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David Dayen: Trump’s Reflecting Pool Saga

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2026 //
7

David Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect.

He suggests that the saga of the Reflecting Pool is a metaphor for the Trump administration’s incompetence, mendaciousness, corruption, and unwillingness to accept responsibility. This, with its tales of vandals dumping fertilizer and slitting the paint with a knife, may be a lasting metaphor for the Trump era.

The Reflecting Pool and the killer rabbit

Donald Trump’s second term is being defined for the public in real time.

One day in April 1979, Jimmy Carter was out fishing alone in a Plains, Georgia, pond during a brief vacation away from the White House. What he described as a “swamp rabbit” started swimming toward the boat, teeth bared and “hissing menacingly.” Carter, separated from the Secret Service, was on his own. He wielded his paddle and swatted in the rabbit’s direction; it changed course.

None of this would have been more than an amusing anecdote Carter told staff if an Associated Press reporter hadn’t gone out drinking with White House press secretary Jody Powell a few months later, in the dead of a Washington summer. (Powell later said it was over a cup of tea; OK, sure.) Powell let slip the killer rabbit story, and the reporter, having nothing else to cover in August, wrote it up. The Washington Post put it on the front page (“Bunny Goes Bugs: Rabbit Attacks President”), and fashioned a parody Jaws movie poster to illustrate the story, with the moniker “PAWS.” (Do rabbits have paws? Never mind, we’re on a roll.) This was a big media story for at least a week, and after Carter lost the presidency, Ronald Reagan’s team found a picture of the incident taken by a White House photographer and released it, giving the story more legs, or paws.

The story became something Washington reporters just love: a synecdoche. Though nothing really happened, Carter getting attacked by a killer rabbit became a symbol of a feckless presidency, the paddle splash symbolic of his flailing amid global crises like the Iran hostage situation. Carter was seen as weak, or at least that was the red meat served up by Reagan’s campaign. And the killer rabbit fit that narrative, and was easy enough for the public to understand.

We’re seeing that dynamic now in real time with Donald Trump and the green Reflecting Pool. This isn’t the most important story, or the biggest example of Trumpian corruption, incompetence, humiliation (it took a bigger body of water, the Strait of Hormuz, to do that), or conspiracism from this president. But it’s rather easy to understand, and there’s an ever-present visual reminder that cannot be explained away.

You have the sudden DEFCON 1 imperative to fix the pool, demanded by a president focused on the wrong priorities. You have the Trumpian boasts that nobody had remedied this national disgrace in 100 years, but he alone could do so. You have the no-bid contracts for a total cost of over $16 million and counting, with more than twice the usual profit margin, for cleaning, filtration, and a layer of “American flag blue” paint on the bottom meant to ensure a consistent color. You have part of that, a $1.7 million no-bid contract, given to John J. Cafaro, a Trump donor, Mar-a-Lago neighbor, and understudy in a high school musical theater production of The Sopranos. You have the paint inevitably peeling off and the algae returning to its traditional perch, with Trump literally unable to drain the swamp. You have the president, manic about being defeated by microscopic aquatic organisms, claiming that dastardly Democratic vandals unloaded fertilizer into the pool and sliced up the paint, insisting that there’s visual evidence of this without releasing it, sending out law enforcement to arrest the perfidious saboteurs (one of them a three-time Olympian who was just an onlooker), and threatening lawsuits against the media for not reporting these facts.

Literally everything wrong with Trump 2.0 is revealed in this story. He’s fiddling with the bottom of the pool while Rome burns, while inflation rises and precarity builds. He’s paying off cronies with our money to make things worse. And he refuses to take responsibility for failure, instead blaming anyone and everyone else with a sea of lies.

Barack Obama’s administration did indeed spend twice as much to beautify the pool and faced the same result. But this project is now a symbol of Trump’s broken presidency. And once the public makes that connection, no amount of bluster will beat the charges. Trump’s toxic reputation is increasingly and perhaps permanently linked to a slimy green pool.

Oh well. At least there aren’t any rabbits roaming in it.

If there were a rabbit in Trump’s pool, it would have died from the highly toxic hydrogen peroxide that workers added to the pool to kill the algae.

Categories Accountability, Failure, Humor, Stupid, Trump

U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Trump’s Effort to Cancel “Birthright Citizenship”

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2026 //
6

The Supreme Court rendered two decisions that made Donald Trump happy:

One: states may ban transgender athletes from participating in sports.

Two: It struck down limits on political contributions.

But in its last decision, it overruled Trump’s hope to eliminate “birthright citizenship.” That is, the commitment that anyone born in the United States is a citizen, even if their parents are not.

