News Worth Knowing (which you may have mssed) #4

“News Worth Knowing (which you may have missed)” is one of the regular features of our weekly 1-hour lunchtime vigil downtown. This one involves me taking about 5-7 minutes reporting on a few things which are outside the main headlines but which I think are still worth some attention. I’ve taken to posting those things here for whatever additional attention they get. So here is edition #4, a bit longer than usual but still, I hope, worth the read. Comments are always welcome.

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Being arch about “The Arch”

I got a notice about the National Park Service taking public comments on the DC “Arch” desired by The Orange Overlord. So I thought I’d get in on the fun and submit a comment. This was it:

I write in opposition to the proposed “Triumphal Arch at Memorial Circle.”

Contrary to the description, this proposed arch celebrates not our founding principles but rather a parody of them. It is “monumental” for the sake of being monumental, its size substituting grandeur for grace, expansiveness for elegance.

It is, to put it simply, big just for the sake of being big, not for any artistic or even memorializing purpose; it’s an expression not of national pride but of national pridefulness.

Which is why it seems oddly appropriate that the proposal is “drawing on the historic Roman precedent of erecting freestanding arches,” that is, reaching back to a time of emperors and empires, of “bread and circuses” and gladiatorial contests to find inspiration for architecture as well as for fights on the White House lawn.

It is particularly improper for this latest outgrowth of Donald Trump’s desperate desire to be remembered as someone of oversized importance to be intended as an entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, where if it has any effect at all it will be to disrupt and distract from the solemn air, the contemplative atmosphere, of the site.

If it is to be built anywhere, let it span some side avenue somewhere, where it can, in time, come to be seen like the monuments and arches peppering London, as a pretty but ultimately quaint and otherwise unimportant reminder of times when some leader’s sense of self-importance outran their self-awareness.

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This is a feel-good one

Todd Blanch (not a typo; the thought of him makes me go pale) said in April that the Epstein files “should not be a part of anything going forward.” In other words, “Get over it.”

Well, one of Jeffy’s estates was a place called Zorro Ranch in New Mexico - and the people of New Mexico are apparently not willing to get over it.

A small bipartisan commission headed by state Rep. Andrea Romero is going after not just abusers but those who enabled them.

The commission, which has a $2 million budget, has now issued 14 subpoenas to targets ranging from Epstein’s estate through local law enforcement and state officials, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase, up to the FBI and the DOI (Department of Injustice).

Meanwhile, state authorities have reopened a criminal investigation that was closed in 2019 at the request of the DOI and searched the ranch in March.

No big media splash, no self-promoting puffery, just a state commission doing the work the minions of TOO were too corrupted, cowardly, or contemptuous of others’ pain to undertake.

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Taking action

The 2027 National Defense Authorization Act - NDAA - is coming to the Senate floor.

One provision, section 224, would set about “synchronizing cooperative efforts” in military research and integration between the US and Israel, essentially aiming to intertwine the two militaries, which would decrease any leverage the US has over Israel (not that we’re using what we have) while increasing leverage Israel has over the US by making the US at least partly reliant on Israeli military technology.

There will be moves to strip section 224 - which may have been renumbered as section 219 in later versions - from the bill.

I’m confident that in my home state of New Jersey we can count on Senator Kim and probably Senator Booker to support those moves. (”Probably” because Booker’s refusal to oppose arms to Israel, acceptance of AIPAC money, and persistent referral to the slaughter and devastation of Gaza in the passive voice as if it is a natural disaster with no human agent - that is, the IDF - involved give me reason to doubt.)

However, they made need some pushing to commit to - in the event those moves fail - opposing the NDAA in full - which, in fact, they should anyway.

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Home Sweet Homeless

In the first weeks of The Orange Overlord take two, on February 7, 2025, HUD Sec Scott Turner said the agency would stop enforcing the 2016 Equal Access Rule, which requires services funded by HUD to have equal access to programs for individuals based on their gender identity.

Now he’s announced a proposed formal federal rule change, formalizing and institutionalizing the anti-trans bigotry they’ve been practicing so far.

The rule would apply to all HUD programs and would allow providers of services, including housing and shelters, to demand “assurances or evidence” to confirm the stated sex of the person matched their birth certificate with no regard to their gender.

