Midterm Shenanigans

Trump's constant bluster about voter fraud and rigged elections may be producing a Streisand Effect by having prompted rigorous investigations that always turn up diddly squat.

And given Americans' legendarily short attention span, it kinda looks like people are getting just a little bored with it.

But this is a guy who never gives up - he backs down a lot - but he never admits defeat, and you can bet dollars to dingleberries that he'll keep hammering away.

So IMO it's more than a little probable that this story in WaPo illustrates some of the basic fuckery that I think Trump and Blanche are cooking up.

DOJ seeks to block Alaska Senate result if Republican incumbent narrowly loses In a lawsuit, the Justice Department cited confusion over two similarly named candidates, including Republican Sen. Daniel S. Sullivan.

The Justice Department has moved to preemptively block certification of the results of Alaska’s Senate race if Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses his tight race against Democrat Mary Peltola next month, launching an unusual legal battle amid broader concerns over the Trump administration’s willingness to accept the election results.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday, department officials described the candidacy of a third contender in the race — another Republican named Dan J. Sullivan Jr. — as a bid to mislead supporters of Sen. Sullivan into voting for the wrong candidate.

They asked a federal judge to bar the state from certifying the race’s results should the senator lose by a margin less than the number of votes his same-named challenger receives. In that scenario, the department said, the court should investigate whether that result was tainted by voter confusion.

The move marked a remarkable bid by the Justice Department to potentially intervene in the outcome of a race that could determine control of the Senate before the election has occurred. Just hours before the suit was filed, Attorney General Todd Blanche downplayed the suggestion his agency would seek to interfere with state certified election outcomes outside of what he described as a “doomsday scenario.”

“It is not DOJ’s intention to — and it’s never our intention to — improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process,” Blanche told reporters Thursday. “But, you know, to say there’s no circumstances that we would ever do that, of course, I’m not going to say that.”

As Election Day approaches, Democrats have grown increasingly alarmed by what they view as attempts by the Justice Department to influence the outcome of the vote. The Trump administration has pushed in public and in court to exert greater control over state-run election administration and worked to cast doubt on the integrity of the results.

In Alaska, Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward wrote in the Thursday filing, “the sole purpose of [Dan J. Sullivan’s] candidacy is to benefit the Peltola campaign by reducing the number of votes for Senator Sullivan.”

“Given the substantial likelihood that the inclusion of Dan J. Sullivan will confuse or mislead voters looking to cast a vote for Senator Sullivan and thus distort the will of Alaskan voters, there is a substantial likelihood that a certification of the election will reflect an electoral process that lacked integrity,” Woodward, the Justice Department’s third highest-ranking official, added.

Dan J. Sullivan did not immediately return requests for comment Friday. Spokespeople for Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and Peltola also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The candidacy of Dan J. Sullivan — a retired teacher and a former member of the Alaska Independence Party who registered as a Republican shortly before filing to enter the race this year — has been a source of consternation for Republicans.

Alaska election officials moved in June to boot him from the ballot, agreeing that his entry into the race was meant to confuse voters. But Dan J. Sullivan has repeatedly denied claims that he was trying to confuse, or coordinating with Democrats or Peltola’s campaign. A state court ordered him back on the ballot later that month, a decision later affirmed by the state’s Supreme Court.

He advanced to the general election in the state’s August primary, which selects the top four candidates regardless of party. He received only 2.5 percent of the vote — almost entirely from liberal strongholds in the state.

Name confusion is not new in the state of under 780,000. Dan S. Sullivan, the current senator, was first elected in 2014, the same year the then-Anchorage mayor, also named Dan Sullivan, was running for lieutenant governor.

Jim Lottsfeldt, an Anchorage-based political consultant, said name confusion likely contributed to Dan S. Sullivan’s victory that year. (Former mayor Sullivan endorsed Sen. Sullivan against the teacher Sullivan in this year’s race.)

Lottsfeldt had the idea at the time to recruit more candidates named Dan Sullivan to the Senate ballot to confuse voters, though he declined to actually go through with it. He denied any involvement in Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy this year.

“I actually looked and saw there were like 14 Dan Sullivans,” Lottsfeldt said in an interview last month.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday called Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy a “SCAM” and hinted that his administration could soon seek legal intervention in the race.

“We are looking at powerful legal options to remove the fraudulent Dan J. Sullivan Jr. from the Ballot, and holding the Democrats accountable for their Election Interference, in the pursuit of Justice and Fairness,” Trump wrote on social media.

Still, election experts described the legal arguments advanced by the department in the suit Thursday as “absurdly thin” and predicted it would not withstand judicial scrutiny. University of Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller called the department’s suit “one of the worst ones I’ve ever seen.”

“In short, like many Department letters over the last few years, it is designed to win the press release rather than the litigation,” Muller wrote in a blog post.

The suit relies on a novel reading of the National Voter Registration Act -- a broad statute that governs voter registration requirements. Instead, Justice Department lawyers cited a mention in the law’s preamble Thursday to justify its interest in the outcome of the Alaska race, saying it authorized the federal government to “protect the integrity of the electoral process.”

Though the suit called for Alaska’s results to be put on hold in the event of Sen. Sullivan’s narrow loss so an investigation can be conducted to determine voters intended that result, the filing does not explain how such an investigation would be carried out while also protecting the secrecy of voters’ ballot choices.

