Don’t just doom scroll about everything! Read Professor Richardson’s pieces (and many more) and speak up!
Resource below to easily contact all of Congress - Be LOUD. Trump/the administration is dangerous for our country 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Hello Alexandra... Tim O'Brien the DJT Biographer, has followed DJT for Decades, once said that DJT has two modes... Greed, and Survival Panic... When DJT went to NYC yesterday. the Boos were louder than the Cheers... I wonder if Todd Blanche was nominated after the Boos... Seems to me that DJT has declared War on the USA...
Yes, I agree.Trump has declared war on the United States government, its people and the rule of law.I am sure that when this is all over( and it will end), the amount of corruption here will be $ staggering $.This will be the biggest grift in our country’s history.
The level of corruption — in raw dollars — has no historical comparison. The corruption of the DOJ has no comparison. The complicity of Congress has no comparison.
We are living in an era we cannot believe exists.
How did we get here? Americans lost their sense of decency. They voted for a man whose history should have disqualified him from any public office — a man who harnessed hatred of immigrants and minorities and rode it straight to the White House.
We did this to ourselves. That is the hardest truth of all.
Those in the Trump cult and those who just stayed home and did not vote brought about this regime’s massive corruption. I have always thought DJT was an idiot who tried to insert himself into every public situation, like with the Exonerated Five when the orange felon took out the full page ad calling for their execution. Who the hell cared about what Trump thought about that situation?! He is a vicious idiot with severe psychological problems.
Exactly. I have been saying that he is the most corrupt president we have ever had. He's stealing from the U.S. Treasury and stealing from taxpayers... many of whom are experiencing financial challenges due to inflation, the Iran War, gas prices, etc.
Then rubbing it in our faces. His meme of dumping sh-t on nyc democrats. His demolishing the east wing. His daring to put his name on the JFK center. His obsession with fake memes of himself. His obsession with building himself freeking memorials. He is a disgusting facsimile of what a potus should be.
Agree 1000% that Blanche should not be confirmed and he will. We can see it coming 1 mile away. The vote will be 51-50. The vulnerable maga senators will take their turn to vote with Dems and JD Wanker comes in to break the tie. And we all know that Tillis, Cornyn, Cassidy will all vote to confirm. The gift that keeps on giving... 2024 voter apathy. Edit: My mistake, it won’t come to a VP tir breaker, Fetterman will vote to confirm him
We must all call our representatives. Look at the last sentence in today's letter. I don't remember HCR putting in her opinion so directly. The WH will try to keep the temperature low. Keep the heat on. This is a critical moment.
It is the rare vote on Capitol Hill that is not a referendum on Trump's leadership. As you note, this one promises to be no different. In time the rats may begin to leave the ship. But it probably will not be until it is too late to avoid the disaster. It's summer now. They wont bring it upon themselves by rebelling against their master.
I think we witnessed that when he threw down his mic and walked out saying "Let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time."
38 times Trump has said the Iran War that he alone was stupid enough to start, is going to be over in 2-3 days. 38 TIMES!!!
Meanwhile, Trump has already tanked the economies of many countries and bankrupted hundreds of farmers in the US.
Remember, under Biden how the Republicans bitched and moaned about the strategic petroleum reserve was "almost empty." Well, it is lower now than it ever was under Biden.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is hitting Russian oil refineries, storage farms, pipelines, and their shadow fleets. And bizarrely the price of oil is still around $100 a barrel. Last week Chevron and Exxon-Mobil issued a warning about oil reserves and nothing happened. Where is OPEC and what are they doing about this crisis caused by Trump?
Yeah, he met with farmers in Wisconsin recently and all he did was show drawings of his ridiculous construction plans. As if that's what they came to hear about. 🙄
Trump's extra long bright red tie has always pointed to the source of his worst impulses....his tiny brain. Clearly he fears the publication of the Epstein Files more than he fears the publication of his tax returns.
Everything he does is a public diversion from his private perversions. Clearly his past is catching up with him, and needs the light of day.
Donald Trump has nominated Todd Blanche, his former personal criminal-defense lawyer, to become attorney general of the United States. Apparently, hiring your own attorney to run the Justice Department now counts as government reform.
Blanche defended Trump in the hush-money case, the classified-documents case, and the federal election-subversion case. In an ordinary administration, that history would raise concerns about independence. In Trump’s Washington, it qualifies as specialized experience.
Since becoming acting attorney general, Blanche has helped turn the Justice Department into Trump Legal Services, LLC. Its new mission appears simple: investigate enemies, protect allies, reward loyal insurrectionists, and make inconvenient claims against the Trump family vanish into administrative fog.
Then there are the Epstein files. The Senate unanimously passed legislation requiring their release, yet the Justice Department has produced only part of the material, much of it heavily redacted. Former attorney general Pam Bondi said Blanche was in charge of the release. The department managed to expose the identities of previously unknown survivors while still concealing much of the evidence. Nothing says transparency like identifying victims and protecting secrets.
Now Republican senators must decide whether to confirm Blanche as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer. Their hearing should be brief.
“Mr. Blanche, will you enforce the law equally?”
“Of course. Trump’s enemies receive indictments. Trump’s allies receive pardons. Trump’s family receives the platinum immunity package.”
This nomination is not merely another exercise in partisan hypocrisy. It is a loyalty test. Trump is asking senators to certify that the Justice Department belongs to him.
The sign outside may still say “Justice,” but management has changed, and the new owners are not accepting walk-ins.
"An investigation by Tom Bergin, Michelle Conlin, Koh Gui Qing, and Tom Wilson of Reuters today shows that the Trump family has made at least $2.3 billion in their crypto currency licensing adventures since Trump began his second term. It also shows that more than a million people who invested in their enterprises have suffered at least $2.3 billion in losses."
Isn't that called a direct transfer?
How can that possibly be "an official act"?
Hopefully the rubes can file a class action suit and get their money back.
The least we can do is impoverish this guy by destroying his graft empire.
The Democrats will win at the midterms if they tie the flagrant corruption of the Trump regime to the costs to the average American. But that will only happen if there are free and fair elections. Blanche as AG poses an enormous threat to that.
Blanche will do everything in his power to enable voter suppression and election interference to occur. Trump planted the seeds for the effort in the Welker interview. All heBlanche has to do is have Trump sign illegal executive orders, which will face immediate challenges in the courts. He can then run them up to the regime's compliant and complicit SCOTUS on an emergency basis. SCOTUS will place them on the shadow docket and allow them to remain in effect until it can hold a full briefing and rule after the election.
Today, I am writing to my Senators and Representative to read into the congressional record every piece of investigative reporting on Blanche's complicity in Trump's corruption that is being exposed by the free press and to demand that Blanche comply with the Epstein Transparency Act. Democrats can read aloud all of the released Epstein materials if it runs out the clock.
Corey Booker has to again stand up and talk for 24+ hours, as does every Democrat in the Senate. Work in Congress has to be halted until the Blanche nomination is withdrawn.
We also need to write to the Bar associations where Blanche is licensed to demand that they undertake investigations to disbar him now that Bondi has said he was running the show on the regime's illegal response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
According to Perplexity, Blanche appears to be licensed to practice law in New York (state courts and relevant federal courts), and there is public information suggesting bar membership in the District of Columbia;
Below are the primary bar-related offices for those jurisdictions.
New York bar offices
New York State Bar Association (voluntary statewide bar): 1 Elk Street, Albany, NY 12207.
New York City Bar Association (major local bar serving many NYC practitioners): 42 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036.
The publicly available profiles for Todd W. Blanche list him as admitted in the State of New York and its federal courts (Southern District of New York, Eastern District of New York, Second Circuit), but do not list another state license.
District of Columbia bar offices
Public biographical material describing him as a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association indicates bar membership there, although standard lawyer directories focus on his New York admission. For the D.C. Bar:
District of Columbia Bar (mandatory bar): 901 4th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001.
Todd Blanche's days of flying under the radar have come to a most sudden end. Is it not always a sort of classical story arc where the flamboyant front man (or woman in Bondi's case) gets the lion's share of ink and attention, only to flame out due to an Icarus-esque flirtation with the flames of fame, ambition, excess, etc., only to be replaced by the quiet functionary, the recessive acolyte, yet that functionary and acolyte turns out to be a serpent with far greater fangs?!?
Todd Blanche is, if this podunk crew of Trumpian grifters, ass kissers and hangers on were to be unduly honored by being described in Shakespearean terms, the Iago of the group, even more so than the grotesquely Iago-esque Stephen Miller, because Miller is so open in his racism and ugliness.
Bondi rips into Democratic Senators with invective most juvenile, yet still paralyzes too many of her male inquisitors while she flips her hair and preens. Her show brings much attention, too much attention for her megalomaniacal boss, so she, and because she is a she, must sink like Ophelia into the asp-ridden flora of the Floridian swamps, while the nerdy, semi-professional, fully corrupt male satraps like Blanche move ahead into the shape shifting graces of their Mad King.
Moving from the poetic to the ponderously prosaic, I do not think any Bar Association complaints are practicable, because Bondi's pointing her fickle finger of fate at him is irrelevant, as she was the AG, not him.
As for the nomination to be permanent AG, I'd rather have Blanche DuBois than Todd Blanche. Company of Strangers indeed!
As Acting AG HE is now refusing to uphold the laws passed by Congress which as I wrote back to another response, should by inference be covered by his oath to obey the Constitution. Of course that will mean the constitutionality of the Epstein Files Transparency Act will be brought into question, but that will light up one huge keg of dynamite among women voters.
The crimes and corruption buried in the Epstein files are toxic enough to require a war and economic crisis to prevent their exposure. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had deep ties to Epstein. Bibi seems intent on defying Trump and extending the war, which is uncharacteristic. Putin is under huge stress as Ukraine is starting to make headway against Russia militarily. The Epstein investigation has to be brought back into the spotlight while preventing Blanche and Pulte as DNI from sabotaging the elections. Blanche is the weak point given his “conversation” with Maxwell and his handling of the files. That is where leverage has to be applied.
