Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! Your roundup includes: Trump breaks ground on the world’s tallest triumphal arch by tweet, and three Vietnam vets, a retired architectural historian, and Judge Chutkan object; Texas hospitals discover that Covid theater came with a bill, and it’s due this week; Florida bans illegal aliens from its universities and the faculty union helpfully writes DeSantis’s 2028 ad; the LA Times files two accidentally encouraging dispatches from the immigration bar; net migration turns negative for the first time since the 1930s, blackpillers unavailable for comment; and a critically important public service advisory about your helmet.
🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍
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Yesterday, the Washington Post reported, “Trump officials say work will start on triumphal arch within two weeks.” The New York Times reported it this way: “Trump to Break Ground on Arch Before Getting Approval.” Before you ask— yes, there’s already a lawsuit. It’s now up against a recent adverse Supreme Court decision, highly motivated DOJ lawyers, and President Trump’s patented light-speed construction calendar.
At Memorial Circle, at the threshold of Arlington National Cemetery, the Trump Administration plans to raise a 250-foot-high triumphal arch— the tallest triumphal arch in the world, one foot per year of Independence, towering 90 feet above Paris’s Arc de Triomphe, and 30 feet over Mexico City’s 220-foot Monumento a la Revolución (literally, “Arch of Burros”). Ours will defend the corridor between the Lincoln Memorial and the nation’s most solemn military burial ground.
The arch’s pale stone mass will be crowned by a gleaming Lady Liberty, emblazoned with the motto “One Nation Under God,” and guarded by two gilded eagles: an unshakeable guardian of gold and granite honoring the graves of those who never came home. Conceived to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary, the impressive structure would turn the quiet approach to Arlington into a resplendent ceremonial gateway, with a military observation deck high above the trees and the headstones.
So, of course, Democrats sued.
Sometimes I think the Trump 2.0 Administration is mostly a jobs program for progressive lawyers. Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over the criminal case against Trump for “election interference,” now has the Arch case.
The lawsuit was originally filed in February by three disgruntled Vietnam veterans and a retired “senior architectural historian.” They are represented and funded by a progressive NGO called Public Citizen (originally founded by Ralph Nader). They argue that the arch would: devalue a landscape and vista they enjoy using and value as veterans, shatter their “solemn experience of visiting Arlington,” and interfere with their Lincoln Memorial–Arlington–House sightline, a fractured view that would frankly give them the pips.
(Burgum described their “fractured view” as “the solemn vista of a barren traffic circle lacking any monumental treatment.”)
Representative Donald S. Beyer Jr. (D-VA) called the arch a “towering monument to Trump’s vanity.” (It won’t have Trump’s name anywhere on it. But never mind.) Rep. Beyer is himself a towering monument to special-ed dropouts.
Regardless, the nation’s capital is once again paralyzed by more aesthetic injuries.
🔥 The plaintiffs haven’t yet been able to get an injunction because the Administration hasn’t yet shoved its shovel into the ground. That changed yesterday, when Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum tweeted that the ground will break within two weeks.
Not everyone was pleased. “Mr. Burgum’s announcement,” the Times whined disconsolately, “suggests that the administration now feels empowered not just to disregard a lawsuit challenging the arch, but also legal requirements that it had previously committed to follow.” The article referenced a commitment Judge Chutkan extracted from Trump’s lawyers to provide the lawsuit’s plaintiffs with “14 days’ notice” before commencing construction, which Secretary Burgum just provided by tweet. She only said WRITTEN notice.
Neither WaPo nor the NYT said this part out loud, but the timing between Burgum’s announcement and this week’s Supreme Court decision is striking. Just three days ago, the high court eliminated standing for random citizens to sue the government over ‘aesthetic injuries.’ This has stiffened the Democrats’ anti-building problems. “The recent Supreme Court ruling, which allowed construction of Mr. Trump’s planned ballroom to proceed,” the Times wrote, “means that preservation groups could have a hard time achieving the legal standing to sue.” Maybe a little blue pill would help.
Democrat campaign emails promised voters that, if they retake the House after the midterm elections, they will sue to stop the president’s construction projects that have “bypassed Congress,” improved the capital, and once again imperiled democracy. In other words, a Democrat-controlled Congress would supply the standing that three elderly vets and the retired historian lack.