Trump has spent years questioning election procedures and has fretted in recent months that a Democratic takeover of Congress could lead to his third impeachment. He continues to insist he won the 2020 election, even though recounts and court reviews found he lost, and he regularly complains without evidence that elections are rigged against Republicans.

He and his administration have spent the past two years trying to intervene with how states run elections, but have had little success. Trump tried to limit who received mail ballots but was stopped by the Supreme Court. The Justice Department sued 30 states for their voter rolls but has lost case after case in court. The Department of Homeland Security has prioritized finding noncitizens on voter rolls, but a judge this week restricted how it can conduct its investigations.

Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor and director of the school’s Safeguarding Democracy Project, told NPR this week he did not believe the Trump administration and its backers would challenge results if Democrats win control of Congress in a blowout.

But Hasen, who spoke before the Justice Department filed its latest lawsuit, named Alaska as a potential legal battleground if Democrats narrowly take control of the Senate. The state uses ranked-choice voting and takes longer than others to tabulate results, heightening the chances of litigation there, he noted.

“If it comes down to one seat, then I think all bets are off. And then I’m very concerned that the Trump administration will try to do things to manipulate the outcome of the elections,” Hasen said.

Just remember that Jan6 was a multi-pronged, multi-phase operation. So taking the states to court is likely just part of the plan.

STAY FROSTY

EYE ON THE BALL

NOSE TO THE WIND

EAR TO THE GROUND

SHOULDER TO THE WHEEL

now try to get

something done

in that position

Billie Nelson

Rich

Voter Beware

Midterm Fuckery

The Trumplefucks continue to stack the shitty things they intend to do, waiting until after the midterms to spring it all on us. And IMHO, a lot of it is going to be blamed on the Democrats.

As soon as the Dems are elected, I expect the gaslighting will reverse.

White House Officials Told the DOJ to Delay Action on Abortion Ahead of the Midterms

Attorney General Todd Blanche has moved slowly in abortion pill litigation and department officials have told advocates to wait until after the election.

The White House has instructed the Justice Department to move slowly on any abortion-related actions ahead of the midterm elections, The Washington Sun has learned.

In a series of discussions, senior White House officials, led by White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, directly delivered the message to Attorney General Todd Blanche, according to a senior administration official not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Wiles suggested that an aggressive approach on abortion would generate unwanted attention, something the officials worried could alienate voters ahead of the November elections.

“No one wants us taking any real action before the midterms,” the senior administration official said, emphasizing the push came directly from top White House staff.

The White House denied that meetings took place: “This is completely false. These conversations never occurred between White House officials and DOJ officials.”

But administration officials have also informed anti-abortion leaders, who have aggressively pressed the administration to move quickly to restrict abortion access, that any action on abortion would take place after the midterm elections, multiple sources told The Sun.

“Once the midterms are over and it’s truly lame-duck time, we’ve heard the gloves will be off,” one conservative in touch with the administration, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, said. “We have heard we have friends, and there are definitely people who are staunch pro-lifers.”

The DOJ has consistently asked federal judges to pause ongoing lawsuits that seek to restrict access to the abortion drug mifepristone until the Food and Drug Administration completes a review of the drug’s safety and effectiveness. A departure from that strategy would create unfavorable headlines just before voters head to the polls, the White House officials made clear to Blanche.

The Supreme Court in 2024 dismissed a case that sought to ban the abortion pill mifepristone on procedural grounds. The justices have never taken a position on whether the pills should be available.

Other cases challenging abortion pill access that have emerged since are currently making their way through the federal courts. The Trump administration is defending FDA rules that allow these drugs to be available via mail, but is doing so only on procedural grounds rather than expressly supporting the current regulations. Anti-abortion groups and allies of the movement have urged the DOJ to drop its procedural defense of FDA and, instead, allow courts to rule more quickly on the merits of the cases.

The senior administration official said the White House has made clear to Blanche that it would not support such a strategy.

In response to questions about meetings between Blanche and White House officials, a DOJ spokesperson called President Donald Trump “the most pro-life president in history.” The spokesperson did not answer questions specifically about the meetings or the substance of those meetings.

“The Department of Justice represents [the Food and Drug Administration] in these matters, and FDA is continuing to review the safety data for mifepristone,” the spokesperson said. “We asked the courts to stay these cases while that review is ongoing. Should the Department learn of possible fraud or harm to women involving these drugs, we will investigate those matters.”

Anti-abortion leaders expect post-election action that is not just related to litigation.
A source familiar with the matter said DOJ officials have told some anti-abortion leaders that any action on enforcing the Comstock Act — which would bar the mailing of abortion drugs — would take place after the election.

The DOJ is “actively working on it,” the source said.

Tom McClusky, director of government affairs for CatholicVote, said he has heard “the same thing from every agency I talk to and from members of Congress.” He added, “It’s always that nothing’s going to happen until November.”

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told The Sun in May that she had “encouraging” meetings with a DOJ official, whom she declined to name, on the Comstock Act. Specifically, she said there are discussions around rescinding a 2022 memo from the Office of Legal Counsel issued during the Biden administration that effectively made the law unenforceable.

But when asked whether the DOJ had given the organization an update as to when action would take place, Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for Students for Life, told The Sun: “Everything but the election is pushed until after the elections.”

Blanche, in his July confirmation hearings, said he opposed abortion pills being available via mail and committed to enforcing the Comstock Act, a series of 1873 federal laws that prohibit the shipment of “every article or thing designed, adapted or intended for producing abortion.” Politico also reported that during an August call with faith leaders, Blanche said the administration was working to ensure abortion was banned “in every single state.”