Into this breathtaking melange of mixed metaphor, I would add this, which seems apropos under the circumstances, from Henry IV Part 2 (Act IV, Scene 2):
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
It is the jurists - lawyers like Marc Elias and Norm Eisen, and judges like the ones below - who are defending us from the Republican regime.
To name just a few.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis is the Maryland federal judge who presided over the high-profile civil litigation regarding the wrongful deportation and subsequent unlawful detention of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Judge Xinis ordered the government to facilitate his return to the U.S. in 2025 and later ordered his release from immigration detention.
Judge John Coughenour (U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington): Ruled against the Trump administration’s executive orders curtailing U.S. birthright citizenship, labeling them unconstitutional.
Judge Alan D. Lourie & the Federal Circuit Majority: Ruled against Trump’s sweeping tariff powers invoked under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), joining a cross-party consensus that "no president is a king".
Judges Stephanie Haines, John Holcomb, and Fernando Rodriguez Jr.: Notable Trump appointees who ruled against his use of the Alien Enemies Act to enact swift, mass deportations of Venezuelan nationals, citing violations of due process.
Judge Eric Komitee (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York): A Trump appointee who ruled against the administration's attempt to reverse and halt protections for young immigrants. []
Chief Judge James Boasberg (U.S. District Court for the D.C. Circuit): Presided over multiple cases enforcing the limits of executive privilege and demanding compliance with congressional and legal subpoenas.
U.S. Judge Leo Sorokin in Massachusetts found the Trump administration had acted beyond its legal authority under immigration laws passed by Congress and concluded the fee functioned as a tax rather than an administration fee and required congressional authorization.
US district judge Christopher Cooper’s order to take down all references to a “Trump Kennedy Center”, telling employees: “To comply with this order, you must immediately change email signatures, letterheads, and other documents to reflect the name such as ‘The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center’.
Heavy caseloads, regrets and surprises: 5 judges who embody the courts’ rebuke of Trump’s ICE detentions - POLITICO
Not all the lawyers—there are good folk practicing law, perhaps few and far between. Marc Elias is one defending voting rights, but even he can’t get a voice in decisions that go to the shadow docket, where a lot of the corrupt actions are occurring that have immediate practical effect.
I won’t count on the Senate to refuse to approve the nomination, and Blanche could be with us until just before the midterms because of the 210 day limit for “Acting” under the Vacancies Reform Act. Blanche was appointed Acting Attorney General on April 2, 2026, so 210 days later is on October 29, 2026. Election Day is on Tuesday, November 3. I am surprised that Trump didn’t wait an extra week to appoint him, but maybe he just couldn’t tolerate Bondi a moment longer.
I am hoping that disbarment could be faster than that. It might be unacceptable on the world stage to have an AG running the DOJ who has been disbarred for breaking his oath of office defend the Constitution, and by inference, all laws passed by Congress that are constitutional. It wouldn’t be an impediment in Trump’s eyes, though and the MAGA minions will just say it is the liberal elites interfering with Trump’s right to choose whomever he wants to lick his *ss.
Of course, the question of the constitutionality of the Epstein Files Transparency Act would then be questioned, and work its way up to SCOTUS, who could say Blanche can’t be disbarred until the status of the constitutionality of that law is adjudicated…
Of course Blanche could be impeached, but that would require a 2/3 majority in the Senate to convict.
The goal here is to uncover the corruption in investigations in as many venues as possible. Blanche’s absolute refusal to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act is undeniable so it is a good one to start with. Disbarment proceedings get the investigation out from under the Republican majorities on the relevant congressional committees and have a direct impact on Blanche’s ability to practice law in a world after Trump. We have to use all of the weapons at hand.
the point of the anti-monarchical rebel Jack Cade in saying that is that lawyers defend the rule of law and legal institutions, so they are in the way of overturning social norms (and kings). So killing the lawyers helps overthrow the system, and the rule of law. It is not the criticism of the legal profession that some people seem to think it is.
Ah-Ha! BUT - IF she had drowned in Florida. she MIGHT have encountered an "asp" in the form of a Saltmarsh Viper! Which is a type of asp! Shakespeare obviously didn't know his asp from his elbow. . .
"After voters threw out Orbán and his party with a supermajority that would empower the country’s new leaders to investigate their predecessors, the extraordinary corruption is coming to light."
Hungarian voters did this treating voting as a strategic joint exercise in winning power. Progressive, liberal, and center left Hungarians overwhelmingly voted for a center right party lead by a former Orban official.
I have long criticized the nominal Left wing opposition for its purity test contribution to electing Trump. In the Maine Democratic senate primary race, the self-righteous purity test self-indulgence has come from Democratic moderates and liberals. Who - with a broad spectrum of media and pundits - pinned their hopes on helping establishment Democrat Janet Mills pull a primary win rabbit out of her battered campaign hat and win a septuagenarian sack race against Susan Collins. Prominent members of the Mills camp have sworn they will never vote for Platner.
Graham Platner is running on being "a Senator for people who can't afford to buy a Senator."
I agree 100%. With Trump essentially guaranteed to still have veto power after the midterms, purity tests are irrelevant. There will be no reform legislation passed and signed into law until Trump (and Vance who may follow him if he leaves office early) are defeated at the polls. That is the ugly reality. It is also a vulnerability with an electorate that is desperate for change. We cannot be Hungary without veto-proof majorities.
Democrats at the national level have only three jobs they can be successful at until 2028—
expose the corruption and its cost to the American people,
prevent the Republicans from enacting further damaging legislation
refuse to approve nominations of unqualified MAGA nominees to key government positions.
All the while, MAGA minions will be calling us a “do nothing” Congress as Trump gleefully vetoes bills and has Blanche (or his replacement) file suits in ultra-conservative district courts to stymie reform efforts to get them up in front of SCOTUS for Federalist Society approved outcomes. Veto power and a pocket SCOTUS are still a powerful combination that can do a lot of damage until 2028 even with majorities in Congress.
Which provides more fuel to the argument of eliminating Republicans from your state governments, as well. Providing more State power will go a long way toward diminishing whatever power he thinks he has.
The Heritage Foundation's model legislation to implement “election integrity” has already been enacted in most red states, along with other ultra-conservative legislation. It was up on Heritage’s website as Project 2026, essentially a checklist of what Project 2025 tasks were not yet completed.
The response from Democrats was crickets.
My response: Put together an effing shadow cabinet already and respond!!!!!
Baffling why Dems won't!! Works beautifully in the UK, and in Australia, among others. Who or what are they listening to, that they won't do such a simple thing?? And I'm in Ohio, THE Most Corrupt State in the Union, so I'm well aware of "election integrity" lies.
Well said. There are good reasons to be concerned about Platner’s past. And good reasons to hold his feet to the fire on every issue and vote if he becomes Senator. But another 6 years of Susan Collins would be an infinitely worse outcome.
We are in a war. There, I said it. A mostly peaceful one (so far) but one for the future of this country and for our own freedom. And in war, you sometimes have to line up with allies you don’t love to defeat a common enemy that poses a far greater threat. 11/3/2026 is indeed our D-Day and if we fail, the war will turn against us perhaps permanently.
We cannot afford to lose. Not those of us on the middle. Not those of us on the left. I’ve said it a hundred times, to this president we are all “radical left lunatics.” He makes zero distinction where we are on the Democratic/left spectrum. Alex Pretti’s murder was a warning shot - he would be fine with doing that to any one of us. If we win if we put aside differences and bind together for the fight of our lives (and possibly for them).
Heather, please keep an eye out on June 12 for Blanche's and the DOJ's response to Judge Kathleen Williams' order regarding the "Magic Settlement". They tried to pull a midnight bamboozle over on her and she is pissed! Here is the link to her order demanding answers to their actions after dismissing the frivolous lawsuit. They used her court and lied to her.
35 judges will not let this Blanche-Epsteyn-Trump Family flim flam, hornswoggle of public money go by unchecked, either. They are on it! Here is their amicus motion blowing the whistle on Blanche's $1.7 Billion scam for the Trump Family. And Blanche's approval of the IRS tax evasion immunity agreement for the Trump Family.
The NYT is reporting on the fraudulent Magic Settlement. Remind the rest of the Press to pay attention. The slush fund is the distraction from the actual crime. Fraud on the court? Fraud on the Treasury? Fraud on the IRS? All cooked up and coordinated by the Acting Attorney General who seeks to be the top law enforcement officer in the nation.
The slush fund is the shiny object -- a ridiculous and offensive and illegal shiny object -- but I agree - the tax evasion blanket immunity is a deeper crime - and to me it proves that there was - and is - plenty of evasion.
Thanks! I think so from time to time. Weary is a blanket that visits. As long as the heart is restless, the future stretches like the Mississippi. The big payoff is arriving where fresh crawfish can be found then, reacquainted, returning to the lost coast.
I remain in deep admiration, wishing you and yours the very best.
We say that in my classroom to everyone doing awesome things! Tomorrow my students get a little rock that’s holding a “You Rock” sign 😅 I can’t wait to see their reactions!
Some very industrious and brilliant people known as the nonprofit Institute for Primary Facts have created the “Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room” an installation that was launched in New York City's Tribeca neighborhood on May 8, 2026. It’s now a touring exhibit that contains 3,437 bound volumes comprising roughly 3.5 million pages of the Epstein-related records released so far by the Department of Justice.
The exhibit, which also includes a tribute to the victims and a detailed timeline of the relationship between Trump and Epstein, features several specific elements. As a physical archive, the printed documents weigh about 17,000 pounds! The intent is to make the abstract data from digital releases physically tangible to highlight the massive scale of the evidence.
To protect the identities of victims and survivors that were not properly redacted by the Department of Justice, general visitors cannot randomly handle or read the physical volumes themselves (though exceptions are made for verified professionals). Following its New York run, the exhibit was relocated to Washington, D.C. It was opened in the Chinatown neighborhood (737 7th St NW) to coincide with the presidential birthday, running from June 9 through June 14.