Public comments can be submitted through June 29 at:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/28/2026-08244/equal-access-to-housing-in-hud-programs-revisions

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And there is always more to do

TOO and the noxious goo of acolytes, toadies, and grifters that make up his maleficent maladministration have decided to go all in on their hatred of trans people.

They have proposed a new federal rule regarding the distribution of all discretionary federal funds and grants across all agencies - “discretionary” meaning anything not set by law.

Centrally, it requires that before a grant recipient can get any money they have to go through a “pre-issuance review” done by a political appointee who is explicitly instructed to look for any sign of a “denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans” or support for “the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic,” with “sex” and gender being declared as identical - which they decidedly are not.

Note well: They are not examining the grant in question, they are examining the entire organization requesting it.

So any institution that acknowledges in any way, even indirectly, that transgender people, or nonbinary people, or gender-diverse people exist - maybe it has a DEI policy, maybe healthcare coverage includes gender care, maybe it allows trans restroom access or sports participation, anything at all - could be deemed to “deny the sex binary” and so denied funding.

Hell, it’s easy to imagine a university looking for a grant for a new gymnasium being rejected on the grounds of promoting “gender ideology” because its medical school has a class on human sexuality that includes a section on gender being on a spectrum - because remember, it’s the whole organization, not the grant request, that’s on trial.

What they’re proposing, in short, is that federal funding be available only to those people and institutions who are prepared to actively behave as if trans folks literally do not exist. Don’t mention them, even by suggestion, even indirectly, even from areas unrelated to the funding. Erase them entirely from archives, historical records, even, it would appear, from casual language or offhand reference - or risk losing all federal funding.

Oh, and be sure to act fact, because the same proposal includes means to cancel any existing grants.

This is more than draconian, more than diabolical. It is outright evil.

Comments can be submitted through July 13 at

https://www.regulations.gov/document/OMB-2026-0034-0001

and be assured I’ll bug you about this every week until then.

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A revealing footnote to that

During a press event at the Oval Office on Thursday, in the middle of a long, rambling response to a question about the voter-suppression SAVE Act, TOO went off about “mutilization of your children for transgender purposes” (No, you’re not wrong; there is no such word as “mutilization.”) and that there are six states where “they take your child from you do what they want to do,” which is “transgender mutilization.”

The next question was not a follow-up, nothing about “which six states.” Rather, it was another reporter asking about US intelligence staffing.

And so the normalization of this man’s descent into paranoid delusion continues apace while another lie about trans folks goes unchallenged.

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The White House lawn isn’t the only place where there are fights

Finally some encouraging news, as the courts show there’s still fight in the legal system, especially at the district court level.

Last July, ICE instituted an unprecedented policy of mandatory detention without bond of anyone they said was undocumented. Formerly, that had only been applied to those caught crossing the border; now it was to be applied to everyone, no matter where in the US they were found or how long they have lived here.

As a result, thousands of immigrants filed suit to be released based on improper detention, that ICE was misapplying the law - which it was - and the vast majority of them won.

That is, until February 6, when the extreme right-wing 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed that overwhelming rejection of ICE’s new policy and upheld the mandatory detention scheme.

So what happened? Judges in the 5th Circuit switched from addressing claims of not following the law to addressing claims of a denial of due process, and continued setting people free.

According to data gathered by Politico, since the February ruling, District judges in the circuit have ordered bond hearings or release of detainees more than 1,200 times on due process grounds - that’s nearly 60% of all immigration detention rulings on all bases in the 5th Circuit since Feb. 6.

What’s more, overall, across all circuit courts and again according to Politico, since the new policy went into effect last July, there have been rulings in at least 15,100 immigration cases - and the Whitest House has lost at least 13,300 of them, a loss rate of 88%.

Finally, while the 8th Circuit agreed with the 5th, the circuit courts of the 2nd, 4th, and 6th Circuits have all reached the opposite conclusion, which means it will at some point be at SCOTUS. Which is potentially bad news but you have to wonder if there’s a point where when decisions of the district courts are so overwhelmingly on one side and are supported by a majority of the circuit courts that have ruled on the matter that even this court not dismiss them.

Keep hope alive. And keep on keepin’ on.

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You have the best week you possibly can and we’ll see you then.

Remember, comments and reactions are always welcome.