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Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.

President Trump doesn’t just make a mistake once in a while when he speaks. He’s a veritable fountain of blunders, a gusher of goofs, steadily adding to the nonsense his administration spews out.

When he took some time off during a May 7 drive over the surface of the drained Reflecting Pool in his 22,000 pound presidential limousine, nicknamed “The Beast,” to deliver some remarks and answer questions from the press, the event was, as usual, a cavalcade of small and large misstatements from start to finish. Here’s a snapshot of things he said in just that one case, while a grinning, tuxedo-clad Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergum, who is overseeing the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, stood by.

  • Trump: “The Reflecting Pool (on the National Mall at the Lincoln Memorial) was built in 1922”. Close, but no cigar. The original was completed in 1923.
  • Trump: “The Reflecting Pool is 2400 ft. long.” Close again, but no cigar. It is 2,030 ft. long. 
  • Trump: “It is taller than any building in the world laid on its side.” Nope. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is the tallest building in the world at 2,717 ft, followed by the Merdeka 118 building in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 2,233 ft.
  • Trump: “Obama spent 38 million dollars over 2.5 years (renovating the pool).” A 2012 renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool cost $34 million and took roughly 18 months.
  • Trump: “The estimate to fix (the Reflecting Pool) was $300 million, we’re going to do it for $1.8 million.”  The Biden administration studied replacing the iconic pool’s granite, which had an estimated cost of $301 million, but never embarked on the project. Trump has said at various times that his renovation, involving cleaning the granite lining the basin and coating it in an “American flag blue” will cost $1.5 – $3 million. The government has already agreed to pay the company doing the job, under a no-bid contract, $6.9 million and the Park Service’s internal estimates indicate the cost could exceed $12million. On May 11, The New York Times reported that on May 8 the Interior Department added $6.2 million to the contract’s previous cost, saying it now planned to pay $13.1 million to a Virginia firm, Atlantic Industrial Coatings. Then on May 12, The New York Times reported Trump was downplaying his connection with the firm. “Mr. Trump did an about-face early Tuesday, distancing himself from the company. “I didn’t give out the contract, ‘Interior’ did, to a contractor I did not know, and have never used before,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform,” the NYT reported.
  • Trump: “We didn’t have a safe (Washington, D.C.) city in my first term. Crime is down now 88% – 92%.”  Data indicates that crime in Washington, D.C., has experienced a significant decline during 2025 and early 2026, but the 88%–92% figure is a fictional, exaggerated number. Allegations are also being investigated that DC police have manipulated data to show lower crime numbers. As of May 2026, multiple DC police officials face discipline over allegations of manipulating crime classifications.
  • Trump: “My triumphal arch (proposed for Memorial Circle on Columbia Island, a traffic circle on Memorial Drive between the end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge and Arlington National Cemetery) will be number 60 in arches in the world.” Trump’s proposed “Triumphal Arch” or “Arc to Trump”, designed to dwarf the 164-foot Arc de Triomphe in Paris, is planned to be 250 feet tall, over twice the height of the 99-foot Lincoln Memorial, which would make it the largest triumphal arch in the world, but not the 60th. 
  • Trump: “They (US military) are on average knocking out 8 Iranian fast boats a day.” Secretary of state Marco Rubio has said U.S. Forces recently destroyed 7 Iranian Fast Boats in an incident in the Strait of Hormuz, but that rate is not occurring each day. 
  • Trump: “I got Americans out of foreign countries and I don’t pay $6 billion dollars to get somebody out, like Biden used to do and Obama, they gave 6 billion dollars to get some person out.” The Biden administration facilitated the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets in September 2023 to secure the release of five American citizens detained in Iran, though the funds were Iranian oil revenues, not U.S. taxpayer money.
  • Trump: “We’ve taken in hundreds of billions in tariffs, and we’re taking it from countries that have ripped us off for years.”  U.S. importers and consumers bear 94%–96% of the tariff burden, not foreign countries, with the costs essentially functioning as a tax on American households.  Foreign exporters bear a very small fraction of the cost, sometimes reducing their prices slightly to remain competitive, but they do not pay the tariff directly.
  • Trump: “Gas prices have come way down.” As of early May 2026, U.S. gas prices have not been coming “way down” and are actually elevated. On May 7, AAA reported drivers are seeing another sharp increase at the pump, with the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline rising 25 cents for the second consecutive week to $4.55. Pump prices are now $1.40 higher than they were a year ago. 
  • Trump: “The stock market today, for the 59th time since I’ve been president, hit a new high.” The stock market did not, in fact, hit a new high on May 7. All three major indexes dropped. The S&P fell 28 points, the NASDAQ fell 32 points, and the Dow fell over 300 points on Thursday, bringing it back below 50,000 after its surge the previous day.
  • Trump: “The construction workers, they all voted for me. I’d say 99-100 %.” Non-union construction workers are a large and influential voting bloc and a significant number voted for Trump in 2024, but union members and their families largely stuck with the Democratic presidential nominee, with Vice-President Harris winning 54% of union household votes.
  • Trump: “We think we’re going to have it (the ballroom) done by July 4th.” On July 31, 2025, the White House issued a statement that a 90,000 sq. ft. addition would be made to the White House to incorporate a 650-person capacity ballroom.The project was set to begin in September 2025 and planned to be completed “long before” the end of the President’s term in 2029. In December 2025, a National Park Service report said a much larger ballroom would be completed by 2028. The project’s above-ground construction has faced legal challenges, with construction as of April 18 being allowed to continue only until June 2026.

