Ann's Mega Dub

Thursday, March 5, 2026

That grifter Dr Phil

Grifters. There are so many in this world. So many in this country. Let's take a look at 'Dr' Phil tonight.

From February 1, 2025 that's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Dr. Phil Explains."

The Dirty Rotten Scandals docuseries unveiled shocking new claims against Dr. Phil McGraw and his long-running daytime talk show - including allegations of a toxic work environment, alleged corruption of care, exploitation and more.

E! aired the two-part special on Wednesday, March 4, which featured rare testimony from unnamed former employees of The Dr. Phil Show, show guests and experts who revealed their attempts to question Dr. Phil's intentions behind the scenes.

[. . .]

Investigative reporter and lead investigator Evan Allen shared her research into the scandal - which started with the early days in Dr. Phil McGraw's career.

"If you look all the way back to the early ‘70s - when he would have been in his early 20s before he was Dr. Phil - he was Phil McGraw. He was a manager of the Grecian Health Spa, which had been selling these pretty expensive time memberships," Allen claimed. "They were like $150 to $700 memberships. They're advertising these memberships in the newspaper - and they suddenly shut the doors and just vanish."

Allen found out that McGraw and others were accused of "membership scam," adding, "That kind of behavior of selling expensive spa memberships to a spa - that suddenly ceases to exist - looks an awful lot like selling Shape Up. That was a weight loss supplement that he was marketing as 22 pills that you take every day depending on whether you're apple-shaped or pear-shaped."

She continued: "A few years later, he had to pay a $10.5 million settlement to people who had purchased Shape Up because they didn't do anything."

(McGraw later denied any wrongdoing.)

Allen also questioned McGraw holding a doctorate in clinical psychology but ceasing to renew his license to practice psychology in 2006 - despite his talk show leaning on the concept of him being a doctor. (In 2002, the California Board of Psychology determined that because The Dr. Phil Show was more about entertainment than psychology, McGraw did not need a license.)

[. . .]

Dirty Rotten Scandals featured testimonials from various crew members - most of whom refused to appear on screen. Instead, audio of their claims was played where they referred to Dr. Phil McGraw as a "manipulative egomaniac" who ran a "dysfunctional and immoral" show.

They claimed they were told they had to do "absolutely everything" to keep guests on set for the sake of the show. Ultimately, "one guest out of 50" left in a better place while others would feel exploited for ratings.

Dr. Phil's a racist. We all know him for what he is now but he did have a long ride on the gravy train. And now he's stuck with being a racist. He better hope MAGA sticks with him because the general population is done with him.

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"

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.

###

At THE NEW YORK TIMES, Luke Broadwater observes:

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 Epstein Files. Alex Woodward (INDEPENDENT) reports:

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.

The initial legally mandated releases of documents comprised more than 3 million pages, though that figure is now roughly 2.7 million, according to an analysis of the files by CBS News and The Wall Street Journal.

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.”

Those offline files include materials connected to unverified allegations against President Donald Trump, The Independent previously reported.

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.."

On Twitter, Niels Groeneveld explains Groff's role:

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.

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The following sites updated:

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

He's put a price tag on everything

Grifter Donald Chump is in the news. Nicole Charky-Chami (Raw Story) reports:

Questions have mounted over whether President Donald Trump has sold off pardons in exchange for donations to his MAGA allies.

The controversy surrounding these presidential pardons has "just got louder," wrote Steve Benen, producer of “The Rachel Maddow Show” and editor of MaddowBlog, in an analysis published Monday.

Trump has rewarded "generous donors with clemency," which was revealed in a Wall Street Journal report in December that detailed some of the alleged inner workings that have "spawned a pardon-shopping industry where lobbyists say their going rate is $1 million. Pardon-seekers have offered some lobbyists close to the president success fees of as much as $6 million if they can close the deal, according to people familiar with the offers.”

Benen pointed to Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian banker who was facing felony bribery and other charges, and the recent donations from his daughter, Isabela Herrera, who donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc.

In exchange for the move, "Herrera agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor campaign finance charge, disappointing career prosecutors who had pushed for a harsher sentence," according to The New York Times.

"Two months later, Isabela Herrera donated another $1 million to MAGA Inc., culminating in a pardon from Trump late last week. (The White House claimed the political contributions did not lead to the pardon)," Benen wrote.