David Garrett of Primary Facts said after the success of the exhibit in New York, where it opened in May, the group received a large amount of public feedback that they should come to DC, to potentially spur more action from lawmakers as well as the release of all the Epstein files by the DOJ. Garrett said they moved quickly to move the exhibit, and they wanted to be in the capital for President Trump’s birthday on Sunday, June 14.
“…it’s really hard to walk through here and see all this and think the investigation is done, I think there’s a lot more investigation to be had…
What we hope is that people will see this and demand accountability from our elected officials,” Garrett said.
Thank you for this resource, Megan. I have limited my calls and emails to my three Members of Congress. Do communications from out-of-district voters and out-of-state voters get through and get counted? And, How can we ...what language penetrates the filters?
Mostly no. But the workaround is to use Megan’s spreadsheet to call off-hours, which is what I have done. In fact, I have called to thank those who are working FOR us, like Maxwell Frost and Robert Garcia, to thank them. (Even got an unasked-for return call from Frost’s office!)
I left voice messages for both of my Senators this morning telling them to NOT confirm Todd Blanche. They don't listen to their constituents, but it's worth a try. Here's hoping they get a minute of moral clarity.
I wrote to both of my senators this AM. I did not go on about why to vote against Blanche. They know. But as for contacting other senators you have to state who you are and where you live. Still it may matter.
Thank you for speaking up! In my opinion these are unprecedented times so going beyond our own reps is now something I do and encourage. Not everyone agrees with me, I get that.
My first round of emails from the contact me links had a lot bounce back saying I wasn't a constituent so it either didn't get sent or basically wouldn't be read. So I changed the way I sent messages. I use one of their own in state addresses (listed on my spreadsheet to help with this) on the address line because technically it doesn't say "my" address. I also don't want to misrepresent myself any more than that, so in my messages I typically put (at the bottom) that while I'm not a constituent, I am reaching out because (insert name) does represent me on the (insert committee that fits the topic my message is about).
Another thing I do is call after hours. I don't leave my name or address/zip code so my voice doesn't go towards a count, but the more they hear from us, the better.
I also send faxes using faxzero.com (5 free/day). I don't send a lot of letters, but when I do I put the same “while I’m not a constituent” blurb I do in my emails.
Yes, Megan, we must speak up now. This is a critical moment. Remember Uvalde. Public outrage resulted in a bipartisan bill.
Read the last sentence in the letter today. I don't remember HCR putting her voice in so clearly before. The WH will try to keep Blanche's confirmation on low. We must keep the heat on our Senators. We must all call or email. Calling is more effective. Just say, I want you to vote against Todd Blanche. Or tie it to Epstein.
For a breath of pure comic relief, enjoy Randy Rainbow's take on the Modern Major-General. Gilbert and Sullivan never shined brighter...."He is the very model of a very stable genius, Of all the presidents, he's still the Mussoliniest..."
Nice. But, I went down the rabbit hole of stories on Ukrainian kicking Russia's ass including destroying a chemical and missile parts plant in St. Petersburg, an ammo depot destroying 2 months worth of artillery supplies on the front in Ukraine and bombing one of the last supply routes into Crimea. What will Trump do when Putin and Russia fall? Trump still calls on the moronic Putin for advice? Someone needs to let Trump know that his arch-enemy Zelenskyy and Ukraine are kicking the Russian's butt.
Many hospitals all over Russia are full of amputees other injuries that don't allow them to be productive in Russian society, plus they are a drag on the medical resources.
First Orban, then Putin(?) and then Bibi(?). If Trump loses all three of these allies he'll have to start listening to his sycophants. Or not.
If the GOP controlled Senate approves this criminal defense attorney to be the USAG, they will be complicit in the destruction of the rule of law in America… And every Democrat running for office (plus those not running for office) should make this their talking point every day of the year until November 2028! The Democratic Party cannot roll over as the GOP destroys the rule of law! This is the defining moment for the Democratic Party in the age of Trump!
Been waiting for half my life, Dems have had their moments but they seem to be spent and out of gas. But my $15 will fill ‘er up . Hope more signs of life but I’m old and about out of gas myself. But as i often say, have walker, will travel. But no mil to donate. HCR details the sausage making and gives Dems plenty of ammunition, as do repubs, but the muted response is hard to fathom.
To better understand the Democratic Party's leadership, read corruption expert Sarah Kendzior's two best-selling books. You'll learn there's a LOT of corruption in the Democratic Party... we just don't hear about it because they "act" like they want to save us. (HINT: For a lot of them, it's just an act.) The party is largely under the control of Wall Street. It represents big business now... just in a quieter way.
Steve, I keep saying the same thing. Read Sarah Kendzior’s books. I process everything political through a new lens after reading her extensively researched work.
Thanks Heather for this excellent summary of Trump family corruption and enabler Blanche at DOJ, now the private Trump law firm. My friends who are former DOJ lawyers are stunned by how quickly the Trump regime hollowed out the Department leaving a nest of Trump loyalists and lapdogs in charge--devoted to preserving and protecting and defending Trump, not the US Constitution and the rule of law.
It is dispiriting to me how easily the regime turned our government's departments into their Imperial Guard. I think solidarity alone, massive solidity and awareness, is our strongest play, as it was in Hungary. Indeed Trumps recorded gushing admiration for Orbán may be one of the arrows in our quiver.
See where Todd Blanche fits in the Epstein Files scandal with this interactive relationship map. Click on any face for details that will appear in the side panel. Follow links to other people including Ghislaine Maxwell, Stormy Daniels, Kash Patle and Michael Cohen. Or search by Category (like Victim, Trump donors, Israel...)
Hello Deepak... Ghislaine Maxwell's Father was Robert Maxwell, a Israeli fanatic.. Alisa Valdes-Rodriquez has done Stellar Research on Jeffrey's Web...
If a team under-inflates a ball in sports, it's a major scandal; but cheating millions of their right to vote by "gerrymandering" is standard operating procedure, and even our highest court shrugs.
Our SC was bought decades ago, Mitch’s legacy. The process was painful as Kavanaugh and the lawyers from the Reagan, Bush years bulldozed through. Lots of yammering but the opposition was no match for Stone’s dirty tricks and the Fox Ministry of Propaganda. The repubs ditched any thought of integrity and fair play with Lee Atwater. It’s been a long stretch of watching our government slip slide away. Like with an avalanche, little to stop it. I was born in the FDR era and thought our laws would hold despite the McCarthy’s and demagogues like Roy Cohn. Still shocked at how easily propaganda and money can taint supposed Christian values. Jesus would clear the temple of these pretenders…
I was born under Truman, and also assumed our system was stronger than it has proven to be. That said, rule of law still retains some momentum, mostly in the judiciary and also away from D.C. . Of course, for a government of, by, and for the people, the buck ultimately stops with us, the people. High time to sharpen our game. As you mention, corruption has been growing 'cause the public backed off hoeing. Lots of weeds (of crime) here to the rooted out.
Posting about the Supreme Court & per NPR's Veteran SCOTUS' reporter, NINA TOTENBERG, the U.S. SUPREME COURT has 23 opinions left to publish before the end of this 25-2026 Term.
This THURSDAY 6/11 is the next but, not the last, opinion publication date. SCTUSblog.com coverage starts at 9:30 AM Eastern. Any published opinions are quickly summarized at 10 AM Eastern.
One of the huge cases yet to be published is the BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP case, Trump vs Barbara. SCOTUS Case No. 25-365.
Per SCOTUSblog, "The case questions whether EO, Executive Order, 14160 -- which restricts birthweight for certain children of non-citizen & non-lawful permanent residents complies with the Citizenship Clause of the 14th, Fourteenth Ament".
Spoiler Alert: It does not. Go Barbara for all 'Barbaras'.
Richard Nixon failed because he tried to tell people "I am not a crook", which everyone knew was false unless they were like my mother who said he was persecuted. Trump never says he was not a crook, but he says he is a good smart man persecuted by terrible people, and all he is trying to do is to make America great again. He learned from Nixon what not to say, and he learned from people like my mother what to say to keep his worshippers in his fouled nest. Republicans without the ability to see reality or know lies when they smell them will remain his slaves even decades after he dies.
Thirty-five years ago, I took a couple of semester-long courses on Latin American history. I remember thinking how corrupt many of those governments were then, and at the same time being shocked at how interventionist the US government was. — At the same time, the prof talked (with some level of derision) about US political rhetoric where the US was portrayed as the beacon of hope for the world, the shining city on the hill. And in some ways it did do a lot of good along with the bad. — But the US isn’t even pretending anymore. This level of corruption laid out so clearly by Prof HCR is astounding in its depth and scope. Blanche must be rejected, along with everything he stands for and tries to protect. Else, how will we ever recover?!
The Empire weakens and destroys competition because it is not offered simply as tribute. This is the basis of our expansion sea to shining sea. It is also the basis of the US relationship with the other 34 countries in America: pay tribute or not, we will squeeze you, we will overthrow your governments, we will salt your soil.
There she calls criminal Donald's nomination of his corrupt personal lawyer to head the DOJ "a very big deal indeed."
But this criminal Donald has now spent more than ten years normalizing his criminality and corruption in Washington, D.C. We all know it. What we don't know is if any from among his cult will ever wake up to it.
In hers today Heather speculates on what traction the Epstein case might have on all those, including Republicans en masse who voted for those files to be released -- and the victims' identities all to be protected. We know perfectly well of the contempt Todd Blanche has had for that law -- really contempt for all law. Donald is monarch. Donald is king. Donald routinely scorns Congress, evades all agencies with jurisdiction around his constant thwarting of the public good.
Gas prices? Those daily, large-format numbers everywhere around America -- might they be the call finally to rouse most Americans where the cowardly Congress and corrupt Supreme Court have just taken whatever continuous crap the orange excrescence has thrown at them, at us?
Appointing crooks to run the DOJ is a very big deal. Alas immersion in massive and pervasive corruption to the point of instances daily makes it hard to identify the most egregious and salient examples, but we must focus hard and hit these bandits over the head with their own perfidy, now and until their spell is broken.
If anyone is waiting for or relying upon MAGA “waking up”, it’s something not simply out of touch, but akin to raising zombies back to life. MAGA is not a majority, not even close. They are a core.
