While
running for Congress last year, Republican Rob Bresnahan—like most
Americans—hated the idea of lawmakers making money by trading individual
stocks in elected office and said he wanted to ban the practice.
Then he won his race.
Now
a congressman representing northeastern Pennsylvania, Bresnahan is one
of the most active traders in Congress and is drawing political heat for
some of the transactions, which he says are handled by an adviser who
doesn’t consult him on trades. He recently suggested he wouldn’t follow
through on his plan to put his investment portfolio in a blind trust as
an ethical firewall. He hasn’t signed on to a leading House effort to
restrict stock trading, instead introducing his own bill that ethics
advocates and colleagues have said is weak.
When
asked during a Scranton-area radio interview if he planned to tell his
adviser to stop trading stocks to avoid backlash, he replied: “And then
do what with it? Just leave it all in accounts and just leave it there
and lose money and go broke?”
Hannah Pope, a
spokeswoman for Bresnahan, declined to say whether he plans to follow
through with his plans for a blind trust. She said Bresnahan’s trades
are executed without his input.
“Any suggestion that Rob has involvement in his financial planner’s trades is complete and utter bulls—,” she said.
Many
lawmakers decry stock trading on principle, only to back off later when
faced with the practical impacts—ranging from transaction costs and
taxes to annoyance over being told how to conduct their finances. While
some are plowing ahead on ideas for new bans, passage remains uncertain
after a history of failed efforts.
Crackdown
proponents see trading as an obvious opportunity for corruption.
Opponents note that insider trading is already illegal and say that new
rules would discourage successful businesspeople from running for
Congress.
Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.), one of
Congress’s wealthiest members, with investments in private equity and
hedge funds, in a recent hearing raised questions about how lawmakers
would sell illiquid assets under a stock-trading ban. Scott, who hasn’t
reported any stock trading this year, said supporters of a ban were
insinuating that a lawmaker’s wealth is bad.
“This
idea that we’re going to attack people because they make money is
wrong,” he said. “We should cherish all of our different backgrounds.”
whenever you need to hear something really stupid, rick scott always pipes up, doesn't he?
crooks. they're like the supreme court. they're not going to police themselves, so they're not to need outsiders to do it.
i
think we'll be seeing some much needed reforms after we've watched
chump and his family work overtime to make millions via their
corruption.
but he's a predator and that's what predators do.
he's a predator who was friends with jeffrey epstein and ghislaine maxwell and that's why the orange creep is not helping the survivors. he doesn't care about and he never did. truth be told, he was probably pushing himself on underage girls.
chump is disgusting. and before this is all over, maga will realize that and will grasp how he played them.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025. Epstein survivors to hold press
conference this morning, Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson thinks he
can trick people, Chump can't escape the Epstein topic anymore than he
can stop the decaying of his own flesh, and much more.
At
the end of the 80s, Donald Chump began his friendships with sex
traffickers and pedophiles Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. This friendship lasted until at least 2007.
Chump was very cozy with Epstein and having recently moved Ghislaine
Maxwell to Club Fed in Bryan, Texas, he clearly remains tight with
Maxwell.
If you don't get just how disgusting
the deal he made with Ghislaine was or just how Todd Blanche refused to
ask questions of Maxwell during their two days of 'interviews,' make a
point to stream the video below from THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE
O'DONNELL.
We
should all be appalled at the way Todd Blanche kissed the ass of a
convicted felon serving a 20 year sentence for sex trafficking. A
convicted felon was allowed to lie repeatedly and was never once
challenged. But she was laughed with, Blanche laughed with her and made
her feel comfortable as she lied non-stop.
Last night, Ben did a very important report for MEIDASTOUCH NEWS.
The reason it feels like Congress doesn’t exist anymore is because it functionally doesn’t,
but also because this summer vacation was extended. House Republicans
tucked tail and left early after fearing the possibility of having to
vote for transparency about the biggest underage sex ring in U.S.
history, which gives you a good sense of where we are with that party
right now.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had six weeks to figure out how to manage
the intra-party rebellion over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Republican
members were still getting an earful
at home, so ducking a vote wasn’t practical. But Johnson needed to
uphold his prime directive of acting as a human shield for the president
and keeping his name out of any revelations.
So after weeks of rumination, here’s what Johnson came up with: a resolution,
hastily added to the week’s floor voting schedule on Monday, that would
“direct” the House Oversight Committee to continue investigating the
federal cases against Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, which is already in
progress. In other words, Johnson would have the House vote to do
something it is effectively already doing.