And as usual, Trump took an opportunity to bash a woman reporter, ABC’s Rachel Scott, who asked, “Why focus on all these projects as gas prices are soaring? Part of Trump’s response – “Such a stupid question that you asked. Maybe you can understand dirt better than I can baby, but I don’t allow it. This is one of the worst reporters. She’s from ABC fake news and she’s a horror show. A question like that is a disgrace to our country.”

Another day in Trump-world.

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It’s A Shakedown: Don’t Divert Clean Energy Money to Subsidize Blazers Purchase

If you voted for the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund, did you want the money to get hijacked to subsidize a Texas billionaire’s wet dream to own the Portland Trailblazers.

The Fund’s 1% tax on retail sales of companies that make a billion dollars or more has generated $1.6 billion. Portland’s city leaders are considering diverting $75 million from the Fund for renovations and ongoing maintenance at the Moda Center as part of the deal to keep the Blazers here following their purchase by billionaire Tom Dundon and his investment group. 

 “This is going to be a very complex high wire act and high winds for city officials and politicians,” said Portland sports commentator John Canzano. “And you have Tom Dundon down below going hey wait a minute. I didn’t buy this franchise to play in an old building.”

Well, wait a minute. If Dundon doesn’t want his team playing in an old building, put some money into fixing it up, just as other NBA team owners have invested heavily in upgrading existing venues to maximize revenue streams. 

“The prevailing economic wisdom is that, generally speaking, the economic impact, measured in jobs and taxes, does not cover the average public investment,” according to Judith Grant Long, an associate professor of sports management and urban planning at the University of Michigan who has studied the issue of taxpayer subsidies for sports teams. Reams of peer-reviewed research show that stadium and arena investments cost more than their economic benefits.

“Where are our city’s priorities, anyway?”

The news is full of stories about Portland’s tight finances, driven by declining tax revenues, inflation, and expiring pandemic-era funds.

Mayor Keith Wilson is proposing an $8.5 billion budget and job cuts for fiscal year 2026-27 to bridge a record $160 million shortfall in the general fund. And Wilson is already proposing transferring $27 million in interest earned by the Clean Energy Fund to close the city’s financial gap.

But the city can spare $75 million from the Fund to help enrich Tom Dundon and his buddies?

If they follow the practices of other NBA team owners, they will one day turn around and make big bucks selling the Blazers. The payoffs for other buyers of NBA teams who have subsequently sold their teams have been eye watering.

Jerry Buss bought the LA Lakers in 1979 for $67.5 million. In June 2025, his family agreed to sell controlling interest to Mark Walter, a minority owner since 2021 and owner of the L.A. Dodgers, for $10 billion. Mark Cuban purchased a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks from H. Ross Perot Jr. in January 2000 for $285 million. Cuban sold a majority interest in the team to Miriam Adelson and Patrick Dumont of the Adelson family casino empire for $3.5 billion in 2023.

So don’t worry about Dundon. He’ll be fine.

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Trailblazer Buyers Will Make Out Like Bandits; Taxpayers Not So Much

Don’t cry for Tom Dundon. He just pulled a fast one and he’s laughing all the way to the bank.