He has placed a price tag on everything. He is the most disgusting and cheapest and tackiest president the United States has ever had.

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"

Wednesday, March 4, 2026. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee and makes clear that she's not running anything, she's not overseeing cases that cause problems for DHS, she's not overseeing spending on projects, she's just posing for photo-ops endlessly.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee conducted an oversight hearing on Homeland Security. Appearing before them was Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Homeland Security has terrorized the American people and behaved with no oversight at all. It wasn't until the January killings of US citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti that the repulsion grew so great against ICE's actions that Noem and others were forced into realizing that there are checks and balances in this system. Renee and Alex were killed in Minnesota. Senator Amy Klobuchar is one of that state's two US senators so we'll start by noting her.

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed. They should be alive today. In fact, in one month in the city of Minneapolis, when you look at the three fatalities that were results of shooting, 2 of 3 were committed by federal agents. Are you aware of that?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, I am.

Senator Amy Klobuchar: So your agents not only their actions resulted in the deaths of two innocent American citizens but they repeatedly violated my constituents First Amendment rights to assemble. You say you believe in the Second Amendment right to bear arms but Alez Pretti was criticized repeatedly by officials in the administration for hvaing a lawful permit to carry and having a gun. Your agents violated the Fourth Amendment rights of my constituents by ramming through doors of innocent people's homes, innocent citizens' homes without any kind of a warrant and violated the Fifth Amendment right to due process. So, as I've shared with my colleagues, if you believe in federalism, in freedom and in liberty, you should be horrified by what the Department of Homeland Security did in Minnesota. So my first question is, having spoken to Mr. [Tom] Homan [White House Border Czar], what is the eact number of DHS agents still in Minnesota?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Well I believe that there is still close to 650 there counting the investigators that are there working to get to the bottom of the unprecedented fraud that has been found in the Medicaid funding

Senator Amy Klobchar: As you know, I am all in on prosecuting fraud. I put in place the US Attorney who exposed the fraud under the Biden administration and brought the bulk of the prosecutions and also recommended to Mr. [Todd] Blanch [Deputy Attorney General] that Joe Thompson be the acting US Attorney who led those prosecutions and now has left the office because the Department of Justice asked him and many others to investigate Renee Good's wife instead of doing their jobs, doing fraud. So what I want to know is when are you going to get down to the original footprint as promised to us.

Secretary Kristi Noem: We're continuing to work at that although those investigators will continue to stay there to get to the bottom of that fraud to make sure that those vulnerable people that rely on those programs actually get services from those federal dollars that are spent, that it's not stolen by criminals and used by individuals to enrich themselves and send it out of the country.

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Secretary, Chong Li Tao. Are you aware that agents bashed in the door of a US citizen with no criminal record?

Secretary Kristi Noem: I can't speak to the specifics of that.

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Did you see the photos of that man being dragged out of his house in crocs and in his underwear?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, I did.

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Did you believe that he was involved in fraud?

Secretary Kristi Noem: I do not know where that status of that investigation is.

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Are you aware that he is a son of a beloved nurse that treated our soldiers in Vietnam?

Secretary Kristi Noem: I believe that we have laws in this country that need to be enforced and need to be applied equally to everyone of enforcing the laws and following the laws.

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Did they have a judicial warrant when they rammed through an American citizen's store?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Our law enforcement officers follow the same protocols and procedures that all law enforcement --

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Are you aware that he tried to show his identification, to show that he was an American citizen, and they didn't want to see it?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Again, these officers, uhm, conduct themselves in processes. If something was done inaccurately then certainly we will make sure that we corrected and rectify it in the future.

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Are you aware that the person they were looking for was in prison and had been in prison for years?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, I am. That's a target -- Yes, we do target operations going after and looking for --

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Do you agree that it is unacceptable for your agents to ram in someone's door and drag someone out in their underwear in below zero temperatures when they have the wrong guy?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Our officers conduct targeted operations and utilize the law processes that are given to them in the tools --

Senator Amy Klobuchar: You are not answering that you think that's wrong.

