Cliff Montgomery

I'm Cliff Montgomery, an award-winning freelance reporter, as well as the editor and publisher behind the news source The American Spark. I began work in "hard news" after a short stint in the late 1990's as a media consultant for the Sierra Club in Charlotte, NC. I've written for numerous publications, including AlterNet, The Washington Spectator, In These Times and Working For Change. From 2000-2007, I also worked as east coast political correspondent for 3 A.M. Magazine. My May 2003 article for AlterNet was perhaps the first to reveal the breadth of falsehood behind the second Iraq War, showing conclusively that the Defense Department knew years in advance that Iraq's WMD production had ceased by the early 1990's, and that any remaining chemical weapons were so "badly deteriorated" as to be completely useless. Among other recognitions and awards I've received, my biography currently appears in Marquis' prestigious Who's Who in America, as well as its sister publication Who's Who in the World. And I really am much nicer than I appear in my avatar...

[cliff-montgomery]

Dr. Fauci Rightly Remains Silent Before Biased Investigators

By Cliff Montgomery - Jul. 31st, 2026

Republicans are pretending to be upset that Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment during a GOP-led probe into the COVID-19 epidemic and the federal response to the crisis.

Now, there’s a few understandable reasons for Dr. Fauci’s lack of participation:

It is Dr. Fauci’s right to not say things that he knows may wrongly be used against him. The outright denial Republicans have exhibited about COVID-19’s very existence is well-documented - indeed, the American Spark is one of the news sources that documented their obvious denials at that time. When scores of U.S citizens and visitors were dropping dead from the disease - or becoming severely incapacitated after catching it - many in the GOP still refused to admit its symptoms and the full danger it posed to the public. At the height of the pandemic, they falsely treated the public health necessity of face mask use as a politicized personal choice.

Sen. Rand Paul - who has increasingly allied with Trump - has floated the idea that Dr. Fauci has surrendered any capacity to claim a Fifth Amendment protection. In 2025, the doctor accepted a pre-emptive pardon from Biden intended to block potential attempts to wrongly accuse him of crimes.

But Dr. Fauci, his attorneys and several outside legal experts agree that the pardon only covers acts the doctor performed before January 2025. Paul’s faulty analysis leaves out the possibility that actions the doctor performs after that time - like a 2026 testimony given to biased Congressional investigators, for instance - may be misused to wrongly convict him of crimes he did not commit.

So Dr. Fauci - and every other intelligent, reasonably-informed person around the world - already knows this is not a serious study into COVID-19. It is just another in a long line of political diversions about this disease, a mock “official investigation” in which the outcome has already been decided, and which only serves to tell the GOP’s deluded followers any lie they want to hear.

The Founding Fathers were quite familiar with such show investigations and mock trials. That’s why they created the Fifth Amendment.

“This amendment emerged from the experiences of the American colonists who faced arbitrary governance and unfair trials under British rule,” declares an informative article on the subject published by Schwartz Cohen Law, who serve as “top injury attorneys in Houston, Texas,” according to the firm’s website.

“The Fifth Amendment is a critical component of the Bill of Rights,” that “safeguards against government abuse and guarantees fairness in legal proceedings,” states a fine article from FindLaw.com.

“This clause protects the right to remain silent,” thus “safeguarding individuals against coercive interrogation practices,” continues the FindLaw analysis. [...]

Want to see the rest of this article? Then please check out the full story on The American Spark. Hope to see you there!

[cliff-montgomery]

Trump Wrong On Data Collection, Says Supreme Court

By Cliff Montgomery - Jul. 20th, 2026

Chatrie v. United States was decided on July 30th. The corporate media barely mentioned it, but the ruling firmly recognized that electronic data is constitutionally protected private information. This truth stopped cold a law enforcement action defended by the Trump Administration, that collected the information of private citizens held by a major U.S.-based business.

This decision may also drastically change the data collection industry - a business activity in which private companies often sell the information it holds on U.S. citizens and others to the highest bidder. Many times, that bidder is the U.S. government.

Chatrie v. United States may make such an activity a thing of the past.

Today, the American Spark is quoting the second part of the Supreme Court decision, which explains why Trump’s argument for data collection simply makes no legal sense.

On Saturday, the Spark printed the first part of that decision, which pointed out why the electronic data of U.S. citizens and others in the country are forms of information protected by the 4th Amendment. That amendment “protects individuals’ reasonable expectations of privacy.”

But the decision was not unanimous. Judges Alito, Thomas and Barrett argued against the decision.

“(3) The Government’s argument that accessing only a short amount of cell-phone location information does not count as a Fourth Amendment search fails. “[E]ven short-term monitoring” can provide “a wealth of detail about [a person’s] familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations,” […] and this Court has never understood Fourth Amendment protections as kicking in only once an intrusion ‘goes too far.” […]

“Where the Fourth Amendment applies, it applies regardless of ‘the quality or quantity of information’ the government obtains. […] That approach makes all the more sense when, as with Location History, law enforcement officials can select the time-limited set of materials they want from an all-encompassing database. […]

“(4) The Government argues that the so-called third-party doctrine precludes Chatrie from invoking the Fourth Amendment’s protections. The idea is that in ‘authoriz[ing] Google to collect, retain, and use’ his location information, Chatrie lost his legitimate expectation of privacy, and therefore his right to complain of a search.”

“But Carpenter refused to apply the third-party doctrine to CSLI, and no good reason exists to reach a different result for Location History. In Carpenter, the Court rejected application of the third-party doctrine to CSLI because such information is ‘qualitatively different’ from ‘telephone numbers and bank records’ [as] it is incomparably ‘revealing’ and is ‘not truly “shared” as one normally understands the term’ given that cell phones are ‘indispensable to participation in modern society. ’ ”

“Both differentiating features apply equally or better to Location History, which is even more ‘revealing’ than CSLI and is ‘not truly shared’ in the normal sense of wanting a third party to see or use it.”

“The exposure of that information to Google is merely what happens when a user avails himself of one of the services on his cell phone. The Government’s argument that generating Location History, unlike producing CSLI, is a voluntary choice is meritless. That argument ignores how and why Google users turn on Location History: Google repeatedly prompts users to turn on the service, often warning that devices will not ‘work correctly’ otherwise […] while not disclosing in that prompt how frequently users’ location information would be recorded how precise it would be, or how it might be given to the government.

“More generally, an app-by-app, feature-by-feature method of granting Fourth Amendment protection misapprehends the nature of modern cell-phone use, where nearly everything requires some kind of ‘affirmative act’ beyond ‘powering up’ a given app or service.

“The Government wishes to disconnect the activities people do on their cell phones from the mere act of carrying a turned-on cell phone (the thing that generates CSLI), with only the latter receiving assured Fourth Amendment protection. But the point of carrying smartphones is to use what is on them—as Carpenter said, to use the apps and ‘services they provide.’ ”

“Accordingly, a cell-phone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties—which then can be freely passed on to the government—just by doing the ordinary things cell-phone users do.”

[cliff-montgomery]

Supreme Court Explains Why Electronic Data Is Private

By Cliff Montgomery - Jul. 18th, 2026

Chatrie v. United States was decided on July 30th. The corporate media did not talk about it much, but the decision provided a clear recognition that electronic data is constitutionally protected private information. This truth stopped cold a law enforcement action defended by the Trump Administration, that collected the information of private citizens held by a major U.S.-based business.

The decision may also have a strong effect on the data collection industry, in which private companies some times sold to the highest bidder scores of information they had collected on you. Many times, that bidder was the U.S. government.

Chatrie v. United States may make such an activity a thing of the past.

Below, the American Spark is quoting the first part of the Supreme Court decision. It explains why the electronic data of U.S. citizens and others in the country are forms of information protected by the 4th Amendment, which “protects individuals’ reasonable expectations of privacy.”