Voters have a lot of issues, mostly personal. That has been demonstrated time and again. Drumpf ought never have won in 2016. But he did. Not because of Benghazi, not because of email servers, and not because of a magical box of legal papers discovered one morning in the White House Library.
I’ve heard all the excuses. Hillary Clinton lost because of gender. Kamala Harris, here it is true there was the usual recurring and crippling fumbling of the Dem leadership. Harris had not been brought forward enough in Biden’s 1st term. Evidently, party leadership felt putting octogenarians in the White House might be a new normal … even after witnessing the decline of Reagan firsthand. So yeah, they failed that election effort, Kamala Harris, and the Nation in epic style.
Yet there’s more. Regardless of race, it’s hard to reliably find a majority among voters who actually cast votes that are going to put a woman in the White House. Any other office has become normalized, but not POTUS. Philadelphia voters wrote us a letter.
The notion that the nation is no longer divided by gender, race, religion, cultural affiliation or tattoos doesn’t hold water. If anything e-media has driven us further apart.
I could cry. I weep in a garden. What will wash away the salt?
An avalanche. But e-media (starting with Rupert) and the oligarchs has divided us with the old weapons, hate, greed, envy and religion. It took a while and I watched Bill Moyers fight it for decades. Seems for nothing now.
Astute points all, Bill. And all damning as you also suggest.
If we'd been able to keep up the energy level we had with humanities before the Powell memo's ensuant foundations destroyed all that -- evicted that energy, killed those humanities in our schools -- if we'd been able to keep public life vital by reference to novels, memoirs, films, songs, histories, Hillary would have had a chance. Kamala could have gotten better Dem cohering support.
But America lost. The corporate cretins won. And shorn of the human, of course there entered a totality of the divisive, the hatreds, the conspiracy-abstracted scenarios.
Return to humanities? How might a people do that now so inured to testing instead?
I suppose every moment spent on ‘social’ media is a moment not spent in community face to face, scent to scent, or at least ear to ear both close and far.
AI is the new TV. Go back to 1950. The core capability is sales. I’ll end the long boring story here.
It's a massively criminal class to which Donald has long fixed his priorities, Craig.
Donald. Putin. Netanyahu. Mohammed bin Salman. Erdogan. Xi. Kim. Bukele. Sisi.
And then the hundreds of sycophants, enablers in all these countries where the only morality came in dutiful submission to the universal neutering of standardized testing.
If I remember correctly, the Repubs only voted to release the files after the orange one gave the go ahead. Probably knowing that he controls the DOJ and could contain the files as has been done.
There is no world in which a president’s former defense attorney should hold the highest prosecutorial power in the country.
This is the pattern we keep seeing: replacing independent public servants with loyalists whose first obligation is protecting power instead of serving the public.
The rule of law cannot survive if the people entrusted to enforce it are chosen because they will ignore it.
Let's not forget, JFK appointed his brother RFK as AG, he did a good job, how's that for 'previous relationship?' John Adams defended the British (6 acquitals, 2 reduced sentences for manslaughter) at the Boston Massacre, he was still able to serve credibly in government, don't you think? That Blanche is a former defense attorney for Trump, not a problem. That Blanche is still acting as Trump's personal attorney-problem, that Trump is still committing crimes and Blanche is covering them up-problem, that Blanche is committing policy related crimes himself-problem, that Blanche is aiding and abetting Trump's personally motivated crimes of self enrichment as opposed to policy ones only-problem. Heather is not a lawyer and keeps wrongly inferring something nebulous, but tellingly undefined because she does not understand the law, about Blanche's prior representation. She needs to tease out these distinctions.
That Blanche realizes that he has reached the point of no return is evidenced by his recent comments. When Democrats return to power, he will be facing some very unpleasant consequences, all of which he will thoroughly deserve. I'm tired of hearing people lean on the adage that Trump ruins everything. Of course he does. But he didn't ruin Lindsey Graham or Rudy Giuliani or Todd Blanche; he just made it easier for them to show their true colors. Hell needs a new circle, with an elephant logo on the door.
The detail about the unanimous Senate vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act carries some weight on its own. The law passed, set a deadline, and the deadline passed without compliance.
What's unfolding around Blanche's nomination is partly a question about that gap (the one between what a statute requires and what an executive agency actually does) and what tools the legislative branch has left when oversight depends on the willingness of the branch being overseen.
Whatever your view on the underlying politics, that structural question about accountability belongs to every senator's constituents, across the aisle.
Remember Congressional Nazi Republicans(CNR)Are Complicit With Cheeto’s Lawlessness
The CNR continues to be complicit with Cheeto’s corruption by giving him no pushback on his raiding of the Treasury for his own financial gains. The CNR’s have decided to not only give the ultrawealthy individuals and corporations a huge tax break while Americans struggle with daily budgetary strains including the hidden tax called tariffs, they have failed to check the power of the executive through legislative action with Cheeto’s authoritarian blitzkrieg, eliminated farm to school programs hurting the American farmer, and betrayed the confidence of the American electorate. Wait until after the midterms when the medical safety net is largely eliminated with Medicaid cuts leading to millions thrown off their health care and with continued rural hospital closures(https://bit.ly/4ebsaDr). The CNR’s have plans to trim Medicare and Social Security next year, further eliminating the financial safety net while the purchasing power of the dollar falls making American daily life more unaffordable.
That creates an obvious political contradiction. If the deficit is truly a $40T emergency, critics ask, why are Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security described as the problem while tax cuts and new spending initiatives remain on the table? Giviing $70B to ICE to lock up immigrants without due process takes priority over WIC and SNAP programs.
Ethics and morality be damned Full steam ahead. The CNR pushed through poorly qualified cabinet nominations from Kegseth to RFK Jr to Lutnick to McMahon. But now CNR’s are confirming nominations for incompetent federal prosecutors in Wyoming and Los Angeles. Not only has Cheeto abused the pardon power, his CNR’s are confirming or sneaking incompetent prosecutors into federal prosecutor positions. Watch these unqualified Nazi prosecutors go to work to deny and challenge in courts the results of free and fair elections, as has just happened in LA.
But, hey, Nazis like incompetence and giving criminals lack of prosecution in the days of Cheeto’s bought off pardons.
Blanche makes me blanche. He might have holes in his head from the same brainworm that left empty chambers in RFK, Jr.’s head. Will the (R) Senate find
The Treasury Dept. was able to get Al Capone on tax evasion because it had evidence of evasion and, every taxpayer must sign their return declaring that they are signing under penalties of perjury. They are stating that to the best of their knowledge, the information is correct and complete. This applies even when you file electronically.
Don’t just doom scroll about everything! Read Professor Richardson’s pieces (and many more) and speak up!
Resource below to easily contact all of Congress - Be LOUD. Trump/the administration is dangerous for our country 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Comments/reactions help keep this bumped ✊
The opening paragraphs of HCR's letter today are a perfect script/letter to use when we call our reps today: Blanche CANNOT be confirmed.
Hello Alexandra... Tim O'Brien the DJT Biographer, has followed DJT for Decades, once said that DJT has two modes... Greed, and Survival Panic... When DJT went to NYC yesterday. the Boos were louder than the Cheers... I wonder if Todd Blanche was nominated after the Boos... Seems to me that DJT has declared War on the USA...
He declared war on the USA the day he took office.
In 2017
2015
More like the day he was born, starting with his parents and then everyone else............................the rest of his life.
And his White Christian Nationalist supporters hate our democracy and will never abandon the guy who has promised to Make America White Again.
Unless they do Monroe.
Yes, I agree.Trump has declared war on the United States government, its people and the rule of law.I am sure that when this is all over( and it will end), the amount of corruption here will be $ staggering $.This will be the biggest grift in our country’s history.
The level of corruption — in raw dollars — has no historical comparison. The corruption of the DOJ has no comparison. The complicity of Congress has no comparison.
We are living in an era we cannot believe exists.
How did we get here? Americans lost their sense of decency. They voted for a man whose history should have disqualified him from any public office — a man who harnessed hatred of immigrants and minorities and rode it straight to the White House.
We did this to ourselves. That is the hardest truth of all.
Those in the Trump cult and those who just stayed home and did not vote brought about this regime’s massive corruption. I have always thought DJT was an idiot who tried to insert himself into every public situation, like with the Exonerated Five when the orange felon took out the full page ad calling for their execution. Who the hell cared about what Trump thought about that situation?! He is a vicious idiot with severe psychological problems.
He did it to get his face out there. He got attention as a kid bulling other kids and never looked back and no one ever corrected him.
Trump is a party to numerous frivolous nutsy koo personal retribution cases where a court could demand an evaluation.
Exactly. I have been saying that he is the most corrupt president we have ever had. He's stealing from the U.S. Treasury and stealing from taxpayers... many of whom are experiencing financial challenges due to inflation, the Iran War, gas prices, etc.
Then rubbing it in our faces. His meme of dumping sh-t on nyc democrats. His demolishing the east wing. His daring to put his name on the JFK center. His obsession with fake memes of himself. His obsession with building himself freeking memorials. He is a disgusting facsimile of what a potus should be.
The good news is that his name has been removed from the Kennedy Center (according to Jane Fonda, who was on The Daily Show Monday night).
Victoria, the way I see it, Putin has declared war on the U.S. and Trump is following Putin's orders. The matter is made murkier by the Epstein files.
Interesting the way he talks about 'your country'. He never said 'our country' in the interview with Welker the other night in WI.
None dare call him "Krasnov."
Oh but Trump thinks they were cheers. He said so. 🙄
More proof that everything he says is a lie. Never trust a grifter.
Agree 1000% that Blanche should not be confirmed and he will. We can see it coming 1 mile away. The vote will be 51-50. The vulnerable maga senators will take their turn to vote with Dems and JD Wanker comes in to break the tie. And we all know that Tillis, Cornyn, Cassidy will all vote to confirm. The gift that keeps on giving... 2024 voter apathy. Edit: My mistake, it won’t come to a VP tir breaker, Fetterman will vote to confirm him
And Collins will be "very concerned" but vote "yes"
Yes, she has become the new Joe Manchin.