The vote was 6-3. Three conservative justices joined the liberal bloc of three.

CNN reported:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday knocked down Donald Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship as it has been understood for more than a century, invalidating an executive order that was a key part of the president’s agenda even though it was legally dubious from the start.

The decision was nevertheless a significant loss for a president who ran for office in part on ending “birth tourism” and whose second term has been largely defined by its push to crack down on both illegal and legal immigration.

The court’s decision leaves in place the understanding that anyone born in the United States is a citizen, even if that child’s parents are not.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for a majority that included both conservatives and liberals. Three conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — dissented from the decision.

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote for the court. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”

Birthright citizenship is explicit in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The Originalists on the Court chose to ignore the Constitution. They are Originalists when it suits their purpose, and they make it up out of thin air when it doesn’t.

Categories Citizenship, Trump

Steve Nelson: Don’t Trust the Federal Voucher Program

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2026 //
4

Steve Nelson was headmaster of a prestigious private school in Manhattan, yet is a strong believer in public schools. Now retired, he holds to the principle that public money belongs to public schools, and only to public schools. If parents make a private choice for their own child, they are obliged to pay for it.

He writes here about the newly passed federal voucher program:

The latest, most manipulative and dangerous assault on American education is largely flying under the radar. Endorsed by such luminaries as former Ed Secretary Arne Duncan and Colorado governor Jared Polis, the soon-to-be rolled out federal school choice plan has gotten little public scrutiny, perhaps because the daily flash bangs tossed by the Trump administration keep folks distracted.


I encourage you to read this NYT article and then consider my post a rebuttal.


The program’s architects have brewed a kettle of artificial sweeteners to persuade policy makers that this is really a win-win-win proposition.
For example, they argue that vouchers for private schools will not reduce funding for public schools because the vouchers will be paid for by donations to non-profits. The donations, up to $1,700 per person, will be 100% deductible. Sound harmless? Well, not really. Every buck funneled into this program is a buck diverted from other programs as a result of reduced tax revenue; which means the rest off us will pay for the vouchers once this sleight of hand completes its circular play.


The other “oh-my-gosh-ain’t-this-swell?” gimmick is that public schools can tap the funds for a few after school services, thereby realizing additional revenue. What is unmentioned is that the voucher scheme will result in students leaving the public system and per capita funding will reduce overall revenue for many schools. As any reasonably informed observer knows, a school cannot reduce expenses in proportion to enrollment losses.


As is already the case in many states, this scam allows affluent folks to access voucher funds to take to the private school of their choice. Stunning, I know, that wealthy families win agaIn.


Beneath the heaps of cleverly contrived bullshit, the purpose of this scheme is unambiguous. Conservatives constantly rage against those damn “government schools,” which they accuse of indoctrinating kids into socialism, atheism, and white self-loathing caused by all those DEI programs. In truth, of course, most “government schools” are having enough trouble managing huge classes, hungry kids, and the enervating expectations of the accountability crowd.


This “choice” program will also allow many parents to choose a school that doesn’t expose their darlings to too many brown and Black children. America’s schools have become steadily re-segregated in recent years. White flight will get a fresh pair of wings with this program.

So, beneath the thin, shiny veneer, this massive con job is designed to kill public education and redistribute money and children to unaccountable charter schools, storefront religious schools, online money-suckers and other varietals that might appeal to the average News Nation viewer. Trump famously said he likes the uneducated, and this Education Freedom program will swell their ranks.

The current conservative movement, led by people who are generally operating behind the scenes, does not care a great deal for democracy. They support an autocrat wannabe and have enabled a steady attack on democratic institutions.


Public education is the institution best equipped to sustain a thriving democracy. It is among the only systematic ways of forging a common culture out of a wonderfully diverse population. Most Americans, including the less rabid MAGA troops, say they bemoan the deep divides in our nation. Then they cheer the possibility of sending their children to a school that deepens the divide by indoctrinating them into a perverse understanding of our history and values.


Amidst the more spectacular offensives of the current era, this issue may seem less urgent, but it is more urgent, not less. Most of the Trump era unraveling of decency and democracy can be re-raveled within a few election cycles. Our public education system is nearing the point of no return. Once gone, it’s too late. I cannot envision any politician or policy maker demanding or persuading parents to leave the school they chose for a “government school.” What’s left of the public system will warehouse children in poor neighborhoods, whose parents have insufficient power, energy or resources to do anything about.


An objective look at American schools today shows that we are not far from that point now.

