I've figured out why Chump's
skin is orange! It's an allergic reaction. It's an allergic reaction
to the truth!!! That's why Chump hates the truth so much, he's allergic
to it, it makes him physically ill. With that in mind, Josh Fiallo (DAILY BEAST) reports:
President Donald Trump says the war on woke is not dead yet.
POTUS
posted a bizarre screed on Tuesday about museums in Washington,
claiming the Smithsonian Institution is “OUT OF CONTROL” and is fixated
on the shortcomings of yesteryear, like documenting the horrors of
slavery.
“The Museums throughout Washington, but
all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of
‘WOKE,’” he wrote on Truth Social. “Everything discussed is how horrible
our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the
downtrodden have been—Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness,
nothing about the Future.”
Trump, 79, has vowed
to rid museums of the “woke” he claims infests them. In doing so, he
has pushed the more vital issues of today—like brokering a peace
agreement between Russia and Ukraine, or releasing the Jeffrey Epstein
files, a pair of campaign promises—to the back burner.
President
Donald Trump on Tuesday fired off a Truth Social post attacking the
Smithsonian Museum for a host of things — including showing “how bad
slavery was.”
Last week, the Trump
administration sent a letter to the Smithsonian Institution calling for a
“comprehensive internal review” of the exhibitions on display at all
eight Smithsonian museums. The letter specifically cited Trump’s
directive to “celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or
partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural
institutions.”
He's
just a racist who thinks the truth doesn't matter. Slavery is not
'woke.' Covering slavery in the United States is not 'woke.' Chump is
jut a cheap liar. I love this comment on the article:
J*******
13 hours ago
So,
history is "woke" and only HE can determine what our museums display,
teach, and preserve. The level of manic narcissism is beyond what anyone
could have imagined. Well at least there's one positive: museums and
history books will make sure future generations can understand how one
monster controlled an entire political party and how they all bent a
knee to him. A criminal. A liar. A cheat. A maniac. All of the
supporters determined to undermine the very foundation in which this
country was founded. Yes, indeed. Recorded history will place Trump
alongside all the other vile characters the world had to endure.
Former
GOP Congressman Joe Walsh wrote on the social platform X: "Trump: All
the Smithsonian does is 'discuss how bad slavery was.' So now he wants
to force them to discuss how 'good' slavery was?"
Democratic
influencer Harry Sisson wrote: "Trump is angry that the Smithsonian
Museum talks about how bad slavery was, which is a crucial part of
American history. He’s now sending his attorneys after the museum. This
is what dictators have done throughout history. Wake up, America."
[. . .]
Journalist
Jon Ralston said: "Yes, as so many FOXy folks are saying, it is Gavin
Newsom's X posts that are bonkers, childish and dishonest. Unbefitting
of a governor. Slavery, it turns out, was not so bad."
Wednesday, August 20, 2025. Chump continues his war on immigrants while
shedding protections for survivors of domestic abuse, hate monger Kim
Davis tries to lure the Supreme Court into her lair, Hillary Clinton
predicts the Supreme Court will overturn marriage equality, although
Zohran Mamdani has thousands of online supporters it appears none of
them can step up and defend him from attacks, the Epstein scandal is not
going away and one MSNBC video report on YOUTUBE has collected almost
half-a-million views in less than 12 hours, and much more.
I don't know how much more
the nation can take. I'm serious. There are stories I ignore here
because it's just too much. Usually, it's a column by someone insisting
we've passed the point of no return. Maybe we have. Don't know how
that observation helps us? I agree we're at the breaking point. And I
bring that up for a reason. Erin Keller (INDEPENDENT) reports:
A
Massachusetts bookstore is stepping in to help LGBTQ couples tie the
knot as the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to hear a case that
could impact same-sex marriage rights.
All She Wrote Books
in Somerville, Massachusetts, announced it will host an LGBTQ “wedding
marathon” on August 30 from 1 to 5 p.m., under the banner “Love Can’t
Wait Another Day.” The event will offer multiple couples the chance to
marry “without the cost or delay of a traditional wedding,” according to
the shop’s Instagram post.
We can’t believe it’s
come to this, but the clock could be ticking on LGBTQIA+ marriage
rights,” the bookshop wrote online. “We’re not interested in waiting to
see what happens, and neither is our community. That’s why we’re
creating space for folks to say ‘I do’ ASAP.”
Owner
Christina Pascucci-Ciampa is rolling out in-store packages for the
wedding marathon. The $500 package includes a private one-hour ceremony
with a Justice of the Peace, professional photos, cupcakes, an optional
toast with bubbly, a wedding gift from the store, and guidance on
replicating legal documents should the right to equal marriage be
overturned.
Couples can bring up to 12 guests to witness their vows, or opt for a more intimate ceremony for just the two of them.
“What matters is making it official while we still can,” Pascucci-Ciampa wrote.
Couples
interested in participating are encouraged to reserve their spot in
advance and must obtain a marriage license before the event. Information
on marriage licenses in Somerville is available through the city’s
official resources.
On July 24, former Kentucky
county clerk Kim Davis filed a petition with the SCOTUS, requesting it
to overturn the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized
same-sex marriage nationwide.
Kim
Davis is the noted trash who got butt hurt last week over Sally Field's
son Sam calling her exactly what she is. She's ugly, if you've never
seen her.
Looks like she needs a bath. Maybe even to be dipped for ticks and
fleas. Definitely needs to cut that ugly hair.
Looks like no one -- man or woman -- has touched -- or ever would touch
-- her.
She's like the freaky Esmeralda in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS.
2016
Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton says she believes the Supreme Court is poised to overturn its
landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which effectively legalized
same-sex marriage nationwide, and that unmarried same-sex couples “ought
to consider” tying the knot.
“American
voters, and to some extent the American media, don’t understand how
many years the Republicans have been working in order to get us to this
point,” Clinton told Fox News host Jessica Tarlov on Friday in a
wide-ranging interview on “Raging Moderates,” the podcast Tarlov
co-hosts with Scott Galloway.
“It took 50
years to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Clinton said. “The Supreme Court will
hear a case about gay marriage; my prediction is they will do to gay
marriage what they did to abortion — they will send it back to the
states.”
“Anybody in a committed relationship
out there in the LGBTQ community, you ought to consider getting married
because I don’t think they’ll undo existing marriages, but I fear they
will undo the national right,” she said.
Even if the Supreme Court did take the case, [Chris] Geidner said he didn’t
think a case like Davis’ would provide sufficient legal reasoning to
overturn same-sex marriage entirely. Rather, he said that a successful
religious freedom or free speech challenge to Obergefell would
do other “bad things,” like hollow out civil protections or public
accommodations for same-sex couples, essentially inconveniencing or
endangering LGBTQ+ couples but not outright denying them the right to a
marriage license.