Worse, I think
We must all call our representatives. Look at the last sentence in today's letter. I don't remember HCR putting in her opinion so directly. The WH will try to keep the temperature low. Keep the heat on. This is a critical moment.
Bar complaint: https://campaignforaccountability.org/watchdog-files-new-york-bar-complaint-against-acting-attorney-general-todd-blanche/
It is the rare vote on Capitol Hill that is not a referendum on Trump's leadership. As you note, this one promises to be no different. In time the rats may begin to leave the ship. But it probably will not be until it is too late to avoid the disaster. It's summer now. They wont bring it upon themselves by rebelling against their master.
YES.
I think we witnessed that when he threw down his mic and walked out saying "Let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time."
38 times Trump has said the Iran War that he alone was stupid enough to start, is going to be over in 2-3 days. 38 TIMES!!!
Meanwhile, Trump has already tanked the economies of many countries and bankrupted hundreds of farmers in the US.
Remember, under Biden how the Republicans bitched and moaned about the strategic petroleum reserve was "almost empty." Well, it is lower now than it ever was under Biden.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is hitting Russian oil refineries, storage farms, pipelines, and their shadow fleets. And bizarrely the price of oil is still around $100 a barrel. Last week Chevron and Exxon-Mobil issued a warning about oil reserves and nothing happened. Where is OPEC and what are they doing about this crisis caused by Trump?
Yeah, he met with farmers in Wisconsin recently and all he did was show drawings of his ridiculous construction plans. As if that's what they came to hear about. 🙄
Trump's extra long bright red tie has always pointed to the source of his worst impulses....his tiny brain. Clearly he fears the publication of the Epstein Files more than he fears the publication of his tax returns.
Everything he does is a public diversion from his private perversions. Clearly his past is catching up with him, and needs the light of day.
Out with the old, in with the blue .
Trump Legal Services, LLC
Donald Trump has nominated Todd Blanche, his former personal criminal-defense lawyer, to become attorney general of the United States. Apparently, hiring your own attorney to run the Justice Department now counts as government reform.
Blanche defended Trump in the hush-money case, the classified-documents case, and the federal election-subversion case. In an ordinary administration, that history would raise concerns about independence. In Trump’s Washington, it qualifies as specialized experience.
Since becoming acting attorney general, Blanche has helped turn the Justice Department into Trump Legal Services, LLC. Its new mission appears simple: investigate enemies, protect allies, reward loyal insurrectionists, and make inconvenient claims against the Trump family vanish into administrative fog.
Then there are the Epstein files. The Senate unanimously passed legislation requiring their release, yet the Justice Department has produced only part of the material, much of it heavily redacted. Former attorney general Pam Bondi said Blanche was in charge of the release. The department managed to expose the identities of previously unknown survivors while still concealing much of the evidence. Nothing says transparency like identifying victims and protecting secrets.
Now Republican senators must decide whether to confirm Blanche as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer. Their hearing should be brief.
“Mr. Blanche, will you enforce the law equally?”
“Of course. Trump’s enemies receive indictments. Trump’s allies receive pardons. Trump’s family receives the platinum immunity package.”
This nomination is not merely another exercise in partisan hypocrisy. It is a loyalty test. Trump is asking senators to certify that the Justice Department belongs to him.
The sign outside may still say “Justice,” but management has changed, and the new owners are not accepting walk-ins.
You’re good. 😚
"An investigation by Tom Bergin, Michelle Conlin, Koh Gui Qing, and Tom Wilson of Reuters today shows that the Trump family has made at least $2.3 billion in their crypto currency licensing adventures since Trump began his second term. It also shows that more than a million people who invested in their enterprises have suffered at least $2.3 billion in losses."
Isn't that called a direct transfer?
How can that possibly be "an official act"?
Hopefully the rubes can file a class action suit and get their money back.
The least we can do is impoverish this guy by destroying his graft empire.
The Democrats will win at the midterms if they tie the flagrant corruption of the Trump regime to the costs to the average American. But that will only happen if there are free and fair elections. Blanche as AG poses an enormous threat to that.
Blanche will do everything in his power to enable voter suppression and election interference to occur. Trump planted the seeds for the effort in the Welker interview. All heBlanche has to do is have Trump sign illegal executive orders, which will face immediate challenges in the courts. He can then run them up to the regime's compliant and complicit SCOTUS on an emergency basis. SCOTUS will place them on the shadow docket and allow them to remain in effect until it can hold a full briefing and rule after the election.
Today, I am writing to my Senators and Representative to read into the congressional record every piece of investigative reporting on Blanche's complicity in Trump's corruption that is being exposed by the free press and to demand that Blanche comply with the Epstein Transparency Act. Democrats can read aloud all of the released Epstein materials if it runs out the clock.
Corey Booker has to again stand up and talk for 24+ hours, as does every Democrat in the Senate. Work in Congress has to be halted until the Blanche nomination is withdrawn.
We also need to write to the Bar associations where Blanche is licensed to demand that they undertake investigations to disbar him now that Bondi has said he was running the show on the regime's illegal response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
According to Perplexity, Blanche appears to be licensed to practice law in New York (state courts and relevant federal courts), and there is public information suggesting bar membership in the District of Columbia;
Below are the primary bar-related offices for those jurisdictions.
New York bar offices
New York State Bar Association (voluntary statewide bar): 1 Elk Street, Albany, NY 12207.
New York City Bar Association (major local bar serving many NYC practitioners): 42 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036.
The publicly available profiles for Todd W. Blanche list him as admitted in the State of New York and its federal courts (Southern District of New York, Eastern District of New York, Second Circuit), but do not list another state license.
District of Columbia bar offices
Public biographical material describing him as a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association indicates bar membership there, although standard lawyer directories focus on his New York admission. For the D.C. Bar:
District of Columbia Bar (mandatory bar): 901 4th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001.
Thank you for this. We’re down to our DDay this November
Yet another coolly insightful piece, Georgia!
Todd Blanche's days of flying under the radar have come to a most sudden end. Is it not always a sort of classical story arc where the flamboyant front man (or woman in Bondi's case) gets the lion's share of ink and attention, only to flame out due to an Icarus-esque flirtation with the flames of fame, ambition, excess, etc., only to be replaced by the quiet functionary, the recessive acolyte, yet that functionary and acolyte turns out to be a serpent with far greater fangs?!?
Todd Blanche is, if this podunk crew of Trumpian grifters, ass kissers and hangers on were to be unduly honored by being described in Shakespearean terms, the Iago of the group, even more so than the grotesquely Iago-esque Stephen Miller, because Miller is so open in his racism and ugliness.
Bondi rips into Democratic Senators with invective most juvenile, yet still paralyzes too many of her male inquisitors while she flips her hair and preens. Her show brings much attention, too much attention for her megalomaniacal boss, so she, and because she is a she, must sink like Ophelia into the asp-ridden flora of the Floridian swamps, while the nerdy, semi-professional, fully corrupt male satraps like Blanche move ahead into the shape shifting graces of their Mad King.
Moving from the poetic to the ponderously prosaic, I do not think any Bar Association complaints are practicable, because Bondi's pointing her fickle finger of fate at him is irrelevant, as she was the AG, not him.
As for the nomination to be permanent AG, I'd rather have Blanche DuBois than Todd Blanche. Company of Strangers indeed!
As Acting AG HE is now refusing to uphold the laws passed by Congress which as I wrote back to another response, should by inference be covered by his oath to obey the Constitution. Of course that will mean the constitutionality of the Epstein Files Transparency Act will be brought into question, but that will light up one huge keg of dynamite among women voters.
The crimes and corruption buried in the Epstein files are toxic enough to require a war and economic crisis to prevent their exposure. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had deep ties to Epstein. Bibi seems intent on defying Trump and extending the war, which is uncharacteristic. Putin is under huge stress as Ukraine is starting to make headway against Russia militarily. The Epstein investigation has to be brought back into the spotlight while preventing Blanche and Pulte as DNI from sabotaging the elections. Blanche is the weak point given his “conversation” with Maxwell and his handling of the files. That is where leverage has to be applied.
Er, Cleopatra? Ophelia had no recorded encounter with asps, she just drowned.
Into this breathtaking melange of mixed metaphor, I would add this, which seems apropos under the circumstances, from Henry IV Part 2 (Act IV, Scene 2):
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
It is the jurists - lawyers like Marc Elias and Norm Eisen, and judges like the ones below - who are defending us from the Republican regime.
To name just a few.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis is the Maryland federal judge who presided over the high-profile civil litigation regarding the wrongful deportation and subsequent unlawful detention of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Judge Xinis ordered the government to facilitate his return to the U.S. in 2025 and later ordered his release from immigration detention.
Judge John Coughenour (U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington): Ruled against the Trump administration’s executive orders curtailing U.S. birthright citizenship, labeling them unconstitutional.
Judge Alan D. Lourie & the Federal Circuit Majority: Ruled against Trump’s sweeping tariff powers invoked under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), joining a cross-party consensus that "no president is a king".
Judges Stephanie Haines, John Holcomb, and Fernando Rodriguez Jr.: Notable Trump appointees who ruled against his use of the Alien Enemies Act to enact swift, mass deportations of Venezuelan nationals, citing violations of due process.
Judge Eric Komitee (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York): A Trump appointee who ruled against the administration's attempt to reverse and halt protections for young immigrants. []
Chief Judge James Boasberg (U.S. District Court for the D.C. Circuit): Presided over multiple cases enforcing the limits of executive privilege and demanding compliance with congressional and legal subpoenas.
U.S. Judge Leo Sorokin in Massachusetts found the Trump administration had acted beyond its legal authority under immigration laws passed by Congress and concluded the fee functioned as a tax rather than an administration fee and required congressional authorization.
US district judge Christopher Cooper’s order to take down all references to a “Trump Kennedy Center”, telling employees: “To comply with this order, you must immediately change email signatures, letterheads, and other documents to reflect the name such as ‘The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center’.