Categories Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Trump, Vouchers

Paul Krugman: The Supreme Court Just Gave More Power to an Incompetent President

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2026 //
3

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, is outraged by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the almost century-old precedent known as Humphrey’s Executor, which held that presidents could not fire members of independent commissions without cause..

The case was called Trump v. Slaughter. Rebecca Slaughter sued when Trump removed her from the Federal Trade Commission without cause. The court ruled in favor of Trump 6-3, allowing him to fire members of independent commissions without cause and replace them with cronies. Empowered with this decision, he can fire every Biden appointment and replace them with a MAGA yahoo who takes orders from Trump or Stephen Miller.

The New York Times wrote:

Rebecca Slaughter, the former Federal Trade Commission member whose firing was upheld by the Supreme Court on Monday, warned that the justices allowed for the possibility of abuse of presidential power.

Independent agencies like the F.TC. were created to act as watchdogs of powerful corporations, without interference by the president, the former Democratic commissioner said in a statement shortly after the decision was handed down.

“Today’s ruling makes it possible for presidents to fire watchdogs who won’t put politics over principle, and replace them with lap dogs,” Ms. Slaughter said. “It’s a recipe for corruption; working families will pay the price.”

The Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 decision in the case, Trump v. Slaughter, effectively gives the president free rein to fire members of more than 20 independent federal agencies, which are typically led by members of both parties. The decision overturned a 90-year-old law restricting presidents from firing officials without cause.

The F.T.C. was founded in 1914 to oversee fair trade and competition in commerce and enforces consumer protection and competition laws. The agency typically has five commissioners, three from the party in the White House.

Ms. Slaughter was appointed by President Trump in 2018 and served as acting chair of the agency during the early Biden administration. When Mr. Trump began his second term, she was the longest serving commissioner.

Paul Krugman said the decision is a blow for dictatorship and chaos:

Earlier today, the Supreme Court declared war on U.S. democracy. It also declared war, basically, on modern society, on everything it takes to function in the 21st century. And I’m not sure that people understand that yet. 

Hi, Paul Krugman with a quick video update. I’ll have more on this tomorrow. 

Really shocking decisions handed down by the Supreme Court. There were a couple that were not awful. Lisa Graves gets to stay at the Federal Reserve, although that in itself is a huge contradiction to the important stuff that the court did. I mean, Lisa is important and the Fed is important, but much more important is Humphrey’s Executor, which is the generations-long precedent that says that when Congress creates an independent agency, it is independent. It’s able to make decisions. 

Of course, the president has some role. Typically, the president can choose the agency’s head subject to congressional approval, but the president can’t just go and fire officials that he doesn’t like for whatever reason or for no reason, because the agencies that operate the U.S. government and basically run our society are supposed to be professional. They’re supposed to be following their legal mandate. They’re not supposed to be personal tools of a dictator in the White House. 

Well, the court just scrapped that. Now, lawyers, people who are legal experts, can do a better job of explaining just what went down. But what I think is important to understand is not only does this give essentially dictatorial powers to the occupant of the White House, but it also makes it extremely difficult for the economy to function. It makes it extremely difficult for society to function. 

We live in a complicated world, a world of technology, where there are all kinds of spillovers, all kinds of ways in which it’s important that there be well-established ground rules. If you’re a business, take the example of medicines and foodstuffs, where we have an FDA, Federal Drug Administration, that is charged with ensuring that products that people consume are safe. We do that for very good reason. We know that not just that that there have been examples, historically, of products that were foods, medicines that were not at all safe, but also that people want some assurance.

The fact that something has been FDA approved is a bit of a warranty, that it might turn out to be very harmful, but probably not. Businesses that want to invest in developing stuff need to know that there are some ground rules that determine what they can and cannot sell.

Now imagine that all these decisions are made by political appointees who are loyalists to the president, who basically do whatever the president wants, whatever the people around the president want. 

Do you want to invest in something where you have absolutely no idea what the ground rules will be, whether it will be approved or not? Do you want to invest in a whole business line when, for all you know, the White House will abruptly decide that your product isn’t safe and that a competitor’s product is, based on spurious grounds? 

And what would cause those decisions to happen? Well, how about the fact that some businesses are better at the business of bribing the president and his family than others. And if you think that this is outlandish — you know, a few years ago you might have said this was outlandish, things like that wouldn’t really happen — well, as we speak, these things are happening all the time.