The word you may be grasping for is “misdirection.”
This resolution is being floated for a vote to keep people away from a bipartisan bill
from Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Tom Massie (R-KY), which would directly
compel the relevant government agencies to release all relevant files.
Yesterday, Khanna and Massie launched the discharge petition process
for their bill. If it gets signatures from a majority of House members,
that bill will have to come to the floor, and the co-authors say they
already have that many in hand. They’re holding a press conference this morning with victims of Epstein’s sex ring.
Johnson’s gambit is to claim that he’s already giving supporters of
releasing the files a vote, so they shouldn’t have to sign onto the
discharge petition. That is the hard sell that both the House Republican
leadership and the White House, which is apparently whipping members to not sign onto the discharge petition, are making.
This is as much about Johnson controlling what gets on his House floor (which could trigger other bypass attempts, like on a congressional stock trading ban), but it’s based on a misimpression that the “attaboy Oversight Committee” resolution is the same as the Khanna-Massie bill.
Let's stop for a moment do deal with something of a housekeeping issue.
And
clicking on that takes you to the renamed reports "What’s in the batch
of Epstein files just released by a House committee" at THE NEWSHOUR.
Here's the transcript of the video they released and then a few hour
later killed.
Amna Nawaz:
Welcome to the "News Hour."
Congress is back in
Washington tonight, and the clock is already ticking. Lawmakers have
less than one month to avoid a government shutdown.
Geoff Bennett:
On the table, a fierce fight over billions in spending
cuts, some 30,000 pages worth of Jeffrey Epstein-related files that
Republicans just posted tonight online, and the Senate moving to
fast-track President Trump's nominees.
Our congressional correspondent, Lisa Desjardins, joins us now.
So, Lisa, it's always great to see you.
Let's start with the possible government shutdown at the end of the month. We are weeks away. How likely is it?
Lisa Desjardins:
It is possible.
Let's take people through exactly
how this is going to work, what we know. First of all, the deadline is
September 30 to fund most of government. Now, any deal needs 60 Senate
votes. So, of course, that means likely at least seven Democrats would
have to get on board.
Now, that's led to this situation where, of
course, Democrats know they have leverage here. They don't have leverage
in a lot of cases. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries today told
reporters, including myself, that he's looking for a bipartisan
solution. But what that really means is, he wants some concessions.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY):
That spending bill has to be both bipartisan, a product
of negotiation, and it's got to serve the interests of the American
people in terms of their health, safety, national security, and economic
well-being.
Lisa Desjardins:
Health, safety, national security, economic, that covers everything. So, there's a lot on the table for him.
And
this is the man really to watch, Senate Democratic leader Chuck
Schumer. It's his vote that Republicans will need to get a funding bill
through, or it could be his decision to try to go all the way to a
government shutdown. It is very much on the table, a risky decision for
Democrats either way.
The pressure is on them to stand up to
President Trump, try and get some policy changes. But some Democrats say
a shutdown might benefit Trump.
Geoff Bennett:
And why are they feeling the pressure this week, Lisa?
Lisa Desjardins:
Right.
It seems like the 30th is a long way away.
It's not. One reason is because, in the middle of the month, there will
be a recess, a full week. So really it's just about two or three weeks
they have. And, remember, they're only in town three days a week mostly.
Geoff Bennett:
Let's talk about the other big news tonight.
The
House Oversight Committee released tens of thousands of pages of
documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. There had been
Republicans calling for more transparency, and this appears to be a step
in that direction?
Lisa Desjardins:
Right.
And a reminder, we're talking about Jeffrey
Epstein. He's the financier accused of sex crimes. His conspirator,
Ghislaine Maxwell, was sent to prison for those crimes. He also was
connected with many high-profile individuals, friends with Donald Trump,
though Trump has disavowed him since.
Here's what we got tonight,
documents like this, 33,000-plus pages of them. But I want to point
out, this document, our producer Matt Loffman quickly figured out, is
public. This is not something that is special to the Department of
Justice. This is something you could find on the Supreme Court's Web
site. This is Ghislaine Maxwell's — part of her appeal case.
So a
lot of this are legal documents. Going through them, we really don't
know how much of it is new. But I am told from House Oversight
Republicans that these are all the documents that DOJ has given them so
far.
Democrats have said, first of all, that these 34,000
documents is just 1 percent of the total. Now, Republicans are worried
about something else going on. That's a bipartisan effort by two — two
Republican — two members of Congress, Democratic Representative Ro
Khanna there on the right and then Thomas Massie of Kentucky. They are
trying to make an end run around House leadership to force release of
all documents, make them all public.