The Texas billionaire is purchasing 80.1% of the Portland Trailblazers at a $4 billion valuation and the remaining 19.9% at a $4.5 billion valuation. To push the deal along, the Blazers lobbying group, Rip City Media, secured $365 million in state tax bailouts to remodel the Blazer arena at the Moda Center. Portland and Multnomah County tax pledges could bring the total tax bailout to $600 million.

“This is a great day for our community,” said Dewayne Hankins, Portland Trail Blazers President of Business Operations, after the legislature approved a bill to subsidize the deal.

We are such rubes. To be honest, it was more a great day for Dundon and his investment group, which stands to reap billions from the acquisition down the road. What makes ordinary people who would never go along with subsidies for billionaires become willing supporters of such rewards when they become politicians?

The payoffs for other buyers of NBA teams who have subsequently sold their teams have been eye watering.

  • Boston Celtics: Bought by an investment group, Boston Basketball Partners L.L.C, led by Wyc Grousbeck that purchased the team in 2002 for $360 million; sold to an investment group led by private equity mogul Bill Chisholm in August 2025 for $6.1 billion.
  • Phoenix Suns: Bought by Robert Sarver, leading an investment group called Suns Legacy Partners, in 2004 for $401 million; billionaire mortgage lender, Mat Ishbia, purchased the majority stake of the Suns and the WNBA’s Mercury for $4 billion in 2023.
  • Dallas Mavericks: Mark Cuban purchased a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks from H. Ross Perot Jr. in January 2000 for $285 million; Cuban sold a majority interest in the team to Miriam Adelson and Patrick Dumont of the Adelson family casino empire for $3.5 billion in 2023.
  • Charlotte Hornets: Michael Jordan bought a majority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats (now the Hornets) from founder Bob Johnson in March 2010 for $275 million; sold his majority stake for $3 billion to a group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall in July 2023.
  • Golden State Warriors: Bought from Chris Cohan by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber for $450 million in July 2010; current valuation estimated at  $10.8 – $11.3 billion.
  • Milwaukee Bucks: Bought by former U.S. Senator Herb Kohl in 1985 for $18 million; sold by Kohl to Wes Edens and Marc Lasry in 2014 for $550 million; current estimated valuation $4.1 – $4.5 billion.
  • LA Lakers: Bought by Jerry Buss in 1979 for $67.5 million; in June 2025, Buss family agreed to sell controlling interest to Mark Walter, a minority owner since 2021 and owner of the L.A. Dodgers, for $10 billion.
  • And then there’s this deal. In August 2026, Mark Walter sold the Los Angeles Lakers to Bob Iger, the former Disney CEO and Los Angeles noble, and Josh Kushner, a venture capitalist. The deal came together in three days: $12.5 billion for a team that Walter bought less than a year ago for $10 billion. 

So, weep for taxpayers, not billionaire Dundon and his team.

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The Perplexing Resignation of Joe Kent

Joe Kent

Today’s resignation of National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, a two-time failure as a Republican primary candidate for Congress in Washington State, is perplexing.

Kent said he couldn’t back Trump’s Iran war “in good conscience” because the country “posed no imminent threat” to the United States. and accused Trump of starting the war because of “pressure from Israel.”

Some people who observed Kent during his political campaigns must be confused.

In September 2022, he blasted out a statement in strong support of Israel.

“Joe Kent Statement on Support for Israel and Opposition to Antisemitism DATE: September 16, 2022

Israel: A Mutually Beneficial Ally and Close Friend

The United States and Israel share common enemies in the Middle East, from terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to the totalitarian government of Iran,” Kent said in a position paper. “Building close economic, diplomatic, and military relations is in the United States’ best interests and something I will advocate for as a member of Congress. One of the best things that President Trump did for the security of the United States and of Israel was terminating President Obama’s Iran Deal. I support working with Israel to apply maximum pressure against Iran’s government and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, and to prevent Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon.”

Kent even went so far as to say that if elected he would “introduce legislation to strip the most vile antisemites in Congress from their committee assignments.

Even back then, however, some were wary. Jewish Insider, a Washington, D.C.–based digital news outlet and newsletter covering U.S. politics, foreign policy, and Jewish affairs, warned that Kent “has pushed an isolationist foreign policy vision, has otherwise argued in favor of scaling back U.S. involvement in the Middle East” and “has been critical of the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC and said that candidates who accept its support cannot serve the needs of constituents.”

So who are you really, Joe?