Heavy caseloads, regrets and surprises: 5 judges who embody the courts’ rebuke of Trump’s ICE detentions - POLITICO
.https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/24/ice-detention-rulings-judges-00934539.
These judges ruled against Trump. Then their families came under attack. | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/these-judges-ruled-against-trump-then-their-families-came-under-attack-2025-05-02/
Thank you -- as a good-guy lawyer, I appreciate your comment!
Thank you for a comprehensive reminder of all those brave lawyers and jurists standing in the breach to defend the rule of law.
And Lin, Michael Lutting gathered 200 former judges to rain on his parade. Thx for your list.
Not all the lawyers—there are good folk practicing law, perhaps few and far between. Marc Elias is one defending voting rights, but even he can’t get a voice in decisions that go to the shadow docket, where a lot of the corrupt actions are occurring that have immediate practical effect.
I won’t count on the Senate to refuse to approve the nomination, and Blanche could be with us until just before the midterms because of the 210 day limit for “Acting” under the Vacancies Reform Act. Blanche was appointed Acting Attorney General on April 2, 2026, so 210 days later is on October 29, 2026. Election Day is on Tuesday, November 3. I am surprised that Trump didn’t wait an extra week to appoint him, but maybe he just couldn’t tolerate Bondi a moment longer.
I am hoping that disbarment could be faster than that. It might be unacceptable on the world stage to have an AG running the DOJ who has been disbarred for breaking his oath of office defend the Constitution, and by inference, all laws passed by Congress that are constitutional. It wouldn’t be an impediment in Trump’s eyes, though and the MAGA minions will just say it is the liberal elites interfering with Trump’s right to choose whomever he wants to lick his *ss.
Of course, the question of the constitutionality of the Epstein Files Transparency Act would then be questioned, and work its way up to SCOTUS, who could say Blanche can’t be disbarred until the status of the constitutionality of that law is adjudicated…
Of course Blanche could be impeached, but that would require a 2/3 majority in the Senate to convict.
The goal here is to uncover the corruption in investigations in as many venues as possible. Blanche’s absolute refusal to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act is undeniable so it is a good one to start with. Disbarment proceedings get the investigation out from under the Republican majorities on the relevant congressional committees and have a direct impact on Blanche’s ability to practice law in a world after Trump. We have to use all of the weapons at hand.
Re: tracking the Shadow Docket. I should've included legal scholars such as Joyce Vance and Steve Vladeck.
Maybe younger members of Congress and there ARE a few) need to be reminded of John Mitchell.
the point of the anti-monarchical rebel Jack Cade in saying that is that lawyers defend the rule of law and legal institutions, so they are in the way of overturning social norms (and kings). So killing the lawyers helps overthrow the system, and the rule of law. It is not the criticism of the legal profession that some people seem to think it is.
Yes, breath taking
Good One!!
Ah-Ha! BUT - IF she had drowned in Florida. she MIGHT have encountered an "asp" in the form of a Saltmarsh Viper! Which is a type of asp! Shakespeare obviously didn't know his asp from his elbow. . .
"After voters threw out Orbán and his party with a supermajority that would empower the country’s new leaders to investigate their predecessors, the extraordinary corruption is coming to light."
Hungarian voters did this treating voting as a strategic joint exercise in winning power. Progressive, liberal, and center left Hungarians overwhelmingly voted for a center right party lead by a former Orban official.
I have long criticized the nominal Left wing opposition for its purity test contribution to electing Trump. In the Maine Democratic senate primary race, the self-righteous purity test self-indulgence has come from Democratic moderates and liberals. Who - with a broad spectrum of media and pundits - pinned their hopes on helping establishment Democrat Janet Mills pull a primary win rabbit out of her battered campaign hat and win a septuagenarian sack race against Susan Collins. Prominent members of the Mills camp have sworn they will never vote for Platner.
Graham Platner is running on being "a Senator for people who can't afford to buy a Senator."
Are you all in?
Vote Blue No Matter Who
I agree 100%. With Trump essentially guaranteed to still have veto power after the midterms, purity tests are irrelevant. There will be no reform legislation passed and signed into law until Trump (and Vance who may follow him if he leaves office early) are defeated at the polls. That is the ugly reality. It is also a vulnerability with an electorate that is desperate for change. We cannot be Hungary without veto-proof majorities.
Democrats at the national level have only three jobs they can be successful at until 2028—
expose the corruption and its cost to the American people,
prevent the Republicans from enacting further damaging legislation
refuse to approve nominations of unqualified MAGA nominees to key government positions.
All the while, MAGA minions will be calling us a “do nothing” Congress as Trump gleefully vetoes bills and has Blanche (or his replacement) file suits in ultra-conservative district courts to stymie reform efforts to get them up in front of SCOTUS for Federalist Society approved outcomes. Veto power and a pocket SCOTUS are still a powerful combination that can do a lot of damage until 2028 even with majorities in Congress.
Which provides more fuel to the argument of eliminating Republicans from your state governments, as well. Providing more State power will go a long way toward diminishing whatever power he thinks he has.
The Heritage Foundation's model legislation to implement “election integrity” has already been enacted in most red states, along with other ultra-conservative legislation. It was up on Heritage’s website as Project 2026, essentially a checklist of what Project 2025 tasks were not yet completed.
The response from Democrats was crickets.
My response: Put together an effing shadow cabinet already and respond!!!!!
Baffling why Dems won't!! Works beautifully in the UK, and in Australia, among others. Who or what are they listening to, that they won't do such a simple thing?? And I'm in Ohio, THE Most Corrupt State in the Union, so I'm well aware of "election integrity" lies.
That is the very grim truth Georgia.
Well said. There are good reasons to be concerned about Platner’s past. And good reasons to hold his feet to the fire on every issue and vote if he becomes Senator. But another 6 years of Susan Collins would be an infinitely worse outcome.
We are in a war. There, I said it. A mostly peaceful one (so far) but one for the future of this country and for our own freedom. And in war, you sometimes have to line up with allies you don’t love to defeat a common enemy that poses a far greater threat. 11/3/2026 is indeed our D-Day and if we fail, the war will turn against us perhaps permanently.
We cannot afford to lose. Not those of us on the middle. Not those of us on the left. I’ve said it a hundred times, to this president we are all “radical left lunatics.” He makes zero distinction where we are on the Democratic/left spectrum. Alex Pretti’s murder was a warning shot - he would be fine with doing that to any one of us. If we win if we put aside differences and bind together for the fight of our lives (and possibly for them).
I’m in.
Good job Georgia, we'll follow up.
THX Georgia.
Nice try, but won’t Blanche be able to keep the job even if disbarred?
Heather, please keep an eye out on June 12 for Blanche's and the DOJ's response to Judge Kathleen Williams' order regarding the "Magic Settlement". They tried to pull a midnight bamboozle over on her and she is pissed! Here is the link to her order demanding answers to their actions after dismissing the frivolous lawsuit. They used her court and lied to her.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.706172/gov.uscourts.flsd.706172.65.0_1.pdf
35 judges will not let this Blanche-Epsteyn-Trump Family flim flam, hornswoggle of public money go by unchecked, either. They are on it! Here is their amicus motion blowing the whistle on Blanche's $1.7 Billion scam for the Trump Family. And Blanche's approval of the IRS tax evasion immunity agreement for the Trump Family.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.706172/gov.uscourts.flsd.706172.63.0.pdf
The NYT is reporting on the fraudulent Magic Settlement. Remind the rest of the Press to pay attention. The slush fund is the distraction from the actual crime. Fraud on the court? Fraud on the Treasury? Fraud on the IRS? All cooked up and coordinated by the Acting Attorney General who seeks to be the top law enforcement officer in the nation.
Exactly. Blanche didn't just go along with the scheme to defraud the IRS, the Treasury, and therefore the People, IMO, he is the architect.
Hence the sudden return attack on E Jean Carroll. As I recall, the judge in that case ridiculed Blanche.
The slush fund is the shiny object -- a ridiculous and offensive and illegal shiny object -- but I agree - the tax evasion blanket immunity is a deeper crime - and to me it proves that there was - and is - plenty of evasion.
As always, thank you Megan for your links & great info 💙
Thank YOU for being aware and active!
Thank you, Megan.
As for the issue of the Senate, greed and fear are as ever prime motivators.
Hey Bill! I hope you’re doing well!
Thanks! I think so from time to time. Weary is a blanket that visits. As long as the heart is restless, the future stretches like the Mississippi. The big payoff is arriving where fresh crawfish can be found then, reacquainted, returning to the lost coast.
I remain in deep admiration, wishing you and yours the very best.
You rock, Megan!
We say that in my classroom to everyone doing awesome things! Tomorrow my students get a little rock that’s holding a “You Rock” sign 😅 I can’t wait to see their reactions!
Make sure you get one too, Megan. Perhaps place it on top of the soil holding your favorite plant.
That's so sweet!
They'll treasure them forever.
Some very industrious and brilliant people known as the nonprofit Institute for Primary Facts have created the “Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room” an installation that was launched in New York City's Tribeca neighborhood on May 8, 2026. It’s now a touring exhibit that contains 3,437 bound volumes comprising roughly 3.5 million pages of the Epstein-related records released so far by the Department of Justice.
The exhibit, which also includes a tribute to the victims and a detailed timeline of the relationship between Trump and Epstein, features several specific elements. As a physical archive, the printed documents weigh about 17,000 pounds! The intent is to make the abstract data from digital releases physically tangible to highlight the massive scale of the evidence.
To protect the identities of victims and survivors that were not properly redacted by the Department of Justice, general visitors cannot randomly handle or read the physical volumes themselves (though exceptions are made for verified professionals). Following its New York run, the exhibit was relocated to Washington, D.C. It was opened in the Chinatown neighborhood (737 7th St NW) to coincide with the presidential birthday, running from June 9 through June 14.
https://substack.com/@rawstory/note/c-258370127?r=i06a&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/epstein-files-reading-room-new-york-2772205
David Garrett of Primary Facts said after the success of the exhibit in New York, where it opened in May, the group received a large amount of public feedback that they should come to DC, to potentially spur more action from lawmakers as well as the release of all the Epstein files by the DOJ. Garrett said they moved quickly to move the exhibit, and they wanted to be in the capital for President Trump’s birthday on Sunday, June 14.