Isn’t that so 2026? Vote Democrat! Help stop the beautification of America’s capital and keep Washington mired in process lawsuits and festooned in red tape! Save bureaucracy!
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The chickens of pandemic excess continue coming home to roost and I, for one, am here for it. Yesterday, CBS reported, “Texas hospitals expect to lose $27 million a day in Medicaid funding starting this week.” HHS is dialing down the money spigot.
Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act included cuts to certain Medicaid payments to states. Secretary Kennedy’s HHS identified Texas as one of the biggest offenders, since pallets of federal charity money are finding their way to illegal immigrants and are being “taxed” by local governments— meaning part of the federal charity dollars are propping up Texas city and county general budgets.
Texas hospitals estimate that, as new restrictions come online this week, they stand to collectively ‘lose’ around $27 million a day, which is also called ‘spare change.’ Affected hospitals include Texas Children’s, the one that just admitted it had illegally continued providing transgender treatments to children even after Texas law forbade it. Under the settlement, Texas Children’s must build and staff a detransitioning clinic.
Beyond the fact that somebody in Washington is finally showing some fiscal discipline, all I’ll say about this heartwarming story is that it would never have been politically possible absent the way hospitals treated us during the pandemic. Big hospitals pretended to be overwhelmed so their staff could make TikTok dancing videos, earned billions in unearned profits from Covid “support,” and barred family members from visiting relatives— even when patients were terrified, incapacitated, disabled, or dying. And don’t forget their jab mandates for immunocompromised transplant patients.
One large survey study reported trust in physicians and hospitals falling from 71.5% in April 2020 to 40.1% in January 2024, while Gallup found Americans’ positive assessment of U.S. health-care quality fell -10 points from the start of the pandemic to 44% in 2024.
The medical industry is indispensable, but it is badly broken. Doctors and hospitals have a lot of work to do to rebuild trust, and as far as I can tell, they haven’t admitted it yet. The central hurdle is humility. They could start by admitting they were wrong. Until then, the public won’t feel much inclined to share our tax money with them. Cry harder.
They made their own gurneys. Now they have to be ventilated on them.
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Now for a huge immigration update. First, things are going a little better in the Sunshine State (which already resolved its disputes with HHS over Medicaid funding). Yesterday, the Orlando Sentinel reported, “Florida votes to ban undocumented students from state universities.” Boom.
Yesterday, Florida’s Board of Governors voted unanimously to ban undocumented students from the state’s universities, making Florida the largest state in the country so far to prevent illegal aliens from accessing taxpayer-funded higher education. The decision said that “a person who is present in the United States unlawfully shall not be eligible for initial enrollment in any state university” starting in the 2027-28 academic year.
You probably think that is just common sense. But as they say, common sense is not particularly common. Only four states are doing it. Florida joins Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina in adopting “prohibitive enrollment policies” that bar illegals from enrolling in some or all public institutions.
Don’t count DeSantis out for 2028. The Florida Legislature recently considered but then rejected similar bills that would ban ‘undocumented’ students. Robert Cassanello, the president of the United Faculty of Florida and an associate professor of history at the University of Central Florida, called the decision “another example of overreach” by Governor Ron DeSantis.
“They could be productive residents of Florida, getting advanced degrees or more education certificates and really contribute to the economy of Florida,” Professor Cassanello complained. Gulf Coast Professor Maria Barbero also complained during the public comment period. “It’s hard to reconcile how barring a whole group of students from public universities meets our mission and values,” she said. (Don’t ask what values.)
The Sentinel included zero quotes from anyone supporting the ban, which is odd since the Board of Governors’ vote was unanimous. But CBS reported Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, who said, “Florida taxpayers should not be expected to subsidize opportunities for people who broke our laws to come here.” Indeed.
🔥 Ready for more? Yesterday, the LA Times ran an unintentionally encouraging op-ed headlined, “Commentary: ‘It’s become a deportation mill’: A day in the life of an immigration attorney.”
The article began with a good news/bad news situation. Karla Navarrete is an immigration lawyer in LA, and business has never been better. But she’s not happy about it. “It’s become a deportation mill, and my clients have been placed on speeding rockets,” she rued. (SpaceX could not be reached for comment.)