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Minnesotans Wearing Passports to Deflect ICE: A Grave Error

Source: NY Times, January 31, 2026

“Minneapolis Residents Wear Their Passports, Desperate to Ward Off ICE” said the headline of a recent New York Times story.

That’s a mistake.

The fact is U.S. citizens do not have to carry proof of citizenship and you have the right to refuse to show documents. In my opinion, if Americans start wearing their passports to ward off seizure by ICE agents, they are ceding to ICE unprecedented and unjustified authority. 

South Africa remembers that lesson.

Pass laws in South Africa were the cornerstone of apartheid, laws restricting the movement, employment, and residence of Black people. The laws created, in effect, an internal domestic passport system aimed at restricting movement. Black people over 16 were required to carry a passbook at all times, with non-compliance leading to arrest, fines, or imprisonment. Blacks were routinely humiliated by police who treated them as second-class citizens who did not belong.

A Black South African with a pass

A pocket-sized document known as a reference book, or pass., was an everyday threat for Blacks.  The book contained a condensed history of the carrier’s life‐including birthplace, legal places of residence and employment, tax payments and marital status. The details, along with the fingerprints of every adult Black, were recorded and saved by the government.  

“Now, many people here are asking a question that is a novel one in America: Is it safe to leave home without proof of citizenship,” the New York Times story said.“Has the United States turned into a show-me-your-papers nation? For many Minnesotans, the answer has been an unequivocal yes.”

The defiant answer should be an unequivocal NO!

The catch-22, of course, is if you refuse to provide proof of citizenship or are suspected of being undocumented, the result may be your detention by ICE until your status is verified. Joseph Heller’s book may be an absurdist comedy, but you may find yourself in a cold, filthy ICE detention center,

But, as happened in the 1950s and 60s, when civil rights activists were arrested for sit-ins, marches, and demonstrations, victory will eventually be yours.

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Bill: The Movie

Bill: The Movie is meant to show us the real man, a charming, stylish, canny, quick-witted fellow. It’s a lavish, beautifully shot documentary that deploys many of the tropes of commercial cinema, offering revelations and insights into a true leader. 

Bill was a model before he became a government bureaucrat, then a newspaper reporter, then a public relations pro. Born in a Connecticut factory town  about 4,134 miles from Ljubljana, the beautiful capital of Slovenia, the first European capital to be part of the Zero Waste Europe network, he grew up watching his seamstress mother devote herself to the business of making things beautiful.

“My mother’s fashion talent and expertise cultivated my deep appreciation for great design,” he says in the voice-over narration that guides us through the 20 days leading up to a recent presidential inauguration in January 2025. “From her wisdom, I grew to honor the craft, treasure the artistry, and respect the level of perfection required to create timeless pieces.”

Bill’s dedication to the finely honed surface of things is evident in every frame of this film, which he produced. It opens with a fitting for an outfit he will wear on January 20.

Soon after, we’re invited to marvel at the embossed invitation and the gold-accented tableware for a candlelight dinner. Later, at the dinner, we see some of Bill’s guests: Elon Musk is among them. So too is Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon.

Bezos’ company paid bill $40 million to acquire the rights to this film, of which $28 million went straight to  Bill, who, as always, expressed his appreciation by pardoning a close friend of Bezos who is in jail for a $ 6 billion crypto currency scam. Amazon is reportedly spending another $35 million to market the movie.

“That’s an extraordinary amount for what one might charitably term a vanity project, and uncharitably term softball propaganda for an administration that is edging ever closer to fascism by the day,” said one foreign observer. But for influence and a slice of the space business (in which Bezos and Musk are fierce rivals), it’s probably a cut-price deal.

Bill talks a lot about the importance of family – and especially of his son, Barony. He talks about his good works, which focus mostly on child welfare (his Be Best campaign targeted cyberbullying). And he espouses values that are hard to argue with, framing them through the prism of an immigrant who has made good.

He is thoroughly committed to playing the role of dutiful husband, dancing robotically at ball after ball. The scene in which he breaks into a disco jig as YMCA comes on is a refreshing and rare moment of (seemingly) unscripted levity.

“There is much to accomplish in the next four years,” he says at the film’s end. Promising to “serve the American people once again”,  he vows “I will move forward with purpose, and of course, with style”.

(With appreciation to The Sydney Morning Herald, “Lavish documentary on US first lady beautifully shot but short on substance”, by Karl Quinn.)