Gay legal journalist Joseph Mark Stern agrees somewhat with Geidner’s take. In recent Bluesky posts about Davis’ case, Stern wrote,
“Recent panic that the Supreme Court might soon overturn marriage
equality is unwarranted—the justices are highly unlikely to take up the
case that has people worried. And this freak-out risks diverting
attention away from the court’s subtler, ongoing attack on gay rights.”
“At this Supreme Court, the biggest realistic threat to gay rights
isn’t outright reversal of Obergefell, but the ongoing abridgment of gay
equality in the name of religious liberty and free speech,” Stern added.
“The Supreme Court has also weaponized the First Amendment to legalize
discrimination against same-sex couples in public accommodations, a
project that will expand in the coming years.”
Clinton was correct when she said that, if Obergefell were to be overturned, then the right to same-sex marriage would fall back to the states.
In 2022, then-President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA),
a law that repealed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and
required the federal and state governments to recognize same-sex
marriages that occur in states where they are legal.
Currently, 25 states have both laws and constitutional amendments
banning same-sex marriage, five have just statutes banning it, and five
others have just constitutional amendments banning it.
If this happened, a battle between pro- and anti-marriage states
could emerge. Republican attorneys general and legislatures in states
with same-sex marriage bans could argue that they should be exempt from
having to recognize same-sex marriages from states where such marriages
are legal.
John Roberts can rot in hell if the Court overturns
Obergefell. He will have destroyed the Supreme Court if that happens.
It is under his watch that the Court has fallen among the public. He
is the Chief Justice and he is directly responsible. Gallup:
At
48%, the proportion of Americans who have a great deal or fair amount
of trust in the federal government’s judicial branch is statistically
similar to the 2022 record low (47%) and 2023 (49%) ratings. Before
2022, trust in the judicial branch had never been below the majority
level and typically exceeded 60%.
The 13-point decline in trust that occurred between 2020 and 2021
followed Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court and its decision
to allow a strict Texas abortion law to stand. The seven-point drop from
2021 to 2022 came after the court handed down the Dobbs decision that
overturned Roe v. Wade’s finding of constitutional protections for
abortion rights.
This
is on John Roberts, Chief Justice. His leadership and his actions have
allowed this huge loss of confidence in the institution of the Court to
take place. There's no excuse for it. And it was his job, as Chief
Justice, to hector and lecture his peers about precedent and rule of
law. But he didn't. Like Jonathan Turley, Roberts has turned out to be
just another racist hate monger.
And he is responsible for where we are now. Instead of working to save the Court, he has destroyed it.
If
marriage equality is overturned, the Court's reputation will fall even
further and they will have made it clear that they do not stand for
equality and fairness but they are an idealogical nightmare that crafts a
decision based upon something other than the law.
Non
poli sci people may not understand the importance of this moment in
time. Poli sci-ers should get it. I predicted here the rise of ISIS in
Iraq before it happened. I warned over and over for months that it was
going to happen. Not because I'm a psychic but because the Iraqi
people had a prime minister who shouldn't have been prime minister (he
didn't win the election) and bit by bit a system exposed that could
nothing to help them.
Right now, Republican nut
jobs have control of the House and Senate and the White House. The
only institution possibly standing is the Supreme Court.
Roberts better protect the Court and its image or he's asking for a Civil War in this country.
Any political model will warn that this is where the complete fall of trust in the Supreme Court ends.
New
York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has faced heavy
criticism for his foreign policy views, which many see as beyond the
role of a mayor. He led the Democratic primary, gaining strong support
from younger progressive voters. However, Mamdani has encountered
opposition from the Indian American community, with critics claiming he
has acted as an opportunistic politician.
British
political commentator Douglas Murray believes Mamdani is aiming to get
into power by promising New Yorkers things that he cannot bring. He
argued that Mamdani has failed to address things that New Yorkers need.
Murray
stated, “His position as a so-called Democratic socialist, would make
sure that New York, which has been suffering for so many years now with a
brain drain, talent drain, money train, money drain would simply go
down even further.”
How about you leave the fairy tales to Mother Goose, Roger Anderson, you damn liar.
So
we know that Zohran is a Democratic Socialist. That is how you spell
it by the way. Roger couldn't even figure that out. Who is Douglas
Murray? Roger thinks he's worth listening to. But he doesn't tell you
who he is because Roger knows if he did that . . . no one would listen.
Because no one really cares what a British neoconservative thinks about
a politician in NYC.
This
is how they work to defeat Zohran. They lie. They lie and if caught
might offer an apology. Jonathan Turley, the fat f**k with the cod
liver oil face, decided to lie about Zohran this month. Called out on his lie, he
immediately wanted the world to then know, oops! I confused him with
another Muslim! Mahmoud Khalil! No one in their right mind would confuse NY Assembly Person Zohran
Mamdani with the grad student activist Chump targeted named Mahmoud
Khalil. The names are very different, their backgrounds are very
different, their heritage is very different. Turley tried a cheap shot,
got called on it and rushed to pretend it was an error.
Roger
Anderson, big fat liar, writes a 452 word piece on Zohran's campaign
that relies on one source -- a British neoconservative. None of the 452
words bothers to note that Zohran is currently riding high in the
polls.
Assembly
Member Zohran Mamdani leads the field in the race for New
York City mayor, according to a new poll of registered voters conducted
by AARP New York and Gotham Polling& Analytics. In the initial
ballot test, Mamdani received 41.8% support, followed by former Governor
Andrew Cuomo (23.4%), Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa (16.5%),
Mayor Eric Adams (8.8%), and other candidates (1.6%), with 7.9%
undecided.
According
to the poll, Mamdani secures just over half of Democrats (51.6%), while
Cuomo captures nearly a quarter (24%). The rest of the field remains in
single digits. Among Republicans, Sliwa gets over half the vote, with
Cuomo and Adams splitting much of the remainder.
The poll also
explored a unique set of “drop-out” scenarios to assess how the race
would shift if one or more candidates were to exit. In every scenario
tested, Mamdani maintains a commanding lead over the remaining
contenders. Notable shifts included:
If Cuomo drops: Mamdani rises to 48.4%, leading Sliwa by 27.6 points.
If Adams drops: Mamdani leads Cuomo by 14.0 points (42.6% to 28.6%).
If Sliwa drops: Mamdani leads Cuomo by 16.8 points (45.1% to 28.3%).
Head-to-head with Sliwa (Cuomo, Adams, Walden drop): Mamdani leads by 22.9 points (44.3% to 21.4%).
Head-to-head with Adams (Cuomo, Sliwa, Walden drop): Mamdani leads by 24.4 points (44.4% to 20.0%).
Head-to-head with Cuomo (Adams, Sliwa, Walden drop): Mamdani leads by 11.0 points (42.0% to 31.0%).
Undecided Voters In
a head-to-head matchup between Mamdani and Cuomo, 27% of voters remain
undecided. This bloc is mainly made up of older New Yorkers split
between Democrats and Republicans, making it a pivotal group that could
tip the balance of the race.