As a result, some in the anti-abortion camp are holding out hope that Blanche will be an ally to them.

“Based on Attorney General Blanche’s testimony during his confirmation, we have hope and are expecting that swift action will be taken to stop mail-order abortion drugs that are undermining pro-life state laws across the country,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. “Every day that goes by more women are coerced and harmed and more unborn children die. We are past due for action.”

But Blanche has said nothing publicly about abortion since the summer.

A directive from the White House to the DOJ to inject electoral politics into litigation would historically have been seen as highly unusual, at best. In the wake of Watergate, then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued a memo in 1979 that laid out guidelines to firewall DOJ from White House personnel on certain sensitive matters. That memo, which has become known as the “no contacts” policy, has been updated and strengthened several times in the intervening decades, though Trump loosened it at the start of his current term.

Any action to restrict abortion pills would immediately break Trump’s 2024 campaign pledge that he would “not block” access to the drugs.

The White House first made its intentions for the midterms clear to cabinet members in February, the senior administration official said. Blanche was deputy attorney general at that time but was brought up to speed after he became acting attorney general in April.

The Trump administration’s silence on abortion pills has frustrated even judges overseeing abortion pill cases.

Earlier this month, during oral arguments for Louisiana v. FDA, judges in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals multiple times pressed DOJ lawyers to state the administration’s perspective on the FDA’s regulations — to no avail.

“The only thing I can say, your honor, is what we’ve said in the briefs, which is that FDA is conducting an ongoing review. It has committed to do this. It’s doing it in an ongoing fashion, so we just haven’t taken a position,” said Daniel Winik, an attorney for the DOJ’s senior counsel.

In response, Judge Stephen Higginson said: “I find that very, very unsatisfactory that the agency won’t give an opinion as to its own regulations.”

They Know It's Bad

... but they'll never come clean in public.

🚨HOT MIC: Paxton secretly caught admitting Trump is a DRAG on his campaign.

Even Trump’s sycophants are realizing his 300+ pounds of political deadweight make one hell of a losing campaign liability. Donnie isn’t gonna be happy. 😂 pic.twitter.com/26m2vbAuIs

— 💕 Brittany Belle 💕 (@BrittanyinTexas) September 30, 2026

Another Day, Another Dog-Ass Republican

Always. Always. Always. They're always doing what they tell us they hate - or what they accuse others of doing. Like they believe - hard - that if they just stay on the attack, we won't notice what fuckin' dirtbags they are.

Republican Who Backed Death Penalty for Pedophiles Faces Child Sex Charges

Palm Beach County Clerk of Court Michael Caruso, a former Republican state legislator who previously backed the death penalty for adults convicted of sexually battering children under 12, was arrested Tuesday on five felony child sex abuse charges.

The 67-year-old married father of seven who was appointed by Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis faces five felony counts: kidnapping, child molestation, lewd exhibition, luring or enticing a child and child abuse causing mental injury, an arrest affidavit shows.

Investigators in Florida say Caruso violated a child—who is a relative—and allege the abuse occurred multiple times from fall 2024 to August 2025, including on a family cruise, a fishing outing and during a Thanksgiving gathering. The child has been receiving therapeutic services since April 2026, according to the police affidavit.

“Being in a position of public trust provides no shield from accountability,” state Attorney General James Uthmeier said. "This individual will face the full force of the law.”

DeSantis, who named Caruso to serve as court clerk and comptroller in August 2025, immediately suspended him from office Tuesday upon learning of the allegations.

“It was a very easy decision for me to yank him from that position," DeSantis said during a Tuesday news conference.

When asked whether he or anyone in his administration was aware of the allegations against Caruso before his appointment, he answered "of course not.”

“He had a clean vet, he was well-regarded in the community,” DeSantis said, calling the alleged crimes “horrific.”

Florida is the first state to reintroduce the death penalty for convicted pedophiles, DeSantis said, and if Caruso is convicted, "he is going to be in a world of hurt.”

What Bill Did Caruso Support?

While representing District 87 in the Florida House, Caruso backed what is now known as the 2023 Florida Capital Sexual Battery law. The legislation allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty for adults convicted of sexually battering a child under the age of 12. Caruso is listed as a “Yea” in the April 13, 2023, House vote. DeSantis signed the bill in May 2023 and it took effect six months later.

The Republican is up for reelection in November but is not appearing on Tuesday’s primary ballot, as he is running uncontested. The Florida GOP called on Caruso to immediately drop out of the race.

“While this is surprising news for our entire team, it does not change who we are at the Clerk’s Office or our commitment to the community and customers we serve,” the Palm Beach County Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller’s Office said in an email to Newsweek.

Following the arrest, Shannon Ramsey-Chessman was sworn in as clerk ad interim. As of Tuesday afternoon, Caruso’s official page on the clerk's office website was unavailable.

Caruso was booked into the Orange County jail and is being held without bond. The investigation remains ongoing and Uthmeier's office expects more charges.

Hawk

A concentration camp by any other name still stinks of fascism.

Belle

There are 1,461 days in a POTUS term.

1,461

- 564

  897

There's over 60% of Trump's term left to go.

"Trump has been a disaster for the US, and the Republicans in Congress who co-signed for it are to blame."

Rich

87% of House Republicans have voted with Trump 100% of the time.

Blind obedience does not an Alpha make.

