery of Jeffrey Epstein’s empire, Lesley Groff was the
person who made the day-to-day operations seamless. She was the
consummate executive assistant, the gatekeeper who ensured Epstein’s
world spun exactly as he demanded. But Groff’s role was not just
clerical; it was structural. From her desk, she managed the flow of
appointments, communications, and travel that enabled the exploitation
of vulnerable girls to continue undetected for years. She was the quiet
engine of the network, ensuring nothing ever seemed out of place—even
when everything was.
Survivors and former
employees have described Groff as Epstein’s right hand, the one who
handled scheduling, arranged flights, booked hotels, and answered calls,
including those from the many young women who cycled through Epstein’s
orbit. These calls weren’t just about meetings or logistics. They were
about grooming, control, and a steady reinforcement of the system’s
rules. Victims have testified that Groff called them directly to
coordinate visits, often under the guise of employment or “massage”
appointments. These seemingly benign interactions helped normalize the
abuse, masking predation as routine.
Groff’s
position gave her unique visibility into Epstein’s world. She worked in
his Manhattan townhouse, in his Florida estate, and within the tight
inner circle that kept the billionaire’s secrets. Yet when Epstein’s
network began to unravel, Groff was one of the few insiders who managed
to avoid serious legal consequences. Her immunity under Epstein’s 2008
non-prosecution agreement—a deal widely criticized as one of the most
egregious miscarriages of justice in modern history—ensured she could
not be prosecuted for her involvement at the time. It was a legal
firewall that silenced questions and allowed her to retreat into private
life.
But Groff’s story is more than a tale of
one assistant who happened to work for the wrong man. She embodies the
way enablers—often women—were embedded into Epstein’s operation to
provide a veneer of normalcy. Victims have recalled how Groff and others
like her made the network appear professional and legitimate. They sent
emails, issued checks, and arranged travel with the same brisk
efficiency as any corporate office. This structure lulled outsiders, and
even some insiders, into believing that what they were participating in
was above board.
The tragedy is that this
administrative infrastructure was precisely what allowed Epstein’s
crimes to flourish. Without someone like Groff to manage the details,
the network would have been chaotic, easier to detect. Instead,
everything was curated, timed, and executed with a precision that made
Epstein nearly untouchable for years. That she remains largely out of
the public eye today, her name only surfacing occasionally in unsealed
documents or victim testimony, is a testament to how effectively she has
avoided the reckoning that others in Epstein’s circle have faced.
The
question that lingers is whether Groff truly understood the full scope
of what she was enabling or whether, like others in the network, she
compartmentalized her role until it felt like just another job. Victims
have little doubt. They remember the calls, the messages, the quiet
instructions that kept them coming back. Whether Groff believed the lie
or simply repeated it, the result was the same: the office kept running,
the system stayed intact, and the abuse continued unabated.
Lesley
Groff’s story matters because it illustrates a central truth about
networks like Epstein’s. Predators cannot operate at scale without
infrastructure, and infrastructure requires people willing to keep the
machine humming. The recruiter’s lie was not just about bringing girls
into the system. It was about convincing everyone—victims, staff, and
perhaps even herself—that nothing was amiss. And as long as that lie
held, the system never broke.
Dan Mangan (CNBC) reports, "The
House committee investigating the notorious sex offender Jeffrey
Epstein on Tuesday night asked Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Goldman
Sachs' top lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, billionaires Leon Black and Ted
Waitt, and three other people to testify about their dealings with
Epstein."
And yesterday came news of
another whose testimony is requested, Attorney General Pam Bondi. The
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued the following:
Washington, D.C. — Today, the Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform secured a subpoena for Attorney General Pam Bondi
following a motion by Congresswoman Nancy Mace supported by all
Committee Democrats. This motion comes as Attorney General Bondi has
failed to comply with the bipartisan House Oversight Committee subpoena
issued in August 2025, requiring the release of the complete, unredacted
files to the Committee, and as the Department of Justice (DOJ) under
her leadership continues to illegally withhold and conceal Epstein file
materials from Congress.
“For months, Attorney General Bondi has been instrumental in
orchestrating the White House’s cover-up of the Epstein files, and has
failed to comply with our bipartisan subpoena for the release of the
complete, unredacted files. The American people deserve transparency,
survivors deserve justice, and we are demanding answers,” said Ranking
Member Robert Garcia.
During a full committee hearing of the House Oversight Committee,
Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace proposed the motion to subpoena
Attorney General Bondi for her failure to comply with the legally
binding Oversight Committee subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency
Act. All Oversight Democrats in attendance voted in the affirmative,
joined by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Michael
Cloud, Rep. Scott Perry, and Rep. Tim Burchett. The bipartisan subpoena
passed the House Oversight Committee 24 to 19.