Monday, the Spark will print the latter section that explains why Trump’s argument for the collection simply makes no legal sense.

But the decision was not unanimous. Judges Alito, Thomas and Barrett argued against the decision.

“On May 20, 2019, a man robbed a credit union in Midlothian, Virginia. Local police officers learned from witness interviews and surveillance footage that the robber had approached the credit union from a corner of an adjacent church while appearing to talk on a cell phone, but they could not find out anything more, and the robber remained at large.

“On June 14, the police officers applied to a Virginia magistrate for a geofence warrant directed to Google, which would require Google to hand over data about the cell phones located within a 150-meter radius of the credit union—the so-called ‘geofence’—near the time of the crime.

“The application described the cell-phone location data Google collects through a service called Location History, which records the location of a user’s cell phone every two minutes or so. The application also explained how that cell-phone location data could help identify the robber, possible accomplices, or additional witnesses.

“The warrant described a three-step process that the police would follow: at step one, Google would produce anonymized location data for all cell phones within the geofence 30 minutes before to 30 minutes after the robbery; at step two, officers would attempt to narrow the list, and Google would provide additional anonymized data for that narrowed list, consisting of cell-phone locations both inside and outside the geofence during a two-hour period surrounding the robbery; and at step three, officers would further narrow the list, and Google would turn over identifying information, including names and phone numbers, for users on the final list.

“The magistrate issued the warrant, and through this process, Google ultimately produced three cell-phone users’ identifying information, including petitioner Okello Chatrie, whose location data showed that he entered the geofence about ten minutes before the robbery and headed toward a residential area immediately after leaving the bank.

“Following further police work, a federal grand jury charged Chatrie with robbery and related firearms offenses, and he moved to suppress the information the police obtained from Google. According to Chatrie, the officers had acquired that data through a Fourth Amendment search, and the warrant ostensibly authorizing that search was invalid. The District Court found that the geofence warrant ‘plainly violates the rights enshrined in [the Fourth] Amendment’ but denied the motion based on the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.” [...]

Care to see more? Please check out the full article on The American Spark. See you there!

[cliff-montgomery]

Supreme Court Shuts Down Potential Trump Surveillance

By Cliff Montgomery - July 4, 2026

“For nearly a century, the Supreme Court has wrestled with the effects of technology on the privacy interests protected by the Fourth Amendment,” declares an article published Tuesday on Just Security that discusses a ruling that has upheld a citizen’s right to privacy in the digital age.

“That Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches or seizures of persons, houses, papers, and effects,” continues the article. “Yet it is undeniable,” states Just Security, “that technological advances enable the police to pry into formerly private areas in ways unimaginable to the drafters of the Bill of Rights.”

The modern digital age - with its near-ubiquitous digital collection of your most private information regarding your location, activity and your most immediate personal interests - may allow any interested party “to acquire private information without the type of physical search that would have been familiar to the framers in the late eighteenth century.” On occasion, those looking to gather such all-encompassing data may even include government officials.

Thankfully, “the Supreme Court has updated the Fourth Amendment to limit unrestrained police searches that draw on new technologies,” states Just Security, which includes “the vast amount of information accessible through smart phones.”

The article declares that “this week’s decision in Chatrie v. United States” maintains that realization. The Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment guarantees that government officials must prove before a judge that they are engaging in a reasonable search, and that normally those officials require a warrant that spells out what location data they may collect from a provider of computerized, digital services.

At the heart of the issue is the manner in which the officials obtained Chatrie’s location data. In order to discover the apparent whereabouts of people shortly before a credit union robbery, officials obtained a warrant that allowed them to grab and view the smart phone data of every user’s location within the general area of the credit union. The smart phone data - recorded by Google’s Location History - “records the location of a user’s cell phone every two minutes or so,” according to the Court’s ruling.

Shortly before the credit union robbery, eyewitnesses and surveillance recordings placed the apparent robber at “a corner of an adjacent church while appearing to talk on a cell phone.”

The warrant in question was employed to discover who was in the area during that general time frame.

“[T]hrough this process, Google ultimately produced three cell-phone users’ identifying infor- mation, including petitioner Okello Chatrie.” This ultimately led to Chatrie being charged with the crime.

The Supreme Court is allowing lower courts to determine whether the search warrant’s novel form of data collection is unconstitutional in any form. But it has flatly rejected the Trump Administration’s central claim that the data collected on all other smart phone users in the area was “a reasonable search and seizure.”

“The Government’s argument that accessing only a short amount of cell-phone location information does not count as a Fourth Amendment search fails,” declared the Court’s majority opinion.

It then quoted several previous Court rulings to further solidify its case. The ruling quoted previous findings which established that “ ‘[E]ven short-term monitoring’ can provide ‘a wealth of detail about [a person’s] familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations,’ ” and added that “this Court has never understood Fourth Amendment protections as kicking in only once an intrusion ‘goes too far.’ ”

As if the drive home its point, the recent ruling further declared that “[W]here the Fourth Amendment applies, it applies regardless of ‘the quality or quantity of information’ the government obtains.”

“The warrant issued here … was an uncommon, multi-step one,” declared the Court, “and the parties have contested the legality of each stage of the search process it authorized.” The Justices are allowing the Virginia “Court of Appeals to decide whether, at each step of the search process, the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of particularity and probable cause.”

Thus the Chatrie decision is a narrow iteration of government procedure, but its implications are enormous, especially with Donald Trump in the White House. In the ruling, the Supreme Court found that the Fourth Amendment demands government officials obtain a constitutionally valid search warrant to observe an individual’s movements.

Translation? Trump was denied the possibility of creating a government surveillance of every smart phone owner’s movements at every moment, without a hint of judicial oversight.

That would constitute some thorough bit of spying. According to Google, about 91% of people living in the U.S. own a smart phone - and, let’s add, they usually keep that phone on their person throughout the day. Therefore, this procedural decision quietly keeps Trump from maintaining a near-constant watch on the movements of most people in this country.

As Just Security succinctly pointed out, “the Court rejected that concept of a Fourth-Amendment-free zone,” by this ruling, judging that, “individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy about their location when tracked by their cell phone.”

The Bill of Rights doesn’t cease to exist simply because the information is digital. Those rights remain valid. At least for now…

[cliff-montgomery]

Iran Talks Show Trump Is No Deal Maker

By Cliff Montgomery - June 19th, 2026

After only one day, the Trump-Iran ceasefire is already in trouble.

“U.S.-Iran ‌talks in Switzerland planned for Friday were earlier called off as fighting flared in Lebanon,” Reuters declared today, “creating new uncertainty about the timing of negotiations vital to ensure the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping.”

So, depending on the time of day, the way the wind blows or whether Trump has seen his shadow, he may - or may not - honor his agreement to temporarily cease hostilities with Iran.

The tentative deal - with its official signing on Wednesday by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian - has at last been released to the U.S. public. It intends to halt aggressions between U.S. and Iranian forces, but will “attempt to resolve, within 60 days, the interlocking questions of Iran’s nuclear program and American sanctions that have long strangled its economy,” stated Time.

So, the agreement is only an official cease fire - and is not a peace deal, as Trump ridiculously claims.

“We are not and we have never been talking about peace with Iran,” declared Aaron David Miller, currently serving as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and who previously worked as a Middle East adviser for Democratic and Republican secretaries of state.

“No [post-Iranian Revolution U.S.] president has pursued peace, [or] normalized peace relations. This is just another round in a historical conflict of almost half a century,” cautioned Miller, “between Islamic Republic and various Republican and Democratic administrations.”