“…it’s really hard to walk through here and see all this and think the investigation is done, I think there’s a lot more investigation to be had…
What we hope is that people will see this and demand accountability from our elected officials,” Garrett said.
https://washingtonian.com/2026/06/09/epstein-reading-room-opens-in-dc-documenting-relationship-with-trump/
I’m still surprised Heather’s substack hasn’t been taken down! She is being SO mean to our poor Donny-boy, who has done nothing wrong…
XO Megan Rothery. Roar on!
Thank you for this resource, Megan. I have limited my calls and emails to my three Members of Congress. Do communications from out-of-district voters and out-of-state voters get through and get counted? And, How can we ...what language penetrates the filters?
Mostly no. But the workaround is to use Megan’s spreadsheet to call off-hours, which is what I have done. In fact, I have called to thank those who are working FOR us, like Maxwell Frost and Robert Garcia, to thank them. (Even got an unasked-for return call from Frost’s office!)
commenting coz.
I left voice messages for both of my Senators this morning telling them to NOT confirm Todd Blanche. They don't listen to their constituents, but it's worth a try. Here's hoping they get a minute of moral clarity.
Thank you Megan!
Thanks, Megan 👊‼️👊‼️👊
I wrote to both of my senators this AM. I did not go on about why to vote against Blanche. They know. But as for contacting other senators you have to state who you are and where you live. Still it may matter.
Thank you for speaking up! In my opinion these are unprecedented times so going beyond our own reps is now something I do and encourage. Not everyone agrees with me, I get that.
My first round of emails from the contact me links had a lot bounce back saying I wasn't a constituent so it either didn't get sent or basically wouldn't be read. So I changed the way I sent messages. I use one of their own in state addresses (listed on my spreadsheet to help with this) on the address line because technically it doesn't say "my" address. I also don't want to misrepresent myself any more than that, so in my messages I typically put (at the bottom) that while I'm not a constituent, I am reaching out because (insert name) does represent me on the (insert committee that fits the topic my message is about).
Another thing I do is call after hours. I don't leave my name or address/zip code so my voice doesn't go towards a count, but the more they hear from us, the better.
I also send faxes using faxzero.com (5 free/day). I don't send a lot of letters, but when I do I put the same “while I’m not a constituent” blurb I do in my emails.
Yes, Megan, we must speak up now. This is a critical moment. Remember Uvalde. Public outrage resulted in a bipartisan bill.
Read the last sentence in the letter today. I don't remember HCR putting her voice in so clearly before. The WH will try to keep Blanche's confirmation on low. We must keep the heat on our Senators. We must all call or email. Calling is more effective. Just say, I want you to vote against Todd Blanche. Or tie it to Epstein.
Thank you, Megan!
They know what took down Al Capone so they're trying to have their cake and eat it, too. May they all choke on it.
For a breath of pure comic relief, enjoy Randy Rainbow's take on the Modern Major-General. Gilbert and Sullivan never shined brighter...."He is the very model of a very stable genius, Of all the presidents, he's still the Mussoliniest..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy2L90MMjiQ
Nice. But, I went down the rabbit hole of stories on Ukrainian kicking Russia's ass including destroying a chemical and missile parts plant in St. Petersburg, an ammo depot destroying 2 months worth of artillery supplies on the front in Ukraine and bombing one of the last supply routes into Crimea. What will Trump do when Putin and Russia fall? Trump still calls on the moronic Putin for advice? Someone needs to let Trump know that his arch-enemy Zelenskyy and Ukraine are kicking the Russian's butt.
Many hospitals all over Russia are full of amputees other injuries that don't allow them to be productive in Russian society, plus they are a drag on the medical resources.
First Orban, then Putin(?) and then Bibi(?). If Trump loses all three of these allies he'll have to start listening to his sycophants. Or not.
Let it be so.
too good!
hilarious
We all need an infusion of humor. Thanks.
He is soooo clever.
Let them eat cake in the Federal pen.
If the GOP controlled Senate approves this criminal defense attorney to be the USAG, they will be complicit in the destruction of the rule of law in America… And every Democrat running for office (plus those not running for office) should make this their talking point every day of the year until November 2028! The Democratic Party cannot roll over as the GOP destroys the rule of law! This is the defining moment for the Democratic Party in the age of Trump!
So many scandals, so little time. But yeah, make 'em wear it.
Been waiting for half my life, Dems have had their moments but they seem to be spent and out of gas. But my $15 will fill ‘er up . Hope more signs of life but I’m old and about out of gas myself. But as i often say, have walker, will travel. But no mil to donate. HCR details the sausage making and gives Dems plenty of ammunition, as do repubs, but the muted response is hard to fathom.
To better understand the Democratic Party's leadership, read corruption expert Sarah Kendzior's two best-selling books. You'll learn there's a LOT of corruption in the Democratic Party... we just don't hear about it because they "act" like they want to save us. (HINT: For a lot of them, it's just an act.) The party is largely under the control of Wall Street. It represents big business now... just in a quieter way.
www.sarahkendzior.com
Exact. Captured by the corporate $$$$$$
and that is the problem in a nutshell
Steve, I keep saying the same thing. Read Sarah Kendzior’s books. I process everything political through a new lens after reading her extensively researched work.
The Rethuglicans have been complicit since 2016.
Good point. If not now….?
Thanks Heather for this excellent summary of Trump family corruption and enabler Blanche at DOJ, now the private Trump law firm. My friends who are former DOJ lawyers are stunned by how quickly the Trump regime hollowed out the Department leaving a nest of Trump loyalists and lapdogs in charge--devoted to preserving and protecting and defending Trump, not the US Constitution and the rule of law.
It is dispiriting to me how easily the regime turned our government's departments into their Imperial Guard. I think solidarity alone, massive solidity and awareness, is our strongest play, as it was in Hungary. Indeed Trumps recorded gushing admiration for Orbán may be one of the arrows in our quiver.
If Dems don’t ignore. Should be a constant drum beat.
Perseverance furthers.
The people in the background, such as the Heritage Foundation, had everything prepared and ready for destruction, those executive orders for sure.
Yes they did. That is what they spent the interregnum preparing for.
What a great opportunity for those Republican Senators like Cassidy, Cronyn, McConnell, and… to step up and say no to il trumpfuhrer.
Still waiting on Steve Massie and the Epstein list
Dare we hope?
See where Todd Blanche fits in the Epstein Files scandal with this interactive relationship map. Click on any face for details that will appear in the side panel. Follow links to other people including Ghislaine Maxwell, Stormy Daniels, Kash Patle and Michael Cohen. Or search by Category (like Victim, Trump donors, Israel...)
https://kumu.io/Dem-Labs/trump-epstein-feb-1-2026#trump-epstein/todd-blanche
Hello Deepak... Ghislaine Maxwell's Father was Robert Maxwell, a Israeli fanatic.. Alisa Valdes-Rodriquez has done Stellar Research on Jeffrey's Web...
You're right on both counts.
I have Robert Maxwell in the map already.
https://kumu.io/Dem-Labs/trump-epstein-feb-1-2026#trump-epstein/robert-maxwell
And I link to Alisa's newsletter in the panel on the left. Look under "Top 12 Newsletters about the Epstein Files".
How hard would it to do something like this for the TN legislature? I already have some information you could use…
It's the plutocratic corruption, folks. It always was.
If a team under-inflates a ball in sports, it's a major scandal; but cheating millions of their right to vote by "gerrymandering" is standard operating procedure, and even our highest court shrugs.
J L, excellent comparison. Our highest court is as corrupt as anything else unfortunately.
They are even pretending anymore.
Our SC was bought decades ago, Mitch’s legacy. The process was painful as Kavanaugh and the lawyers from the Reagan, Bush years bulldozed through. Lots of yammering but the opposition was no match for Stone’s dirty tricks and the Fox Ministry of Propaganda. The repubs ditched any thought of integrity and fair play with Lee Atwater. It’s been a long stretch of watching our government slip slide away. Like with an avalanche, little to stop it. I was born in the FDR era and thought our laws would hold despite the McCarthy’s and demagogues like Roy Cohn. Still shocked at how easily propaganda and money can taint supposed Christian values. Jesus would clear the temple of these pretenders…
I was born under Truman, and also assumed our system was stronger than it has proven to be. That said, rule of law still retains some momentum, mostly in the judiciary and also away from D.C. . Of course, for a government of, by, and for the people, the buck ultimately stops with us, the people. High time to sharpen our game. As you mention, corruption has been growing 'cause the public backed off hoeing. Lots of weeds (of crime) here to the rooted out.
All hail Moscow Mitch McConnell! He is the rat that sold American democracy…
Posting about the Supreme Court & per NPR's Veteran SCOTUS' reporter, NINA TOTENBERG, the U.S. SUPREME COURT has 23 opinions left to publish before the end of this 25-2026 Term.
This THURSDAY 6/11 is the next but, not the last, opinion publication date. SCTUSblog.com coverage starts at 9:30 AM Eastern. Any published opinions are quickly summarized at 10 AM Eastern.
One of the huge cases yet to be published is the BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP case, Trump vs Barbara. SCOTUS Case No. 25-365.
Per SCOTUSblog, "The case questions whether EO, Executive Order, 14160 -- which restricts birthweight for certain children of non-citizen & non-lawful permanent residents complies with the Citizenship Clause of the 14th, Fourteenth Ament".
Spoiler Alert: It does not. Go Barbara for all 'Barbaras'.
Richard Nixon failed because he tried to tell people "I am not a crook", which everyone knew was false unless they were like my mother who said he was persecuted. Trump never says he was not a crook, but he says he is a good smart man persecuted by terrible people, and all he is trying to do is to make America great again. He learned from Nixon what not to say, and he learned from people like my mother what to say to keep his worshippers in his fouled nest. Republicans without the ability to see reality or know lies when they smell them will remain his slaves even decades after he dies.