Secretary Kristi Noem: They need to identify that individual and, uh, that individual --

Senator Amy Klobuchar: They couldn't identify him by looking at his identification? Instead, they had to drag him out, throw him in a car and drive him around for an hour? How about pulling off off-duty police officers, Madam Secretary, every single one of whom made clear who they were. They were people of color, off-duty police officers. In Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, the chief described how one off-duty police officer -- someone of color, a US citizen -- was stopped and confronted by ICE agents with their guns drawn demanding her proof of citizenship. As Chief [Mark] Bruley said, "I wish I could tell you that this was an isolated incident but other chiefs said it had happened to their own officers. Why were these officers stopped?

Secretary Kristi Noem: We have thousands of law enforcement operations that we do every single day --

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Do you think they were stopped because they were people of color? Were they racially profiled -- Ms. Noem ?

Secretary Kristi Noem: When I look at these American families who've been victimized by criminals that we have removed from cities and communities, I'm grateful for the work that our ICE officers do. And by your only focus on --

Senator Amy Klobuchar: Are you defending stopping off-duty police officers of color and dragging a Mung elder out of his home?

Secretary Kristi Noem: -- when you only talk about these situations like this that we are conducting and you don't talk about the good work that they do to protect people from being victimized, right? People that are in this country that want to conduct violent crimes against them or take advantage against them, uh, the law need to apply to everyone and we're out there enforcing --

Senator Amy Klobuchar: I am a former prosecutor, Ms. Noem, and I have always worked with our police well. But that's not what was going -- these ICE agents were not following police procedures. After the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, when I spoke to Alex's parents, they told me that you calling him "a domestic terrorist." This was directly from them the day after he was killed -- a nurse in our VA, Alex -- one of the mos thurtful things they could ever imagine was said by you about their son. Do you have anything you want to say to Alex Pretti's parents?

Secretary Kristi Noem: We were relying in the hours after that incident that was so horrific, um, on information we were getting from our agents --

Senator Amy Klobuchar I just asked if you had anything you wanted to say to the parents or to the family of Renee Good after you called them domestic terrorists?

Secretary Kristi Noem: That's what I am doing --

Senator Amy Klobuchar: You called them domestic terrorists.

Secretary Kristi Noem: -- is I can't even imagine what they have gone through in the loss of their son and the loss of their family members and

Senator Amy Klobuchar: But how about specifically calling them domestic terrorists without any evidence of that?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, ma'am, I did not call him a domestic terrorist. I said it appeared to be an incident of.

Senator Amy Klobuchar: I think the parents saw it for what it was. After the killings, the federal government refused to cooperate with state law enforcement agents, blocked Minnesota investigators from accessing the scene. I know because I got directly calls from the mayor. I tried to call the DOJ. I tried to do everything I could because they were very worried about what was going to happen immediately -- especially after Alex Pretti's death. Do you think that blocking local law enforcement from the scene of a shooting makes people safer? Yes or no?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Actually our HSI law enforcement officers risked their lives on that scene preserving evidence and keeping the violent rioters away from the evidence so that it could --

Senator Amy Klobuchar: It was Alex Pretti's life that was lost at the scene, Secretary Noem.

Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, I am aware.

Kristi had nothing to say to the families of Renee or Alex when asked by Senator Klobuchar. Molly Sprayregen (LGBTQ NATION) notes that she had nothing to say on the topic elsewhere in the hearing as well:

While testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem refused to admit she was wrong for announcing that the two people killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis were “domestic terrorists” in the immediate aftermath of their deaths.

“We have ample video evidence and eyewitness testimony proving you were wrong,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) told her. “Your statements caused immeasurable pain to these families.”

Durbin also brought up teacher’s assistant Marimar Martinez, who survived being shot five times by ICE agents in Chicago and was also accused by the federal government of being a domestic terrorist.

He then said he wanted to give Noem “an opportunity to do the right thing” and asked, “Do you retract these statements identifying these individuals as domestic terrorists?”

Noem did not, instead giving a long-winded answer about her heart breaking for the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. She justified her actions by claiming “agents at the scene” told her the victims were terrorists and that the situation was “chaotic.”

Noem continued to skirt the issue, prompting Durbin to ask, “Is it so hard to say you were wrong?”

Yes, it apparently is too hard for Noem to admit she was wrong.

On Renee Nicole Good, Molly Sprayregen also reports:

Senate Judiciary Democrats have accused FBI Director Kash Patel of shutting down the FBI investigation into the death of Renee Good at the hands of ICE agents because he did not want the warrant to call her a “victim.”