So you are setting up a situation in which, you know, it’s a little bit like traffic laws. Traffic laws, yeah, they can be annoying, but aren’t we all kind of glad that there are in fact rules about when you can turn and when you can go through an intersection? In order to function, in order to drive your car around you need to have a set of stable traffic rules, not a situation in which a police officer can decide you broke the law and the other guy did not because I say what the law is. And especially not where the police officer does that based upon who’s been paying him off or who he expects to be paid off. 

The real world is far more complex than traffic rules but we need those rules and we need some stability and those rules cannot be specified with every letter, every punctuation mark set by Congress. The world is too complicated and changes too much. You need to have standing ethos, standing doctrine at the agencies that make modern life possible. 

Now all of that is gone. 

Now, it just adds to it that all of this is being done to empower a president who is the worst possible person for this job. This is not somebody you want supervising anything, everything that Trump touches turns to crud because he doesn’t care and he doesn’t actually understand or recognize that there’s such a thing as expertise as knowing what you’re doing. 

So this would be terrible even if we had a temporarily competent administration. But now you’re doing all of this, the Supreme Court is doing all of this to empower the guy who brought you the Reflecting Pool, who brought you the Iran war. Utter nightmare. 

Now, what will happen, hopefully, we emerge at the other end having fended off dictatorship. Then, I mean, as everybody knows, this Supreme Court is not actually empowering the presidency. It is empowering this president. And as soon as there’s a Democrat in the White House, suddenly there will be all kinds of restrictions on what that person can do. 

Well, this cannot go on. This is a clear argument that says we have to one way or another disempower the Supreme Court. I don’t know enough to tell you what is the best route to do that but court packing or something else is going to have to happen. Because this has been the clearest signal yet that we have six people (there are three who are not part of it, but we have six people) who are fundamentally hostile to democracy, fundamentally hostile to the modern world and determined to put the catastrophically bad leader that we currently have sitting in the White House in charge of everything, which is a nightmare scenario on every level. 

Take care, I guess.

Categories Education Reform, Trump, Tyranny

A Tough Day for Trump at the Supreme Court

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2026 //
3

The day is not over, but so far, the High Court has handed three losses to Trump, but one significant victory. After today, every member of every independent commission serves at his pleasure.

It refused to hear his appeal to overturn a $5 million judgment against Trump for sexually assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll. A far larger award ($83 million) by a New York court for Trump’s repeated defamation of Carroll has also been appealed and will be heard in another lawsuit. The victory today is a huge win for Carroll. No votes were recorded.

By 5-4, it upheld a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but received after the day. Trump has repeatedly claimed that mail-in ballots should be banned outright, but that’s now a moot question. The Court concluded that states set the rules for election, as it says in the Constitution, not the President. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the decision, which was joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and the three liberal justices.

By 5-4, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett joined the three liberal justices to reject Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook as a member of the Federal Reserve Board because she did not receive due process and because the Fed is special among independent federal commissions. As the entity that sets monetary policy, it must be immune from political interference. To date, Commissioner Cook has spent $1.3 million on her defense, contributed by two nonprofits. The process is the punishment.

Cook’s case will now go back to lower courts, which will decide whether she committed criminal fraud on mortgage applications. These are the same charges leveled against New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Senator Adam Schiff, which has thus far failed to secure a conviction.

The information about mortgages was leaked by Bill Pulte, a MAGA loyalist who heads the Housing Finance Agency and was recently installed by Trump as acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte lacks the qualifications for the job, having had no experience in intelligence, but he will oversee the nation’s deepest secrets from more than a dozen intelligence agencies, including the FBI and the CIA. It is widely assumed that he will continue to dig up dirt on Trump’s enemies to advance Trump’s retribution campaign.

But in a different decision, a majority gave the President the power to fire members of other “independent” commissions and agencies, overturning a precedent from 1932 known as “Humphrey’s Executor”:

The New York Times explained:

In a major expansion of presidential authority, the Supreme Court cleared the way on Monday for President Trump to fire independent government regulators despite federal laws meant to protect their jobs. But the justices separately carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve, and prevented the president from immediately removing Lisa D. Cook from the powerful central bank.

The court’s 6-to-3 ruling to broadly allow the firings, with the three liberal justices dissenting, represented a significant shift in power from Congress to the president and could usher in a drastic change to the federal government’s structure by giving the president more direct control over independent agencies.

The case specifically tested whether Mr. Trump could oust Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, simply because she does not align with his agenda and despite a law that says the president can remove commissioners only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

But the decision has implications for more than two dozen agencies — including those charged with protecting consumers, workers, the environment and nuclear safety — that have traditionally been insulated from complete presidential control by laws with similar protections.