He learned from Roy Cohn how to pick up where Joe McCarthy left off.
Chump learned all the lessons that we try not to teach our children
Exactly.
⬆️Exactly, JL.
Thirty-five years ago, I took a couple of semester-long courses on Latin American history. I remember thinking how corrupt many of those governments were then, and at the same time being shocked at how interventionist the US government was. — At the same time, the prof talked (with some level of derision) about US political rhetoric where the US was portrayed as the beacon of hope for the world, the shining city on the hill. And in some ways it did do a lot of good along with the bad. — But the US isn’t even pretending anymore. This level of corruption laid out so clearly by Prof HCR is astounding in its depth and scope. Blanche must be rejected, along with everything he stands for and tries to protect. Else, how will we ever recover?!
The Empire weakens and destroys competition because it is not offered simply as tribute. This is the basis of our expansion sea to shining sea. It is also the basis of the US relationship with the other 34 countries in America: pay tribute or not, we will squeeze you, we will overthrow your governments, we will salt your soil.
I'm not sure as to Heather's conclusion today.
There she calls criminal Donald's nomination of his corrupt personal lawyer to head the DOJ "a very big deal indeed."
But this criminal Donald has now spent more than ten years normalizing his criminality and corruption in Washington, D.C. We all know it. What we don't know is if any from among his cult will ever wake up to it.
In hers today Heather speculates on what traction the Epstein case might have on all those, including Republicans en masse who voted for those files to be released -- and the victims' identities all to be protected. We know perfectly well of the contempt Todd Blanche has had for that law -- really contempt for all law. Donald is monarch. Donald is king. Donald routinely scorns Congress, evades all agencies with jurisdiction around his constant thwarting of the public good.
Gas prices? Those daily, large-format numbers everywhere around America -- might they be the call finally to rouse most Americans where the cowardly Congress and corrupt Supreme Court have just taken whatever continuous crap the orange excrescence has thrown at them, at us?
Phil, we will soon know if any R Senators are awake enough not to confirm him.
Appointing crooks to run the DOJ is a very big deal. Alas immersion in massive and pervasive corruption to the point of instances daily makes it hard to identify the most egregious and salient examples, but we must focus hard and hit these bandits over the head with their own perfidy, now and until their spell is broken.
If anyone is waiting for or relying upon MAGA “waking up”, it’s something not simply out of touch, but akin to raising zombies back to life. MAGA is not a majority, not even close. They are a core.
Voters have a lot of issues, mostly personal. That has been demonstrated time and again. Drumpf ought never have won in 2016. But he did. Not because of Benghazi, not because of email servers, and not because of a magical box of legal papers discovered one morning in the White House Library.
I’ve heard all the excuses. Hillary Clinton lost because of gender. Kamala Harris, here it is true there was the usual recurring and crippling fumbling of the Dem leadership. Harris had not been brought forward enough in Biden’s 1st term. Evidently, party leadership felt putting octogenarians in the White House might be a new normal … even after witnessing the decline of Reagan firsthand. So yeah, they failed that election effort, Kamala Harris, and the Nation in epic style.
Yet there’s more. Regardless of race, it’s hard to reliably find a majority among voters who actually cast votes that are going to put a woman in the White House. Any other office has become normalized, but not POTUS. Philadelphia voters wrote us a letter.
The notion that the nation is no longer divided by gender, race, religion, cultural affiliation or tattoos doesn’t hold water. If anything e-media has driven us further apart.
I could cry. I weep in a garden. What will wash away the salt?
An avalanche. But e-media (starting with Rupert) and the oligarchs has divided us with the old weapons, hate, greed, envy and religion. It took a while and I watched Bill Moyers fight it for decades. Seems for nothing now.
As someone commented yesterday - "God, Guns, Greed and Grievance"
Astute points all, Bill. And all damning as you also suggest.
If we'd been able to keep up the energy level we had with humanities before the Powell memo's ensuant foundations destroyed all that -- evicted that energy, killed those humanities in our schools -- if we'd been able to keep public life vital by reference to novels, memoirs, films, songs, histories, Hillary would have had a chance. Kamala could have gotten better Dem cohering support.
But America lost. The corporate cretins won. And shorn of the human, of course there entered a totality of the divisive, the hatreds, the conspiracy-abstracted scenarios.
Return to humanities? How might a people do that now so inured to testing instead?
Hello Phil.... AI is now destroying the Humanities... AI, and Hand-Helds are making People Stupider...
It's been a continuum, Apache:
1) the Powell memo's rise to commercialism's vulgarity;
2) testing's neutering of all;
3) Citizens United's enthroning of money;
4) the international oligarch class uniting around Epstein's trafficking of girls, arms running, drug dealing, money laundering;
5) Netanyahu's war by poisoned settlers against any neighbors not of their ilk;
6) Donald's alliance with social media billionaires upping riches by hate algorithms.
Hello Phil... Yes, Times Are Grim...
I suppose every moment spent on ‘social’ media is a moment not spent in community face to face, scent to scent, or at least ear to ear both close and far.
AI is the new TV. Go back to 1950. The core capability is sales. I’ll end the long boring story here.
Hello Bill... Remember the 'Trogs' in the Original 'Time-Machine' Movie...
A people accomplish one by one. Each one, one by one reaches out, and again.
Kindred spirit is core to all that belongs to humanities. It’s our better side. It carries the Janus stone.
As you say, the other is forever ravening.
You are so right Phil, a spine is as hard to find as T Rex DNA
My gas was at 25% full. Filling the tank cost $50.
It's a massively criminal class to which Donald has long fixed his priorities, Craig.
Donald. Putin. Netanyahu. Mohammed bin Salman. Erdogan. Xi. Kim. Bukele. Sisi.
And then the hundreds of sycophants, enablers in all these countries where the only morality came in dutiful submission to the universal neutering of standardized testing.
If I remember correctly, the Repubs only voted to release the files after the orange one gave the go ahead. Probably knowing that he controls the DOJ and could contain the files as has been done.
Yes, J., likely a whole lotta wink-wink-nod-nod.
Gotta remember, these aren't grown-ups.
There is no world in which a president’s former defense attorney should hold the highest prosecutorial power in the country.
This is the pattern we keep seeing: replacing independent public servants with loyalists whose first obligation is protecting power instead of serving the public.
The rule of law cannot survive if the people entrusted to enforce it are chosen because they will ignore it.
Let's not forget, JFK appointed his brother RFK as AG, he did a good job, how's that for 'previous relationship?' John Adams defended the British (6 acquitals, 2 reduced sentences for manslaughter) at the Boston Massacre, he was still able to serve credibly in government, don't you think? That Blanche is a former defense attorney for Trump, not a problem. That Blanche is still acting as Trump's personal attorney-problem, that Trump is still committing crimes and Blanche is covering them up-problem, that Blanche is committing policy related crimes himself-problem, that Blanche is aiding and abetting Trump's personally motivated crimes of self enrichment as opposed to policy ones only-problem. Heather is not a lawyer and keeps wrongly inferring something nebulous, but tellingly undefined because she does not understand the law, about Blanche's prior representation. She needs to tease out these distinctions.
That Blanche realizes that he has reached the point of no return is evidenced by his recent comments. When Democrats return to power, he will be facing some very unpleasant consequences, all of which he will thoroughly deserve. I'm tired of hearing people lean on the adage that Trump ruins everything. Of course he does. But he didn't ruin Lindsey Graham or Rudy Giuliani or Todd Blanche; he just made it easier for them to show their true colors. Hell needs a new circle, with an elephant logo on the door.
The detail about the unanimous Senate vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act carries some weight on its own. The law passed, set a deadline, and the deadline passed without compliance.
What's unfolding around Blanche's nomination is partly a question about that gap (the one between what a statute requires and what an executive agency actually does) and what tools the legislative branch has left when oversight depends on the willingness of the branch being overseen.
Whatever your view on the underlying politics, that structural question about accountability belongs to every senator's constituents, across the aisle.
Remember Congressional Nazi Republicans(CNR)Are Complicit With Cheeto’s Lawlessness
The CNR continues to be complicit with Cheeto’s corruption by giving him no pushback on his raiding of the Treasury for his own financial gains. The CNR’s have decided to not only give the ultrawealthy individuals and corporations a huge tax break while Americans struggle with daily budgetary strains including the hidden tax called tariffs, they have failed to check the power of the executive through legislative action with Cheeto’s authoritarian blitzkrieg, eliminated farm to school programs hurting the American farmer, and betrayed the confidence of the American electorate. Wait until after the midterms when the medical safety net is largely eliminated with Medicaid cuts leading to millions thrown off their health care and with continued rural hospital closures(https://bit.ly/4ebsaDr). The CNR’s have plans to trim Medicare and Social Security next year, further eliminating the financial safety net while the purchasing power of the dollar falls making American daily life more unaffordable.
That creates an obvious political contradiction. If the deficit is truly a $40T emergency, critics ask, why are Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security described as the problem while tax cuts and new spending initiatives remain on the table? Giviing $70B to ICE to lock up immigrants without due process takes priority over WIC and SNAP programs.
Ethics and morality be damned Full steam ahead. The CNR pushed through poorly qualified cabinet nominations from Kegseth to RFK Jr to Lutnick to McMahon. But now CNR’s are confirming nominations for incompetent federal prosecutors in Wyoming and Los Angeles. Not only has Cheeto abused the pardon power, his CNR’s are confirming or sneaking incompetent prosecutors into federal prosecutor positions. Watch these unqualified Nazi prosecutors go to work to deny and challenge in courts the results of free and fair elections, as has just happened in LA.
But, hey, Nazis like incompetence and giving criminals lack of prosecution in the days of Cheeto’s bought off pardons.
Blanche makes me blanche. He might have holes in his head from the same brainworm that left empty chambers in RFK, Jr.’s head. Will the (R) Senate find
The Treasury Dept. was able to get Al Capone on tax evasion because it had evidence of evasion and, every taxpayer must sign their return declaring that they are signing under penalties of perjury. They are stating that to the best of their knowledge, the information is correct and complete. This applies even when you file electronically.