The group posted on social media on Monday that a “credible whistleblower” revealed that “FBI forensic experts were ordered to stand down from processing the scene where Renee Good was killed, because Kash Patel did not want Good referenced as a ‘victim’ in the warrant.”

In a follow-up post, the Democrats clarify that Patel “wanted to falsely spin Renee Good as a threat to law enforcement.” The post included a screenshot explaining information from a credible whistleblower that the FBI’s Forensic Response Section was initially called to the scene of Good’s death to access Good’s car and gather evidence.

Senator Adam Schiff also raised the murders of Renee and Alex in the hearing.

Senator Adam Schiff: […] Madam Secretary I want to ask you about one of the first claims you made in the immediate aftermath of the shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. You accused them both, I think, within hours of engaging in domestic terrorism. You have testified earlier that you did so based on preliminary field reports. Who told you that these two victims were engaged in domestic terrorism? Where did you get that information from?

Secretary Kristi Noem: I have said before and will repeat again for you Senator, that those reports were coming from on the ground agents that were there. It was a chaotic scene.

Senator Adam Schiff: So, you spoke to agents on the ground who told you they were domestic terrorists?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, my team was working with me, talking to those agents on the ground to relay as much information as possible that we could to the American people.

Senator Adam Schiff: So, your team told you that people in Minneapolis said they were domestic terrorists. Did they tell you whether they had any basis for that claim within either minutes or hours of the shooting of Alex Pretti and Renee Good?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, if you look back at the day of January 24, there was a press conference earlier in the day and then I held one hours later. And we were also talking –

Senator Adam Schiff: I’m asking you, did you determine whether there was any basis for the sensational claim, a claim that proved to be utterly false, that these two victims were engaged in domestic terrorism?

Secretary Kristi Noem: There is an investigation ongoing. The FBI is leading --

Senator Adam Schiff: I’m aware of that. I’m asking you --

Secretary Kristi Noem: -- there is also internal investigations that are ongoing –

Senator Adam Schiff Schiff: What I’m asking about though is not the investigation that’s ongoing […] I’m asking about your statements in the immediate aftermath of these shootings. Your statements based on completely unvetted information. Information that if it was even provided to you, proved to be utterly false. That you were content to tell the whole country. Do you have any concern about misleading the whole country? Don’t you think in the immediate aftermath of a shooting that you should provide only vetted information to the public? How do you imagine you are going to gain the trust of the American people if you’re pushing out false information about the shooting of American citizens?

Senator Richard Blumenthal's line of questioning is also worthy of note. Noem knew the hearing was scheduled, she was briefed ahead of time by various people on her staff so she would be ready and prepared to answer questions. But she still couldn't.

Senator Richard Blumenthal: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here today, Madam Secretary. For a year, you maintained that no U.S. citizens have been arrested or detained by ICE or CBP. After hearings I conducted in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations as the Ranking Member, you admitted finally in a letter written to me just last month, that in fact U.S. citizens have been detained and arrested. I’m going to ask, Mr. Chairman, that that letter be entered into the record. Thank you. You put the number at 38. Far more American citizens have been arrested by ICE and CBP, probably in the hundreds, perhaps the thousands. Have you met with any of the American citizens who have been detained or arrested by your agency?

Secretary Kristi Noem: The individuals that may have been detained and arrested were individuals that could have been obstructing law enforcement operations --

Senator Richard Blumenthal: You haven’t met with them, correct?

Secretary Kristi Noem: -- and committing crimes that way, and that we would have been detaining individuals until their identity was confirmed.

Senator Richard Blumenthal: I would like to introduce you to three of them. Leo, Javier, and Marimar, would you please stand? These three individuals, Madam Secretary, were arrested by your agency. Leonardo Venegas, Javier Ramirez, and Marimar Martinez. Do you know what your agents did to Leo Venegas? I’ll tell you. On May 21 of last year, they entered the private property at a house that he was constructing without consent, without a warrant, illegally. Again, on June 12, they entered private property, a home where he was doing construction. He is a United States citizen, born in Florida. They seized him and ignored and disregarded his proof of citizenship. Wouldn't you agree with me that no U.S. citizen simply working lawfully should be arrested?

