Thursday, May 21, 2026
1956 WITI TV channel 6 in Milwaukee began broadcasting
1964 The US began intelligence flights above Laos
\\1972 Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome was damaged by a vandal
1979 Dan White was convicted of the voluntary manslaughter of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and openly gay councilor Harvey Milk. The conviction on a lesser charge outraged the gay community and led to the White Night riots.
2025 Benjamin Netanyahu announcesd that the implementation of Donald Trump's plan to forcibly displace Gazan civilians is a condition for his government to end the war.
2025 More than a dozen governments condemned the Israeli military firing in the direction of a diplomatic delegation with representatives from 31 countries including Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay. Canada, France, Italy, Spain, the UK, and Uruguay summoned their Israeli ambassadors over the incident in the occupied West Bank. Canada, the EU, and Turkey call for the launch of an official investigation. Israel's Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that after the delegation "deviated from the approved route", Israeli soldiers fired "warning shots" to distance them away.
In bed at just before 9, and up at 3:53. 0410 128/75/52 120 206.4; 47/29/51/42, Beach Hazard Warning again this morning, cloudy day.
Morning meds at 8 a.m, and half dose of Bisoprolol at 5:15 a.m.
Draft of a FB post for tomorrow:
Another Memorial Day weekend is rolling around and again I will make my annual visit to Milwaukee’s Wood National Cemetery, the place I drove by on I-94 probably thousands of times without thinking about it, on my way to or from Madison, or Mayfair, or a fishing trip to Clam Lake. It wasn’t until I was 75 years old, and had become a regular at the VA Medical Center next door to it that I also became a regular visitor to the National Cemetery. Now I make a point of visiting it every Memorial Day and every Veterans Day. If you were to ask me why I do this, I’m not sure how I would answer. I don’t show up for the official ceremonies and speeches. They occur too far away from the parking areas and the nearest bathrooms for an old guy. Perhaps I show up because of the sense of kinship I feel with those who are buried there, the tens of thousands who have in common only that they served in America’s military and naval forces. Perhaps I show up because I get pleasure seeing the small American flags uniformly placed in front of each of the thousands of uniform headstones. I am touched by the fact that each one of those flags is respectfully placed by the VA staff and many, many volunteers, who will respectfully return after the holiday to remove them till the next holiday. But I suppose that mostly I show up because of the 8 years of my young adulthood that I spent in service, 4 years in the Navy Reserves followed by 4 years of active duty in the Marines. And I suppose that, more specifically I show up because of memories of my third year of active duty that I spent in Vietnam and the 4th year, when my most onerous duty was being on-call every 6 days to notify next-of-kin of the death or wounding of their Marine there. As that 6th day inevitably drew closer and arrived, I remember thinking I would prefer to being back in Vietnam rather than being the dreaded man in uniform knocking on the door of of those Marines overseas.
This year when I visit Wood I’ll be thinking especially of two friends who died in that futile war, my fellow Marine Bill Mullen who was shot down in his A-4 aircraft over Laos on April 29, 1966, and my Marquette NROTC friend Jay Tremblay, a Navy pilot who was shot down when his A-6 strayed over the border of China on August 21, 1967. Bill’s A-4 didn’t stray over Laos; he was there as part of our then-secret war in that country. The government lied to his widow, saying he was downed in Vietnam. It was only one of a torrent of lies told by our own government during that war. Jay’s remains were finally identified by DNA and repatriated to the U.S. in 2005. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Bill Mullen’s remains were never recovered and his wife Barbara had to resort to legal proceedings to have him declared dead years later.
Bill and Jay were two of more than 58,000 Americans who died in that the tragic misadventure that was Vietnam. Another 153,000 were wounded seriously enough to require hospitalization. The numbers for Vietnamese casualties were almost astronomical, and are added to currently because of unexploded ordinance, Agent Orange “hot spots,” and other causes. Yet Vietnam was followed by Afghanistan, then Iraq, and now Iran. Our leaders never learn, and our service members (and their families) pay the highest costs. It is Bill and Jay and their families and all the others who I will remember and honor when I visit Wood this weekend
An email I sent to Senator Ron Johnson this morning:
I hope you will do everything in your power to stop the so-called "settlement" between the IRS and the Trump family. It is a huge theft of government, i.e., taxpayer-funded, money, almost $2 billion worth. This is the most outregeous and corrupt rip-off in have seen in my almost 85 years of life. Our services at the VA Medical Center in Milwaukee have been substantially reduced post-DOGE (e.g., my primary care "doc" is now a nurse practitioner rather than a doctor) while Trump and his children are ripping off the government, wasting a billion dollars on his Palace of Versailles ballroom, and building a 25 story monument to himself to overshadow the nearby Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, which are as close as we come to sacred sites in the national capitol. It's all corrupt, outrageous, and disgusting.
Has there ever been an episode of presidential corruption so blatant and threatening to constitutional order? Certainly not in modern times. President Trump’s Justice Department is using taxpayer money to create a $1.8 billion political slush fund. Ostensibly set up to compensate those who the department claims have “suffered weaponization and lawfare,” it will in fact reward loyalists willing to defy the law and commit violence on behalf of the president.