In a separate decision, however, a divided court blocked the president from ousting Ms. Cook, saying she had not been given an opportunity to refute the administration’s unproven allegations of mortgage fraud, the rationale Mr. Trump had offered in attempting to fire her.

Former top Fed and Treasury officials and Ms. Cook’s legal team had warned the Supreme Court that allowing Mr. Trump to remove her while litigation was underway would spur economic turmoil and undermine the longstanding political independence of the central bank.

On Lisa Cook, the opinion said:

The Court rejects the Government’s halfhearted contention that Cook in fact received due process. At minimum, Cook was entitled to some explanation of the evidence at issue, some avenue for a response, and a deadline by which a response would be due.

If Trump tries again to remove her, she will get due process and more legal bills.

Next week: birthright citizenship and transgender rights.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Justice, Trump

Trump Wants to Turn Back the Clock on Disability Rights

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2026 //
4

Catherine Rampell of The Bulwark warns that the Trump administration hopes to roll back the rights of people with disabilities. The administration wants to promote institutionalization, rather than home care or community-based care.

He and those around him have no sympathy for the struggles of people with disabilities to be treated with dignity. She recalls that in one of his first press conferences as a candidate, he mocked a reporter with disabilities, fluttering his arms and hands in the air. For others, that would have ended their campaign, but Trump lacks any sense of shame.

Rampell writes:

Last week the Department of Justice published a memo authorizing states to institutionalize more people with disabilities. This basically means plucking more people out of society and shutting them into nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, segregated schools, and sheltered workshops, rather than funding community- or home-based care where they have more autonomy.

“This is at its core about the belonging and inclusion of people with disabilities in our communities,” says Alison Barkoff, a health law professor at George Washington University who worked on disability policy under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. “This is about moving forward from a very shameful part of our history when we locked people with disabilities away from society.”

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HAS MADE clear that it wishes to purge America of some of its undesirables. That includes, for instance, deporting 100 million people (a third of the population). But for those he can’t expel, he hopes to simply hide away.

The DOJ policy would turn back the clock on decades of law and Supreme Court precedent. Since Olmstead v. L.C.,¹ in 1999, states have been required to support disabled people in the most integrated setting possible that is appropriate to their needs. Institutionalization is supposed to be the last resort.

The consequences of this change could be enormous. Community- and home-based care services involve having a home health aide visit a person for, say, a few hours a week at home, rather than sealing them off in a closed facility. They help disabled people achieve both personal and financial independence. This kind of support empowers people to care for themselves, maintain relationships with friends and family, and hold jobs. And there has generally been bipartisan political backing for policies that, for example, enable children with disabilities to live with their parents whenever possible.

The actual legal enforceability of this memo is still unclear. Perhaps because it may not have originated with actual lawyers. Stephen Miller was reportedly behind it, Bloomberg reported, though the White House has officially denied his involvement.²

Even before this memo, states have been slashing disability services for some time as a result of the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. The law’s advocates professed that the cuts would safeguard safety-net programs for the “most vulnerable Americans,” but so far children and people with disabilities are among the biggest victims. More than half of states have already cut home- and community-based services that support elderly people with disabilities living in their homes.

The irony is that, in the long run, these changes may be more costly, since institutionalization tends to be much more expensive than letting people stay in their homes with supportive care.

“The states are a little bit playing Russian roulette,” says Barkoff. “They’re saying: ‘Is this a person who is going to find some way to navigate these cuts, and find family or friends to fill in? Or is it someone who’s going to end up costing me three times as much because they end up in a nursing home or in the emergency room?’”

The DOJ memo is part of a sweeping series of changes from this administration that affect how disabled people learn, live, work, and otherwise interact with society.

The administration also announced last week that it was reassigning the Education Department’s responsibilities for special education and civil rightsto the Department of Health and Human Services, raising concerns about whether children will continue to have access to free, appropriate public education.

HHS, after all, is run by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has spoken in degrading and even vaguely eliminationist terms about people with intellectual disabilities and neurodevelopmental conditions. Last summer, for instance, Kennedy lamented that autistic people would never lead productive lives: “And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”³

Shortly after those remarks, another HHS official, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, announced plans to create a compulsory “registry” of people with autism, using confidential private and government health records without consent—purportedly for the purpose of better studying the condition. These kinds of government lists, when compiled in authoritarian regimes, have not always worked out well for those appearing on them. After public outcry from the disability rights community, the agency eventually walked back the plans.