Nate Swanson, who worked as a top Iran policy advisor for successive U.S. administrations, pointed out why Sunday’s agreement is not a peace deal. In an analysis he penned for the Atlantic Council, Swanson wrote:

“[The Trump-Iran ceasefire agreement] does not appear to resolve the core issues” [that seems to be the basis for hostilities, such as] “the [final] mechanics of the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian nuclear concessions, or Iranian financial incentives and sanctions relief.”

But Swanson may have hit the main issues when he declared:

“To date, the United States hasn’t shown the patience necessary to complete a complicated nuclear deal that requires new monitoring and verification measures [for Iran].”

Then, Swanson added this kicker:

“Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei may not want to do anything beyond a small, transactional deal with the United States.” Why? Because of Trump’s “withdrawal from the Obama Administration’s [nuclear] deal in 2018 and the fact that the United States and Israel killed Khamenei’s father, mother, wife, and son.”

In 2015, the Obama Administration penned a deal with Iran in which the country agreed not to produce Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU), if the U.S. and a number of associate nations agreed to ease up sanctions on various items. HEU may be used for such things as medical research - but it also is an essential component of nuclear weapons.

In 2018, Trump suddenly withdrew from the Obama accord, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - the chief international body of nuclear weapon inspectors - declared that Iran was faithfully keeping up its end of the deal.

But since that deal was the only one keeping Iran from creating HEU, the country decided to develop HEU for medical purposes and scientific research, according to Iranian officials.

Therefore, Trump is the chief person to blame for Iran’s current store of HEU.

In 2019, a memo written by Sir Kim Darroch - Britain’s then-U.S. ambassador - was uncovered by BBC News. It declared that Trump’s withdrawal from the accord was a move of “diplomatic vandalism,” apparently only done for “personality reasons - it was Obama’s deal.”

“Moreover, they [i.e., Trump Administration officials] can't articulate any ‘day-after’ strategy,” continued the memo, “and contacts with State Department this morning,” appear to “suggest no sort of plan for reaching out to partners and allies, whether in Europe or the region.”

So the self-proclaimed “deal artist” looks increasingly incapable of maintaining a long-term deal, or even long-term ideas. One suspects that Greenland already knows this. So does Canada. The reason is simple: It’s impossible to strike a lasting deal with someone who can’t decide what what he wants.

His delusional supporters are notorious for seeing only what they wish to see in their “Great Leader,” and flatly reject all facts that reveal his true personality and lack of suitability for the presidency. For instance, they have convinced themselves that Trump’s inability to form a definite list of conditions for an eventual deal is somehow a “strength,” an “art of the deal.”

This delusion probably comes from the 1980s book, The Art of the Deal, a tome in which Trump effectively introduced himself to the world outside of the New York real estate business. The only issue? That book - which seemed to chronicle the business philosophy and magnetic personality of a dynamic, thoughtful man - was actually the creation of ghost-writer Tony Schwartz.

Most sources realize that Schwartz is the true creator of the Trump myth, for good or ill. In 2015, after Trump announced his first candidacy by claiming, “We need a leader who wrote ‘The Art of the Deal,’ ” Schwartz called him out on Twitter, declaring, “Many thanks, Donald Trump for suggesting I run for President, based on the fact that I wrote ‘The Art of the Deal.’ ”

Trump - who, as we all know, is quite litigious and has shown the emotional instability of the much-maligned “snowflake” when he is touched by even the lightest criticism - at first screamed bloody murder when Schwartz declared that he had created Trump’s entire dynamic image. Trump even sent a quick cease-and-desist letter to Schwartz, insisting that the ghost writer return his book royalties.

But Schwartz’s publisher backed the ghost writer, pointing out to The New Yorker that “Trump didn’t [even] write a postcard for us!”

Schwartz’s lawyer then trounced Trump’s claim on legal grounds, tellingly proclaiming that Trump’s cease-and-desist had “without any foundation in law or fact.” Schwartz has kept every dime of his earnings, and Trump does not appear to have pursued the case any further after that legal rejoinder.

And when someone shuts up Donald Trump, you know the “deal artist” no longer has a single logical fallacy to use in his defense.

[cliff-montgomery]

Trump Must Preserve Accountability, Say Previous Presidents

By Cliff Montgomery - May 30th, 2026

In our earlier post, the Spark offered quotes from a recently-released Congressional Research Service (CRS) report. On April 1st, 2026, Trump officials declared the Presidential Records Act (PDA) unconstitutional, and further claimed that “the President need not further comply with its dictates,” according to the study.

But that data are the only undeniable proof of Executive Branch activities - and thus, the only definite means citizens have of holding presidential officials accountable for their actions. If accountability goes, democracy goes with it. Thus, Trump’s claim is effectively a proclamation of dictatorship.

Below, the Spark offer a number of additional - but still essential - quotes from this important CRS study.

Ownership of Presidential Records

“Public ownership of presidential records was not explicitly provided in statute prior to the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act and the PRA. Previous Presidents, acting on the assumption that their presidency’s materials were personal property, would add the collections to family archives, university libraries, or other institutions.

“In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his intention to create a new type of facility to house his presidential papers in order to preserve and provide public access to the historical materials. At the time, these materials were considered to be the property of the former President.

“NARA notes that the 1930s were marked by a dramatic increase in the volume of presidential papers, leading President Roosevelt to seek the advice of historians and others on how to preserve such papers. In 1939, Congress passed a joint resolution permitting the Archivist to accept these materials from President Roosevelt as a gift ‘for and in the name of the United States.’

“In his remarks at the library’s 1941 opening, President Roosevelt commented o the importance of keeping presidential materials safe, stating his intention that the library serve as ‘proof – if any proof is needed – that our confidence in the future of democracy has not diminished in this Nation and will not diminish.’

“Similarly, upon the establishment of the Harry S. Truman Library under the 1955 Presidential Libraries Act, President Truman remarked that ‘[t]his Library will belong to the people of the United States. My papers will be the property of the people and be accessible to them. And this is as it should be. The papers of the Presidents are among the most valuable sources of material for history. They ought to be preserved, and they ought to be used.’

“Commenting on the importance of maintaining the context of presidential decision-making for the historical record, President Dwight D. Eisenhower observed that “[j]ust as no political program can be carried out in a vacuum, so can no record or history of that time be properly portrayed except with a background of the events and the times in which they lived.”

Although successive Presidents agreed on the importance of providing presidential materials for public use after the conclusion of an Administration, prior to 1978 and the PRA, the law did not provide a mechanism for inspecting the completeness of the records being gifted to the people of the United States.

“President Lyndon B. Johnson attested in 1971 that ‘[t]here is no record of a mistake, nothing critical, ugly, or unpleasant that is not included’ in the LBJ Presidential Library & Museum’s files. At the time of the LBJ Library’s establishment, the process of donating materials rested on an unspoken understanding that the former President would provide materials that would be of interest to the public. Three years later, this understanding was tested upon President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.”

[cliff-montgomery]

Trump Claims Right To Destroy Presidential Records

By Cliff Montgomery - May 30th, 2026

“On April 1, 2026, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum opinion for the Counsel to the President asserting that the PRA [i.e., the Presidential Records Act] is unconstitutional and therefore ‘the President need not further comply with its dictates,’ ” points out a recent Congressional Research Service study.

This simple, tyrannical declaration is clear: Donald Trump is attempting to legally proclaim his dictatorship of the United States.

The PRA was passed in the immediate aftermath of Watergate. After it became clear that Nixon may have been involved in an attempt to cover up the break-in at the Watergate Towers, Congress demanded all records and recordings pertaining to Watergate. Nixon attempted to claim before the Supreme Court that Executive Privilege allowed him to deny the records to Congressional review.

Investigators countered that the Constitutional balance of power overrode Nixon’s objections, since it was clear that the president may have committed impeachable offenses - and the only way to discover whether that had occurred was to have an unrestricted access to all pertinent data.