That's
only one poll but all the polling puts Zohran in the lead. Lies?
That's the tool to destroy him. Jonathan Turley got a pass on his lie.
I may be the first one to note it on the left. He got away with it.
He should have gotten the online equivalent of having his face smashed
through glass for lying like he did. Now he's emboldened and thinks he
can get away with it again and, if caught, just do another 'woopsie!'
Roger Anderson needs to be called out universally. Brit boy the
neoconservative is not a trusted or objective source. To pretend you're
'reporting' on Zohran's campaign and only serve up that idiot is to
demonstrate that you're not a reporter but you are someone trying to
work out a grudge.
These sort of things need
to be called out and called out immediately. I'm not talking about by
the campaign, I'm talking about by the media -- especially by so-called
left media.
Otherwise, just sit back and watch Zohran go down in the polls as these attacks on him multiply.
Former
Attorney General Bill Barr gave a deposition to the House Oversight
Committee and he did not clear Donald Chump on any Epstein connections
and/or entanglements. Lawrence O'Donnell noted that in the opening of
his program last night. (This video has over 391,000 streams, FYI.)
And then he discussed it and other Epstein details with US House Rep Robert Garcia.
Garcia states the GOP spin is false and states that the Committee needs to release the deposition to the public.
However,
when it comes to Chump's friends Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,
nothing is open to the public -- not Epstein's client list, not how
Maxwell got moved to Camp Fed in Texas this month, nothing is open to
the public. Everything is done behind closed doors -- like Bob Barr's
deposition.
MSNBC’s Ari Melber
addressed the ongoing scandal with Nancy Erika Smith and John Flannery
yesterday, reviewing basics and putting together a timeline.
Released a little over 12 hours ago, the video already has over 488,000 streams.
A
federal judge in Manhattan has ordered the immediate release of a gay
asylum seeker from Jamaica, finding that ICE violated his right to due
process.
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ordered the agency to release Rickardo Anthony Kelly, 40, more than two weeks after he was detained while waiting for his asylum hearing
at a courthouse accompanied by his attorney. Agents reportedly offered
him $1,000 to self-deport, and apprehended him when he refused.
"In
light of the undisputed facts, there is no doubt that [ICE's] ongoing
detention of [Kelly] with no process at all, much less prior notice, no
showing of changed circumstances, or an opportunity to respond, violates
his due process rights," Torres wrote in her ruling, issued Friday.
Kelly said in his initial writ of habeas corpus petition that
he came to the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2021 shortly after he was the
victim of a violent attack motivated by his sexual orientation, during
which he was shot ten times. He warned that deporting him to Jamaica
would put him at risk, and that keeping him in custody could cause him
to experience “severe and quite possibly fatal” medical complications as
a diabetic.
Kelly described the conditions of the ICE facility he
was detained at as “unconscionable,” “inhumane,” and “horrific.” He
claimed he was kept in a room with nearly 100 other detainees that had
only three toilets, no doors, and no showers, and that he was not
provided with “clean clothes, toiletries, or any other way to maintain
basic hygiene.”
It's one horror story after another. We've noted the six year old girl in New York already this week.
Immigration
agents reportedly detained a 6-year-old girl, her teenage brother and
her mother at a Manhattan immigration court last week.
The
family, originally from Ecuador, had appeared for a routine check-in at
26 Federal Plaza when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents
took them into custody on August 12, according to CBS News.
[. . .]
The
mother, identified as Martha, arrived in the U.S. with her daughter
Dayra and 19-year-old son Manuel after fleeing violence in their home
country, according to immigration advocates who spoke with CBS News.
Dayra attends PS 89, the Jose Peralta School of Dreamers in Queens, according to NBC 4 New York.
Mariposa
Benitez, founder of the advocacy group Mi Tlalli, said families like
Martha's seek safety after fleeing dangerous situations abroad but face
further trauma when detained in this manner.
Shortly
after the detention, the family was separated and transferred to
different facilities, according to CBS News. Martha and her young
daughter were transported to a detention center in Dilley, Texas, while
Manuel was taken to Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, the outlet
reported.
More than 20 state attorneys
general have filed suit against the Department of Justice (DOJ),
alleging the Trump administration is unlawfully seeking to withhold
critical funds for crime victims from states and nonprofits deemed
noncompliant with its draconian immigration enforcement efforts.
The lawsuit, filed
in federal district court in Rhode Island on Monday, centers on three
notices that DOJ posted last month for funding allocated by a
decades-old law called the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA). As I previously reported for Mother Jones, those funds have long been a critical source of support for organizations including domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, and child advocacy centers,
which use the money to run emergency shelters and hotlines and provide
therapy services, legal advocacy, and court accompaniment to abused
people, particularly women and children. Another bucket of VOCA funding
also goes directly to crime victims, who can use the funds for pay for
services including mental health counseling, funeral expenses, and
clean-ups of crime scenes.
But under the Trump administration, this year’s round of $1.9 billion in funding comes with strings attached: It stipulates that grantees may not
use the funds for any program or activity that, in DOJ’s opinion,
“violates (or promotes or facilitates the violation of) federal
immigration law…or impedes or hinders” enforcement.
While the funding announcements do not clarify what, exactly, would
constitute such violations, the intent seems clear: Trump’s DOJ wants to
essentially force states and the programs they fund to grant the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), unfettered access to the victims they
serve—conditions that the lawsuit calls “unprecedented.”
"Playing politics with the lives of people who have suffered so greatly
is reckless, it is cruel, and in this case—it is illegal,” said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, the lead plaintiff, in a statement.
Advocates for crime victims say that, if enacted, these conditions
could have a chilling effect on immigrant survivors of violence, who may
avoid seeking help for fear of being deported. “One huge barrier for
victims to leave an abusive situation is fear of their abusers reporting
them to immigration, which is a real threat, even when the survivor has
a path to lawful status,” Carmen McDonald, executive director of
Survivor Justice Center, a Los Angeles organization that supports
immigrant survivors of domestic violence, told me. “This will continue
to cause victims to be unsafe at home and have devastating impacts for
survivors.”
He is a failure. He has destroyed this
country in every way you can imagine. And, yes, that includes the
economy. His attack on DC is destroying the DC economy as we speak. Peter Wade (ROLLING STONE) explains:
Donald
Trump's deployment of National Guard troops to the nation's capital and
forcing a federal law enforcement takeover of the Metropolitan Police
Department is not only terrorizing residents and workers, it's also
harming local businesses. Washington, D.C., restaurants are experiencing
significant drops in reservations, and bars are seeing fewer customers.
Online
reservations for D.C. restaurants plunged more than 25 percent in the
days immediately after Trump announced the takeover of D.C. police for
the first time in the country's history, according to OpenTable data, WUSA 9's Jordan Fischer reported.
Trump
announced the authoritarian occupation on Monday, and OpenTable
reservations decreased by 16 percent compared to the same day last year.