Elsewhere the administration has ended or suppressed programs intended to help people with disabilities. For example, the government canceled surveys tracking factors that can help disabled people find employment. It has tried to prevent Head Start providers from using the word “disability” when describing their programs, which forced at least one provider to cancel staff training on working with kids with autism spectrum disorder.⁴ And it withdrew guidance for businesses about their obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Not all of this can be laid at the feet of Miller, odious though he may be. After all, his boss launched his political career by appearing to mock a New York Times reporter with a physical disability; and both Trump and his top civil rights appointee regularly use a slur for people with mental disabilities.

Long ago Trump promised Americans a new “Golden Age.” And he’s been clear from the get-go who he believes belongs in it, and who does not.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Special Education, Trump

Problem Solved: The Algae in the Reflecting Pool

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2026 //
2

The New York Times revealed the reason for the algae that quickly bloomed in the Reflecting Pool that Trump renovated. Someone in charge removed the nanobubblers, intended to prevent algae, for esthetic reasons in advance of Trump’s birthday bash.

The Times reported:

The nanobubblers had to go.

It was early June, and the Trump administration was planning an event at the Lincoln Memorial on June 12 to promote President Trump’s Ultimate Fighting Championship birthday celebration at the White House.

Dotted around the perimeter of the memorial’s Reflecting Pool were the nanobubblers, the temporary water-purification machines meant to keep the pool clear of algae. Encased in black fencing and powered by large generators, the machines were something of an eyesore.

Before the event, the National Park Service asked Greenwater Services, which won a $1.7 million no-bid contract to install the nanobubblers, to remove them, according to two people briefed on the decision. The people asked for anonymity because they feared retaliation from the administration. The Park Service did not provide a reason for the removal, but it coincided exactly with the promotional event, which drew crowds to the Reflecting Pool.

Photos from that evening showed the pool without the hoses or enormous machines working to keep the water clean. The water looked dark blue.

But by the time the purification systems were reinstalled 36 hours later, enormous algae blooms were starting to spread unchecked, turning the water green.

Once the algae started growing, it proved difficult to eliminate. Even with the nanobubblers back online, Park Service workers tried dumping jugs of hydrogen peroxide into the water to clear the algae more quickly. But the peroxide largely dissolved before it could reach the large clumps in the middle of the basin.

The decision to remove the water-treatment systems, which has not previously been reported, was one of several missteps that have plagued Mr. Trump’s $16.4 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool. There have been no-bid contracts, peeling strips of waterproof coating in Mr. Trump’s handpicked shade of “American flag blue,” and even a dead duck floating in the water (though it is not clear if the renovation had anything to do with the duck’s demise).

The result was a Reflecting Pool that stayed green and murky for about a week because of the residual chlorophyll — a highly visible symbol of one of Mr. Trump’s pet projects gone very wrong.

In recent days, the water has become clear again, reflecting the sky and the surrounding monuments. The temporary nanobubblers have been replaced with more discreet, permanent purification systems.

Still, the Park Service plans to drain the pool again soon to fix the peeling coating.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, did not answer specific questions, but said in an email that “thanks to President Trump, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is fixed, crystal clear and currently reflecting beautifully ahead of America’s 250th birthday celebration.”

Mr. Trump has blamed vandals for the deteriorating conditions of the Reflecting Pool, saying they dumped fertilizer to feed the algae and slashed its blue coating with a “sharp knife or razors.” The administration has asserted in court that there were cuts made to the caulk and “surface material” of the pool.

Interviews with people involved in the project and a New York Times analysis — including a review of images taken by news photographers — suggest that actions taken by the Trump administration and the companies involved caused disruptions at every turn.

Mr. Trump has embarked on a construction spree in Washington unlike any undertaken by a modern president. He has rolled out jobs quickly, bypassing traditional contracting requirements and review panels. And costs have mounted as Mr. Trump’s vision for his most prized projects has doubled or tripled in size.

But it is the renovation of the Reflecting Pool that perhaps best serves as an emblem of how Mr. Trump operates. Instead of seeking competitive bids for the project, the administration awarded no-bid contracts, hoping to expedite the process. Mr. Trump never submitted the project to a review board so that experts could weigh in.

A crucial decision came in early April, when the administration awarded a no-bid contract to a Virginia-based company called Atlantic Industrial Coatings to spread the waterproofing blue coating on the pool’s concrete slabs. That coating, known as Rhino Pipeliner 5000, may be peeling off because it is not stretchy or flexible enough, said Anthony Flett, the chief executive of U.S. Coating Specialists, a Florida-based company that specializes in waterproofing substances.

“They used a hybrid polyurea, and they really should have picked a pure poly,” Mr. Flett said, adding, “There’s people in the pool industry whose whole life is polyurea, and they should have been called in.”