Last month, Ranking Member Garcia demanded
answers from Attorney General Bondi about the DOJ’s suppression of
documents alleging President Trump’s sexual abuse of an underage victim
after viewing unredacted DOJ documents, which include specific
allegations against President Trump, that were not reflected in the
DOJ’s public database. Ranking Member Garcia also called for Attorney
General Bondi to resign
after learning that the DOJ has been spying on the search history of
Members of Congress who go through the “unredacted” versions of the
Epstein files. Ranking Member Garcia called out
Attorney General Bondi’s massive doxxing of victims after exposing the
identities of dozens of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse in
their latest release of documents. In January, Ranking Member Garcia demanded the full release
of all the files in the DOJ’s possession after learning that the
Department released only 3.5 million pages of the Epstein files, out of
the total 6 million pages they collected.
###
Tuesday,
Senator Mazie Hirono observed,"We've all seen pictures and videos of
ICE agents ripping people out of their cars, shooting them with pepper
balls, or worse, murdering people in the street. This is not normal.
None of this is normal, but it's what communities being targeted by ICE
are forced to face every day under this regime." She was speaking at
the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where their witness was Secretary
of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. We noted some of the hearing yesterday.
Let's note this exchange from the hearing.
Senator
Peter Welch: On the question of Alex Pretti and Renee Good . . .
knowing what you do know, do you want to take an opportunity to
apologize to their families; that you characterized them—on the basis of
the information you had at the time—that they were engaged in domestic
terrorism?
Secretary Kristi
Noem: I certainly offer my condolences to these families, and for their
loss. It was a tragic situation that we saw in Minneapolis, and we
continue to work to make sure those situations are handled
appropriately.
Senator Peter
Welch: That’s not an apology. Can I be precise in my question? I
understand you’re offering condolences. You said something that accused
them of being domestic terrorists: a 37-year-old mother of three; a
37-year-old veterans administration nurse. One question: Do you want to
apologize for the characterization that they were domestic terrorists?
Secretary
Kristi Noem: I will continue every day to get up and to work hard to
give everybody factual information and do all I can to portray --
Senator Peter Welch: I want to move on.
Time
and again, senators asked Noem about her describing Renee and Alex as
domestic terrorists and time and again, she did not have an apology on
hand to provide. Senator Dick Durbin at one point asked her, "Is it so
hard to say you were wrong . . . and when you fail, do you admit it
publicly?"
She insisted she did ("absolutely")
but nothing in her statements on Tuesday or yesterday demonstrated she
was capable of saying the words "I was wrong."
Yesterday?
Yesterday, she appeared before the House Judiciary Committee. US House Rep
Jamie Raskin is the Ranking Member on the Committee.
US House Rep Jamie Raskin: We're glad to meet you, even though it's been 13 months since
you took office and more than five weeks since two American citizens
were shot dead in Minneapolis." He was speaking to the Secretary of
Homeland Security Kristi Noem who was following up her appearance before
the Senate Judiciary Committee with one in front of the House
committee. Renee Good was a 37
year-old poet about 20 years younger than you are now and, like you,
both a devout Christian and the mother of three. She was on her way home
from a school drop off when she encountered an ICE operation and one of
your agents shot her dead. Shot her three times. She bled out in the
driver's seat of her car after your agents refused to let a doctor or
EMTs approach her. You expressed no sympathy for her family and no
regret for her killing by an ICE agent. You ran a smear campaign
against Renee Good. You called her a domestic terrorist. Alex Pretti
was also 37 and, like you, a federal worker. He was an ICU nurse at a
VA hospital, outstanding in his job, providing comfort to many of our
vets in their final hours. He was standing on a street corner filming
your agents as they roughed up peaceful protesters -- Americans have the
First Amendment right to record government agents in public places --
eight different federal have unanimously found. But your agents
pepper-sprayed Alex Pretti for helping a woman that they had pushed to
the ground. Then they threw him to the ground. They beat him up. They
stripped him of a lawful firearm he had never touched. And then after
confiscating it, they shot him dead with ten bullets. Before his body
was even cold, you launched a smear campagin against him using the same
language, asserting without evidence that Alex Pretti had committed an
"act of domestic terrorism and intended to kill law enforcement." The
disturbing video tells the true facts you tried to cover up with
propaganda and we can play it only because other brave Americans used
their phones to capture the actual reality of this horror.
Clip
played from NBC NEWS with Kristi Noem declaring Renee Nicole Good's
actions "an act of domestic terrorism" and then with her declaring on camera in the report that Alex
Pretti was someone who "committed an act of domestic terrorism. That's the
facts."