The fund manages to combine three of Mr. Trump’s most alarming behaviors. One, it is an obvious form of corruption, coming from a president who has used his office to enrich himself, his family and his allies. Two, the fund continues his pattern of using the Justice Department as an enforcer to punish his perceived opponents and protect his friends and allies. Three, the fund is his latest attempt to rewrite history about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress.
It is worth pausing to put the fund into the larger context of Mr. Trump’s political project: He is destroying pillars of American democracy to empower himself. He claims elections are legitimate only if he wins. He uses federal law enforcement to investigate and prosecute his perceived enemies. He purges his party of officials who defy him. He describes members of the other party and civil society as traitors and enemies. He incentivizes his supporters to break the law on his behalf and rewards them when they do. He directs his allies to change election rules to keep his party in power.
Mr. Trump’s project has not yet succeeded, at least not fully. Many Americans — in the judicial system, in Congress, in state governments and elsewhere — continue to stand up for democracy and oppose his autocratic ambitions. By now, though, nobody should have illusions about what he is attempting to do.
The fund’s existence is a story of political self-dealing. It is nominally the product of a flimsy personal lawsuit that Mr. Trump filed this year against the Internal Revenue Service, which he oversees, over the leaking of his tax returns during his first term. That lawsuit led to an absurd negotiation, in which the lawyers on one side worked for Mr. Trump the citizen and those on the other side worked for Mr. Trump the president.
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Adding to absurdity, the government lawyers reported to Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, who previously worked as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer. A federal judge in Miami helping to oversee the case, Kathleen Williams, pointed out that the two sides were not adversaries, which called into question the process. Even Mr. Trump acknowledged the situation shortly after filing the suit by saying, “I am supposed to work out a settlement with myself.”
Yet the talks proceeded because Mr. Trump’s Justice Department was in charge. Unsurprisingly, they led to a deal that was extremely favorable to him.
In exchange for the president’s dropping the suit against the I.R.S., both he and his supporters will receive government handouts. For Mr. Trump, the handout comes in the form of permission to have cheated on his taxes. The government has granted him and his family immunity from ongoing audits of his tax payments. He has a long history of using questionable accounting maneuvers, and the audits could have cost him more than $100 million, experts have said. Now they will cost him nothing.
For his supporters, the handouts will come from the slush fund. The Justice Department will tap a permanent stream of revenue that Congress created in 1956, known as the Judgment Fund, to settle lawsuits against the federal government. As Paul Figley, a former Justice Department official, noted, the new fund appears to be both legal and at odds with Congress’s intent. “It’s horrible policy,” Mr. Figley told The Times.
The department has allocated $1.8 billion for what it calls, in an Orwellian flourish, an Anti-Weaponization Fund and invited applications from people who have been targeted for “political, personal or ideological reasons.” Mr. Blanche — who holds his position as acting attorney general largely because of his willingness to use federal power in service of Mr. Trump’s personal whims — will appoint a five-member board, with congressional leaders given input on one of the five. Mr. Trump can fire any of the members at any time.
To understand who is likely to receive payments, look at who has previously received settlements from the Justice Department. Michael Flynn, who was briefly Mr. Trump’s national security adviser in 2017, received $1.25 million, even though he pleaded guilty to lying to F.B.I. agents. The family of Ashli Babbitt, who participated in the Jan. 6 riot, and whom federal agents shot as she and others approached the House floor, received nearly $5 million, even though investigators cleared the shooters of wrongdoing. The Trump administration is paying off people who committed violence and crimes, as long as they are Trump allies.
The fund’s timeline is the giveaway of how Mr. Trump plans to use it. The Justice Department said the fund would stop processing claims on Dec. 15, 2028, weeks before the president is to leave office, ensuring the money is distributed while he still holds the power to fire anyone who objects. The window is precisely the window of Mr. Trump’s authority.
Even some of Mr. Trump’s usual defenders are unhappy. Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, meekly said that he was “not a big fan” of the fund. Brian Morrissey, the Treasury Department’s general counsel, resigned within hours of the announcement, seven months after the Senate had confirmed him.
Providing payoffs is only part of the point. Another, according to Mr. Blanche, is “ensuring this never happens again.” What, exactly, is “this”? The evenhanded enforcement of the law.
The Trump administration has already fired federal agents who did their duties by investigating the president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Mr. Trump has issued blanket clemency to more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters, some of whom may soon receive payments. His Justice Department secured an indictment of James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, on dubious charges as retribution for his role in the investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s Russia ties. The fund continues the effort to turn law enforcement into a tool of raw political power.
The fund also encourages future lawlessness on Mr. Trump’s behalf. It sends the message that he will use his power not only to shield people who break the law from accountability but also to shower benefits on them. Just as punishment is a deterrent, rewards are an incentive.
After President Richard Nixon’s abuses in the Watergate scandal, Congress and the executive branch built rules and traditions to ensure that federal agencies, especially the Justice Department, operated in the public interest, rather than that of the president. Mr. Trump has tried to break this system. Once he is gone, it will need to be rebuilt, and better than before. He has exposed and exploited its flaws and gaps. Unless they are filled, Mr. Trump’s corruption and perversion of justice risk becoming the norm.
In the meantime, Americans should be cleareyed about what the president is doing. He is taking their money and showering it on criminals.