Secretary Kristi Noem: In law enforcement operations across the country, there are times when U.S. citizens --

Senator Richard Blumenthal: It’s a simple yes or no.

Secretary Kristi Noem: -- may be arrested or detained until their identity is confirmed and that they haven’t committed a crime.

Senator Richard Blumenthal: Would you agree with me, Madam Secretary, that U.S. citizens should not be arrested when they are obeying the law, they have no criminal record, and they are engaged in lawful activity?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, in situations where law enforcement, regardless of the agency, across the country, when there is probable cause an individual --

Senator Richard Blumenthal: Let me tell you about Javier Ramirez. Do you know what your agents did to Javier Ramirez? He was on his own private property when he was assaulted by masked agents—his own property—without a warrant, without consent. They said, “Get him, he's Mexican.” He was violently slammed into the ground while being handcuffed and taken into custody, despite telling officers that he is a United States citizen and even showing them his passport. And when he was asked what he was being arrested for, you know what they said? “We don’t know.” Wouldn’t you agree that targeting someone just because he is, or looks like he is, Mexican, when he is a United States citizen, is wrong?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Senator, we do not target people based on their race or ethnicity. We do targeted operations based on criminal backgrounds and information that we have.

Senator Richard Blumenthal: This story goes on, Madam Secretary. Javier was detained for over four days. He was denied medicine that he needed for severe diabetes. He lost consciousness. He had severe hypoglycemia. Wouldn't you agree with me that medical treatment should have been provided to him? He was denied.

Secretary Kristi Noem: Senator, medical treatment is provided to individuals in our detention centers --

Senator Richard Blumenthal: Well, it wasn’t for him. Wouldn’t you agree that was wrong?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Within 12 hours, they have a medical examination, and we get them the prescriptions and medications that they need. They also have a full evaluation, including --

Senator Richard Blumenthal: Will you commit to take action and to look into why he was denied medical treatment?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, I will look into that case specifically for you, Senator.

Senator Richard Blumenthal: Marimar Martinez is with us as well. She is standing right behind you. She was on her way to donate clothing at her church when she came across an unmarked car. The agents sideswiped her car. Three masked agents in camouflage stormed out. One of them pulled out his gun and fired at her moving vehicle, hitting her five times. She almost bled to death. Wouldn't you agree that shooting Marimar Martinez, a United States citizen from Chicago, on her way to donate clothing at her church is wrong?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, I don’t know the situation or the case. I’ll look into it to ensure that all the procedures were followed properly.

Senator Richard Blumenthal: Well, I’m glad you’ll look into it. Marimar, by the way, was falsely charged with impeding law enforcement, but the case actually fell apart. The judge dismissed it as being trumped up. He dismissed it with prejudice. In fact, the agent who shot her—I’m not going to name him, but you know who he is—was quoted on social media the day or so afterward, and he said, “I fired five rounds, and she had seven holes. Put that in your book, boys” and “Cool, I'm up for another round of f--- around and find out.” Will you join me in condemning that agent?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, that situation I don’t know the details of, but I will look into that.

Senator Richard Blumenthal: I don’t know why you can't join me in saying it was wrong to shoot Marimar, almost cause her death, and then brag about it.
Wouldn’t you agree with me that it was wrong?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, the way that you have portrayed it, it appears to be, but let me look at the case so I can speak to the specifics of it.

Senator Richard Blumenthal: Apparently, contrary to what you just said, you actually supported the agent who shot Ms. Martinez five times. He is quoted as saying, when he was asked, “Everyone has been supportive, including Chief Bovino, Chief Banks, Secretary Noem, and El Jefe himself,” referring presumably to President Trump. Is the agent who shot Ms. Martinez still on the job?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, our law enforcement officers conduct operations every day according to procedures and training and experience they have. Whenever something is not done properly --

Senator Richard Blumenthal: Is the agent who shot Ms. Martinez still on the job, carrying a gun?

Secretary Kristi Noem: I don’t know the details. I will find out and get that information to you.

Senator Richard Blumenthal: Would you agree that he shouldn’t be on the job?

Secretary Kristi Noem: I will look into this case and get back to you on the details. I’m not familiar with it.

