This is really stupid, and it’s not getting enough attention. The Trump administration is pulling a working $368 million ocean monitoring system out of the water, equipment taxpayers already bought, built, and sank into the deep ocean. And they are doing it right when the oceans are behaving in ways that alarm the scientists who study them. Record-breaking temperatures. A system of Atlantic currents that may be lurching toward collapse. The response? Yank out the instruments and walk away. That is not budgeting. That is smashing the gauges while the engine is on fire and calling it efficiency. For what? The Trump administration dressed it up as a “nimbler approach” and “smart lifecycle management,” which is fancy nonsense for “we shut it off and hoped nobody would ask why.” There is no return-on-investment analysis. They cannot show taxpayers save a dime, because the gear is already paid for and the science it produces protects real money and real lives. The kicker: the same people killing the monitors want to mine the deep sea for minerals. So they are destroying the only tools that could measure what that mining does. That is not an accident. That is the point. You cannot see the damage if you break the instruments first. cnn.com/2026/06/03/climate/o…

Mike Johnson recently went on the radio and called for “desperate measures” on Social Security and Medicare, promising Republicans “have a plan” to “adjust and fix” them next year. Don’t believe his equivocations that it’s just about waste, fraud and abuse. We know exactly what Mike Johnson means when he says “adjust,” because he laid out the plan before he was Speaker. Johnson ran the Republican Study Committee, the largest and most powerful conservative bloc in the House, where he advocated raising the Social Security retirement age to 69, pushing the early retirement age to 64, and shrinking the annual cost-of-living increases seniors depend on. He also wanted to turn Medicare into a voucher program and raise the eligibility age, then tie it to life expectancy so it keeps climbing higher and higher. When the Speaker of the House now says he has “a plan,” believe him. Mike Johnson cannot be trusted with your earned benefits. He must be stopped. cnn.com/2023/11/05/politics/…

This is your daily reminder that Trump and Republicans are spending billions of your tax dollars on an unauthorized war in Iran and Stephen Miller’s ICE agenda while gutting Medicaid, slashing SNAP, and driving up your health care costs.

As far as I can tell, Tulsi’s big “secret biolab” bombshell is recycled Kremlin propaganda. These labs were never secret. The U.S. spent decades funding biosafety and disease-surveillance work abroad under Nunn-Lugar, with the facility lists posted publicly by the State Department and our own embassy in Kyiv. Russia invented the “secret bioweapons” spin in 2022 to help justify invading Ukraine. Our own intelligence flagged it as disinformation. Now Tulsi is laundering that exact line, while conveniently forgetting the first Trump administration funded this same research. Nothing was hidden and the only thing being manufactured here is the coverup. Tulsi, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Even the weather is celebrating 🌈

Inflation just hit its highest level since April 2023. Prices are rising faster than paychecks.  Asked about it this week, President Trump called the numbers “great” and said, and I quote, “I love the inflation.” Weeks earlier, he told reporters “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.” The inflation he says he loves is the same inflation straining family budgets, squeezing farmers trying to keep food on all of our tables, and forcing seniors on fixed incomes to choose between groceries and bills. If this is what the president loves, what in the world does he hate?

A decade ago today, a gunman took 49 lives at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. This Pride Month, we remember every one of them. And we keep fighting against hate and gun violence, for as long as it takes.

69 people baked to death when Portland hit 116 degrees. Scientists concluded that heat wave would have been extraordinarily unlikely without human-caused climate change. Before the National Academies of Sciences could even publish its report on that science, the campaign to discredit it was already underway. Opposition researchers digging through scientists’ emails. One panel member resigning out of fear she’d be targeted. Another removed the same day an oil-industry website attacked her. A member of congress heavily funded by oil and gas demanding records from the National Academies. All before a single page was released. If you think the science is wrong, argue with the science. Going after the scientists before the report even exists is something else entirely. politico.com/news/2026/06/11…

