NO PAROLE: Erik Menendez, one of the notorious brothers who shot-gunned their Los Angeles parents in 1989 when he was just 18, was denied parole yesterday by a board that said he continued to commit violations in prison and is a danger to the public.

  His brother Lyle goes before the board today.

  Menendez was accused of illegally using cellphones, drug smuggling, and tax fraud in prison.  “I believe in redemption or I wouldn’t be doing this job … but based on the legal standards, we find that you continue to pose an unreasonable risk to public safety,” Parole Commissioner Robert Barton said.

  Barton concluded that Erik Menendez was not in “imminent fear” for his life before the murders, as the brothers have claimed. 

  Barton also said he found the execution of their mother, Kitty, to show Menendez “devoid of human compassion.”

  The brothers were originally sentenced to life without parole, but re-sentenced this year to 50 years with the chance for parole because they had been sexually abused by their father.

RAIDED: FBI agents early this morning raided the DC-area home of President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton in what’s being described as a national security investigation.

  Federal agents hit Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Maryland at 7 am. “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a cryptic post to Twitter/X.  

  Bolton has been a critic of Trump and his administration appearing frequently on CNN.

FRAUD WITHOUT FINE: A New York appeals court yesterday upheld the civil fraud finding against Donald Trump but threw out the half billion dollar penalty as excessive.

  “While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award to the state,” wrote Judge Peter Moulton in a ruling that had deep disagreement within the five-judge panel.

  A Manhattan judge found that Trump had committed fraud by overstating the value of his real estate for purposes of obtaining loans and insurance.

  Trump claimed total victory. And in Trumpian distortion of fact, lawyer Alina Habba, who had represented Trump in the case and is now the acting US Attorney in New Jersey, said the decision confirmed “what we have said from the beginning: The attorney general’s case was politically motivated, legally baseless and grossly excessive.”

  The appeals court made no such determination. It preserved the determination that Trump, who is also a convicted felon, committed financial fraud. 

WITHOUT AUTHORITY: Speaking of Alina Habba, a federal judge ruled yesterday that she has carried on as acting US attorney in New Jersey without authority for more than a month. Judge Matthew Brann in Pennsylvania wrote, “She must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases.”

  He paused his own ruling for appeal.

  President Trump appointed Habba to a 120-day term as interim US attorney. When that expired, a panel of federal judges declined to extend her tenure and tapped  veteran prosecutor, Desiree Grace, to head the office. Attorney General Pam Bondi promptly and publicly insulted the authority of  the judges, fired Grace and  elevated Habba to the role of acting US attorney.

LA MIGRA: A federal judge ruled that President Trump’s vaunted “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention center in Florida must close, striking a blow to the administration’s mass deportation efforts and “get tough” approach to illegal immigration.

  The center was put up in just eight days on an abandoned airstrip in the middle of the Florida Everglades and has been the subject of allegations about abuse,  assaults, groping, and generally inhumane living conditions. It has giant cages that hold up to 38 people.

  But the ruling was not based on conditions, it was on environmental grounds. The judge found that Alligator Alcatraz, located in Big Cypress National Preserve, poses “myriad risks” to its sensitive surroundings.

REGIME NEWS:

— The Trump administration can slash hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of research funding in its push to cut federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, the Supreme Court decided Thursday.

  The court split 5-4 on the decision. Chief Justice John Roberts was among those who would have kept the cuts blocked, along with the court’s three liberals.

— The FBI is planning to lower standards of education and training for new agents as about 5,000 agents, analysts, and other employees are expected to depart next month

  Agents will not be required to have a college degree and will get 8 weeks of training rather than the current 18 at the academy in Quantico, Virginia. The NY Times reports that the change seems to be part of Director Kash Patel focusing on street crime over financial fraud, public corruption, and national security.

  Some of the most experienced agents have been fired because they worked on investigations of Donald Trump. Right now as many as 100 agents are patrolling the streets of Washington.

— The Trump administration said yesterday that it’s reviewing more than 55 million people with US visas for potential deportable violations, including “anti-American” sentiments.

  The State Department says visas that allow people to stay in the United States are revoked any time if there are “indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization.”

  The current administration, among other things, defines “anti-American” as disagreeing with the government about such things as support for Israel’s war in Gaza. 

 THE SPIN RACK: You won’t have mail. Well, not in Norway. As the world goes digital, Denmark’s PostNord is ending the physical delivery of letters by the end of the year. Denmark is the second most digitized country in the worlds behind South Korea and letter volume has dropped from 1.4 billion in 2000 to 110 million last year. 

BELOW THE FOLD:  Fans of In-N-Out Burger have been driving hundreds of miles and standing overnight for the opening of the chains first outlet in Washington state. There are other places to get a hamburger.

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