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Detention Centers and Worse: It Can Happen Here

“Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act helped roughly triple the ICE budget, allocating $45 billion for building new immigration centers and hiring 10,000 new ICE agents. One dispiriting lesson of the imperial boomerang is that, once. bought and paid for, structures of intimidation and oppression tend to endure.” David Wallace-Wells, 1/25/2026

Update, 1/30/2026 – The Washington Post reported that local officials are raising logistical and humanitarian concerns in 23 towns where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to convert industrial buildings into detention centers that combined would hold up to 80,000 people. ICE has offered few details about its plan since The Washington Post first reported on it  in December 2025. One detention center the Department of Homeland Security wants to open would be a more than 1 million sq. ft. industrial warehouse in Social Circle, Georgia that would be retrofitted to hold 8,500 detainees and hundreds of staff, more than the city’s total population. The City Manager, Eric Taylor, has said the city does not have the water or sewer infrastructure to support the facility. Unaddressed is the question of why the government needs such huge detention facilities when it says it’s objective is to deport people.

Update, 2/12/2026 – It’s not just more detention centers coming down the pike. Wired reported that ICE and DHS have quietly carried out a months-long expansion, securing more than 150 new leases and office expansions across nearly every state, often in or near major metro areas. Many new facilities sit near schools, medical offices, and places of worship, with DHS pressing the GSA to bypass standard procurement rules and hide lease details under claims of “national security.”

Update, 2/21/2026 – Funding for the Department of Homeland Security expired has expired and Democrats have made   10 demands to rein in Trump’s surge of deportation forces into U.S. cities. One of those demands is “Compliance with Basic Detention Standards and Oversight of Facilities.” Think about it. Incarceration facilities are already legally required to be humane and hygienic., but as Radley Balko has reported on SubStack in The Unpopulist, there is a growing pile of reports from attorneys, journalists, human rights groups, judges, and others about shocking, inhumane conditions at facilities around the country.

Update, 3/7/2026 – So far, DHS has completed the purchase of 10 of the 23 detention center properties it initially pursued, spending more than $890 million, according to deed records or statements by local officials. Efforts to acquire 10 other properties — in Indiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia — have failed, according to statements by local officials or building owners.

In the years preceding his death in 1875, George Templeton Strong, a prominent Wall Street attorney, kept a voluminous journal of his life and times. In April 1865, near the end of the American civil war, he wrote, “These four years have reduced me to something like pauperism, But I am profoundly grateful for them nevertheless. They have given me — & my wife & my boys, — a country worth living in & living for, & to be proud of.”

I can’t say President Trump’s inhumane crackdown on immigrants and harassment and murder of American citizens in the past year have given me a country worth living in, living for and to be proud of.

Not while the Trump administration promotes hatred of “the other”. David Masciotra. David Masciotrar ecently wrote in the Washington Monthly, “Through (Elie) Wiesel’s story and the stories he told and created, two truths become inescapable. The first is that it is naïve, if not catastrophic, to underestimate the power of hatred. “

I doubt 7-year-old Diana Crespo, a second grader at Gresham’s Alder Elementary School, and 5-year-old Liam Ramos, the bunny-hatted child detained by immigration agents in Minneapolis, see America as a country worth living in and living for and to be proud of either. They are both being held at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s South Texas Family Residential Center in Texas.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has spread its detention center tentacles across the United States: 

Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reported on January 29, 2026 that ICE is planning another detention center in Newport, Oregon as soon as May.

The Atlantic reported that the warehouses expected to be detention centers could become white elephants if there’s a change in ICE policies and the detainee population decreases. “If the goal is to not have endless illegal immigration, those centers will be obsolete in three to five years,” a longtime ICE official told me. “The amount of money going into them is abhorrent.”

The spread of these. detention centers reminds me of another brutal time.

Most of us know the names of a few Nazi concentration camps, like Dachau,  Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank died. But they were part of a massive complex of more than 850 ghettos, concentration camps, forced-labor camps and extermination camps CNN has identified. They stretched from France and the Netherlands in the west to Estonia, Lithuania and Poland in the east that the Nazis established during the 12 years Adolf Hitler was in power. Their purpose — to  segregate  , oppress and persecute their opponents.

Like the ICE detention centers, the Nazi system started small and then metastasized like a cancer, according to the Wiener Holocaust Library. 