By Tuesday, reservations were down 27 percent. By Wednesday, that
number rose to 31 percent.
Before
the president federalized D.C. law enforcement, the area had enjoyed 11
consecutive months of improvements in reservations.
The Advocate described the crackdown as "an economic and cultural crisis" after speaking to LGBTQ+ bar owners.
Bar owner Dave Perruzza said that Friday night felt "like a desert."
"Thursdays
are all local, but Fridays and Saturdays we get people from out of
town, and we just had none of them. It was awful," he explained.
Perruzza said he had lost $7,000 in a single night.
"That's not sustainable," he insisted.
None of Chump's actions are sustainable. The country needs a reboot nd we have got to deliver that in the 2026 mid-terms. Tara Suter (THE HILL) notes:
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Sunday dismissed Trump’s recent crackdown on the nation’s capitol as a “stunt.”
“What’s
happening here in Washington, D.C., is just a stunt. Donald Trump
didn’t like the fact that the walls were closing in on him, that his own
base was questioning why he wouldn’t release the Epstein files, why he
was protecting very powerful people,” Murphy told NBC News’s Kristen
Welker on “Meet the Press.”
It
is a stunt and was meant to stop people talking about the Epstein
scandal. The stunt is harming the economy and the Epstein scandal
remaings in the news. Adam Gabbatt (GUARDIAN) notes:
The
Democratic US congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland issued a statement
saying Trump’s decision to send the military into the nation’s capital
was meant to distract the public from the president’s “close friendship”
with the late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey
Epstein.
Raskin’s statement
also alluded to broken promises from the Trump administration to fully
divulge all files pertaining to the prosecutions of Epstein and his
associate, the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
“The
only emergency here is a lawless president experiencing a growing
public relations emergency because of his … stubborn refusal to release
the Epstein file despite his promise to do so,” Raskin’s statement said.
Other
Democrats echoed the sentiment that Trump’s move was an attempt to
distract from criticism over Epstein and an economy that was struggling
amid the passage of his congressional agenda bill, which included a
historic $1tn cut to Medicaid.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Murray demands all apportionment data be published online as court order requires
Murray: “It’s clear now why Vought and Trump have
fought so hard to prevent this information from being public: they have
used this process to secretly and illegally exert even more control
over funding approved by Congress, freezing key investments from going
out the door for agencies to conduct critical work and help the American
people.”
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the
following statement after the Trump administration was forced to put a key spending transparency website
back online after breaking the law to take it down so that it could
hide how it’s executing spending laws from the American people.
In March, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), headed by Director Russ Vought, illegally took down the apportionments website that it is required by law to maintain. Earlier this month, a federal circuit court unanimously ruled
that the administration must restore the website and publicly post all
apportionment data that has been hidden from public view over the last
few months. Late Friday, OMB finally relented in its months-long fight
to continue breaking the law to hide this information—restoring the
website and beginning to post some of the apportionments it’s hidden
from public view for months.
“Every time any member of this administration tries to claim
they are being transparent, remember that they spent months illegally
hiding how they were spending your taxpayer dollars. Unfortunately for
Russ Vought and President Trump, the law is very clear—and now that a
federal appeals court has unanimously ruled they must restore the
spending transparency website, the site is back online.
“It should never have required months in court for this
administration to begin complying with a truly basic and straightforward
transparency requirement. OMB must now ensure every last bit of this
important budget data that has been hidden is promptly made public, as
the court has ordered, and that the data is posted within days, as the
law requires, going forward.
“It’s clear now why Vought and Trump have fought so hard to
prevent this information from being public: they have used this process
to secretly and illegally exert even more control over funding approved
by Congress, freezing key investments from going out the door for
agencies to conduct critical work and help the American people.”
Background on Apportionments
Apportionments are legally binding budget decisions issued by OMB
under title 31 of the U.S. Code. These documents are final, decisional,
and legally binding on agencies, and officials found responsible for
violating an apportionment from OMB may be subject to administrative
discipline, including suspension without pay and termination. What’s
more, the knowing and willful violation of an apportionment carries with
it criminal penalties under the Antideficiency Act.
The bipartisan fiscal year 2022 appropriations spending law
established a requirement for OMB to publicly post in an accessible
format all approved apportionments within two business days, along with
any footnotes and an explanation for those footnotes. In the following
fiscal year spending law, Congress made those requirements permanent.
Those bipartisan requirements were carried out over the last three years
without incident—which allowed lawmakers and the public to track OMB’s
legal-binding budget decisions.
Background on Russ Vought’s Weaponization of the Apportionment Process
In late March, however, Vought illegally pulled the website down without any explanation—and adamantly refused
to restore it, despite bipartisan calls for Vought and OMB to simply
follow the law and adhere to this common sense requirement.
Vought’s decision to yank the website offline immediately raised
questions about what exactly he and the president were seeking to hide
in preventing the American people—and lawmakers responsible for
conducting oversight—from accessing this information about how OMB is
spending taxpayer dollars. Notably, Vought—a key architect of Project
2025—has long contended that political appointees like himself should
have more say in how OMB operates and should exercise significantly more
control over federal funding. Over the last many months, Vought has
taken sweeping steps to exercise more control—and notably, in President
Trump’s first term, OMB illegally used the apportionment process to cut
off security assistance for Ukraine, which, of course, was the basis for
Trump’s first impeachment.
Earlier this month, public reporting began to shed light on why Trump and Vought have obscured this data from public view. Reportsshowed OMB had used the apportionment process to block the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from accessing roughly $15 billion
in funding provided for lifesaving research into treatments and
cures—and then quickly reversed course after the blockage was made
public. Just days later, reports
also showed that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has
prevented the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from
spending large chunks of funding for mission critical work that it is
required to conduct. Senator Murray slammedboth actions—and
called for the Trump administration to stop improperly choking off
funding approved by Congress and to finally restore the website so the
American people have visibility into OMB’s actions.
The apportionments that have so far been made public now that the
website has been put back online make clear that Vought and OMB have
been using the apportionment process to exert even more control over
federal spending and to choke off key funds provided by Congress on a
bipartisan basis for all kinds of essential programs that working people
and communities nationwide count on every day.
You know
it, I know it: We have a corrupt Supreme Court. They'll probably go
along with an IRS change. But I wouldn't risk it. Some are ready to. Alex Henderson reports:
Far-right
white evangelicals are applauding a new Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
rule that allows pastors to make political endorsements in the pulpit,
including the Family Research Council. But Christianity is far from
monolithic, and individual churches don't necessarily approve of the
practice even though the IRS is now allowing it.
In Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Rev. Jonathan Barker found that out the hard way.
Barker,
until recently, preached at the Grace Lutheran Church, where the
liberal/progressive Mainline Protestant pastor planned to give a sermon
endorsing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) for president in
the United States' 2028 election. But when the church objected —
regardless of the new IRS rule — he ended up resigning, according to the
New York Times.