Veterans kept their promise to America. America should keep its promise to them. No veteran should lose a home because help was not there when it was needed most. On May 1, 2025, the VA ended its foreclosure rescue program for struggling veteran homeowners. No replacement was available when the program ended. The replacement was not signed into law until July 30. That left a months-long gap during which veterans facing financial hardship had fewer tools available to avoid foreclosure. Some veterans entered foreclosure during that period, losing their homes before the replacement program existed. Congress eventually approved a new program with bipartisan support, and that was a good thing. But it did not change what had already happened. Relief that arrives after a foreclosure cannot prevent a foreclosure. The new program can help bring a loan current by moving missed payments into a separate, interest-free balance owed to the government. What it generally cannot do is lower a monthly mortgage payment that has become unaffordable because of a job loss, disability, or other financial hardship. The basic problem was totally predictable. One foreclosure-prevention program ended before the next one was ready. Veterans who served this country were left to navigate that gap at precisely the moment they needed help most. Despite all the talk of helping veterans, this administration ended one safety net before the next was ready, and left veterans to absorb the gap for months. npr.org/2026/04/02/nx-s1-575…

Some thoughts on the new Epstein Files revelations: I’ve now read everything that’s come out from the new Haberman and Swan book, and the thing I keep coming back to is the Situation Room. They held multiple meetings in the Situation Room about the Epstein files. That room is for war. It’s for national security emergencies. It is not for figuring out how to spin a scandal you’re telling the country is a hoax. While the President was deflecting or calling this old news, his own Vice President and Chief of Staff were huddled in the most leak-proof room in America because they knew how bad it really was. You don’t take a nothingburger to the Situation Room. And I have to be honest, reading all this brings back a lot of frustration about what happened in the House of Representatives. I sat there and watched Mike Johnson send the House home early to dodge a vote on releasing these files. I watched him refuse to swear in a duly elected colleague for months just to stall the discharge petition. Month after month of excuses, arm twisting, and procedural games, all to keep this information from the public. We only got the files because survivors, families, and a handful of members in both parties simply refused to let it go. So when people ask me why I talk so much about transparency and accountability, this is why. The truth eventually comes out. It always does. The only question is whether your leaders helped reveal it or helped bury it. Everyone who voted to keep these files hidden should have to answer for that. Finally, notice what’s missing from all of this is any sign that Trump’s DOJ will actually investigate the powerful men named in these files. Draw your own conclusions about why a Justice Department run by the President’s former defense lawyers might not be eager to pull that thread.

This isn’t making enough news. Cities and states are suing oil companies, alleging they knew about climate dangers and hid them. Those cases go before federal judges. Meanwhile, a center at George Mason University’s Scalia School of Law has been hosting expense-paid seminars for those same federal judges. Who funds the center? ExxonMobil, the Charles Koch Foundation, and others connected to the very companies being sued. The center even told a funder its goal was giving judges “skepticism” about the science behind the lawsuits they hear. Who spoke at these closed-door seminars? Chris Wright, then a fracking CEO, now Trump’s Energy Secretary, sharing his skepticism about climate change. His own company was suing the government over climate rules at the time. So, imagine you’re a referee in a championship game. Before the game, one of the teams pays for you to attend a fancy retreat where their coach explains why the other team’s strategy is illegitimate. Would anyone trust your calls? That’s essentially what’s happening here. theguardian.com/us-news/2026…

Does anyone else think it’s just a bit odd that Jay Clayton, the prosecutor put in charge of the Epstein investigation, the same one Pam Bondi pointed to over and over in her testimony released just last week, was just nominated by Trump to run the entire intelligence community? cnn.com/2026/06/11/politics/…