The LA Times described Navarette, saying the lawyer sports “long acrylic nails” and her “biceps are adorned with a tattoo of her mother and one of the Virgen de Guadalupe as a Zapatista rebel.” I did not make that up. Most of her clients these days are middle-aged men, who usually choose deportation over the harsh reality of staying in immigration detention indefinitely. “It’s the younger ones who want to wait it out longer,” she said.
Attorney Navarrete called ICE “the arch-nemesis of my life.” (A different arch.)
“Almost none of my clients have a winning case based on current law,” she continued. “’¿Si pasan reforma? (If they pass immigration reform?)’ is their most common question. But it’s not just Trump. It’s Stephen Miller, it’s Congress, and it’s becoming the courts.” Finally.
Her firm is running 14-hour days with two staff shifts, but client results are not promising. “Now, everyone’s on the chopping block,” she added, “and people are becoming desensitized to this if they’re not directly affected. Every detainee becomes just another GoFundMe page to ignore.”
“When a millennial Latina asked about applying for asylum based on her sexual orientation,” the article explained, “Navarrete replied that the Trump administration would likely turn down her claim by pointing out that Mexico hosts Pride parades.” Touché.
“I can’t tell them it’s going to be OK. I don’t want to lie: It’s never been this bad,” she complained. (Meaning, it’s never been this good.) “I used to call my presentations ‘Know Your Rights’ workshops. Now, they’re just workshops, because there are no rights.”
Immigration problems even plague attorney Navarrete’s personal life. A member of her extended family faces deportation. Her (current) husband lost his green card when they moved to be closer to her job, tragically “threatening a long-planned trip to Mexico City,” the LA Times explained.
She planned to go without him if his visa problems continued. “He’s gonna have to stay here and babysit,” she said. Later, the article reassured readers that he did get his “stamp.” The kids are on their own.
🔥 Last weekend, the LA Times reported another accidentally encouraging story, headlined, “She used the Virgin Mary to attract immigrants seeking legal status. Now they fear deportation.” A federal lawsuit claimed immigration attorney Alexandra Lozano filed “fraudulent visa applications for immigrants based on false claims that they were victims of domestic abuse or sex trafficking.”
To say the least, the details about Ms. Lozano were extremely colorful. The lawyer called herself “the lawyer of miracles,” kept a shrine to the Virgin Mary in her law office, and printed the Ten Commandments on the backs of her business cards. She owned a pink private jet and now, the LA Times said, “nobody can say exactly where she is.”
Nearly all her clients now face removal proceedings.
As of this spring, attorney Lozano’s signature was on an eye-watering 53,923 pending visa petitions. She billed most clients up to $15,000 per petition. (Miracles are expensive; that’s half a billion of them.) She’s now surrendered her bar license rather than face the Washington State Bar. “It is probably the biggest immigration catastrophe that we’ve seen in the history of immigration law,” said Vicente Barraza, one of the attorneys suing Lozano in federal court.
Apart from the risk of debarment, immigration lawyers seem to have a pretty good gig. They get paid to file petitions and then to smooth out the deportations. Sometimes I think the immigration system is mostly a jobs program for immigration lawyers.
🔥 Rounding out the trio of hopeful stories, the Washington Times ran this intentionally terrific headline yesterday:
According to a preliminary analysis of government numbers released yesterday, President Trump has cut the illegal immigrant population by 2.3 million since he took office. Even better, the legal immigrant population is also down, falling by some 600,000 from January 2025 to July 2026. Behold this wonderful chart and its astounding projection through 2029, assuming we can keep Republicans in office that long:
But set the projection aside. The Administration has already smashed all previous records. This is the first time since the 1930s that the U.S. recorded a sustained decrease in net migration. Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, said that as a result, even the country’s overall population is likely to show a historic decline. “We’ve never seen anything quite like this before,” Camarota told the Times. “This is big and sustained, as best as we can tell.”
I’m fed up with the blackpillers. It’s absolutely beyond me how they continue complaining that deportations aren’t happening fast enough. What more do we need to see beyond anguished field reports like the LA Times stories? What more, exactly, do the blackpillers think could be done?
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Here is a critically important public service advisory that I never expected to have to write. A couple weeks back, the Associated Press quietly reported, “High school football player in Arkansas practices with a venomous snake in his helmet.” Not discovered. Practiced with.
The point is: If, at any point during football practice, your helmet appears to move independently of your head, stop what you are doing right away.