The Kids Are Not Alright

Elect Republicans and watch the children suffer.



More Than 770,000 Children Are No Longer Receiving SNAP Benefits After Trump Changes Federal Food Program

Republican backers of Trump’s signature domestic policy bill repeatedly claimed that revisions to the food benefits program wouldn’t affect the most vulnerable. But reports from a dozen states show children are losing access.

As a House committee debated President Donald Trump’s signature domestic policy bill last year, Republican backers repeatedly emphasized that its changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, wouldn’t affect vulnerable people.

SNAP reforms would “restore integrity” to the program and ensure it works for the “most vulnerable among us, including children,” said Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican and chair of the House Agriculture Committee.

Passing the bill would be a “historic accomplishment” that will ensure “those in need can continue to receive the assistance they need,” said Rep. John Rose, a Republican from Tennessee.

And Rep. Dusty Johnson, a South Dakota Republican, said the bill would focus resources on the “neediest” Americans. “If you are a pregnant woman, your benefits are unaffected. If you have young children at home, your benefits are unaffected by this bill. If you are disabled, your benefits are unaffected by this bill.”

But nearly a year after the measure was signed into law, the number of children receiving food assistance has plummeted by at least 776,000, according to a ProPublica analysis. At least 12 states break down program participation by age, and of the 1,670,011 people who are no longer receiving benefits in those states, 776,134, or 46%, were children.

Another analysis reached the same conclusion: Just last month, the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found there were 700,000 fewer children receiving food assistance.

Arizona has seen the nation’s largest percentage decline in SNAP participants; 205,223 children are no longer receiving the benefit since July 2025, a 55% drop. Louisiana had the second largest percent decline among children, 22%.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP, hasn’t detailed the impact on children aided by the program, but initial figures show that compared to February 2025, 4.3 million fewer people received SNAP nationwide in February 2026, leaving 37.8 million participants.

Although children weren’t the intended targets of the legislation’s changes, they’re increasingly “collateral damage,” said Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

If states are trying to comply with the law’s changes to SNAP, they’re likely not focusing on making the program accessible, Bergh said. Other experts said that people may be pushed off the program because of increased paperwork requirements to remain eligible.

States are required to impose work requirements for most adult recipients, while preparing for two major cost shifts. In October, states will begin covering 75% of the program’s administrative costs. States have been paying 50% of those costs.

In addition, states will have to pay a larger share of SNAP benefits starting in October 2027, based on their error rate. Error rates reflect overpayments or underpayments of SNAP benefits. While sometimes characterized as fraud, such errors are usually the fault of the state agency or the SNAP recipient, according to USDA, which describes them as “largely unintentional.”

If a state agency is facing staffing shortages and struggling to comply with new regulations, it will be harder for low-income families to access the benefits, Bergh said. “Families are falling through the cracks.”

In Massachusetts, for example, the share of SNAP applicants who called an assistance line and couldn’t reach a worker rose from 61% in November to nearly 81% in March, according to the Department of Transitional Assistance, which administers SNAP in the state. The state agency did not respond to a request for comment.

A USDA spokesperson did not address ProPublica’s questions about the number of children who have lost access to SNAP. “There is no shortage of resources for the most vulnerable among us, including children,” the spokesperson said.

Have you lost your benefits? Are you working with those who have? Help ProPublica do more reporting. We need your help understanding what shifting policies actually mean for communities across the country. If your SNAP or Medicaid benefits have been cut or if you work to help people navigate public assistance programs, you can email us at safetynet@propublica.org to share your experience.

The three members of the House Agriculture Committee who defended last year’s bill before its passage — Rose, Thompson and Johnson — did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about their statements now that many children no longer receive SNAP benefits.

Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins about her recent comments that it was “good news” that millions of people no longer receive SNAP. If more than 700,000 children have been dropped in the 12 states that report those figures, “that number’s going to be into the millions” when other states are included, he said.

Rollins responded, “The 700,000 number of children is not correct,” contending that most people who were kicked off SNAP were “fraudulent.”

“That is not a nonpartisan group that gave you that number,” she said. (ProPublica independently verified the figures reported by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)

McGovern said he has talked to people who have lost food assistance. “These are people who actually need and rely on this food assistance to provide basic nutrition for their families,” he said.

Pressure to lower error rates “creates a temptation for the states to bump off working families,” said Parke Wilde, a food economist at Tufts University. Working families may have more volatile incomes, making it harder for state agencies to assess benefits accurately.

“When they say we want to preserve SNAP for those with the greatest need, they’re sort of acknowledging that they want the scale of the SNAP program to be smaller,” he said.

Mariana Chilton, an expert in child hunger at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said a smaller program won’t save money in the long run. Research shows that children who receive SNAP benefits are healthier, have better academic outcomes, use hospitals less often and have better mental health as teenagers.

She called the situation a “public health crisis” in the making. “When children are not healthy, this affects children today and it affects them throughout their lifetimes,” she said, likening hunger during early childhood to a brain injury.

As Arizona’s SNAP participation drops, nonprofits are feeling the effects. St. Mary’s Food Bank, the largest in the state, has seen a 15% increase in need this year, which translates into 300,000 more visits from people in search of food, said Milt Liu, the chief executive officer.

“It’s important for everyone to realize that policies have implications for people on the edge, and we’re seeing that in our line every day,” he said.

On a recent morning, Ana Alvarez waited in a line of vehicles at a St. Mary’s food bank in Phoenix. Alvarez, a single mother of five who works at a restaurant, started coming to St. Mary’s after she lost her SNAP benefits in September.