Barker still gave the pro-AOC sermon, but not in the Grace Lutheran Church pulpit.
In
an article published on August 19, Times reporters David A. Fahrenthold
and Elizabeth Dias explain, "The odd battle that played out last week
over one sermon for one Lutheran congregation in Kenosha, an industrial
city on Lake Michigan, was an illustration of the sharply different ways
that American churches have responded to the IRS' surprise
reinterpretation of the decades-old law. It may have also foreshadowed
many similar fights to come."
The
41-year-old Barker had been trying to rejuvenate his church, which had
dwindled from 1,500 attendees in the 1950s to 20 or 30 people on most
Sundays, by focusing on liberal causes, and he did not provide advance
notice to church leaders about his plan but instead sent out a news
release to reporters, hoping to encourage other progressive-minded
pastors to join him in advocacy.
“I said, ‘Jon,
we just agreed as a group that this is not a good idea,’” said Bishop
Paul D. Erickson, who oversees churches in southeast Wisconsin, after
catching wind of the plan.
Erickson urged
Barker to reconsider because his advocacy could potentially jeopardize
the tax exemption for the denomination’s other churches.
As
a Black woman growing up in Atlanta, I know the line between church and
state. And my church did not try to bend or break the law. I think
it's a good one: No political endorsements from churches.
If they want to endorse, they need to pay taxes. It's not fair otherwise.
Tuesday, August 19, 2025. Chump plans to steal the 2026 mid-terms while
Bernie Sanders attacks Kamala Harris with lies for the second time this
month. That's not how we pull together and big tent.
Let's start with Reese Waters from yesterday.
And TABITHA SPEAKS from last week.
We are tired of it. White progressives,' we are tired of it.
We're
tired of you lying about Kamal and we're real tired of you refusing to
get that Bernie has a Black problem. We don't worship him like you do,
we don't cut him slack for his racism.
A lot of
us are trying to do what I am which is big tent, big tent, big tent.
Avoid trashing other Dems as much as possible, work on pulling the party
together, stand up to the enemy that is Chump.
But then you get crusty lipped Bernie attacking Kamala Harris.
And let's be clear, though I know some of you White 'progressives' nodded a long with Bernie's attacks, he's lying.
He is distorting Kamala and her campaign.
We
saw that go down last fall and we have not forgotten. You need to your
old man to stop trying to stir up s**t because this doesn't end well.
Some
of you White 'progressives' nodding along with Bernie due so because of
the crap-fest that passes for 'independent' media on the left.
It
was something to see in the fall, to watch Kamala be attacked for not
doing this or that by White media like COMMON DREAMS when, in fact,
Kamala was doing what they were saying she wasn't. COMMON DREAMS ran an
article attacking her for not talking about women's health when she'd
just done that -- talked about women's health -- to ESSENCE magazine.
But White 'progressives' apparently can't read a publication if the
target audience is Black women.
We could go though this with multiple examples, but I'm just going to note two.
Starting with the US presidential elections, I believe the whine goes something like this: "Kamala hasn't done any interviews!"
That's
what the mail brought me yesterday. Page 48 kicks off Caroline Wanga's
six page interview with the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.
The two discuss a number of issues including the economy. I'll note
this from the interview
Kamala Harris: I
have been working on that issue for years -- with my colleagues from the
CBC [Congressional Black Caucus] when I was in the Senate and now as
Vice President. Why? Because Black women in the United States of
America are three to four times more likely to die in connection with
childbirth than other women. And we know that there are a variety of
reasons for that. But we also know that this is a health care crisis of
the highest order, and it has received very little attention
proportionate to the seriousness of the matter. So, I worked with my
colleagues when I was in the Senate. We passed a number of ills. When I
came in as Vice President, I continue to work on it. And one of the
things I found is this: For women on Medicaid, which states can provide
for postpartum care for two months up to 12 months -- and I realized
when I came in as Vice President, only three states would extend
Medicaid coverage for postpartum care from two months to 12 months. I
don't have a problem shaming people sometimes, so I challenged the
states to extend it. And now 46 states have extended Medicaid coverage
for postpartum care. There is a direct connection between this and
Black maternal mortality. But back to the other point about freedom of
choice. The majority of Black women in America live in the South You
know that in the South, we have some of the highest rates of Black
maternal mortality. In the South, except for the state of Virginia,
every state has an abortion ban. And what I find hypocrisy upon
hypocrisy, by some of these extremists, is that the same ones saying
they're passing these abortion bans because they care about women and
children have been completely silent on the issue of Black maternal
mortality. Don't come to us, gaslighting us about where you've been and
where you haven't been, on important issues that relate to what we know
every day affects our sisters, our mothers, our aunties, our
grandmothers -- and could affect our daughters.
A few comments. The interview is not online. I have no idea if it will be posted or not. Currently at ESSENCE, Jasmine Browley has an article about Kamala and the opportunity economy that went up this week and Robyn Mowatt looks at political style.
Second, the cover notes "COLLECTOR'S EDITION." If you're a subscriber
like me, you may grimace. But they used a real sticker that peels off
-- not a paper label that's basically glued to the cover -- and it's
very easy and doesn't tear the cover when you remove it. After I
removed it, I scanned for the image above (notice no tear in the lower
corner) and took the cover off the magazine. It's now framed and up in
my home office.
The Kamala Harris' campaign is
making its most direct appeal yet to Black men, rolling out new
policies, boosting programming and a targeted media blitz to win over a
crucial part of the electorate. With Republicans eyeing Black male
voters in a big way this election, the vice president's team is on the
move and not leaving anything to chance.
On Monday, Harris introduced her "Opportunity Agenda for Black Men." The
plan centers on providing up to 1 million fully forgivable loans of up
to $20,000 for Black entrepreneurs and investing in training,
mentorship, and apprenticeships for Black men in high-demand industries.
Harris is also pushing for the legalization of recreational
marijuana—paired with a focus on ensuring Black men access wealth and
jobs in that market.
"This agenda is a further realization of Vice President Harris' Opportunity Economy.
An economy where people don't just get by, but get ahead. Where Black
men are equipped with the tools to thrive: to buy a home, provide for
our families, start a business and build wealth," said Congressman and
Harris-Walz Campaign Co-Chair Cedric Richmond in astatement shared with
ESSENCE.
"Donald
Trump could care less about equipping hardworking Americans with the
tools needed to get ahead. From being investigated by the Department of
Justice for refusing to rent to Black tenants to falsely accusing the
Central Park 5 and calling for their execution to spreading the racist
birther conspiracy theory against President Obama, at every step of his
life, Donald Trump put Black men down for his own personal brand. If he
wins in November, he is telling us exactly what he'll do to Black men,
Richmond added.