Without that necessary access, the president becomes a dictator who may act without accountability, and the American people become his slaves.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Congressional investigators. The evidence proving that Nixon was directly involved in the cover up was found in those documents. That discovery immediately led to Nixon’s resignation.

Now Trump pretends that he may destroy such records at will. Disregarding the fact that he has yet to realize the Supreme Court decides what is legal in this country, and not the president and other career politicians, Trump is arguing that the president has an absolute right to destroy all evidence that may eventually be used against him and others in his regime.

That documentation is the only undeniable proof of presidential and Executive branch activity. If that goes, presidential accountability becomes a thing of the past.

And where there’s no accountability, there is no democracy.

Below, The American Spark quotes some of most salient parts of of the CRS report.

“Presidential records provide Congress, members of the public, and researchers with documentation, context, and explanations for presidential actions. The Presidential Records Act [PDA] set forth requirements regarding the maintenance, access, and preservation of presidential and vice presidential information during and after a presidency.”

“Enacted in 1978, the Presidential Records Act established public ownership of records created by Presidents and their staff in the course of discharging their official duties.

“The PRA additionally established procedures for congressional and public access to presidential and vice presidential information and the preservation and public availability of such records at the conclusion of a presidency.

“This report provides context on the institutions involved in presidential record-keeping, explains what is and is not considered to be a presidential record, and identifies record-keeping responsibilities and access policies during and after a presidency. The report concludes with information and policy options for congressional oversight and enforcement of the PRA with respect to electronic records provisions under the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014.

“On April 1, 2026, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum opinion for the Counsel to the President asserting that the PRA is unconstitutional and therefore ‘the President need not further comply with its dictates.’ ”

“In response, several organizations have sued to compel the Trump Administration to fulfill the record-keeping responsibilities described in the PRA. On May 20, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia preliminarily ordered the Administration to comply with the PRA while the court hears the case.

“While the PRA provides similar provisions for records created by the Vice President, this report focuses on presidential records.

The Institutions

“The PRA governs the records of the President, Vice President, and certain components of the Executive Office of the President (EOP). The PRA specifies roles and responsibilities for the management and enforcement of presidential records policy to the President, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and DOJ.”

“The PRA requires the President to take ‘all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of the President’s constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented.’ The President is further directed to implement records management controls to accomplish these ends and may consult NARA and DOJ on how to best comply with the statute.

“NARA preserves selected government records, oversees record-keeping throughout the government, and makes government records publicly available pursuant to the PRA and other authorities. NARA provides advice and assistance to the White House on records management practices upon request, throughout a presidential transition and a presidency, and to former Presidents.

“The PRA details which presidential records and materials NARA is to assume responsibility for at the conclusion of a President’s Administration. The PRA requires the head of NARA, the Archivist of the United States, to consult with Congress and particular congressional committees on requests for the disposal of such records deemed to be of special congressional interest.

“DOJ provides guidance to the executive branch on how to comply with the legal requirements of government information policy, of which records-maintenance policy, including presidential records, is a part. Additionally, the Archivist and the Attorney General jointly investigate the unlawful removal or destruction of government and presidential records.”

Later, we’ll post part II of our quotes from this eye-opening CRS report.

[cliff-montgomery]

Trump Attacks Pope Leo on Iran Comments, Because Pope Is Right

By Cliff Montgomery - May 16th, 2026

Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war! Let paths of dialogue be reopened!

Pope Leo XIV, on Trump and his War on Iran

A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Trump is still attacking Pope Leo XIV for daring to disagree with his policy of conducting an unnecessary war.

Trump seems not to realize that his war on Iran has achieved nothing. After spending around $29 billion on a number of quick bombings and the declaration an immediate cease fire, Trump agreed to use an Iranian 10-point peace plan as a “workable basis” for talks. The plan gave so much to Iran that Trump started insisting that the actual plan serving as the basis for talks was not the one being publicly discussed by Iranian officials.

Regardless, a 10-point plan from Iran clearly served as the initial “workable basis” for peace talks between the U.S. and Iran. It was certainly a more comprehensive, long-term peace deal than what Iran offered in February, and - whatever its incarnation - it appeared to offer more to Iran than the proposal the country submitted to Trump in January.

All of which shows Trump’s entire military misadventure to be a useless enterprise. And the pope knows it.

It’s clear that the Trump’s misadventure has created economic chaos, and has also destabilized nations throughout the Persian Gulf.

He has uselessly placed the lives of U.S. troops, its citizens and a large number of Iranian citizens in potential jeopardy. Want an example? Trump’s bombing of nuclear facilities thought to possess Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU) could well have released dangerous radiation around the bombed sites, greatly harming anyone in the nearby area and making retrieval a hazardous enterprise.

And to top it off? Recent reports suggest that much of the HEU may have been moved by Iran to unknown, decentralized locations - making Trump’s bombings of the sites a dangerous waste of money and time, and perhaps making the Iranian bargaining power stronger with the HEU now kept at hidden sites.

Trump was pressed on why he bombed Iran when it was promising to provide international nuclear inspectors a full access to all sites, and promised to reduce all HEU to a low-enriched equivalent unsuitable for weapons use. Trump claimed the country refused two further, potentially illegal demands:

1.) That Iran give up all attempts to influence other nations in the Middle East region (essentially demanding that Iran cease all diplomacy and interaction with all other nations in its own region of the world), and that

2.) It completely ceases all uranium enrichment, even though International law declares they have a right to pursue peaceful nuclear programs as they wish, provided they follow the conditions set by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and give a full access to weapons inspectors.

“Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty,” declares Article IV of the NPT.

In short, Article I prohibits any member state from sending an atomic bomb to a state that does not have one, or of trying to convince that bomb-free state to obtain one. Article II prohibits those of a member state from actively receiving help on the creation of such a bomb, or assuming ownership of an atom bomb.

The Spark provides a deeper look into this matter, in a previous article.

There’s only one claim in this potentially illegal couple of demands that - at first glance - might seem to make sense. It’s buried within the otherwise bizarre demand to stop all meaningful local interaction with other Middle East nations. Trump wants Iran to end its support of all groups he decides are improperly “militant.”

The clear problem is that one man’s “militant” may be another person’s “freedom fighter.” It’s a value-laden definition, coming from someone who has a clear problem with values.

Remember how this man gave out presidential pardons and commutations of sentences for those involved in the highly illegal political violence and insurrection of January 6th, 2021, as if he was giving out candy? But then called a murdered U.S. citizen - Renee Nicole Good of Minneapolis, MN - a “terrorist” for simply watching and noting the actions of ICE agents in her city? She was turning away from an agent at the moment of her assassination.

Now, when a self-proclaimed ‘great negotiator’ was already offered all he had a right to demand from another nation, but declines the offer for reasons that only make sense to him, and then begins a war on that nation citing a series of ever-shifting, contradictory reasons, he may not be a great negotiator after all.

But if he then immediately calls for a ceasefire and proclaims that he’s already achieved ‘70% of his military goals’ even though he’s utterly failed his primary goals of ending Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities or of securing its highly-enriched uranium, which is now God knows where because it was all moved to secret locations before he started bombing – it’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

That’s why Trump can’t stand Pope Leo. The pope is Trump’s greatest fear – a highly intelligent, well-informed, moral person who’s been paying attention. He treated Greta Thunberg the same way, for the same reason. He hates anyone he can’t lie to or control – and he especially despises those who can easily point out, with facts and with clear language and common sense, precisely why Trump the fraud, is a fraud.

Trump once again proves that, if critiques are arrows, the only arrows that wound are the ones that hit the mark.

[cliff-montgomery]

Trump Forgets Nuke Deals With Iran Already Exist

By Cliff Montgomery - April 22, 2026

The war on Iran has proven one thing with crystal clarity: Trump is a terrible negotiator.