She reapplied for SNAP with the Arizona Department of Economic Security in December, but the application is still pending. The department did not respond to questions about its backlog.

She clips coupons and has cut out trips to the zoo and restaurants with her children. The slow season at the restaurant where she works is about to hit. And as summer temperatures rise, Alvarez wonders how she will afford her electric bill, her rent and her car payment.

At least once a week she contacts the agency about her application. The last time she called, a worker told her what others have in the past: She will have to keep waiting.

A Reminder

In 1979, Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House.

In 1986, Ronald Reagan had them removed.

If we'd listened to Carter, and continued to follow his lead, we wouldn't have to worry about the Strait of Hormuz.

Republicans, on behalf of The Dirty Fuels Cartel, have been fucking us over for a very long time.

How Do I Not Hate These Assholes?

We're living another episode of Classic GOP Proforma Bullshit.

• Completely fuck something up
• Walk away, leaving it for someone else to clean up the mess you've made
• Bitch about the clean up and the people doing the work

I live for the morning I wake up to The Big Beautiful Obituary.

Hillary Speaks

SECRETARY CLINTON'S OPENING STATEMENT

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Committee... as a former Senator, I have respect for legislative oversight and I expect its exercise, as do the American people, to be principled and fearless in pursuit of truth and accountability.

As we all know, however, too often Congressional investigations are partisan political theater, which is an abdication of duty and an insult to the American people.

The Committee justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.

As I stated in my sworn declaration on January 13, I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that.

Like every decent person, I have been horrified by what we have learned about their crimes. It's unfathomable that Mr. Epstein initially got a slap on the wrist in 2008, which allowed him to continue his predatory practices for another decade.

Mr. Chairman, your investigation is supposed to be assessing the federal government's handling of the investigations and prosecutions of Epstein and his crimes. You subpoenaed eight law enforcement officials, all of whom ran the Department of Justice or directed the FBI when Epstein's crimes were investigated and prosecuted. Of those eight, only one appeared before the Committee. Five of the six former attorneys general were allowed to submit brief statements stating they had no information to provide.

You have held zero public hearings, refused to allow the media to attend them, including today, despite espousing the need for transparency on dozens of occasions.

You have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files. And when you did, not a single Republican Member showed up for Les Wexner's deposition.

This institutional failure is designed to protect one political party and one public official, rather than to seek truth and justice for the victims and survivors, as well as the public who also want to get to the bottom of this matter. My heart breaks for the survivors. And I am furious on their behalf.

I have spent my life advocating for women and girls. I have worked hard to stop the terrible abuses so many women and girls face here and around the world, including human trafficking, forced labor, and sexual slavery. For too long, these have been largely invisible crimes or not treated as crimes at all. But the survivors are real and they are entitled to better.

In Southeast Asia, I met girls as young as twelve years old who were forced into prostitution and raped repeatedly. Some were dying of AIDS. In Eastern Europe, I met mothers who told me how they lost daughters to trafficking and did not know where to turn. In settings around the world, I met survivors trying to rebuild their lives and help rescue others — with little support from people in power, who too often turned a blind eye and a cold shoulder.

If you are new to this issue, let me tell you: Jeffrey Epstein was a heinous individual, but he's far from alone. This is not a one-off tabloid sensation or a political scandal.

It's a global scourge with an unimaginable human toll.

My work combatting sex trafficking goes back to my days as First Lady. I worked to pass the first federal legislation against trafficking and was proud that my husband signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which increased support for survivors and gave prosecutors better tools for going after traffickers.

As Secretary of State, I appointed a former federal prosecutor, Lou deBaca, to ramp up our global antitrafficking efforts. I oversaw nearly 170 anti-trafficking programs in 70 nations and directly pressed foreign leaders to crack down on trafficking networks in their countries. Every year we published a global report to shine a light on abuses.

The findings of those reports triggered sanctions on countries failing to make progress, so they became a powerful diplomatic tool to drive concrete action.

I insisted that the United States be included in the report for the first time ever in 2011. Because we must hold ourselves not just to the same standard as the rest of the world but to an even higher one. Sex trafficking and modern slavery should have no place in America.

None.

Infuriatingly, the Trump Administration gutted the Trafficking in Persons Office at the State Department, cutting more than 70 percent of the career civil and foreign service experts who worked so hard to prevent trafficking crimes. The annual trafficking report, required by law, was delayed for months. The message from the Trump Administration to the American people and the world could not be clearer: combatting human trafficking is no longer an American priority under the Trump White House.

That is a tragedy. It's a scandal. It deserves vigorous investigation and oversight.

A committee endeavoring to stop human trafficking would seek to understand what specific steps are needed to fix a system that allowed Epstein to get away with his crimes in 2008.
A committee run by elected officials with a commitment to transparency would ensure the full release of all the files.

It would ensure that the lawful redactions of those files protected the victims and survivors, not powerful men and political allies.

It would get to the bottom of reports that DOJ withheld FBI interviews in which a survivor accuses President Trump of heinous crimes.

It would subpoena anyone who asked on which night there would be the "wildest party" on Epstein's island.

It would demand testimony from prosecutors in Florida and New York about why they gave Epstein a sweetheart deal and chose not to pursue others who may have been implicated.
It would demand that Secretary Rubio and Attorney General Bondi testify about why this administration is abandoning survivors and playing into the hands of traffickers.

