Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., questioned acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about the Justice Department’s new “Anti-Weaponization Fund” on Tuesday in a hearing before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.
On Monday, the Justice Department announced an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of a settlement with Trump to end a lawsuit against the IRS over the leaking of his tax returns. The $1.7 billion fund would offer payouts to Trump allies who claim they had been unfairly targeted by the Justice Department under the Biden administration.
Government watchdogs and Democratic lawmakers blasted the creation of the fund as corruption, saying it could reward – with taxpayer money – people who had helped storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, among others.
Murray asked Blanche whether he thought it was appropriate for President Donald Trump to use Americans’ “tax dollars to set up a slush fund to enrich his own friends.”
She noted the economic pressures of inflation and gas prices, which have been on the rise for months due to the U.S. war in Iran.
Blanche disagreed with Murray’s characterization of the fund, but Murray doubled down.
“I just have to tell you, this is corruption that has never been more blatant,” Murray said.
“What is happening is, you write the check, Trump and his cronies cash it. American taxpayers, who are already being whacked with high prices, are gonna foot the bill. That's what we are seeing today," she added.
Blanche was invited to testify on Trump’s 2027 budget request for the Justice Department, but faced questions on a number of issues.
Look at the left image. That's 1877. The darkest red represents ocean temperatures so far above average that the resulting famine killed 3-4% of the entire global population.
The right image is May 2026.
This is not a drill.
NOAA has now placed the probability of a Super El Niño forming by winter at over 95%. Climate models show central Pacific temperatures potentially exceeding 3°C above average, a level not seen since that 1877 event. The ECMWF's May update has moved to 100% probability of a super El Niño forming by November.
What the last major events actually cost:
The 1982-83 El Niño: $4.1 trillion in global economic losses, measured over five years. Catastrophic floods across South America. Devastating droughts across Africa and Asia.
The 1997-98 El Niño: $5.7 trillion in global income losses. 16% of the world's coral reefs died. Air temperature spiked 1.5°C above normal. El Niño-fueled wildfires contributed to thousands of premature deaths from air pollution.
The 2015-16 El Niño: 100,000 deaths linked to fires and air pollution alone, according to Harvard researchers. $3.9 trillion in economic damage.
Now add climate change on top.
The planet is already at record temperatures. The last decade was the hottest on record. El Niño doesn't cause global warming, but it releases stored ocean heat into the atmosphere, sending global temperatures even higher. Scientists warn this event could push global average temperatures past 1.7°C above pre-industrial levels, potentially shattering the Paris Agreement targets in real time.
This isn't about weather. It's about food security, infrastructure, human lives, and an economic shock arriving at a moment when the world is already stretched thin.
We need to prepare. And not just locally.
A Super El Niño doesn't respect borders. The crop failures happen in one hemisphere, the food price spikes happen everywhere. The floods destroy infrastructure in Southeast Asia, the supply chain disruptions hit Europe and North America months later. The droughts in Africa drive migration that reshapes political systems worldwide.
Preparation means early warning systems, international food reserves, coordinated disaster response, and governments that actually take climate forecasts seriously before the disaster, not after. The 1877 event killed tens of millions partly because no one saw it coming and no one was coordinating a response. We have the science now. The question is whether we have the political will.
Operation Epic Fury was obviously designed to capitalise on CIA and Mossad funded and supported and use the shock and awe tactics of mass bombing Tehran and the military assets of Iran to collapse the IRGC and Ayatollahs regime and with guidance from the western intelligence community, install a puppet or friendly government (numerous military figures from the US and Secretary of War Hegseth states as much the goal was to allow a friendly government to take shape and as evidenced by the western media parading around former Shah Reza Pahlavi).
However the US underestimated the unity of the IRGC, its allies willingness to help, and its own capability to trot out the regime + coup change it’s used in the past and Irans ability to close the SoH and use it as a weapon. This falls against key US military doctrine that advises commanders to accurately understand the enemies Morale, strength and disposition of strength and assumed that overwhelming force would be enough against a country planning asymmetric warfare for the past 40 years and also was unable to understand the scale and severity of the global economic implications (yes men don’t make good leaders eg. Hegseth, Rubio etc)
Therefore the US has shifted to operation freedom as an attempt to remedy Irans leverage economically and use negotiations to secure temporary wins while regaining an operational tempo to figure out a fix to Epic Fury (again failing to understand that Iran has strong ideological backing from within to keep fighting as long as possible). US Intelligence now indicates that Iran has been repositioning its remaining drone and military assets.
All in all what is likely next is an attempt of limited military action against Kharg Island, Further air strikes against Irans oil capacity all in an attempt to force some surrender and semblance of victory.
However the US again is left in a dilemma where it can’t pursue ALL of its initial stated goals and objectives, whether it be total regime change (essentially out of the question), de-nuclearisation or Iran (now not happening without total regime change or significant and extremely difficult operations to destroy their nuclear supply chain and enrichment) or even to militarily neuter Iran into a failed state which even that is not happening without achievable but dangerous, extremely unpopular and expensive air and naval strikes on Iranian oil, military and civilian infrastructure which even that would create significant instability in the region and be a significant radicalising force that would severally hurt the US in the short-medium term and be its undoing in the Middle East in the immediate to long term.
Ultimately the US created its own demise here with decades of interference in Iran and the Middle East (and wider world) and completely failed to understand their own standing in the world after years of forever wars, isolating allies and completely neglecting their own domestic situation.
Palantir’s software tracks almost every aspect of your daily life by gathering and linking your most personal information. The platform connects your financial transactions, medical records, social media activity, location history, and biometric data into one single profile. This means the system can trace where you go, what you buy, who you talk to, and what you post online. By pulling all of these separate pieces together, it creates an ongoing, highly detailed digital map of your entire life without you ever knowing.
Using this intense tracking in military and police operations turns everyday data into a tool for automated control. When algorithms analyze your life history to predict crimes or flag threats, any software glitch can cause life-altering mistakes. Over time, government agencies become completely dependent on this private software to manage public safety. This reliance hands total control of public tracking over to a single private corporation, locking the government into a system that constantly watches everyone.