Marimar Martinez. The country knows her name and story. But Krisi Noem will have to "look into this case and get back to you"? Marimar's case has received a ton of press attention and yet Kristi Noem, who heads Homeland Security, is not versed in it? Do her photo ops take up all of her time? She's the head of the department. ICE attacked Marimar. Marimar's lucky to be alive. And yet Kristi hasn't bothered once to look into what happened ("I don't know the details").

She doesn't know much. We'll note Senator Cory Booker next and pay attention for the section where he brings up the cost of a building DHS recently purchases -- the cost they paid versus the cost of the building's actual market value.

Senator Cory Booker: Secretary Noem, you're in charge of your agency, the buck stops with you -- correct?

Secretary Kristi Noem: I'm in charge of my agency. Yes, correct.

Senator Cory Booker: And you had to swear an oath to the Constitution before you took this jor, right?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Correct.

Senator Cory Booker: So one of the most sacrosanct ideas of our nation -- enshrined in our Constitution -- is freedom, is liberty.It is an idea that the government has a very high standard should they take away liberty and freedom from an American citizen? How many US citizens has DHS detained as of last October?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Senator, if you're talking about detained and arrested, is that those that have been violating and obstructing our law enforcement operations? If that what you're referencing because it could be hundreds and hundreds We have faced violent riots across the country.

Senator Cory Booker: You are specifically in Portalnd and in only people you've detained are committing crimes, but you and I both know that's not true. So then how many people have you detained?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Can't give you an accurate number because we've literally detained and arrested many for those obstruction of law enforcement operations and also other records that --

Senator Cory Booker: Let me tell you what my - my staff researched. May I, may I continue? Public records are showing that over 170 incidents of your agency unlawfully taking away the liberties and freedoms of American citizens. This includes 20 children -- 20 American kids -- that your agency detained. How long can your agency detain an American citizen?

Secretary Kristi Noem: We don't -- we don't detain children and separate them from their parents.

Senator Cory Booker: Those parents have chosen -- you're telling me -- to keep their child with them? I just want to be clear. You're telling me under oath right now that your agency has not detained American children?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Those parents have chosen to keep their children with them. We don't separate families like the Biden administration did -- We keep them together and parents have the option on if they want their child with them or not with them.

Senator Cory Booker: When you detain an American citizen, how long do they last?

Secretary Kristi Noem: We don't detain American citizens and when there's probable cause --

Senator Cory Booker: Let me -- because you're not speaking truthfully under oath. Isaias Pena Salcedo, a US citizen living in California, was detained more than 70 hours -- almost 3 days -- even after he showed ICE agents his passport. My colleague Senator Blumenthal gave you example after example. He brought people here who had something else we Americans consider sacrosanct, our home, our property. Your masked agents jumping out of unmarked cars have broken into -- considerable property damage occurring in American citizens' homes. Case after case of this and you sit here before me and claim the buck stops with you. But you don't even know the names of these individuals. I ran New Jersey's largest municipal police department. When my officers engaged in misconduct, you can be damn well sure I knew about it and I investigated it. And yet you have situations where your officers are violating the sanctity of people's homes, arresting and detaining them and holding their children and you're acting as if you don't know about it and saying that under oath. Marimar Martinez -- who is here right now -- on her way to church, an American citizen going to church, not just to worship but to donate clothing -- your officers shot her multiple times. The case was thrown out of court and you represent here that you don't know about it. In New Jersey, are you aware of your officers' activities in places like schools? Are you aware of your officers' activities at our public schools?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, we don't go into schools and do targeted law enforcement operations. We do targeted law enforcement operations like other agencies and

Senator Cory Booker: ICE officers entered the grounds of a high school in Minneapolis. That's a fact. Elementary school children in New Jersey are terrified of your agents. When they came up a school bus top, they fled. Another school, higher education, Columbia University. your agents reportedly lied to students, told them they were searching for a missing person to gain access to private spaces, to non public areas of campus. Secretary Noem, these are kids. They're terrified in our communities. How do you think that affects them when children in my stage go running, fleeing and often you will pursue children throwing them to the ground, getting on their backs,putting them in handcuffs. I want to talk to you about this incredible empire of for-profit companies that are profiting at rates we've never seen and the way you're using money. Let's -- let's drill down on the warehouses, the DHS has been buying over the last several months, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Are you familiar with the acquisition of a warehouse DHS recently bought in Roxbury Township, New Jersey?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes.