It would seek out officers on the front lines of this fight and ask them what support they need.
It would put forth legislation to provide more resources and force this administration to act.
But that's not happening.

Instead, you have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump's actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers.

If this Committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein's trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.

If the majority was serious, it would not waste time on fishing expeditions. There is too much that needs to be done.

What is being held back? Who is being protected? And why the cover-up?

My challenge to you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, is the same challenge I put to myself throughout my long service to this nation. How to be worthy of the trust the American people have given you. They expect statesmanship, not gamesmanship. Leading, not grandstanding. They expect you to use your power to get to the truth and to do more to help survivors of Epstein's crimes as well as the millions more who are victims of sex trafficking.

Thomas Massie

Massie would never get my vote. Other than the Epstein thing, he votes with Trump and the authoritarian right wing something like 95% of the time.

And honestly, that old school hardass Republican thing used to appeal to me a little. But in the last 30 years, they've gone completely fucking crazy. So no - I doubt very seriously I'll ever vote for another Republican. Ever.



‘You’re Going to See More Defections’: Thomas Massie’s Ominous Prediction for the GOP

In a new interview, the Republican congressman opens up about Donald Trump, Mike Johnson and his strategy to dig even deeper into the Epstein files

Rep. Thomas Massie has gone toe-to-toe with the president of the United States, the speaker of the House and the attorney general in just the last few months. And he says there’s more to come.

The libertarian Republican from rural Kentucky has long been a headache for party leaders, but he’s taken it to another level by co-authoring bipartisan legislation that compelled the Justice Department to release vast troves of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In an interview with POLITICO Magazine in his Capitol Hill office, Massie boasted that some 3 million files have already been released, even as he said he’d continue to bring pressure on the DOJ to reverse redactions in the documents.

Massie was the sole Republican to spar with Attorney General Pam Bondi at a combative congressional hearing last week, but he said for now, he won’t pursue efforts to hold her in contempt for not fully releasing the files.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to proverbially pull a knife right now in this argument because we’re winning it,” he said. “When the attorney general is reduced to a stack of pre-prepared insults to deliver, and when the DOJ is responding to my every tweet with additional unredactions, I don’t think I’m going to change what I’m doing just yet.”

Massie also joined several other Republicans recently to buck President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson on legislation that would block some Trump tariffs. And he had an ominous prediction for GOP leadership in the coming months.

“On any given day, I would just need one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done,” he said. “I think you’re going to see more defections.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I want to start with the recent Bondi hearing. You had some heated interactions with her. What did you come away with from that interaction?

Not necessarily for my own exchange, but just overall I think she looked weak and frustrated when she started talking about the Dow Jones, which has literally nothing to do with her job. I thought that looked bad. [She] kind of had this stack of insults that were pre-prepared — in politics you might call it oppo research — and you could see her shuffling through them to try and find which one matched the person who was trying to ask her a question at the time. She found my card like right at the end, as you can see she was looking for it.

What do you make of the attorney general coming to the Hill to testify in a general oversight hearing and then dishing out these flashcards about members of Congress?

This was her first appearance in front of the House of Representatives, and I think the public consensus is that she didn’t do a great job. Obviously, I prefer her politics to Merrick Garland’s, but he was better as a witness in terms of weathering it and looking credible, even if he didn’t give us the answers he was supposed to.

Did you get any substantive answers you were looking for?

She did admit that they changed the redactions [on Epstein documents] within 40 minutes of me finding the inappropriate redactions. I think that was a win. You can approach these hearings in different ways. If you’re not comfortable mixing it up with the witness, you can just give a five-minute speech. Or, if you’re thinking the witness is probably not going to be cooperative and not answer the questions, then you ask questions that sort of answer themselves when they don’t answer the question.

Although I genuinely wanted to know if they could track the individual redactions and who did them, because there could be somebody at DOJ who kind of reports to Pam Bondi, but is kind of at another level than Pam Bondi. The people who were there for life sort of run the place. They know how to get things done. I did think it was really fishy that there were thousands of instances of Leslie Wexner’s name, but the one instance that would’ve shown that Kash Patel may have committed perjury was redacted. And so my question legitimately was, who made this redaction? Because if I could find out who made that redaction, then I would go over to the DOJ computers and put that name in and see what else that person was in charge of redacting.

And then in the instance of releasing, that’s the grossest incompetence I’ve ever seen in government. An attorney sends you a list of the victims he represents so that you can redact their names, and you release the whole list. It’s like your worst nightmare. And I would guess that the attorney never in his wildest dreams dreamed that the DOJ would be that incompetent.

Do you have any plans to take legal action to fully redact any of these documents? Obviously they’ve been redacted multiple times.

I think six months ago, nobody ever thought we would be where we are now. I mean, we have 3 million files released. We do have some evidence that at least at some point the government thought there were co-conspirators, that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women to other men. So that’s a victory right now. And things are unfolding. If you look at the overall pace over the last six months, the pace has actually picked up, it hasn’t slowed down.

I don’t think it’s necessary to proverbially pull a knife right now in this argument because we’re winning it. When the attorney general is reduced to a stack of pre-prepared insults to deliver, and then the DOJ is responding to my every tweet with additional unredactions, I don’t think I’m going to change what I’m doing just yet. We’re at a stage right now where we still have steam.

With that strategy, are you still planning on holding Bondi in contempt?