I'm glad
ESSENCE exists. I'm a longterm subscriber to the print edition. But
it's an amazing, less than a month away from an election, ESSENCE can
report on this very important proposal but COMMON DREAMS can't and
won't. Nor IN THESE TIMES. Nor THE PROGRESSIVE -- an outlet with a
token or two but the tokens know what they're allowed to cover, they
know who's running the plantation. That's a very important proposal and
it's one that deserves serious exploration. But so-called news outlets
in 'independent' media can't be bothered.
Search
in vain for any amplification of that coverage from ESSENCE at COMMON
DREAMS, THE NATION, IN THESE TIMES, THE PROGRESSIVE, etc etc.
The most minor story in THE NEW YORK TIMES will get amplified but say "ESSENCE" and watch the White flight take place.
Bernie doesn't know what he's talking about.
And how does he help anyone by attacking Kamala to begin with?
She's not in the White House. Donald Chump is.
That's supposed to be our focus but along comes Bernie to try to beat up the Black woman with lies.
We're sick of it. Black people have had enough of this s**t.
I
know Black women who plan to site out 2026 because of the way Kamala
and we were disrespected by the left or 'left.' I know Black women who
are slowing leaving a staycation and trying to get back involved -- and
that group is going to bolt if you don't stop the attacks on Kamala.
White
'progressives' like Sam Seder had 801 topics they cover every week but
they refused to cover the very real topic of the attacks on Kamala
during the election and the attacks on Black women supporting Kamala
during the election. I'm not referring to the right-wingers attacking,
I'm referring to people who claimed to be of the left.
You
think you can ignore the topic. But when you do, you just make clear
to Black people how little you truly care about us and our issues.
Bernie
is nothing to praise and I could take him down every day -- his faux
support for immigrants, for example, is a very easy stance to expose
(he's anti-immigrant and has long been that and we can look at how
little support he has given to immigrants seized by ICE in Vermont).
I'm trying to focus on defeating Chump and saving the country.
But
if Bernie keeps attacking Kamala, you're going to find out just how
angry Black people are -- still are -- over the stunts so many of you
White progressives played last fall.
You want
us to pull together as a big tent? Stop the attacks on Kamala. Stop
lying. We've had enough and we're not going to take much more of this.
We're
supposed to have a common enemy. If you think that's Kamala Harris,
you are part of the effort working to ensure that MAGA remains in power
for decades.
On Monday morning, President Trump returned to a longtime fixation, posting on
Truth Social that he was “going to lead a movement to get rid of
MAIL-IN BALLOTS” by “signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to
the 2026 Midterm Elections.”
The post came just after Trump’s Friday summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin—not known for
his love of free and fair elections—who allegedly counseled Trump that
“your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting,” a message
Trump promptly relayed to Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
Trump already led a movement to get rid of mail-in ballots, helping to push for a spate of anti-voter state laws both in the run-up to the 2020 election and after his loss.
But each successive crackdown strips voting rights from disabled and
aging voters, who disproportionately rely on absentee ballots and voter
assistance laws to participate in democracy.
Some experts question whether the White House even has the power to
take further steps to ban voting by mail; a plethora of lawsuits would
likely follow any executive order against it.
In a major blow to climate change science, NASA is officially not
continuing its work studying global warming and will instead just stick
to space exploration.
During a Fox Business news segment, acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy (who also happens to be the Secretary of Transportation) dropped the bombshell during a live interview on Thursday.
"All the climate science and all of the other priorities that the last administration had at NASA we’re going to move aside, and all of the science that we do is going to be directed towards exploration, which is the mission of NASA," he said. "That’s why we have NASA — is to explore, not to do all of these Earth sciences."
The news is not so surprising given the fact that President Donald Trump has long been known to be a climate change denier.
He is so disgusting. I hope the stroke he's begging for comes soon. Regardless, when he does pass away, the world will be a better place and I will be dancing with joy.
America deserves real presidents who respect and value education. Not criminals -- convicted felons -- who are dumb ass grifters. By the way, Stan did a great book review so go read "WEAPONS and how Tobey Maguire's sexual panic killed a movie."
Monday, August 18, 2025. Chump's ICE gestapo arrests six-year-old girl
in New York while shooting up a family in a car in California, pedophile
Ghislaine Maxwell's move to Camp Fed bothers the residents living near
the facility as well as inmates living in it, and much more.
The crooks of ICE, untrained and they don't respect the law
because they don't know the law. Chump and Noem hired them because
they're so stupid. How stupid are they? They fired on a family today.
They fired guns at a family. That's how damn stupid they are. They are
a danger to the people and they need to be taken off the streets
immediately. KTLA reports:
A Saturday morning confrontation between federal immigration agents
and a local family in San Bernardino escalated into gunfire and a
seven-hour standoff before ending without arrests, according to both
advocates and police.
The incident began at about 8:40 a.m. on Aug. 16, when Immigration
and Customs Enforcement agents stopped a man near 1030 N. Mountain View
Avenue, according to the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice.
The advocacy group said the agents, who did not present a warrant,
fired three times at the man’s vehicle before he returned home with his
family and called 911.
"I was thinking the bullets were gonna run through the back window
and hit any of us," said a man who wanted to be identified only as
Martin.
Martin says he was in the back seat at the time while his
brother-in-law sat in the passenger seat and his father-in-law, who is
an unauthorized immigrant, drove. He took video and photos of the
situation, which he shared with CBS News Los Angeles.
Images shared by Martin showed bullet holes on the exterior of the
vehicle. His video showed an officer shattering the glass on the
driver's seat window and the officer appearing to punch the driver in
the face.
This is what you get with the idiots
of ICE. Untrained and unrestrained, failures who couldn't get a job
anywhere else and are now happy to terrorize people on the streets.
Doomed to lives of self-medication and suicide.
That's retired
DC Metropolitan police officer Michael Fanone on MSNBC yesterday
discussing ICE and the harm it's doing, "Silence is complicity. Quit
your job."
Clark County officials gathered to address students’ safety concerns from traffic to immigration fears.
Las Vegas Valley residents had the chance to hear from elected officials at Manny Cortez Elementary School.
“It is no secret that many families who are part of our immigrant
community are afraid right now.” said Brenda Zamora, CCSD VP Board of
Trustees.
Stories of ice agents showing up to California campuses have created an
increased fear that kids who go to school may not come home.
Wow.
And an earlier generation thought they had it bad with duck-and-cover
drills in the 50s. Kids today have to worry that they or their parents
or their classmates or their classmates parents might be grabbed at
schools. Think it can't happen? It has happened. In fact, it happened
again last week. Thomas Smith (NEWSBREAK) reports:
Federal immigration authorities have taken into custody a 7-year-old
New York City public school student, making her the youngest-known local
student detained under the second Trump administration.
Dayra, an Ecuadorian student at P.S. 89 The Jose Peralta School of Dreamers
in Queens, and her mother were separated from her 19-year-old brother
during an immigration check-in on Tuesday at 26 Federal Plaza, according
to the family and advocates. Her last name is being withheld because
she is a minor.