Categories Accountability, Failure, Ignorance, Trump

Breaking News: Judge Orders DOJ to Remove Redactions from Epstein Files

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2026 //
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In response to a lawsuit filed by independent journalist Katie Phang, a federal judge has ordered the Department of Justice to “unredact” specific portions of the Epstein files or explain why it could not comply. A redaction is a black mark used to hide names or other material.

CBS reporters Joe Walsh and Daniel Ruetenik write:

A judge on Thursday ordered the Justice Department to either release unredacted versions of several files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or explain why it can’t do so, following a lawsuit accusing Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche of improperly redacting documents.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan gave the government until Thursday, July 2, to comply.

The documents in question include eight emails with either the sender or recipient blacked out, a draft indictment of Epstein with the names of potential co-conspirators obscured and a 2019 email that mentions several co-conspirators whose names were redacted. Sullivan also ordered the Justice Department to either release the interview notes behind several FBI documents summarizing unverified allegations against President Trump, or explain why it couldn’t release them.

The court order follows months of controversy over the Justice Department’s handling of the files, which were released in response to a federal law. Millions of records have been made public since December, including photos, emails and law enforcement documents from the federal investigations into the disgraced financier and his 2019 death in pretrial custody.

Lawmakers and Epstein survivors have raised questions about missing or heavily redacted records. The Justice Department has said only about half of the 6 million pages of documents it collected on Epstein would be released, and many of the released files are partially blacked out. The department has said the unreleased documents were either duplicates, unrelated to Epstein or protected by legal privilege.

One of the emails covered by Thursday’s order — in which Epstein refers to a “torture video” — drew scrutiny earlier this year after Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky questioned why the recipient was blacked out. Blanche later suggested on social media the recipient was Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, former CEO of the Dubai-based logistics firm DP World. CBS News has previously reached out to Sulayem for comment.

The Justice Department redacted the name of the recipient of this email released in the Epstein files. U.S. Department of Justice 

The department has defended its efforts, arguing the redactions are necessary to protect personal information or victims’ identities.

Thursday’s court ruling was spurred by a lawsuit filed in April by independent journalist and legal commentator Katie Phang over the redactions, which she argues are a “brazen, shocking, and ongoing violation” of the federal law mandating the release of the Epstein files. She asked a judge to order the release of several unredacted files.

The Justice Department responded earlier this month by arguing Phang cannot sue to force the documents’ release because the proper recourse is for her to file a Freedom Of Information Act request. Phang’s lawyers on Wednesday pointed to denials of Epstein-related FOIA requests. The judge then directed the Justice Department to respond by 1 p.m. on Thursday, and after the department missed that deadline, he ordered it to release the documents Phang had requested.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Cruelty, Evil, Failure, Scandals, Trump

Anti-ICE Protestors in Texas Given Harsh, Excessive Prison Sentences

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2026 //
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The Guardian wrote about an extraordinary case in Texas, in which the Trump administration and two Texas judges meted out the equivalent of life sentences for those who participated in an anti-ICE protest that turned violent.

The Trump administration used the trial to show that it would seek draconian punishment for those who protested against its policies. The prosecutors treated the protestors as Antifa, the dread and shadowy anti-fascist group that has no address.

The Guardian described the protest, which turned violent:

Last year on the Fourth of July, a small group from Dallas-Fort Worth held a night-time noise demonstration, setting off fireworks outside the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility south of the cities, in solidarity with the detainees. A few protesters broke away and spray-painted graffiti on employees’ cars and a security post, slashed the tires on a government van, and broke a security camera. The facility’s guards ordered the protesters to disperse, and most of them did. When a police officer arrived at the scene, drawing his gun, an armed protester shot her rifle, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.

After a three-week trial, a jury found eight of nine protesters guilty of “providing material support to terrorists”, among other crimes. For the Sotos, this “material support” included owning a “printing press” used to print anarchist zines and being part of a leftist book club, the federal government argued. The couple had already left the scene by the time guns were drawn. All eight of the defendants sentenced so far have received unusually harsh sentences – 30 to 100 years – essentially life in prison.

The Guardian article focused on a married couple, Elizabeth and Ines Soto. They were not at the scene when guns were drawn. But agents found a printing press in their home, where they printed leftist literature. Elizabeth was a member of the Emma Goldman book club. Elizabeth was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Her husband will be sentenced on July 1.

The protestor who fired a weapon, Benjamin Song, was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Certainly, it is unlawful to bring a weapon to a demonstration and unlawful to fire it at an officer of the law. Slashing tires and attacking property is illegal.