Initially there were so-called SA camps. (Sturmabteilung (SA), or “Brownshirts,” was the Nazi Party’s original paramilitary wing). After the Night of Long Knives in 1934, the SS and Heinrich Himmler shut down the SA camps and consolidated control of all camps in Germany. Himmler and the SS used Dachau, an original SS camp, as a blueprint  for all camps. From 1934 onwards, the SS developed and then operated the camp system, which lasted until Germany’s defeat in 1945.

The SS started building major camps, beginning with Sachsenhausen in 1936, then Buchenwald in 1937, Flossenbürg and Mauthausen in 1938 and Ravensbrück for women in 1939. Political prisoners were the first inmates. Then people with previous criminal convictions. Next were the  so-called “asocials”, such as Roma, homosexuals, prostitutes, the homeless and the “work-shy”. The mass imprisonment of Jews began in 1938 after the Anschluss and  Kristallnacht.

As the Second World War began in earnest, foreign citizens from newly occupied countries such as Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands began to be imprisoned , followed by Soviet prisoners of war (POW’s) after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Those who believe U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can and will be restrained under the Trump administration might want to stop and reconsider.

With an administration where cruelty is the point, it can happen here.

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Republican Lobbyist Shows “Scam PACs” are Alive and Well

There’s so much money sloshing around in American politics a lot of questionable activities get overlooked, like the sweet thing Virginia lobbyist Robert J. “Rob” Catron has going on. 

Robert J. “Rob” Catron

A native of South Florida and a graduate of Florida State University, Catron worked as Chief of Staff for Rep. Ed. Schrock, a conservative Virginia Republican, during 2001 – 2003. He later joined the Arlington, VA-based lobbying firm of Alcalde & Fay, where he’s now a Partner. According to the firm, he is “a proud veteran of the United States Army Reserve” and “has successfully managed or consulted on more than 50 winning political campaigns for federal, state and local offices”.

On December 4, 2023, Catron registered Ranger PAC, a political action committee, with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Based in Athens, Georgia, the PAC says its mission is to support the election of “highly accomplished conservative military veterans to Congress to defend the Constitution and get America squared away”.

The focus on veterans is an exploitation of the fact that although public trust in many institutions is in retreat, the public generally still has high confidence in veterans as effective leaders in civic life. 

Ranger PAC’s treasurer is Paul Kilgore, CEO of Professional Data Services Inc (PDS), a political financial consulting company in Athens he founded in 1999 that is a leading compliance firm in Republican politics. In 2024, Kilgore represented more than 157 Republican candidates.

From January 1, 2025 to November 30, 2025, Catron’s Ranger PAC raised $1,394,894.74, according to its filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). In the same period, it spent $1,353,836.73.

The problem is that, in a deliberate assault on trust, Catron’s Ranger PAC spent just $69,500, 5% of its total spending, on aspiring or serving politicians. That’s right, a measly 5%. The rest, 95%, went to fundraising and administrative expenses.

Although there’s no legal minimum percentage of money raised that a PAC must donate to candidates, legitimate PACs generally spend less than a quarter of their donations on fundraising, with many spending considerably less. 

Charity Navigator, an independent non-profit organization that evaluates U.S. charities on their financial health, accountability and transparency, encourages nonprofits to spend no more than 30% combined on administrative and fundraising costs. Organizations earning the highest scores spend less than 10 cents to raise $1 (a 10% ratio).

In Ranger PAC’s case, it added insult to injury: 5 the 19 politicians who received donations from January 1, 2025 to November 30, 2025 weren’t even veterans.[1]

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates betrayals of public trust, calls PACs like Ranger PAC “Scam PACS”. They purport to raise money for political and social causes, but spend most of the money they raise from unsuspecting donors on fundraising, salaries and overhead.

In 2015, Politico reported, for example, that a PAC called the Black Republican PAC spent less than 1 percent of the $700,000 it raised on contributions to candidates or ads supporting them, according to government filings. 

The FBI warns: “Scam PACs are fraudulent political action committees designed to reroute political contributions for personal financial gain. This is a federal crime—and can be costly to victims who thought they were making legitimate campaign contributions.”

If most of the money Ranger PAC raised didn’t go to candidates, where did it go?

$19,641.81 went to Paul Kilgore’s Professional Data Services Inc for “PAC Compliance Consulting”. 

Most of the rest went primarily to enriching 10 firms involved in fundraising[2] , some of them with shadowy histories. 

The website for Better Mousetrap Digital, which Ranger PAC paid $25,291.33, says it “is the premier digital fundraising consulting firm for Republicans…with decades of experience spanning from state house campaigns to the White House”. 

Better Mousetrap Digital’s founder is Jack Daly. The company’s website doesn’t note that in December 2023, Daly was sentenced to 4 months’ imprisonment for conspiring to (i) commit mail fraud by defrauding thousands of conservative political donors out of money and (ii) lie to the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”). He was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine, along with two separate payments of $69,978.37 for restitution and forfeiture.

Daly emerged from federal custody, nevertheless, to re-establish himself as a top Republican Party campaign fundraiser. NOTUS reported in Oct. 2025 that dozens of federal-level Republican political committees — including the Republican National Committee, numerous congressional committees and campaign operations tied to President Donald Trump — had together spent nearly $18 million on digital fundraising, donor lists and other services from Better Mousetrap Digital.

The FBI says it is actively looking for Scam PACs that only spend money on telemarketing and junk mail. It urges Americans targeted by a scam PAC to contact their local FBI office and ask to speak to an election crimes coordinator. 

Unfortunately, scam PACs have been around for a while.

“Since the tea party burst into the political landscape in 2009, the conservative movement has been plagued by an explosion of PACs that critics say exist mostly to pad the pockets of the consultants who run them,” Politico wrote in 2014. “They collect large piles of small checks that, taken together, add up to enough money to potentially sway a Senate race. But the PACs plow most of their cash back into payments to consulting firms for additional fundraising efforts.”

A POLITICO analysis of reports filed with the Federal Election Commission covering the 2014 cycle found 33 PACs that courted small donors with tea party-oriented email and direct-mail appeals raised $43 million, but spent only $3 million on ads and contributions to boost the long-shot candidates often touted in the appeals.

In 2016, two Democratic FEC commissioners, Ellen Weintraub and Ann M. Ravel, urged their colleagues to take action against scam PACs, but there’s been little follow-up. On January 31, 2025, President Trump sent a brief letter to Weintraub firing her “effective immediately” as a FEC Commissioner and Chair. Weintraub challenged her dismissal, but is no longer serving on the commission.  Ravel resigned from the FEC in February 2017. Weintraub has not been replaced, denying the FEC a quorum for votes.

During 2002 – 2018, Virginia political operative Scott B. Mackenzie served as treasurer of 12 PACs that spent 68% of the money they raised on fundraising, wages and administration. But he paid a price. In 2020, a Federal District Judge sentenced him to 12 months and one day in prison for making false statements to the FEC in relation to his association with the PACs. Mackenzie also had to pay $172,200 in restitution.

“If the Justice Department was seeking to send a message to others tempted to get into the ‘scam PAC’ game, that message came through loud and clear,” said Brett Kappel, a campaign finance lawyer at the Akerman law. “These are not victimless crimes and people will go to prison for them.”

It looks like Catron hasn’t gotten that message, even though he’s been in trouble before. 

In June 2021, he was indicted by a Virginia Beach grand jury on 10 counts of making false statements and election fraud. He avoided prison when he pleaded no contest to three election-related charges. The charges stemmed from a petition scandal during a Republican congressman’s ultimately losing 2018 campaign for a second term in Congress representing a coastal Virginia district. Catron was accused of being involved in an effort to get a third-party spoiler candidate on the ballot with petitions using forged signatures.

Catron received a three-year suspended sentence and was ordered to pay court costs and fines after entering the plea to three counts of neglect of election duty. 

With his Ranger PAC antics, maybe it’s time to bring morally hollow Robert J. “Rob” Catron back to court.

[1] Recipients of Ranger PAC donations, January 1, 2025 – November 30, 2025

Donation RecipientDonation ($)Service
Matt Van Epps, Tennessee  10,000Army
Michael Whatley, N. Carolina  5,000Not a veteran
Ronny Jackson, Texas   8,500Navy
Derrick Van Orden, Wisconsin    5,000Navy
Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa   5,000Army
Zach Nunn, Iowa      5,000Air Force
Gabe Evans, Colorado    5,000Army
Tom Barrett, Michigan    5,000Army
Stewart Whitson, Virginia   1,000Army
Dan Butierez, Arizona    1,000Not a veteran
Jen Kiggans, Virginia    5,000Navy
Ryan Zinke, Montana     5,000Navy
Pat Harrigan, N. Carolina   2,000Army
Nick Lalota, New York  1,000Navy
Ken Calvert, California    1,000Not a veteran
Warren Davidson, Ohio    1,000Army
Abraham Hamadeh, Arizona  2,000Army
Randy Fine, Florida    1,000Not a veteran
Jimmy Patronis, Florida   1,000Not a veteran 