Well, to do that, we need two or three Republicans. I do think within the conference our momentum is gaining some steam as well. When I go over to the DOJ terminals, I see Republicans interested in this who didn’t sign the discharge petition [to bring the Epstein files bill to the floor]. And I think they’re being compelled to do that because they see that there’s some there there. And they’re also being asked by their constituents, well, what are you doing?

Where do you think the disclosures go from here? Is there anything else Congress can do other than contempt to prod the administration along?

The strongest tool we have now and have wielded through all of this is public pressure. And the hearing was useful in that regard. The recent document dump is useful in this regard. I heard the White House press secretary say we’re moving on. And if you look on the internet, people are sharing that clip and saying, no, we’re not.

What do you make of her saying that? And even the president recently has said again, he thinks the country should move on to something else.

Yeah, he’s decided that since these files don’t further implicate him in his opinion and exonerate him, that we should just move on now. Throughout this whole thing, Ro Khanna and I have taken great pains to keep this from becoming a partisan exercise because if it devolves into who shows up in the files more, Bill Clinton or Donald Trump, that’s just the typical food fight that you have in Washington D.C. And then you end up in a stalemate where you can’t get a bipartisan vote.

Trump often wields power on Capitol Hill through intimidation and fear. That obviously has not broken through on the Epstein matter as much. Several of you defied him on tariffs as well. How is that toolkit wearing thin for him, that he’s not able to badger enough Republicans into falling in line?

The margin is razor-thin, so on any given day, I would just need one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done. And what’s happening is that the retirement caucus is growing and primary days are coming up and passing. Once we get past March, April and May, which contain a large portion of their Republican primaries, I think you’re going to see more defections.

Because quietly and privately, people are telling me they agree with me. And so there are people who plan on running again who will be past their primaries or certainly past the date at which the administration could put another Navy SEAL up to run against somebody. And then there’s the retirement caucus, which includes people who don’t want to retire, but redistricting is going to take them out or pit them against another Republican when they may retire for that reason.

Why has that sentiment changed in this term, and not as much in the first term?

I think there’s some fatigue, I call it rubber stamp fatigue. People who get elected to Congress, almost none of you got here by mistake. Everybody’s got flaws but everybody who gets here is driven and probably could accomplish other things besides Congress with that level of drive. They could be entrepreneurs or make a lot of money as lawyers. Nobody graduates from high school and signs in their yearbook that they want to be the class rubber stamp.

And so you have competent, driven individuals — some of these are military officers — who are being told every week to stand down, bite their tongue, sit on their hands, do what they’re told, be part of the team and put their brain in neutral, and that kind of job will make you tired by noon.

How big do you think is the caucus of people whom the president has no control over anymore? Do you think it is just a handful right now?

It’s really just the retirement caucus. And so they have to weigh the cost of alienating the president of the United States in their future job. Maybe they want to be the head of a trade association where crossing swords with the president would disqualify them later.

When was the last time you heard directly from the president or his team about anything?

Does the prayer breakfast count? I mean, he called me a moron at the prayer breakfast.

Just on the stage, thousands of pastors, including some from my own district, who apologized to me. They were literally here in my office that day and praying with me. And then they go to the prayer breakfast and hear the president say that. They are not impressed and I don’t think anybody was impressed by his performance at the prayer breakfast. It was completely political. But to answer your question, last time I heard from him was at the prayer breakfast and people said well what’s your response to that? And I just said I’m glad to know I’m in his prayers.

Have you talked to him or anyone on his team?

I talked to him when they needed my vote to get the “big, beautiful bill” to the floor, and he told me that he would tell Chris LaCivita to quit running ads against me if I helped him get the bill to the floor. And I said, “I want to be completely clear with you.” And I told him twice. I said, “I’m not voting for the bill when it gets to the floor. I want you to understand that’s not part of this agreement.” And he goes: “I understand. I get it. That’s fine.” Those were his three things he said.

And then they just kept running the ads. And then when the success of the Epstein Files Transparency Act was imminent, I think he just succumbed to Massie derangement syndrome at that point.

And that was when you were on the phone with the president himself during that conversation over the rule for the legislation.

In a room with the speaker of the House. There were two other members of Congress in there who made the same deal. So they got nothing for their vote either.

When was the last time you talked to Speaker Johnson about the Epstein matter at all?

One day they needed my vote and I offered to give them my vote if he would issue a press release thanking me for my good work on the Epstein Files Transparency Act. That’s all I required to get my vote. And I think he probably went and gave somebody else a bill to pass instead of doing the public statement.

That’s the last time I talked to him about that. And we had a serious discussion. He was like, you know, I can’t do that. He said the bill was flawed and worked against it. Well, obviously it wasn’t flawed. It’s working right now. And so anyways, I haven’t talked to him since then about that.

With the exception of when they put [“crazy stuff”] in the rule, I’ve been pretty reasonable on these votes. And I’ve asked Mike Johnson, tell me why I should keep being reasonable?

Do you think you could go further than what you are doing right now?

Oh yeah. Yeah. I’ve voted for a lot of rules when they’ve needed me.

In Europe, we’re seeing lots of consequences and resignations from the Epstein disclosures. The UK government is in tumult over it. We’re not seeing that same reaction in the United States at least yet.

Why do you think it’s different here?

I think the way that politics is structured in Europe is more ephemeral and reputational. They can recall a prime minister. They can have a vote of confidence. I think their head’s always on the chopping block. And so if reputationally somebody becomes a burden to the party, they might be quicker to jettison that person. And with the case of Prince Andrew, it’s all about reputation with royalty, right? They’re supposed to be better than everybody else, and when they aren’t, they can’t be in the club.