“We were all very scared,” said Patricio, Dayra’s
mother’s boyfriend who lives with the family, in Spanish. “Because we
knew they were going to arrest them.”
A 6-year-old girl living in Queens, along with her mother and teenage
brother, are hundreds of miles away from each other after federal
agents grabbed the family members following a routine check-in at
immigration court in New York City last week.
"School is supposed to start in three weeks. Dayra and her mother
should be buying school supplies," Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, a
Democrat representing Jackson Heights, told News 4.
Instead, Dayra, a student at PS 89, the Jose Peralta School of
Dreamers in Queens, and her mother are in a detention facility nearly
2,000 miles away in Texas.
Krishnan says the family, originally from Ecuador, showed up to 26
Federal Plaza on Tuesday for an immigrant check-in last week.
"It is horrific to find out that ICE has detained and taken into
custody and separated a family with a 6-year-old girl and her older
brother Manuel, who is 19," Krishnan said Saturday.
What
a proud moment for Chump. He's arrested a six-year-old child. What a
great deal that says about him and how he deserves no honors, no Nobel
Prize. He's only earned protests and calls for his removal from
office. What kind of grown up garbage sees arresting a six-year-old as a
success? As separating her from her family as praise-worthy? Only an
idiot fool.
Up until recently, Jess didn’t worry about her family being
targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE, from her
understanding, only targeted immigrants with criminal records.
Originally
from Ecuador, Jess, her husband and their two young children lived in
Hudson, awaiting a court date for asylum in 2027. Once gaining asylum,
immigrants can apply for a chance to live in the country permanently.
Working
as a mechanic early one morning, Jess’ husband had been walking from
one car to the next when he was approached by a person asking for his
license. Then six more people encircled him.
Jess
was at home with their children when she received the phone call from
her husband. He told her he had been detained by ICE. Jess immediately
called her brother, who told her to talk to an attorney to help her
clarify her husband's situation. Aside from a traffic ticket, the
Star-Observer found no prior convictions or charges for Jess’ husband.
“He
was taken, so very close to our home. At that time, I was shocked,”
Jess said. “I didn't know what to do and I just wanted to cry.”
Asked
about ICE action in western Wisconsin, an ICE spokesperson said the
department conducts daily operations at this point in addition to
investigative work. “We just don’t have the bandwidth to have to
research every city, location, all of that stuff,” the spokesperson
said.
ICE arrests have sharply risen in
every state since Donald Trump won reelection, according to the New
York Times. In ICE custody, Jess’ husband was taken to Sherburne County
jail in Elk River, Minnesota.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC — an organization at Syracuse University that compiles federal data —
found the average daily population of the Sherburne County jail had
been 1 ICE detainee from October 2023 to September 2024. Since then,
that number has risen to 57 as of Aug. 4 of this year. After Trump
retook office, the detention center reached double digits in average
daily population in February for the first time since August 2022.
Allegations of women being mistreated by federal immigration officers and men posing as Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers
have prompted nearly three dozen Democratic lawmakers to demand
Homeland Security officials immediately launch an investigation and
change the way the federal agency does its job.
In a letter sent this week by members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus
to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, acting ICE director Todd
Lyons, White House border czar Tom Homan, and associate director
Jennifer Fenton of ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, DWC
members expressed “grave concerns” over how masked agents are treating
women during federal immigration enforcement operations.
“All our lives, we are taught to fear masked men in unmarked vehicles,”
the letter stated. “We learn we should run from such men to avoid being
kidnapped, sexually assaulted, or killed. Yet, ICE is increasingly
conducting raids and arrests in masks, plain clothes, without visible
identification or badges, using unmarked vehicles – tactics that cause
confusion, terror, and mistrust among the public.”
And ICE 'impersonators' -- we hope they're impersonators -- are terrorizing women:
Citing several past incidents involving men who were posing as
federal immigration officers, DWC members said ICE has been complicit in
allowing attacks involving impersonators to continue.
“These tactics invited perpetrators of violence against women to take
advantage of the chaos by impersonating masked ICE agents in order to
target and sexually assault women,” the lawmakers wrote.
ICE impersonators have been arrested in multiple states following
incidents of men posing as federal officers. Instances have included
complaints filed by women in Maryland, North Carolina and New York who
said they were raped, robbed and assaulted by men pretending to be
enforcing immigration laws.
A Latina woman said she was raped by a Washington, D.C., man posing as
an immigration officer after she was forced into a car, according to WUSA. She added that she had been threatened with deportation if she didn’t comply.
In North Carolina, a migrant woman told police she was raped and kidnapped by a man who claimed to be a federal immigration officer and threatened to deport the woman if she did not comply.
In New York, police said a man posing as an ICE officer attempted to rape a 51-year-old woman
after he reportedly approached the woman and said “immigration” but did
not show a badge. Police said that the man allegedly pulled the woman
into a basement stairwell and assaulted her.
The thugs of ICE The American people are seeing this. And they're
seeing who the heroes are -- the people fighting back, the activists
working to end this persecution, the clergy staing this is not right and
this is not acceptable. Aleja Hertzler-McCain (NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER) REPORTS:
San Diego Auxiliary Bishop Felipe Pulido noticed the way a father held
his young daughter and stood close to his wife and teenage daughter in
the courtroom. The love and care they had for each other was palpable on
Tuesday (Aug. 12), when Pulido accompanied the asylum-seeking family
for an immigration court hearing.
“As an immigrant, I got emotional because of that connection I have
with my own family — I put myself in his shoes,” said the Catholic
bishop, who was born in the Mexican state of Michoacán before
immigrating to Yakima Valley in Washington as a teenager. He finished
high school there, worked picking produce and eventually was ordained a
priest.
Immigrants are facing court appointments with newly heightened levels of fear as the Trump administration has begun
sending agents to detain migrants as they leave the courtroom. If
immigration judges dismiss their cases, they can immediately face
expedited removal proceedings without a chance to make their case for
asylum. Previously, a 10-day response time to the dismissal was
allowed.
Guided by their faith, clergy like Pulido and other representatives from
religious groups are accompanying immigrants to court appointments to
provide comfort and information and, in cases where their worst fears
are realized, to pick up the pieces of a shattered American dream.
The 31-year-old "Nuevayol" singer posted a video with commentary of ICE agents conducting a raid on the island to Instagram.
"Look,
those motherf— are in these cars, RAV4s. They’re here on [Avenida]
Pontezuela," he said of the officials arriving in the Puerto Rican city
of Carolina. "Sons of b—, instead of leaving the people alone and
working."
Since the onset of President Trump's second term, the U.S. territory has
been subjected to ICE raids, which have targeted the island's largely
Dominican immigrant population. For years, immigrants from the
neighboring Caribbean island have been allowed to open bank accounts and
obtain special driver's licenses that indicate their immigration
status. The AP estimates that there are over 55,000 people from the Dominican Republic currently living in Puerto Rico.