But the question is if the
votes are there. And, today, Speaker Johnson made it clear he doesn't
want that effort. And I think this release tonight is an attempt to try
and take votes away from that end run, so a lot in play. Do we know that
much more about Jeffrey Epstein tonight? Not yet. We will see.
Geoff Bennett:
Yes. Well, more to come on that front.
Again, I don't have time for people's bulls**t or their cowrdice.
I
counted fifty e-mails in the public account. I don't have time for
that, Martha and Shirley don't have time for that. If you make my life
harder, I don't give a damn about you.
I'll get
a call from at least two PBS friends when this goes up and I know
they'll have 101 excuses. But I don't give a damn. You've made my
morning harder and it's just not worth it to me to promote you or your
work if you're going to be a little coward and pull it. Related. It's
Wednesday. Will Ava and I do a piece at THIRD? Probably not. Everyone
else got Labor Day weekend off. But were supposed to now do -- on a
Wednesday -- a media piece? I've got enough on my plate. It's
Wednesday We'll do one this weekend but neither of us is in the mood to
spend three to four hours writing a piece today.
Republican
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) plans to take steps Tuesday to push for a
vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files — and suggested a shadowy
billionaire in the famous "black book" is out to get him.
Lawmakers
are back from summer recess, and Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) were
expected to file a discharge petition aimed at compelling the Department
of Justice to fully release all files related to the disgraced
financier's case. The bipartisan effort is underway from the House
Oversight Committee to uncover the files despite pushback from
Republican leaders.
"Jobs, the economy,
those are always the big issues, but you really can't solve any of that
if this place is corrupt," Massie told CNN.
CNN reporter Manu Raju asked, "What do you mean, if this place is corrupt?"
"Well,
I mean, if they're going to cover up for rich and powerful and
politically connected people, which is still what is happening right now
here," Massie said.
Massie, who has faced off
with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and the Trump administration over
calling for the release of the files, continues to face attacks.
"Look,
I got three billionaires right now running ads against me in Kentucky,
and one of them is in Epstein's black book. So I'm not worried about
it," Massie said. "I've already poked the hornet's nest here, and, you
know, once you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound. We're going to
get these files released."
First, Isn't
Alien Musk financing commercials against Massie, by the way. Musk had a
very tight relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Second, "we're going to get these files released"?
Not if Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson has anything to say about it. Ailia Zehra noted Johnson does want a discharge effort to succeed:
House
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) pushed back Tuesday against the bipartisan
effort led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to
force release of the files related to convicted pedophile Jeffrey
Epstein, dismissing the effort as "meaningless."
“I
would describe virtually everything Thomas Massie says related to this
issue as meaningless. That’s my response," he told reporters on Capitol
Hill Tuesday.
House
GOP leaders on Tuesday morning added to this week’s House schedule a
vote on a resolution directing the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee to continue its investigation into matters surrounding
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The
addition comes as leaders contend with an alternative push to force a
vote on a bill that would direct the Trump administration to release
more Epstein material.
What's
going on? The discharge voice would demand all the paperwork. Speaker
of the Closet Johnson won't be able to run interference on behalf of
the White House if the discharge option is implemented. The only way he
can cover for Donald Chump is by ensuring that the House votes to
continue down the same road. That would be the wasted road that
resulted in the Dept of (Mis)Justice releasing to Congress last month . .
. papers already publicly available as the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee noted in a press release yesterday:
Washington, D.C. —
Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform, issued the following statement after Chairman James
Comer released to the public the partial batch of Epstein files from the
Department of Justice, consisting largely of already public
information. The original partial release failed to meet the
Department’s legal obligation to provide the full, unredacted documents
to the Committee while protecting victims and censoring child sexual
abuse materials.
“The 33,000 pages of
Epstein documents James Comer has decided to ‘release’ were already
mostly public information. To the American people – don’t let this fool
you.
After careful review, Oversight
Democrats have found that 97% of the documents received from the
Department of Justice were already public. There is no mention of any
client list or anything that improves transparency or justice for
victims.
House Republicans are trying
to make a spectacle of releasing already-public documents. Pam Bondi has
said the client list was on her desk. She could release it right now if
she wanted to.
While Comer tries to
give cover to Trump by re-releasing public documents, House Democrats
are fighting for real transparency. Pam Bondi must comply with our
subpoena immediately, and release all of the documents. The American
people demand it.”