Here in the United States, once you become the ruling party in the White House, you’re there for four years. It’s almost unheard of that you would switch horses in the middle of the stream in the United States like they do in Europe. And also because we don’t have a coalition in our version of parliament. The president right now uses Congress as a rubber stamp, and he doesn’t have to really worry about the coalition falling apart in parliament. He doesn’t have to worry about members of his own party defecting. So I think they’re going to just keep taking on water here. If reputations mattered more in the United States, Howard Lutnick would already have resigned.

How do you feel the Epstein matter is playing in your primary? The president is pushing in on the primary challenge against you. How do you feel like this is shaping your race at this point?

Well, there are a lot of factors that play back home. You’ve got to understand, you can’t pretend that things in D.C. are the same as they are in Kentucky’s fourth district. When I undertook this cause to get this bill passed, I didn’t think it would hurt me back home, and I didn’t think it would help me back home. You know, I’ve taken up for raw milk, ending the Federal Reserve. Those are causes that maybe they’re nationally popular, but back home, maybe they only motivate a low single-digit percent of my voters, right?

And I thought the Epstein case might be similar to that — a national concern that doesn’t have a lot of effect or a disproportionate amount of influence in my district. But I was surprised to find out that it does. This isn’t a boutique or niche issue back home. This is a big deal back home, and it’s also shaped the demographics of my support back home. The people who were upset that my entire family posed with machine guns are now voting for me. And the president has control over the people who get 100 percent of their news from FOX.

So I’ve lost support there, but I’ve gained support from Republican soccer moms.

Here’s where I have to laugh every time somebody says “Oh, you just did this because it’s politically expedient.” There’s nothing politically expedient about pissing off the president and drawing 10 or 20 million dollars into your primary and causing them to double down. He was already a little bit annoyed at me for the votes on the “big, beautiful bill,” the [continuing resolution to fund the government], and even [the speaker’s race for] Mike Johnson. But once I did the Epstein thing, I crossed the rubicon. There was no, “I’m sorry, we misunderstood each other. We can be friends now.” So, it’s drawn a lot of fire from outside of my district and from the White House into my district, but in the district among my people it’s popular.

And it’s done one other thing: It has disarmed completely the argument that I never get anything done. When you go to your social media and half your feed is about something that I’ve done — if my opponent tries to say on his social media, “Massie is a gadfly and he never gets anything done,” they’ll just dogpile him with all the things that are happening because of me.

So it helps back home.

Today's Monte

Homan says he doesn’t ‘know’ meaning behind Noem’s ‘right leaders’ comments

White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday he didn’t “know” what Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem’s recent comments about ensuring “we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country” meant.

“So, what does she mean when she says ‘electing the right leaders?’ That’s not really immigration enforcement or DHS responsibility,” CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Homan on “State of the Union.”

“I don’t know. That’d be a question for the secretary. If I had to guess, probably that — you know — only those legally eligible to vote would vote. But I have not talked to the secretary about those statements. That’d be something she’d have to answer,” Homan replied.

On Friday, Noem suggested that her department plays an expansive role in election security. The secretary alleged that she has the authority to find “vulnerabilities” in the election system and put in place “mitigation measures” to ensure local and state elections are carried out “correctly.”

In a press conference in Arizona, Noem claimed that elections were under DHS’s mission of “maintaining critical infrastructure.”

“I would say that many people believe that it may be one of the most important things that we need to make sure we trust, is reliable, and that when it gets to Election Day, that we’ve been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country through the days that we have, knowing that people can trust it,” she said.

Noem also said on Friday that she was “still in charge” of DHS, even as Homan recently gained more control over President Trump’s immigration agenda.

DHS has faced heat in recent weeks over the two fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal immigration authorities.

Guns No Guns

• Cruelty is the point
• Hypocrisy is the point
• Fuckery is the point
• Assholery is the point

Red Wine & Blue

IDK if the tag on this is true or not - whether the NC Republicans deleted this file. But would it surprise anyone if they did?

GOP Fuckery

The question is, Why?

Social Darwinism is one answer, but again - Why?

If they're counting on AI to take up the slack created by horrendously shitty economic policy that puts millions out of work, I think they're in for a rude surprise.

First because AI is not all it's cracked up to be. It's already beginning to eat itself, as we get more and more stories about how it's "learning" from the material it puts out, and that has caused it to "hallucinate", often churning out product that's way off the mark, if not pure fantasy.

Plus it's a resource hog - especially where water is concerned. Gee, I wonder if that could be a limiting factor in light of a pending global shortage of fresh water due to pollution, and drought driven by climate change.

Second, people - Americans in particular - aren't historically shown to just hang out down on the street corner while their government fucks them with their pants on. No Kings isn't just a bunch of loonies in frog costumes, and purple-haired baristas, and nostalgic Boomers larking about on random Saturdays.

Even the kind of unprecedented Money-n-Power these wannabe plutocrats have doesn't make them bulletproof - metaphorically or otherwise.

I prefer the Gandhi approach, but there's a bit of Luigi in all of us.

Anyway, Republicans are ignorantly fucking with things better left to people who actually know what the fuck they're doing.

Today's Robert

"... and if the lights go out for a while, fuck it. So be it. The truth shines brightest in the dark anyway."