US House Rep Jamie
Raskin: Madam Secretary, you've provided no evidence to back up your
defamatory lie against either of these American citizens. There have
been three homicides in Minneapolis in 2026. Your agents committed two
of them. Rather than work with state and local authorities to solve
these homicides, you barred Minnesota's investigators from the crime
scenes. You're denying them access to all the evidence that you have
about the deaths of their citizens. It smells like a cover up and it
makes me wonder whot the real domestic terrorists are. But you didn't
just lie about Renee Good and Alex Pretti. In dozens of cases, federal
judges have found that your officials lied to them in court. A Reagan
appointed judge [Judge William G. Young] rejected the testimony of your
acting ICE director Todd Lyons as "disingenuous, squalid and
dishonorable." Another judge called the affidavit of a top ICE official,
"the sorriest statement I've ever seen" adding she was shocked when she
saw it and that if you were asking to get a warrant issued on this, I'd
throw you out of my chambers. Here are a few more examples of the
scores we found in the case books.
Staffers
behind Raskin hold up two poster boards one has Judge Karin Immergut's
"[. . .] inconsisten with every other piece of evidence received on the
subject." the other has Judge Gary R. Brown's "[T]he information
presented in the Diaz Declaration proves evasive and demonstrably
false."
US House Rep Jamie
Raskin (Con't): Yesterday, you insisted under oath to the Senate that
you follow court orders but that's not true either. Just last month,
your lawyers were forced to admit that you had violated immigration
court orders more than 50 times in 10 weeks. And that was just in New
Jersey, one of 94 judicial districts in America. In Minnesota, Judge
Patrick Schultz, a George W. Bush appointee, concluded that "ICE has
likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal
agencies have violated in their entire existence . . . ICE is not a law
unto itself." And while you make a daily mockery of our courts and our
Constitution, you're treating the billions of dollars our colleagues
showered on your department like a personal slush fund. You've budgeted
an astonishing $220 million for media consultant contracts so you can
star in self-promoting photo shoots and lavish ad campaigns like this
one of you riding horseback at Mount Rushmore which was shot during last
year's government shutdown. You're living rent-free in the official
waterfront residence reserved for the commandant of the US Coast Guard.
You spent $172 million to buy not one but two luxury jets for your
travel. And now you're using taxpayer funds to lease a third jet -- a
$70 million luxury 737 Max with a queen-size bedroom in the back, a
deluxe serving bar and four flat screen TVs -- a big beautiful jet, paid
for by the big, beautiful bill. Yesterday under questioning from the
Senate, you said you plan to refurbish this jet to make it into this
kind of airplane which is what's actually being used for deportations in
order to save the taxpayers money. In other words, you're saying
that's actually a deportation plane. But wouldn't it have been cheaper
just to buy a deportation plane in the first place? It's like buying a
Rolls Royce to turn into a metro bus. I was almost prepared to buy that
story of how the jet was both for executive travel and mass
deportation. And then I heard about an airborne episode of entitlement,
arrogance and contempt that I could hardly believe. Apparently, when
your special blanket, your blankie, was left on one of the government
jets and not transported over to the new one, your special government
employee, Corey Lewandowski, chivalrously stepped forward to fire
the pilot midair -- a 2003 Coast Guard Academy graduate and
distinguished US Coast Guard Commander in Air Station Washington DC.
But then he had to be rehired immediately because there was no one else
who could fly the two of you on the rest of the journey back home.
Secretary Noem, you're flying high now, maybe even a little bit too
close to the sun, but with all these free planes and houses and pilots,
you've traveled a long distance from your actual job and the things you
should be doing as head of Homeland Security. Your agency is charged
with protecting the homeland. It includes FEMA, TSA, the Secret
Service, the Coast Guard, the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security
Agency as well as ICE and CBP. Yet you've hollowed out the national
security mission. You've redeployed thousands of people responsible for
tracking terror financing and fighting cyber threats to go work on your
mass immigration roundup. You reassigned to the roundup agents working
a key national security probe into Iran's terror financing --
paralyzing that investigation. And to run what's left of Homeland
Security's ruined terrorism prevention office, you actually installed a
22 year-old intern whose chief listed qualification for the job was that
he had participated in a model UN club his junior year of college.
Through FEMA, you're supposed to provide disaster relief to our
communities. Yet last summer, as floods devastated central Texas and
killed 135 people, including 25 girls and 2 counselors at a Christian
summer camp, you withheld crucial support, including search and rescue
teams, for 72 hours. Why? Those were three crucial days during which
people drowned and died waiting for bureaucratic approval. You promised
to use ICE and CBP to expel the worst undocumented immigrants guilty of
committing violent crimes like the people responsible for murdering the
children of these angel families, these angel mom and moms and dads
who've joined us today. Instead, your masked agents have been
indiscriminately rounding up any and all immigrants and citizens who
your agents think look like immigrants. They've arrested
kindergarteners, daycare teachers and parents dropping off kids at
school. They drag grandparents out of their homes in their underwear in
sub-zero temperatures and rip children out of their beds in the middle
of the night or use them as bait to arrest their parents. Just last
month, your agents picked up Nurul Amin Shah Alam -- a severely disabled and nearly blind Rohingya
refugee lawfully in America who didn't speak English. You claimed your
agents dropped him at a safe, warm location. Again, not the truth.