Oversight Committee
Democrats’ initial review revealed that of the 33,295 pages of documents
released to the Committee, only three percent contained any new
information. The remaining 97% of pages included information previously
released by the Department of Justice, the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement or the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s office.
These include:
Video from the Metropolitan Correctional Center from the night of Epstein’s death
Supreme Court filings from Ghislaine Maxwell
Court filings from U.S. v. Maxwell
Court transcript from U.S. v. Maxwell
A Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Report on Epstein’s death
A memo from Attorney General Pamela Bondi to FBI Director Kash Patel on releasing the Epstein files
Communications between the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice regarding the death of Epstein
Police reports and court filings from Epstein’s criminal case in Florida
The only new disclosure:
Less
than 1,000 pages from the Customs and Border Protection’s log of flight
locations of the Epstein plane from 2000-2014 and forms consistent with
reentry back to the U.S.
###
Johnson
thinks he can con people. I don't know about that.
This
morning MEIDASTOUCH NEWS already has a video up about the press
conference later this morning and Ben notes that MTN will be streaming
it live on YOUTUBE. The press conference is supposed to start around
10:30 this morning EST.
Yesterday, NBC NEWS spoke with some Epstein survivors.
On
Tuesday, US President Donald Trump made a first public official
appearance in the Oval Office after a short disappearance this weekend,
with many remarking on his 'rough' look.
About
45 minutes late for his own 2 p.m. Oval Office press conference to
announce that U.S. Space Command will be located in Alabama, reversing a
Biden-era decision to keep it at its temporary headquarters in
Colorado, he kept his speech unusually short. While Trump is often very
late for his scheduled events, this one comes after 'death' rumors
swirled over the weekend, with many questioning the President's health.
One
liberal political commentator pointed out, "He looks rough and more
orange than normal. Wonder if the press will ask the important question
of why he was absent for a week." It comes after a Trump body double conspiracy theory emerged.
[. . .]
More
users began to point out Trump's look as he made the announcement. "His
eyes are still funky. Somethings wrong," one person said. Another
added, "Looks like it took an extra 50 minutes to make him look alert
and camera ready."
Another person pointed out
that Trump's hands has more makeup than usual, as he has been warned
lately about the bruises on his hands being a warning sign of something
worse. "He looks rough. Extra hand makeup applied," they wrote.
Donald Trump sparked more concerns over his health during a Tuesday, September 2, interview with Scott Jennings.
“I’m
always disappointed in him,” a very stuffy Trump said when discussing
Russian President Vladimir Putin. “He and I always had a great
relationship. Very disappointed. Thousands of people are dying.”
[. . .]
X
users were quick to pipe in, with one saying it “backs the stroke
hypothesis” as “stroke patients can sound ‘nasally’ due to dysarthria
and muscle weakness impacting the soft palate.”
“They
sound ‘strained,’ ‘hoarse’ and ‘nasal or hyponasal,’” they continued.
“So his voice actually continues to support the mild stroke position.”
“He’s
struggling to breathe,” another person said. “Respiratory issues are
indicative of a stroke. This along with his edema (swelling of the
ankles) and cardiac problems are signs that the end is imminent.”
Another person surmised Trump has COVID, which would he explain why “he sounds congested."
Let's
talk about Jane Fonda. In the 80s, as she built her Workout franchise
-- and made a lot of money for the CED and, later, Campaign for
California, certain Republicans got a British rag to run a lie (the
publication knew it was a lie) that she'd had a heart attack. The day
after that lie hit the press, Jane showed up at one of her studios and
invited the press as she led a Workout class to show that, no, she had
not had a heart attack.
So
where was Chump's workout? No where to be found. If he had a stroke
-- and he may have -- or if he didn't, nothing he did in public on
Tuesday dispels those rumors.
Jane
grasped that certain right-wingers in this country feared her
popularity and the money she was raising for solid causes. So she put
an end to the lie immediately by providing proof that she was healthy
and photos ran in papers around the world while videos of that morning's
workout made all the news programs like GOOD MORNING AMERICA.
That's how she ended a lie.
Somehow,
Chump either didn't care that much about what people were saying about
him (which is a first for him) or he's unable to prove he didn't have a
stroke.
I have no idea. I've never been one of his groupies so I have no reason to lie for him.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Washington, D.C. — Following a new D.C. District Court ruling in the landmark antitrust case involving Google, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released the following statement:
“The
court previously ruled that Google’s search business is an illegal
monopoly, but now the judge’s remedies fail to hold Google accountable
for breaking the law. Instead of restoring competition and ending
Google’s dominance, this ruling is a slap on the wrist for unlawful
behavior that warranted the breakup of this tech giant.