With all the corruption flooding out of this administration, you may have missed this one. The Trump DOJ just killed a criminal investigation into the coal empire owned by Senator Jim Justice, a Republican and one of Trump’s closest allies. Prosecutors and EPA investigators were probing whether his family’s mining companies criminally violated the Clean Water Act after racking up tens of thousands of alleged pollution violations over the past decade. The arsenic and other dangerous chemicals coal mines leach into our water are exactly what these laws exist to stop. Career prosecutors believed they had a strong case. They had begun gathering evidence and issuing subpoenas. Then the Deputy Attorney General’s office, run at the time by Todd Blanche, told them “pencils down.” A former prosecutor of 24 years said he had never heard of a criminal probe being shut down like this. There should be no untouchables list. This is the pattern, plain as day. Go after the President’s enemies, protect his friends. And now Trump wants to make Blanche his permanent Attorney General. The man who shut this down should not be running the Justice Department. For this and so many other reasons, Todd Blanche must not be confirmed. propublica.org/article/trump…

Honored to take the field for my seventh Congressional Baseball Game last night, a tradition that goes back 117 years. Together we raised $3.25 million for local DC charities with over 30,000 fans at Nationals Park. Maybe the best part? An all-California infield alongside Senator Alex Padilla, Pete Aguilar, and Raul Ruiz. In times like these, this game is a much needed opportunity to find common ground for a good cause. Until next year!

Trump just installed Bill Pulte, a guy with ZERO national security experience to run the office that coordinates our entire intelligence community. And his marching orders? Gut it. Pulte is the same man who, as housing finance director, urged the DOJ to investigate Trump’s political enemies. Now he’s handed the keys to our intelligence apparatus and told to fire anyone considered disloyal. Trump said it himself. Serving on an acting basis “gives you more power.” He wants Pulte to “shake it up” before a permanent replacement arrives, so nobody has to be saddled with the dirty work. The President is openly describing how to evade accountability. Then there’s the order to dig into the 2020 election Trump still falsely claims was stolen. Just one problem with that. Our intelligence agencies are legally barred from operating against American citizens. They exist to track foreign threats, not to referee domestic elections, which states run and courts review. The 2020 results were already examined to death through recounts, audits, and dozens of lawsuits, including before Trump’s own judges. There is no intelligence question here. There is only a president trying to weaponize the agencies that keep us safe against a loss he cannot accept. That is how authoritarian states operate, with security services serving the leader instead of the country. Where in the hell are my Republican colleagues? A few muttered their “dismay” to reporters and went silent. Dismay isn’t oversight. Wake up! politico.com/news/2026/06/05…

Todd Blanche’s central qualification for Attorney General is that he served as Donald Trump’s criminal defense lawyer. That is the exact reason he should not have the job. Some will point to Robert F. Kennedy Sr., whom President Kennedy made Attorney General despite being his brother and campaign manager. The comparison fails where it counts. RFK Sr. was unmistakably loyal to his brother, but he had never been his brother’s defense lawyer in criminal cases brought by the very department he would go on to lead. That is precisely the line Blanche crosses. He did not advise Trump on policy or run his campaign. He stood between Trump and federal prosecutors in matters of the same kind the Department of Justice pursues every day. A lawyer owes a former client lasting duties of confidentiality and loyalty on the matters he handled. Those duties do not expire when he changes offices. They mean Blanche carries live professional obligations to Trump that can run directly against the interests of the Department he now heads. Personal loyalty can be set aside by an honest person. A binding attorney-client privilege cannot simply be willed away. The Attorney General does not work for the president. He works for the people of the United States, and his duty is to enforce the law without fear or favor, including when the law points straight at the president or those around him. The office exists so the nation’s top law enforcement officer can say no to the White House. The man who recently defended the president against federal charges cannot be expected to do this. A president is entitled to a cabinet that shares his agenda. He is not entitled to erase the line between his own legal jeopardy and the interests of the country. So the question before the Senate is not whether Blanche is loyal to Trump. The question is whether a man who built much of his career defending Trump in court can turn around and hold Trump accountable under the law, while still bound by the duties he owes a former client. The burden is on the nominee to prove he can. Blanche has spent his time in office signaling the opposite. When the Attorney General is seen as the president’s lawyer rather than the nation’s, faith in equal justice breaks entirely. A senator can fully respect the president’s right to choose his cabinet and still refuse to confirm Blanche. The Senate should wholeheartedly reject this nomination. nytimes.com/2026/06/08/us/po…