Trump claims his war on Iran was necessary. Yet he has not been able to explain – to either the American people or to the Iranians – precisely why war was essential. Fear of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, presumptions of covert activities, and claims of making free a tyrannized people have each been used as a sudden excuse for war, with no lasting explanation maintained for any length of time. Recently, Trump even roared that he would bomb the entire country so severely that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” – thus threatening to kill the very people he claimed he wished to free just days before.

At the end of February, Iran offered – via the Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Al Busaidi – essentially everything Trump has claimed he wants from the country, before the war began.

Note: If a perceived opponent is already offering everything you demand, there is no viable reason for a war.

You may, conceivably, perform a surgical strike on a single site, with as few people in the area as possible, to show you mean business if the other party is hesitant to provide a proof that it is following its promises. You then stick to a few basic, reasonable demands, so they know you are also reliable. But committing war on someone already at the negotiation table – who is already agreeing to provide you with all you have a right to demand – is simple stupidity.

Trump insists he’s a tough negotiator – never mind that the lack of logical consistency in his “deal making” has earned him the nickname TACO – Trump Always Chickens Out.

His method is as obvious as his orange skin. He makes a lot of sweeping demands, openly declares a host of legal and/or violent threats against the people he claims to be negotiating with, then chickens out at the 11th hour, quickly offering a delay of activities and new talks before he has to make good on those threats. But he’ll beg for a small concession with that delay, and hopes the other side agrees to the pittance, which is just a fraction of what he actually wanted.

If they agree to this rather meaningless concession, he claims victory and walks away. If they do not agree, he restarts the whole sad method and hope it works this time around.

Even his claims about the negotiations themselves reveal his weaknesses as a deal-maker. Trump claims he has obtained from Iran a pledge that they will not pursue the making or ownership of nuclear weapons.

No one at the Trump Administration seems to know that decades ago, Iran already pledged that it would never build or obtain a nuclear weapon. Nor has it realized that Iran signed two legally binding international treaties at that time, which turned those pledges into law and provided solid nuclear safeguards to boot. [...]

Want to read more? Read the rest of this report at The American Spark. See you there!

[cliff-montgomery]

Defining Congressional Oversight of Trump, Supreme Court

By Cliff Montgomery - Mar. 31st, 2026

Today, we release part two of a series of quotes from a publication of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), entitiled the Congressional Oversight Manual.

The current president has called himself a king - and why not? All too often, the Supreme Court sometimes acts as a simple rubber stamp for the presidency. That’s why the oversight power of Congress to watch and correct the other two branches of government has become immensely important.

On the 29th, we provided part one of this review. Below, we offer our readers part two of our of essential quotes from the CRS study.

Defining Oversight

“Oversight is an activity that can be defined in many different ways. For instance, CRS has defined congressional oversight as the review, monitoring, and supervision of federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation. This definition encompasses a wide variety of potential legislative activities and does not restrict the oversight function to particular purposes, goals, or strategies.

“The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 provides a more formalist definition by directing that committees:

shall exercise continuous watchfulness of the execution by the administrative agencies concerned of any laws, the subject matter of which is within the jurisdiction of such committee; and, for that purpose, shall study all pertinent reports and data submitted to the Congress by the agencies in the executive branch of the Government.

“This language could be taken to support a narrower view of what constitutes oversight that was common during that era. Today many observers would likely find this definition of oversight too limiting given the development of new channels for government information and public interest in accountability for public officials and agencies. Therefore, a slightly broader definition, such as the one offered by political scientist Joel D. Aberbach, might better reflect the modern understanding of the activities that make up congressional oversight.

“Aberbach defines oversight as:

congressional review of the actions of federal departments, agencies, and commissions and of the programs and polices they administer, including review during program and policy implementation as well as after the fact.

“The next two parts of this section introduce two additional frameworks that readers may find useful when thinking about the variety of oversight techniques and strategies available to Congress.

The Oversight Toolbox

“Much of the organization of the Congressional Oversight Manual is based on the idea that congressional oversight is a collection of tools and strategies that allow Congress to monitor the executive branch and gather information on its activities. This instrumental approach may make it particularly useful for identifying potential issues for oversight and developing and executing effective strategies for that oversight. In addition, while the Manual is oriented toward executive branch oversight, its lessons are also generally applicable to Congress’ oversight of other actors, including the judicial branch and private sector entities.

“For most practitioners, oversight is usually oriented to successfully investigating a specific issue or creating a general environment of accountability and transparency among Congress, the executive branch, and, ultimately, the public. Depending on the situation, it may be possible to achieve these goals through a variety of strategies, and their selection can be thought of as picking the best tool for the job.

Police Patrols and Fire Alarms

“Writing in 1984, political scientists Mathew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz proposed a model for organizing congressional oversight activities that remains a useful tool for understanding oversight as a practice. In their article, the authors define two broad categories of congressional oversight: ‘police patrols’ and ‘fire alarms.’

“Police patrol oversight occurs when Congress, on its own initiative, ‘examines a sample of executive-agency activities, with the aim of detecting and remedying any violations of legislative goals and, by its surveillance, discouraging such violations.’ This strategy involves regular and general oversight activity by Congress and is consistent with a classic understanding of legislative oversight being conducted directly by committees and Members.

“One example of this type of oversight is the agency budget hearings held on an annual basis by the appropriations subcommittees in both houses. Those hearings provide committee members an opportunity to question leaders about the performance of their agencies, plans for the future, and specific issues of concern.

“Fire alarm oversight, on the other hand, occurs when ‘Congress establishes a system of rules, procedures, and informal practices that enable individual citizens and organized interest groups to examine administrative decisions, to charge executive agencies with violating congressional goals, and to seek remedies from agencies, courts, and Congress itself.’

“Fire alarm oversight creates a system that fosters transparency and uses other stakeholders and experts to monitor more activities with greater depth than Congress could on its own. When potential problems are identified, the expectation is that Congress will be better able to respond by focusing attention on known issues and working from expert analysis that has already been conducted.

“An example of fire-alarm oversight is the 2014 response to disclosure of significant wait times for care in some Veterans Health Administration facilities and the deaths of veterans waiting for care on those lists. Media outlets (including CNN) as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General reported on these issues. Once Congress was aware of the severity of the issues, Members responded with broad, bipartisan investigations into the agency's performance and passed legislation seeking to address key findings.

The Purposes of Oversight of the Executive Branch

“Congress has engaged in oversight throughout its history. Investigating how the executive branch enforces laws, spends appropriations, and implements policies enables Congress to assess whether federal agencies and departments are operating in an effective, efficient, and economical manner and to gather information that may inform legislation. The expansion of the national government and bureaucracy has only increased Congress's need for and use of oversight to check on and check the executive. This ‘checking’ function serves to protect Congress's policymaking role and its place under Article I in the U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances.

[cliff-montgomery]

Congress Given Oversight Manual To Reign In Presidency, Courts

By Cliff Montgomery - Mar. 29th, 2026

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently released what - these days - is an essential publication: its Congressional Oversight Manual.

At a moment when the president openly refers to himself as a king, and the Supreme Court sometimes acts as if it is little more that a rubber stamp for the presidency, the power of Congress to behave as an oversight mechanism has become vitally important.

Below, we offer our readers part one of series of essential quotes from this report. Tomorrow, we’ll offer part two of our eye-opening quotes.

Congress's legislative role does not end when it passes legislation. Oversight is fundamental to make sure that laws are working as intended and are being administered in an effective, efficient, and economical manner. The information that oversight can bring to Congress is essential as the body grapples with the complexities of American government and society.