Senator Cory Booker: You are familiar with that.

Secretary Kristi Noem: I'm familiar.

Senator Cory Booker: How much you spent of it?

Secretary Kristi Noem: No, sir. I do not.

Senator Cory Booker: $129.3 million. Do you know how much it was assessed for in New Jersey?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, we're purchasing centers across the country to build efficiency into our detention system. Efficiency so that we can --

Senator Cory Booker: As a person who's run tight budgets before and had taxpayer dollars. You paid $129.3 million for a facility in my state that was assessed at less than half of that at $62 million to work for a president that says he's a great dealmaker. I can't believe he thinks that you're a great dealmaker. But what's worse than that is that the Roxbury Township Council comprised entirely of Republicans voted unanimously early this year to oppose that facility. My office tried to facilitate a meeting between DHS and local officials so that ICE could hear their concerns. Yet DHS did not even respond. That is unacceptable. That you all would enter a town, you wouldn't even follow environmental reviews or have conversations with local officials about the resources from emergency resources to fire resources and more that you're going to pull down. You didn't even have a conversation. So, you know, do you comply with court orders?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, we do comply with agency --

Senator Cory Booker: Do you comply with court orders?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, we have. We -- we comply with the federal court orders.

Senator Cory Booker: You were saying under oath that you do and yet we know in January, the Chief Judge, Republican appointee for the federal district of Minnesota found that ICE had violated nearly 100 court orders since January 1st alone. In my state of New Jersey last month, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General admitted in my state to the New Jersey District Court that the government had violated 52 separate court orders -- all involving cases where immigrants successfully challenged the legality of their detention. So this again is a Constitution that you swore an oath to and one of the most important ideas is that no one is above the law. You are violating the separation of powers, violating court orders and routinely violating the Civil Rights of Americans. This is a reckless and out of control agency that you are responsible for. You seem to have no situational awareness whatsoever of some of the most egregious examples of Americans being completely attacked, violated, undermined in accordance with our laws by their own government. And this is what is phenomenal to me -- is immigration was your president's number one issue, overwhelmingly popular with the American people. But now it's overwhelmingly unpopular and it's not because you are deporting dangerous people that everybody here wants out of our country. No, it's because you're going into our schools. You're terrorizing out children. You're detaining children. You're arresting Americans. You're breaking into our homes. You're terrorizing out streets. You're violating our rights to peacefully protest again and again and again. [. . .] Either you are utterly incompetent or you are violating laws with impunity. You should step down from your position. If you odn't, you should be removed by this president. And if not, Congress should impeach you.

Worth 62 million dollars but the US government spent $129 million of our taxpayer dollars to purchase it. DOGE was always a con job. The spending -- certainly at Homeland Security -- has been off the charts and it has been wasteful spending. Kristi Noem is the Secretary of Homeland Security. Americans need to be asking what she's doing with her time and our money.

We'll wind down with two things on the war on Iran.

Ben with MEIDASTOUCH NEWS reports that Chump is running low on . . . weapons. Friday there will be an emergency meeting. Way to plan, Donald, way to plan. Lara Seligman (WALL STREET JOURNAL) reports:

U.S. troops working at a tactical operations center at a commercial port in Kuwait on Sunday had no warning that a deadly Iranian drone was headed straight toward them.

Flying slow and low to the ground, the one-way attack system evaded U.S. air defenses and hit the Shuaiba port on the Persian Gulf, according to two U.S. officials, killing six American servicemembers and seriously wounding others.

The facility struck was a large trailer with walls protected by concrete slabs, but wasn’t fortified from the top, according to a third person briefed on the attack.

Their deaths highlight the risks posed by Iranian drones to tens of thousands of American military personnel serving in the Middle East after President Trump, who campaigned on bringing U.S. troops home from endless wars in the region, launched a massive military campaign against Iran on Saturday.

While the Pentagon has used sophisticated air defense systems to great effect for decades against Iranian missiles, military officials have struggled to solve the challenge posed by small drones that fly low to the ground and evade traditional detection methods. In a similar attack just over two years ago, three U.S. soldiers were killed when an Iranian Shahed drone struck a small installation at Tower 22 in Jordan.

The following sites updated: