curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Jonathan Larsen: The vice president’s fraud task force is living up to its name; it’s a task force committing fraud against providers for dying people
Vice Pres. JD Vance and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Director Mehmet Oz are shutting down healthy hospices before they or their residents are ready to die, the Washington Post reports.
Their fraud task force was formed in March to perpetuate the fraud of their false claims of rampant fraud that they used to justify federal interventions in unwelcoming communities. Already, the fraud task force is living up to its name, by being a fraud, and closing law-abiding hospices not even accused of fraud.
Oz — who shares his name with a fictional land led by another Oz who’s a fraud — has said the task force has touched almost no legitimate providers of hospice services. In related news, the Post claims to have “identified at least 43 legitimate hospice agencies that were suspended” from participating in Medicare or Medicaid.
One law firm reported submitting more than 40 appeals, with none addressed by CMS in the legally mandated 15 days. (In fairness, 15 is even less than almost no. Four have had funding restored.)
It’s not clear whether Oz gave those 40 hospices something instead of a review, like an honorary degree of doctor of thinkology.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – June 16, 2026
… Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee, says they have received information that Patel had directed more than $1 million in bonuses to agents close to himself. “These payments raise serious concerns that FBI funds are being used to reward political loyalty rather than merit and professionalism,” the Democrats wrote.
The FBI is part of the Department of Justice, and it, too, is undergoing a crisis of confidence in its work.
In Chicago, a case against six protesters for interfering with a federal agent and conspiring to interfere with a federal agent at a detention facility protest fell apart in May when the judge discovered that prosecutors had talked to individual grand jurors outside the courtroom and removed those jurors who refused to indict, as well as apparently overstating the strength of the evidence against the defendants. Then the prosecutors tried to hide evidence of their misconduct by redacting the transcripts from the grand jury.
…Reporter Christopher Mathias of MS NOW noted that while the Department of Justice is going after Minneapolis protesters, Greg Bovino, the commander-at-large of the Border Patrol during the Minneapolis crackdown that cost Good and Pretti their lives, has appeared on a white nationalist podcast as he teases a bid for the presidency.
Journalist Kat Abughazaleh, who is one of the Broadview Six, commented: “As the government raids “antifa groups” in Minneapolis with the SAME charges levied against myself and the rest of the Broadview Six, we need to be asking how they got this indictment. And as charges (hopefully) get dropped, we must remember the process is the punishment.”
But today’s charges have redirected at least some media energy from the details emerging about Trump’s “deal” with Iran. …
…
There is other news the administration would likely prefer to cover up, as well.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Kathryn Rubino @ Above the Law: Top DOJ Official Wanted A Cut Of The Trump Slush Fund
The Trump “Anti-Weaponization Fund” — the $1.776 billion slush fund the DOJ announced in May without congressional authorization, to pay out Trump allies including January 6 rioters, administered by Trump’s personal lawyer turned Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, potentially including a pardoned child molester — is, as of this writing, dead. Probably.
…
… Patrick Davis, the Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs — i.e., the DOJ official whose job was to sell the slush fund to Congress — quietly told colleagues in May that he intended to file a personal claim against the fund and asked to recuse himself from related work because he saw it as a conflict.
(Kathryn Rubino @ Above the Law more…)
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Brittany Gibson @ AXIOS: Federal inspector reports chokehold, pen stabbing at ICE facility
A surprise federal inspection found a prohibited chokehold, an officer who stabbed a detainee with a pen, and other issues that threatened health and safety at one of the largest ICE detention facilities in the U.S.
…- In one incident, an officer stabbed a detainee with a pen on his thumb after the detainee wouldn’t move his hand from a door opening.
- Another officer used a chokehold on a detainee, which is explicitly prohibited.
- Another detainee who wasn’t complying with orders was bound by five officers with “mechanical restraints and a suicide smock.” The incident was then not properly documented.
(Brittany Gibson @ AXIOS more…)
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James Eagle: Brexit may have cut UK GDP by 2% to 4%
(James Eagle more…)
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Miles Taylor: The president is waging a systematic campaign of retribution against people who’ve published anti-Trump warnings, according to a new analysis.
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Michele Hornish: A childhood story about what happens when you can’t absorb any more.
There’s an energy right now in the United States that reminds me of a story from my childhood. It’s one of those stories your family tells to give outsiders some insight into your character.
I was too young to recall the events, so I rely on their retelling.
I was a toddler, and my mother and I went to a neighbor’s home for a playdate. The neighbor boy and I were about the same age, and he had a big pile of toys for us to play with.
As the story goes, after getting settled I took a toy from the pile and went off to one side of the room to play with it. He crawled over to where I was playing, and grabbed the toy from me.
I didn’t cry. I just went back to the pile of toys and picked another.
But he took that one, too.
This pattern continued – with him taking a toy, me consoling/entertaining myself with another, and him taking that toy as well – until there was just one toy left.
I took it, and started to play.
Predictably, he took that one, too. And then, surrounded by the heap of toys he had systematically taken away from me, he began to play.
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t scream, or whine, or protest.
I just calmly crawled over to where he sat, lifted his shirt…
And bit him.
I’m not necessarily proud of that story, but as Timothy Snyder once said, “pressure forces choices.”
…Because to look around means to look at what they’ve taken.
…We are in a similar place.
There is one toy left.
The anger we’re feeling, the societal rage that’s palpable, the grief at what we thought was in hand that’s now out of grasp – it’s all at our fingertips. It’s energy sufficient to power a movement and topple a power structure.
Now we just have to decide what to do with it.
Let’s get to work.
(Michele Hornish more…)
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Jennifer Rubin: Trump appears unable to differentiate between what he wants in the deal and what Iran has agreed to.
Borowitz: Iran Agrees to End War in Exchange for Never Having to Talk to JD Vance Again
Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting
resources tracking the “Andes” hantavirus outbreak
Apocalypse Early Warning System
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
ICE Accountability Project
Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, Ximena Bustillo, Jasmine Garsd @ NPR: Deaths of migrants in ICE custody hit record high under Trump
- April 16: Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt
- March 25: Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano
- March 16: Royer Perez-Jimenez
- March 14: Naseer Paktiawil
- February 25: Nurul Amin Shah Alam
April 1 – Jennifer Peltz and Jake Offenhartz @ AP: Death of a refugee left at a Buffalo doughnut shop by Border Patrol is ruled a homicide - January 24: Alex Pretti
- January 14: Heber Sanchaz Dominguez
- January 14: Victor Manuel Diaz
- January 9: Parady La
- January 7: Renée Good
- January 6: Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz
- January 5: Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
- January 3: Geraldo Lunas Campos
- December 31, 2025: Keith Porter
Suffering Under President Obama
NACDL Criminal Case Tracker
Texas Tribune: A Walk for Peace: photos of Fort Worth monks’ journey to Washington
Walk for Peace – Dhammacetiya – The Ancient Sacred Buddhist Scripture Stupas
Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience
NPR: January 6, 2021: A visual archive
Accountability Initiative ICE List
GriftMatrix
Trump Action Tracker
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
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