A fundamental objective of the Congressional Oversight Manual is to assist Members, committees, and legislative staff in carrying out this vital legislative function. It is intended to provide a broad overview of the procedural, legal, and practical issues that are likely to arise as Congress conducts oversight. This includes information on the mechanics of oversight practice based on House and Senate rules, common investigative techniques, and an inventory of statutes that impact oversight activity. In addition, the Manual discusses important legal principles that have developed around Congress's oversight practice. The Manual is organized both to address specific questions and to support those seeking a general introduction to or broader understanding of oversight practice.

CRS first developed the Congressional Oversight Manual more than four decades ago following a December 1978 Workshop on Congressional Oversight and Investigations. The workshop was organized by a group of House and Senate committee aides from both parties and CRS at the request of the bipartisan House leadership. CRS produced the Manual with the assistance initially of a number of House committee staffers. In subsequent years, CRS has sponsored and conducted various oversight seminars for House and Senate staff and updated the Manual periodically.

Over the years, CRS has assisted many Members, committees, party leaders, and staff aides in the performance of the oversight function, providing consultative support on matters ranging from routine oversight and basic information gathering to the most complex and highest profile investigations conducted by Congress. Given the size and scope of the modern executive establishment, Congress's oversight role may be even more significant—and more demanding—than when Woodrow Wilson wrote in his classic Congressional Government (1885): "Quite as important as lawmaking is vigilant oversight of administration."

Introduction to Congressional Oversight and the Oversight Manual

Writing in 1993, the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress defined congressional oversight as the "review, monitoring, and supervision of the executive and the implementation of public policy."1 This definition captures the functional core of Congress's oversight of the executive branch. Nonetheless, it is the beginning, rather than an end, of understanding oversight as it has been practiced since the First Congress. As outlined in this manual, the purposes, practice, and tools of congressional oversight extend far beyond the confines of a simple definition.

The Oversight Manual

CRS has published the Congressional Oversight Manual since 1978. In that time, it has been one of the most comprehensive resources for information on congressional oversight and benefited from the experience and knowledge of dozens of CRS experts and attorneys. Since it was first published, the work of Congress and the resources available to conduct oversight have significantly changed. For instance, the spread of interconnected information technology systems and the development of the Internet allow for more rapid and wide-scale collection and preservation of information about the activities of the government and have significantly increased the availability of that data to both the public and Congress. In addition, Congress has developed a wide array of management, oversight, and transparency laws that facilitate oversight, create internal controls within the executive branch, and bring more government data to the public eye.2

CRS's primary goal with the Oversight Manual is to provide an overview of oversight practice that is useful to congressional stakeholders with various levels of experience. For those new to the Hill, the Oversight Manual serves as a broad introduction to the rules and techniques of effective oversight and the array of options available to Congress and its Members. For more experienced hands, the Oversight Manual's broad coverage should make it a useful desk reference for existing oversight techniques and recent developments on relevant issues.

How to Use This Manual

The Oversight Manual is intended to be a guidebook for congressional oversight. To that end, CRS has organized the Oversight Manual for easy navigation from the table of contents.

A large share of the Oversight Manual is devoted to a technical discussion of the legal and procedural parameters of Congress's oversight activities and a survey of certain well-established techniques and tools. The initial sections provide a more general discussion of oversight, including its purposes and a high-level review of the oversight process.

This manual covers a wide variety of topics related to oversight, although it may not discuss every potential oversight issue or provide a precise answer to every question. This is particularly true when it comes to two topics that receive frequent attention. The first is what might be thought of as the "art" of oversight,3 including the selection of oversight priorities and strategies. Such decisions turn, in large part, upon the expert judgment of Members and committees as to how their time and other resources would be best spent.

The second subject involves potential ways to adjust the laws and chamber rules governing oversight. The Oversight Manual focuses on current oversight practices. CRS experts and attorneys are available to answer specific questions related to any aspect of oversight, to support specific oversight activities, and to discuss potential adjustments to the rules and practices that enable oversight.

[cliff-montgomery]

U.S. Failed At Regime Change In Iran Years Ago

By Cliff Montgomery - Mar. 14th, 2026

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Narcotics Anonymous, 1981

There seems to be a fair number of Americans who feel that Trump’s bombing of Iran and his occasional call for ‘regime change’ are just what the Middle Eastern country needs. But they forget - or refuse to recognize - that fruitless nation-building doesn’t work, as Iraq and Afghanistan proved to all aware individuals. In fact, they forget that, in 1953, the U.S. and Britain secretly backed a coup against Iran’s democratically-elected prime minister, and worked to establish a new regime more in line with their way of thinking.

They ended up handing the government over to a tyrant, the monarch Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and helped to build the Shah’s oppressive police force, the SAVAK, infamous for its torture and murder of citizens. These actions actually brought on the Iranian Revolution, which put the current regime in charge of the nation.

So if it’s now a mess, it’s due to the interference of two nations that did not understand the society they worked to change at gunpoint - and, as evidence seems to indicate, they never really cared about in the first place. They simply wanted to protect all of ‘Britain’s national interest’, i.e. every dime of profit, for British Petroleum (BP).

That ‘national interest’ was based on a lop-sided agreement forced onto Iran in 1901. William Knox D’Arcy led the creation of an oil contract with Persia (as Iran was called at the time). However, the nation did not freely sign the agreement, which much favored the British at the expense of the Persian people. Forced into the unfair “agreement” by economic and political weaknesses, the people realized they were essentially giving away a prime resource for almost nothing, while the Brits created the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) to handle its much more profitable side of the agreement.

The Persians were supposed to get a paltry 16% share of the profits - but APOC worked day and night to cheat the Persians out of that as well. According to Encyclopedia Iranica - which is edited at Columbia University and is called “the most renowned reference work in the field of Iran studies” - it seems that “a British Treasury official, Sydney Amitage-Smith, was selected to negotiate with the Iranian government,” over its concerns, which included a statement that it was not getting its small share of the profits.

Indeed, “the investigation [Amitage-Smith] initiated clearly found the APOC at fault for non-payment of full dues to Iran,” says the encyclopedia. The investigator also found that the British company had advanced “numerous unreasonable demands.” [...]

Want to read the rest of the article? Then go to the original post, published at The American Spark. You get the entire article, for free.

[cliff-montgomery]

Trump Still Can’t Explain Why He’s Bombing Iran

By Cliff Montgomery - March 9, 2026

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have joined together to bomb Iran. Their excuse? Iran has been increasing its stock of 60% enriched uranium, a level of enrichment that is most commonly employed for military purposes. Therefore it was bound to use this more powerful stock to create weapons.

The problem is that a 60% enriched uranium does actually have a number of specialized peaceful uses:

Digital Imaging For Medical Uses

A primary civilian use of a 60% enriched uranium may be found in the creation of medical radio-isotopes; this is especially true of Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99).

For instance, take the matter of digital imaging. Mo-99 breaks down over time to Technetium-99m - the preferred isotope of nuclear medicine, allowing the imaging of such organs as the lungs, heart and kidneys.

These days, it’s common for most countries to use a lower-grade uranium for such things - but the high-grade 60% enriched uranium ensures that more isotopes may be created with a smaller amount of material. In other words, the more powerful uranium may actually save Iran a fair deal of money in the long run, since the high-grade uranium may produce many more necessary images than the lower-grade material.

A full switch to low-grade enrichment would probably be a fairly expensive investment, and appears to cost nearly ten percent more than its high-grade equivalent.

That may be a vital issue for a country that has a sinking economy, thanks to the long-term economic sanctions placed on it by the U.S. and other nations. For instance, Iran’s per capita GDP has dropped significantly in just over a decade - from more than $8,000 in 2012, sanctions had slashed that number to about $5,000 in 2024.

It’s certainly more dangerous, but for Iran, a high-grade uranium may be the most affordable manner of providing those life-saving services right now.

Testing of Materials and Research Reactors

Some top-notch Material Test Reactors (MTRs) employ 60% enriched uranium for the purpose of engaging in up-to-date scientific studies and experiments.

The Creation of Neutron Flux: A 60% enrichment level provides a greater flow of neutrons, a necessary tool for discovering how radiation affects materials over extended periods (i.e., accelerated aging tests).

Basic Scientific Properties: These same reactors are utilized to discover the essential atomic qualities of matter, and to create new substances for nuclear engineering and the rigors of aerospace.

Also, a high uranium enrichment of 60% is needed for compact reactors that are designed for specific purposes. These would include icebreakers and submarines, where small size and massive, long-term power are primary concerns.

Such small, powerful reactors are also used in satellites and other spacecraft.

The highly-enriched forms of uranium also are used in what’s called “stepwise enrichment research.”

Producing uranium with a 60% enrichment is often used to verify centrifuge performance. It is also used to test physics models, such as the Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) tests, which study the manner in which neutrons transfer through various materials.

Lastly, let’s remember a little matter that’s not being talked about much: The Iranians were ready to give Trump and Netanyahu everything they had a right to demand.

“Oman’s foreign minister said Friday that Iran is offering to give up stockpiling enriched uranium,” declared the Hill on Feb. 27th, “as part of a deal with the U.S. related to its nuclear program.”

“Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi is serving as the mediator between U.S. and Iranian officials in Geneva,” added the news source.

Al-Busaidi added, in the event of a deal, multi-national nuclear inspectors might investigate and look at such nuclear facilities in Iran as the one in Isfahan, and personally review the stockpiles. It sounded like Iran was ready to give them all they wanted, to check any potential nuclear fears.

Trump ordered a bombing of Iran the very next day.

Al-Busaidi is not a fool, nor is he biased toward Iran. Both sides have agreed to have him mediate the Iran-U.S. talks. For years, he’s been known for his measured statements and sober analysis of tense situations. So if he says Iran was ready to make a deal, he has a proven record of faithfulness and trustworthiness.

Can the same be said of the Trump Administration?

The Guardian pointed out that when it comes to simply explaining why it began bombing Iran, “the Trump administration still hasn’t been able to land on one coherent answer.”

“Some contradict each other, and some contradict Donald Trump himself. Some – delivered hours apart by senior officials – are flatly incompatible,” continued the news source.

We may safely call such shifting rationales untrustworthy.

[cliff-montgomery]

Cost Overruns To Update Nuke Weapons Facilities Approach $5 Billion

By Cliff Montgomery - Feb. 26th, 2026

The U.S. is spending over $30 billion “to modernize the research and production infrastructure supporting the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile,” according to a recent report on the matter from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

But the projects are experiencing highly expensive cost overruns. The GAO has discovered that in just two years, the budget overruns have gone “from $2.1 billion to $4.8 billion” - and that much of the additional cost appears to be from the inadequate management and performance of contractors hired to build and oversee the improvements of these updated facilities. Increased costs of materials, equipment and vendors also played a part in the higher overruns, according to an expanded version of the introduction, which was posted on the GAO’s central page for the study.

Below, the Spark is publishing that expanded introduction to the report published on the GAO website:

Fast Facts

“The National Nuclear Security Administration [NNSA] is overseeing more than $30 billion in major construction projects to modernize the research and production infrastructure supporting the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile—a High Risk List item. This is our second biennial assessment of NNSA’s progress.

“NNSA’s major construction cost overruns grew since our last assessment in 2023—rising from $2.1 billion to $4.8 billion. And delays have grown, too, from 9 years to 30 years, as of June 2025. Management, vendor, and input costs all contributed to cost growth and delays.

“NNSA has implemented many of our prior recommendations but 8 remain open.

What GAO Found

“The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is overseeing the design or construction of 28 major construction projects—each estimated to cost $100 million or more—that collectively are estimated to cost more than $30 billion.

“Since GAO’s 2023 report, cumulative cost and schedule overruns have increased for NNSA’s portfolio of major projects in the execution phase (which have approved cost and schedule baselines). Specifically, as of June 2025, NNSA’s cumulative cost overrun for the portfolio had increased from $2.1 billion in 2023 to $4.8 billion, and the cumulative schedule delay increased from 9 years to 30 years.

“Two of NNSA’s 16 major projects in the execution phase—the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) Main Process Building and UPF Salvage and Accountability Building at the Y-12 National Security Complex—are responsible for about 80 percent of the cumulative cost overrun and 40 percent of the cumulative schedule delay. However, seven other major projects in this phase have incurred or expect to incur a cost overrun of more than 20 percent compared with their originally approved cost baselines.

“According to NNSA documents and officials, cost or schedule overruns for major projects in the execution phase were often associated with inadequate project management by NNSA’s Management and Operating (M&O) contractors; poor performance by vendors or subcontractors overseen by M&O contractors; or increased costs of equipment, materials, or vendors.

“Of the 12 NNSA major projects in the definition phase (which do not yet have cost and schedule baselines),

eight are either on hold, implementing design changes, experiencing design challenges, or assessing the effect of these issues on their cost and schedule estimates; and

four have identified critical technologies and have met milestones for maturing these technologies, according to project documents and officials.

Why GAO Did This Study

“NNSA—a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy (DOE)—plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in major construction projects to modernize the research and production infrastructure supporting the nuclear weapons stockpile.

“Senate Report 117-130, accompanying a bill for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, includes a provision for GAO to review NNSA’s major projects on a biennial basis. GAO assessed (1) the performance of NNSA’s portfolio of major projects in the execution phase, and (2) the development and maturity of project designs and critical technologies for projects in the definition phase. This report also includes summaries of NNSA’s 28 major projects.

“GAO collected and analyzed data on NNSA’s 28 major projects and interviewed officials. GAO analyzed information on cost and schedule performance for 16 projects in the execution phase. GAO also collected information on the status of design and technology maturity for 12 projects in the definition phase. GAO’s review excluded major projects that did not have approved preliminary cost and schedule estimates or were not subject to certain DOE acquisition requirements.

Recommendations

“In prior work, GAO made multiple recommendations to improve NNSA’s management of its major projects. NNSA agreed with most of those recommendations and has implemented many changes. However, as of December 2025, NNSA had not fully addressed eight of the 21 recommendations.”

[cliff-montgomery]

Trump Again Plans To Attempt Illegal Election Changes

By Cliff Montgomery - Feb. 20th, 2026

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.

U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 4, Clause 1

In March of last year, Trump tried to change federal election laws via executive order. He failed, as court after court correctly pointed out that presidents have no authority to change election laws.

Now Trump - who, with his advancing age, seems more and more incapable of learning from experience - has vowed to fail again if Congress will not cater to his delusions, and change the laws to suit his unfounded prejudices. His basic lie? The current system is being abused, He still lies to himself and others that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him - it wasn’t. Trump’s claims were investigated by over 60 different federal courts, and were judged to be without merit. Every. Single. Time.

When over 60 different legal experts - all from different persuasions and backgrounds - each independently look at your case, and every last one of them says your claims are completely without merit … your claims are without merit.

At this point, Trump is basically the senile man in the old folks’ home who is convinced that everyone he doesn’t know well is trying to steal his watch.

Trump is proving Marx’s verdict on history was right: History initially appears as tragedy, and reappears as farce.

So he’s aching to fail in the courts again. He must, since he is making it surprisingly easy to disprove his delusions of grandeur. His narcissistic delusions will not allow him to admit that a very unpopular president could ever lose a free and fair election.

With Trump and his minions, it has never been about what’s real. It’s all about what the senile old man can bear.

On October 31st of last year, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly declared in her 81-page opinion that a president does not possess the power to change federal or state election laws, for the self-evident reason that the U.S. Constitution openly declares that such powers only belong to Congress, and to the states.

“The first question presented in these consolidated cases is whether the President, acting unilaterally, may direct changes to federal election procedures,” ruled Judge Kollar-Kotelly.

“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes,” she added.

And where no authority has been given, none can be granted or assumed. Not by a Supreme Court that all too often caters to Trump’s increasingly narcissistic whims. And not by a do-nothing GOP-run Congress, that all too often steps aside to let Trump ignore the Constitution as he pleases. The clear, obvious truth on this matter is its greatest strength, and is the American voter’s greatest shield.

[cliff-montgomery]

New Fed Study Looks Into Use Of Force Oversight At ICE, DHS

By Cliff Montgomery - Feb. 10th, 2026

Now that armed officials working at federal departments like the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have begun shooting and killing Americans under questionable pretexts, people have begun to wonder: What polices - if any - provide an oversight into the use of force on American citizens when those attacks are perpetrated by ICE or other Department of Homeland Security officials?

Below, The American Spark quotes a report published earlier this month by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which releases non-biased studies on current events to members of Congress.

“On January 7 and January 24, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) were involved in shootings during immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis, MN, that resulted in the deaths of two individuals.

“These incidents have raised questions for policymakers including how ICE and CBP investigate allegations of excessive force, whether ICE and CBP officers are required to use Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs), and if there are any sources of data on use of force incidents involving ICE and CBP officers.

Use of Force Investigations

“ICE and CBP each have an Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). The ICE and CBP OPRs, along with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Office of the Inspector General (OIG), are responsible for investigating claims of serious misconduct and criminal behavior on the part of agency employees.

“OPRs are required to report to OIG allegations of

criminal misconduct,

serious, non-criminal misconduct (which is ‘conduct that, if proved, would constitute perjury or material dishonesty, warrant suspension as discipline for a first offense, or result in loss of law enforcement authority’), and

all instances of discharging a firearm that results in death or personal injury.

“If the OIG declines to investigate an allegation, the case is returned to OPR, which is to handle the investigation.

“Investigations involve collecting facts sufficient to make an informed decision about the merit of an allegation. A proposing official, which can be the supervisor of the employee being investi-gated or a panel of managers (known as a discipline review board), is to review the results of the investigation and make a determination regarding whether the allegation is substantiated.

“An allegation is considered to be substantiated when the proposing official determines that the evidence would lead a reasonable person to find that it is more likely than not that the alleged misconduct occurred. In substantiated cases, the proposing official is to propose corrective action, if any.

“A deciding official—which is usually, but not always, different than the proposing official—is to issue a final determination regarding corrective action.

“Employees in substantiated cases can face verbal or written counseling, letters of reprimand, unpaid suspension, demotion, or termination. Agency guidance and precedent regarding corrective actions taken in the past in similar cases are to shape recommendations for corrective action in substantiated cases.

“Proposing and deciding officials are to consider factors specific to the employee, related circumstances (i.e., aggravating and mitigating factors), and the type of misconduct when considering the appropriate penalty.

“For OIG investigations, if the Inspector General (IG) has ‘reasonable grounds to believe there has been a violation of Federal criminal law,’ federal statute requires the IG to report the violation to the Attorney General ‘expeditiously’ (5 U.S.C. §404(d)). […]

Use of Force Data

“DHS’s Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) publishes data on use of force incidents. In the most recent report, which covers FY2023, OHSS reported that CBP LEOs were involved in 472 use of force incidents and ICE LEOs were involved in 78 such incidents. During this period, 8 of the incidents involving CBP LEOs resulted in death, 10 resulted in serious injury, and 77 resulted in minor injuries. For ICE LEOs during this period, 2 incidents resulted in death, 9 resulted in serious injury, and 19 resulted in minor injuries.

“Currently, data are not publicly available that would allow for an analysis of how the number of use of force incidents involving ICE and CBP LEOs compares to the number of use of force incidents involving other federal LEOs. The Departments of Justice and the Interior (which combined with DHS employed 83% of federal, non-OIG LEOs in 2020) do not publish use of force data like those available from OHSS.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operates a national Use of Force Data Collection program that collects data on use of force incidents that result in death or serious bodily injury or in which an LEO discharges his or her firearm. Participation in the program is voluntary (61% of federal, state, local, and tribal agencies participated in 2025), and the FBI states that data collected by the program ‘offers big-picture insights, rather than information on specific incidents.’

“Use of force data published by the FBI cannot be used to determine the number of use of force incidents that occurred in one agency and how it compares to the number of incidents in other federal agencies.”

[cliff-montgomery]

E.U. May Deploy Economic ‘Bazooka’ If Trump Demands Greenland

By Cliff Montgomery - Jan . 27th, 2026

A few days ago, we discussed the $8 trillion that Trump’s wealthy American backers have tied up in debt and is funded by Europe, and the power that funding gives them over the U.S . economy - an important point in a potential trade war over Greenland. Next, we discuss the European Union’s (E.U.’s) economic bazooka that may be used, if it is needed, to protect the sovereignty of its people.

Though it's currently off the table, Trump recently decreed that eight European nations would be hit with an increasing set of tariffs, beginning at 10% on February 1st and reaching 25% by June 1st, unless these countries let him violate the nation of Greenland, by taking it against the will of Greenlanders and the country of Denmark. Greenland is rich in minerals - but if anyone decides if those minerals should be brought out of the ground for profit, it should be the Greenlanders who live there. not Donald Trump and his increasingly bizarre array of wealthy friends.

The potential tariffs would have targeted Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, the U.K, Finland and the Netherlands. The charges would have been added to already existing tariffs for goods those countries send to the U.S. The U.K. now deals with a 10% tariff, while the E.U. deals with a tariff at 15%.

European diplomats appear to have finally had enough of these threats, and recently held an emergency discussion in Brussels to weigh their best and most appropriate responses to Trump’s tariff blackmail. France appeared to be taking the lead among those countries ready to finish the blackmailer once and for all. That country is aching to use the E.U.’s “bazooka” option, a counter designed to deal with economic blackmailers like Trump, a policy known as the “Anti-Coercion Instrument” (ACI).

The ACI is far more pervasive than a typical tariff, which only places extra duties on physical products sold in a marketplace. The ACI appears to do that as well, but it also places duties and outright bans on services and intangible assets.

European council data reveal that the 2024 trade totals between the E.U. and the U.S. came to 1.68 trillion euros ($1.97 trillion). The E.U. did have the greater number of physical products to trade - but the U.S. offered much more in services and financial assets,which are usually not normally targeted by tariffs. But the ACI seems tailor-made to counter Trump’s tariff blackmail, since it would either place tariffs on - or completely ban - those services and financial assets as well. This may hammer the finances of some of Trump’s key wealthy supporters, say French officials and others keen on using the weapon against the blackmailer-in-chief.

The E.U.’s own webpage on this weapon shows it is tailor-made to deal with someone like Trump:

The ACI is a response to the rising problem of economic coercion, and aims to protect the interests and sovereign choices of the Union and its Member States. It provides a means to act in situations where a non-EU country unduly interferes in the policy choices of the Union or its Member States by applying or threatening to apply measures affecting trade or investment.

The primary objective of the ACI is deterrence. The instrument will, therefore, be most successful if there is no need to use it.

Nevertheless, if a third country resorts to coercion, the ACI provides a way to respond to coercion. The instrument allows the Union to formally identify instances of economic coercion and to respond, where possible through dialogue and engagement, but also – as necessary – through response measures.

The ACI provides a framework for the Union to pursue reparations for the injury caused by the economic coercion.

At the same time, the instrument strengthens international coordination of efforts to deal with economic coercion by plugging into international frameworks to respond to coercion.

But will Europe stand together, and use the weapon designed to counter and economically ruin the Trump Administration, if it must? Will they effectively pull the trigger and stop Il Douche at his Munich? Or will they prove to be a horde of Neville Chamberlains, who are born for appeasement and are only ready to fight when it’s much too late?