Meanwhile,
Chump's buddy Ghislaine Maxwell remains in the news following the
sweetheart deal Donald made to send her to Camp Fed. Dylan Chryst Watkiss (KBTX) reports:
Over 20 protesters gathered at 101 Texas
Avenue earlier to protest the recent transfer of Jeffrey Epstein’s
accomplice and longtime partner, Ghislaine Maxwell to the Federal Prison
Camp Bryan a few weeks ago.
“It’s
communicating to folks driving by that, hey, there’s people concerned
about something. Whether or not they’re necessarily on the same page, it
doesn’t really matter. I think it’s important to show that active
participation in our democracy, even if it’s in this little way,” said
Brazos Valley Community Coalition Founder, Serena Wedeking about the
protest.
Maxwell was moved to the
minimum-security prison at the beginning of August. She is serving a
20-year sentence for her role in the Jeffrey Epstein crimes. The move to
what has been called one of the nation’s most comfortable prisons has
struck some as odd considering the severity of Maxwell’s crimes and
length of her sentence. Protesters hoped to spark conversations around
Maxwell’s move and beyond.
Those inside the prison aren't too thrilled about Maxwell showing up either according to CNN:
[. . .] Maxwell's presence has caused discomfort among some inmates, who are
reportedly uneasy about sharing space with someone linked to Epstein's
notorious activities.
Inmates have allegedly been advised by
prison officials to exercise caution when discussing Maxwell,
particularly those participating in a work-release program.
And survivors are not staying silent. They are trying to warn as many people as they can.
National Center on Sexual Exploitation survivor services coordinator
Teresa Helm has called for the release of federal documents tied to
Jeffrey Epstein’s case. She stressed the need for greater
accountability, particularly following Virginia Giuffre’s death. Helm
argued that political motivations should not hinder the pursuit of
justice.
Giuffre,
who accused Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, died by suicide at 41. Her
settled lawsuit against Prince Andrew was a key moment in exposing
sexual exploitation.
Following
FBI and DOJ claims that no “incriminating client list” exists, demands
for document disclosure have grown. Giuffre’s family stated, “Virginia
was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex
trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors.”
It's
not going away and Chump's distractions and efforts to fool the
American people are just not working. Grand jury testimonies don't get
released and also aren't very detailed and this one wouldn't have
featured any details not already in the public square.. The grand jury
is what decides whether or not a case should move forward, not a body
that determines guilt or innocence. It was all an effort to distract by
Chump. And, as Steven Harper notes, even the judge was straight forward about that:
Trump has tried desperately to walk away from the Epstein conspiracy
theories that he had pushed to energize his MAGA base. But nothing has
worked. As the MAGA core cracked, pressure mounted and he made a hollow
pledge: Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the courts’
permission to release grand jury materials relating to Epstein and
Maxwell.
As
I observed previously, that was a head fake toward transparency
because: 1) grand jury materials are a tiny slice of the Justice
Department’s files on Epstein; and 2) the courts could refuse to release
anything at all.
And
the courts have done just that. So far, Bondi is now 0-for-2 in her
effort to obtain judicial release of the Epstein-Maxwell grand jury
materials.
Bondi’s
latest rebuke came on August 11 in New York. In a blistering opinion,
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer called out Trump’s subterfuge. The court observed that the “special circumstances” required for releasing Maxwell’s grand jury materials are not present:
The
Government’s invocation of special circumstances, however, fails at the
threshold. Its entire premise—that the Maxwell grand jury materials
would bring to light meaningful new information about Epstein’s and
Maxwell’s crimes, or the Government’s investigation into them—is
demonstrably false.
The court continued:
A
member of the public familiar with the Maxwell trial record who
reviewed the grand jury materials that the Government proposes to unseal
would thus learn next to nothing new.
Turning the government’s words back on it, the judge ruled:
A
“public official,” “lawmaker,” “pundit,” or “ordinary citizen” “deeply
interested and concerned about the Epstein matter,” Motion to Unseal at
3, and who reviewed these materials expecting, based on the Government’s
representations, to learn new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s
crimes and the investigation into them, would come away feeling
disappointed and misled. There is no “there” there.
Judge Engelmayer’s most insightful and telling passage was also his most direct:
The
one colorable argument under that doctrine for unsealing in this case,
in fact, is that doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s
public explanations for moving to unseal. A member of the public,
appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute
anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government’s
motion for their unsealing was aimed not at “transparency” but at
diversion—aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such.
Judge
Engelmayer’s powerful condemnation is remarkable. He blasted Bondi’s
attempt to use the court as a vehicle for Trump’s deflection,
distraction, and diversion playbook.
Then there's the con game James Comer and many other Republicans in the House of Representatives are attempting: Elie Honig (INTELLIENCER) explains:
At bottom, the House’s investigative effort is unserious. If this were
truly about seeking meaningful answers, Comer could have started with a
subpoena to Alexander Acosta — the disgraced former U.S. Attorney (and
former Trump Cabinet secretary) who was presented a case involving at
least three dozen child victims and chose to let Epstein off the hook for petty state-level charges and a 13-month sentence, much of it served out of custody. In the process, Acosta’s office misled
Epstein’s victims, assuring them in writing that the matter was
“ongoing,” even after the softball deal had already been executed.
This week, Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna — the same person who introduced legislation to engrave Trump’s face on Mount Rushmore — publicly raised the possibility
of Acosta’s testimony. “At any time, he can be called to testify,” she
noted correctly. When Congress returns, we’ll see if Comer heeds Luna’s
words or pretends he never heard them.
And then there’s the House subpoena
to the Justice Department, calling for the release of “the full,
complete, unredacted Epstein Files.” (The House later came to its senses
and agreed to necessary redactions of victim names and identifiers.)
Comer
might not have thought this one through; his document subpoena places
another Trump loyalist, Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a bind. The AG
can choose to produce the requested documents to Congress. But she has
conspicuously declined to disclose them so far, even though she could
have released the vast bulk of the files on her own accord. Or Bondi can
resist and challenge the subpoena in court. But that would make the AG —
who claims to be all about “transparency and lifting the veil” — look flatly obstructionist.
These are not the “worst of the worst,” yet these immigrants are treated worse than murderers and child molesters.
Trump
has pardoned all these types of criminals. Right now, after talking to a
Trump lawyer, super sex predator Ghislaine Maxwell is serving out her
time in a luxury prison in Texas. And all she had to do, presumably, was
give Trump some names on a silver platter, which she likely gladly did
in exchange for a few favors. I’ll bet that in a month or two her pardon
will be forthcoming — in exchange for her testimony against some of
those names.
Yes, our president and his Justice Department are
really going after the “worst of the worst.” Watch out all you
jaywalkers out there. If you’re brown, Trump will hunt you down. You are
a hardened criminal, after all. Ask Kristi Noem, the head of Homeland
Security.