They dropped him off miles from his home in the dark at a closed coffee
shop in subfreezing temperatures. And now because of this cruelty, this
man too is dead. You have a quarter of a million employees and a budget
larger than that of 150 countries. You command over 80,000 sworn law
enforcement officers, more than the number of police officers in New
York, Chicago, LA, Houston, DC, Las Vegas and Dallas combined. On top
of that, our colleagues have handed ICE an additional $75 billion by
slashing funds for Medicaid, children's health insurance and rural
hospitals. Secretary Noem, your job is to protect the homeland. The
most precious possession that we've got in our homeland is our freedom
and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that protect it. You seem
to have forgotten what our most precious possession is. The billions of
dollars showered on your department have paid for violence and chaos in
the American heartland and a sweeping assault on the basic rights of
the American people. But the heroic citizens of Minneapolis have shown
America how to fight back against this reign of terror and win with the
truth, with solidarity, with mutual self-help, with creative joy and
humor and music, with mass nonviolent assembly and protest, and with
irrepressible love of children and kindness towards animals and other
living things. You've turned our government against our people and
you've turned our people against our government. But the people are
winning today. Although we know we must continue to wake up every day
like the people of Minneapolis and go out and fight for constitutional
freedom. We are clearly in the fight of our lives and we obviously have
very serious questions for you today about what you are turning our
government into.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
NYT: Despite Promises, Veterans Affairs Department Cut Thousands of Roles for Doctors and Nurses – READ HERE
***WATCH: Senator Murray’s opening remarks at the hearing***
Washington, D.C. — Today, at a joint Senate and House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing
for the legislative presentation of The American Legion and VSOs, U.S.
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)—a former chair and senior member of the
Senate committee—spoke forcefully to her Republican colleagues on the
true cost of Trump’s war of choice with Iran. Senator Murray reiterated
her call to end the war with Iran and slammed Trump for sending our
servicemembers to war while failing to keep his promise to care for them
when they return home, as he cuts thousands of unfilled roles for
nurses and doctors at VA.
In opening comments, Senator Murray said:
“Thank you to all of you who are here today
and everyone in this country who has served our nation. We all owe you,
and we all say this, a debt of gratitude for your service, but it is
more than that. We owe you to keep the promise that when you come home,
we will be there for you in any way, both to the current veterans and to
the ones who we will see in the future.
“I think it’s really important today Mr. Chairman, and this
has kind of been glossed over, this point of time we are in, where we
have a President who is taking us to war in Iran. Who seems to have no
problem sending other kids off to a war, but seems to have a problem in
picking up the tab, when it comes right by doing our servicemembers when
they come home. With a VA right now, that has waiting lines that
veterans can’t get served, that we see doctors and nurses who are not
being hired, and no thought has been given to that.
“What we hear from Trump, is that he is
saying this bombing campaign in Iran could go on ‘indefinitely.’ He’s
saying that the death of our servicemembers in a war of choice is, quote
and he said this— ‘just the way it is.’ He’s saying he won’t rule out
putting American boots on the ground in Iran.
“I think it is a very serious time for our
country. I have served on this committee for more than thirty years, I
know the consequences of war as each and every one of you does in front
of me. And to go to war without preparing for the future and making sure
that we are there for the men and women who serve us—and we thank them
for that—but when they come home as well. And Mr. Chairman, we are not
ready for that today, this has to be a consequence that we consider.
“For numerous reasons, I’m going to be using my voice today
to vote no on the war in Iran. But it is the responsibility of this
committee and every Member of Congress to think about all the
consequences of war and take that into account and hold this
administration accountable and make that clear when we make our choices
moving forward. I thought it was really important to say that today with
all of you who have served our country and know what those sacrifices
mean.”
Senator Murray was the first woman to join the Senate Veterans’
Affairs Committee and the first woman to chair the Committee—as the
daughter of a World War II veteran, supporting veterans and their
families has always been an important priority for her. Senator Murray
has been outspoken in standing up for veterans, VA employees, and VA
researchers against Trump and Elon Musk’s indiscriminate mass layoffs
last year—forcefully denouncing the administration’s plans, pressing administration witnesses at every opportunity, and holding multiple press conferences with VA employees and veterans in Washington state who were abruptly laid off for no reason. Last year, Senator Murray forcefully denounced the Trump administration’s initial plan to fire 80,000 employees at VA. Toward the end of last year, Senator Murray released a videoslamming the Trump administration’s new plan not to fill thousands of open positions at VA, and demanding answers.