Do not assume mobile padding is a new safety feature. Do not ask whether the movement will improve your lateral quickness. And under no circumstances should an assistant coach say, “Let’s see what happens during full-contact drills.”
Because there could be a snake in there. Obviously.
We learned this important safety tip because last month, a Maumelle High School football player in Arkansas practiced for nearly an hour with a roughly two-foot cottonmouth moccasin tucked between the padding and exterior shell of his helmet. The player felt a strange movement, removed the helmet, and told his defensive coordinator, in the calmest sentence ever spoken under conditions that demanded immediate relocation to a neighboring county, “Hey, I think there is a snake in my helmet.”
This was not a metaphor. It wasn’t a rubber prank. The team was not installing an experimental reptile-based communication system. There was an actual venomous pit viper sharing the helmet, presumably studying the playbook and wondering why everybody kept yelling.
Diligent coaching staff promptly and carefully examined the helmet, spotted the snake wound tightly under the padding, dropped the whole arrangement in a plastic gear tote, and phoned Maumelle Animal Services. Athletic Director Kirk Horton described the staff’s reaction as “shock and disbelief,” adding without any exaggeration, “I’ve got a better shot at winning the lottery than seeing this in my ten years.”
This is a reasonable comparison, although lottery winners generally do not require animal-control tongs.
🔥 But Animal Services Director Chris Davis has apparently spent his career participating in a regional game show called Guess Where the Snake Is Now. He told KATV, “I’ve removed a snake out of a car vent, in the engine, purses, backpacks. In a helmet? Never.”
Notice the progression: car vent, engine, purse, backpack, football helmet. This is also the precise sequence by which most other people would voluntarily abandon modern civilization and begin living on a smooth concrete platform surrounded by floodlights and accessible only by ladder.
Upon arrival, the animal control experts could see the cottonmouth —Arkansas’ second-most deadly reptile— but their specialized removal tools (the “snake-grabber”) could not safely extract it from behind the helmet’s padding. So, thinking quickly, they submerged the helmet in water. When the snake came out for air, they quickly removed it and later relocated it to a forested area near the Arkansas River where there was no nearby football equipment. No snakes were harmed in the production of this article.
The student was evaluated, found to be unharmed, issued another helmet, and returned to practice.
This last detail establishes that our rising generation is built from materials not currently available to the general public. I can confidently say that most adults who discovered a cottonmouth in their headgear would retire from football, helmets, grass, Arkansas, and the great outdoors. This player changed helmets and got back on the line.
🔥 Until extremely recently, “check your helmet” meant looking for loose straps, cracked padding, or maybe a wayward insect. Horton told USA Today, “Coaches have always said ‘Check your helmets,’ but that is usually for bugs. This will put much more emphasis on that statement.”
Correct. There is a meaningful psychological difference between finding an ant and finding an ant’s fanged outside counsel. As a general rule, when inspecting helmets, stop immediately if it looks back.
Maumelle Animal Shelter issued essentially the same warning, minus the part about the padding looking back: “Before putting on your helmet, shoes, gloves, or any outdoor gear, always give it a quick check first. It only takes a few seconds and could prevent a very scary encounter — or worse.”
Amy Eoff, Maumelle’s lead animal-control officer, explained why: “Everybody should be cautious leaving anything outside. Snakes will curl up into anything.” That was not reassuring. She added that snakes generally do not try to harm people, but a startled one may strike if someone steps on it or puts it in a hat. “But of course, they’re fierce,” she added. Again, not reassuring.
The cottonmouth, of course, was the real victim. It did not maliciously infiltrate varsity athletics. From its perspective, it located a dark, quiet space and then endured an hour-long earthquake featuring whistles. Presumably, it too has learned a lesson.
So, now you know. No matter how much of a rush you might be in, even if Starbucks closes in 17 minutes, never skip inspecting your headwear for legless reptiles. And remember, this trick doesn’t work on lawyers. They don’t come up for air.
You’re welcome.
Have a fantastic Friday! After checking your clothing, get back here tomorrow morning for more C&C-style essential news and caffeinated commentary.
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So if the Demonrats take Congress back, and successfully halt the ongoing construction of the ballroom and the arch, won't that create "aesthetic distress"? Who wants to look at a stalled construction site for two years? If this happens, I'm a'gonna sue!!
I'm very curious about who is paying the attorney fees for the immigrants that visit Karla Navarette's firm (and who is funding her as well.)