Yes, those involved in acts of violence should go to prison. Those who commit crimes should go to prison. But their sentences are wildly disproportionate to their crimes. In the case of the Sotos, it is not clear that they committed any crime.

Here is a summary of the U.S. government’s case against them.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Extremism, Texas, Trump

Marc Elias: Trump Is Losing His Battle to Take Charge of State Voter Rolls

By dianeravitch
June 24, 2026 //
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Marc Elias and his Democracy Docket are leading figures in the legal battle to stop Trump’s assault on our election system. Trump is trying to gain access to state voter rolls, and Elias has repeatedly defeated him in court.

To our national shame, Trump tells the world that American elections are “rigged.” Our free and fair elections are one of the major elements of our democracy. But the proof that they are rigged is that Trump got re-elected despite a disastrous first term, despite multiple convictions, and despite his allegiance to his fellow billionaires. The question is: how did he rig it? Was it Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites, 10,000 of them circling the earth? Someday we will know.

Elias writes:

Donald Trump desperately wants to build a national database of voters. His plan is to have his administration control who stays on the list and who gets removed. He has issued unconstitutional executive orders to accomplish this goal, and the U.S. Postal Service has proposed a new rule to do his bidding.

The problem for Trump is that his Department of Justice keeps losing cases that it needs to access this critical data. This humiliating string of defeats threatens to derail Trump’s signature plan to subvert the 2026 midterm elections.

This morning, a federal judge in Maryland handed the DOJ its ninth defeat in a series of 31 cases the department has filed to gain access to state voter files. The DOJ has yet to win a single one. The court wrote that it “joins every court to have addressed this issue in concluding that [a state voter file] is not a record or paper that a state must produce to the United States.”

Importantly, of the nine cases the DOJ has lost, five were decided by judges nominated by Trump. This is nothing short of a debacle for Attorney General Todd Blanche, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, and the rest of the department’s leadership.

From nearly the start of Trump’s second term, the DOJ began seeking access to these voter records. Initially, many assumed this was simply an effort to bolster false claims of widespread voter fraud.

Proponents of that theory contended that the administration would highlight a handful of names on the list as supposedly fraudulent — ginning up his supporters and providing talking points for Republican candidates.

From the start, I have argued that this plan was not simply about spreading lies and disinformation. It was not only aimed at creating an environment to undermine free and fair elections — it was the lynchpin to achieving that outcome.

The distinction is critical.

There remains a faction in the pro-democracy camp that believes Trump’s anti-voting rhetoric and actions are largely performative. They view the fights over the SAVE Act, mail-in voting and access to voter files as mostly a messaging effort.

Underpinning their view is the belief that our election systems are strong and that voter suppression laws are ineffective. Historically, they have treated legal fights over these laws as less important than the messages they send to voters.

By contrast, I take Trump’s attacks on voting rights both literally and seriously.

I believe voter suppression laws can alter the outcomes of elections, and I have watched our election system become weakened by years of sustained attacks. Most importantly, when Trump says he wants to take over voting and vote-counting, I believe him — and I plan accordingly.

That is why, when the DOJ started suing states to obtain access to their voter lists, I did not simply call it out — my law firm joined the legal fight. And we did not just pick a case or two. Instead, we made a substantial investment to defend the rights of voters in all 31 cases brought by the DOJ.

So far, that approach has paid off. Today’s victory brings us one step closer to the goal of protecting the 2026 midterm elections. However, Election Day is still months away, and many fights remain — both in court and in public.

In the days, weeks, and months to come, the midterms will come into sharper focus. As Republican electoral prospects wane, Trump will grow more desperate, and that desperation will lead to even more extreme actions by the administration. It will also require much more litigation.

On behalf of the Democratic Party, we have already sued to block Trump’s anti-voting executive orders. If the USPS adopts an anti-voting rule, we will bring litigation to stop it.

In the next few weeks, the Supreme Court is set to decide a critical mail-in voting case brought by the Republican National Committee. At issue is whether ballots mailed and postmarked by Election Day may be counted even if they arrive in the days afterwards.

The outcome could disenfranchise tens of thousands of lawful voters. My firm and I are defending against that lawsuit as well.

And, of course, the fight in the 31 voter file cases continues. Twenty-one trial courts have yet to rule, and the DOJ is appealing its defeats in nearly every case. In each one, we are battling back.

The road ahead for democracy is narrow and filled with obstacles — but we have already shown that we can clear them. I will continue to do everything I can in court to ensure safe passage for voters, and today’s victory is proof that when we fight, we can win.

Categories Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Trump
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