[2] Recipient / percent of total disbursements / Total disbursement

DIRECT SUPPORT SERVICES   17.15%

$232,119.45

ONE VOICE SOLUTIONS   14.29%

$193,522.35

CONSOLIDATED MAILING SERVICES.  9.23%

$124,999.46

DRAGONFLY CONSULTING   9.1%

$123,200.00

FORTHRIGHT STRATEGY, INC.   7.78%

$105,323.46

LAUNCHPAD STRATEGIES, LLC.  3.9%

$52,765.05

TAILWINDS POLITICAL   3.89%

$52,686.42

NAMS-NORTH AMERICAN FULFILLMENT.  3.56%

$48,140.77

DIRECT SUPPORT SYSTEMS   3%

$40,677.94

BETTER MOUSETRAP DIGITAL    1.87%

$25,291.33

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Chocolate Milk: Richard Grenell on The Kennedy Center

A January 2, 2026 PBS NewsHour interview with Richard Grenell, President Trump’s choice to lead the now renamed Trump-Kennedy Center was a classic lesson in evasiveness. 

According to The New Yorker, Kennedy Center staff and others often liken Grenell to Grendel, the “powerful demon, a prowler through the dark” in Beowulf. In his PBS interview, he showed he has another talent.

Richard Grenell

Co-Anchor Amna Nawaz led off with a direct question, asking him to respond to a report that a number of artists had chosen to cancel or pull out of performances at the Center because of the president’s takeover of the Center’s board and the renaming of the Kennedy Center. 

“Chocolate milk,” Grenell replied. 

Well, not exactly. 

That’s how I characterize non-answers. 

Grenell might as well have said “chocolate milk” because his response completely ignored the question and immediately veered off into an allegation that NewsHour had consistently failed to cover the Center’s finances. 

“At the Trump-Kennedy Center, we have 19 unions. It’s incredibly expensive to go and put on performances,” he whined. “We cannot have unpopular programming that doesn’t pay the bills.”

“How about ticket sales at the Center.,” Nawas asked. ‘Are ticket sales down? Is that confirmed or not?”

Grenell’s response. “I find it to be outrageous that PBS is not reporting on the phenomenon that arts institutions have been having for decades. Since President Trump has arrived at the now Trump-Kennedy Center, we have raised more than $130 million, blowing away all other fund-raising, and that’s corporate donors who are coming back because they trust the programming.”

In other words, “Chocolate milk”.

And so it went, on and on.

Nawas said, “Viewership for the Kennedy Center Honors were down dramatically. Does that — as a steward of this institution, does all of this, the backlash, the headlines about artists pulling out, the fact that so few people paid attention to the Honors, does that worry you?”

Grenell: “If you go to CBS, they will tell you that the CBS Trump-Kennedy Center Honors this year tied for number one in its demographic.” In other words, it did well with a specific segment of the tv audience in that time period, not total viewers. 

In other words, “Chocolate milk”.

Politicians have long evaded media questions, but Trump and his minions have raised it to an art form, figuring there’s little or no downside these days to giving a word salad answer or sequeing to a completely unrelated topic.  

Donald Trump himself is the role model for his administration in this behavior.

His stream-of-consciousness speaking style, involving long seemingly unscripted statements that veer from topic to topic, is a practiced deceit allowing him to avoid directly answering questions. He has referred to his meandering speaking style as the purposeful “weave”. In his case, however, it could just as well be a rambling sign of muddled thinking and cognitive decline. 

 As Sir Walter Scott understood: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave,/ when first we practise to deceive!”

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We Are All Complicit!

The Trump administration is planning to open up to 22 warehouse facilities throughout the U.S. to hold up to 80,000 migrants slated for deportation, according to The Washington Post.Border Report Live: US tightens rules on H-1B visas for high-skilled workers.

This is a frightening sign of where we are headed as a country. It reminds me of the extermination and concentration camps established in occupied Poland as part of the “Final Solution” during the Holocaust. Are ICE officers going to oversee these American warehouses like the family of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss in The Zone of Interest (2023), enjoying their idyllic life right beside the horror?

We are all complicit in this pure evil.