“Now it’s up to the Trump Justice Department and state attorneys
general to appeal or risk emboldening even more lawbreaking by Big Tech
monopolies.
“While the Trump Justice Department considers an appeal to break up
Google, YouTube and Google executives are negotiating with Trump’s
lawyers to settle a dubious case for potentially millions of dollars and
raising serious concerns of corruption in plain sight.”
The
pro-Trump rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in
an attempt to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in
the 2020 election now want compensation for what they believe were
unfair prosecutions.
A proposal put forward by a
lawyer for the rioters could be a major step in attempts to rewrite the
history of that day, effectively designating those who stormed the
building and fought police as victims deserving of reparations from the
government.
On his first day back in the White House, President Donald Trump granted clemency to those who had committed crimes during the Capitol riot.
In the subsequent months, he permitted his Department of Justice to
dismiss many federal agents and prosecutors who had worked to hold them
accountable.
Despite now being free and having
those who sought justice for their crimes punished, the rioters now want
financial restitution.
The New York Times reports
that on Thursday, Mark McCloskey, a lawyer for the rioters, stated
during a public social media meeting that he recently met with senior
officials at the Justice Department and proposed a plan to establish a
special panel that would award financial damages to the rioters —
inspired by the appointment of a special master to disburse funds to
victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
they
could have been lined up and shot. they tried to overthrow the
government. they could have been - and some should have been - paid in
bullets. that would have been justice. but now these grifters and
criminals and treasonous characters are trying to sue the government for
money that's going to be paid by taxpayers.
no.
no.
they're
traitors to this country. maybe we can start deporting them when dems
get back in the white house? deport or shoot em, either way i'm good.
some comments on the article worth highlighting:
John Maloney
16 hours ago
Four other police officers committed suicide in the days and months after the riot.
The
first was U.S. Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood, 51, who had
been guarding the Capitol for 15 years and was on duty at the Capitol on
Jan. 6. He took his own life three days after the riots. The following
day, Trump ordered flags at the White House be lowered to half-staff in
honor of both Sicknick and Liebengood. Several days later, D.C. Police
Officer Jeffrey Smith, 35, who was injured in the riots on Jan. 6, also
committed suicide.
In July, six months after the riot at the
Capitol, two Metropolitan Police Department officers who responded to
the Capitol on Jan. 6 committed suicide.
Kyle DeFreytag, 26,
was not involved with the clashes with rioters during the breach of the
Capitol but was deployed to the Capitol to help enforce the curfew put
in place after the mob had been cleared from the building.
The
same day the Metropolitan Police Department announced DeFreytag’s
death, it confirmed that another officer, Gunther Hashida, had also
committed suicide.
Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson
Kristen Metzger told CNN that Hashida was assigned to the emergency
response team within the special operations division and had helped
secure the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Sane person
2 hours ago
But accepting a pardon carries with it the implicit acknowledgement of guilt for the crime.
I.M. Bum Fartoe
21 hours ago
Accepting
a pardon requires an admission of guilt. Those that pled guilty or were
found guilty by a jury are not eligible for nor in any way deserving of
compensation.
Jenni S.
49 minutes ago
This
is what happens when we have a criminal in the White House pardoning
criminals, including those who assaulted police officers. When people in
Trump's administration, like Noem, claiming "no one is above the law"
she forgets to add "except Trump and criminals who committed crimes in
support of him."
Tuesday, September 2, 2025. As Chump carries out war on the economy, war on democracy, war on immigrants and war on common sense, you might expect him to be busy; however, he's apparently missing having failed to appear in public for several days now.
Who the hell knows where Donald Chump is? The White House keeps lying with photos and claims and keeps getting caught.
Where is he?
And are the tabloids on vacation?
Shouldn't we be greeted in the supermarket check out lane with headlines like:
MALANIE'S HAD ENOUGH AND WAILS ON CHUMP LEAVING HIM BRUISED AND IN HIDING
CHUMP USED THE LONG WEEKEND TO GET SOME LIPOSUCTION
CHUMP PRAYING WITH RELIGIOUS LEADERS AS HE PREPARES TO ANNOUNCE HE HAS AIDS
WHITE HOUSE IN PANIC AS CHUMP COMPLETELY LOSES IT AND DOESN'T KNOW WHERE HE IS OR WHO HE IS
CHUMP GOES INTO HIDING FOLLOWING HIS LOSS OF CONTROL OF HIS SPHINCTER
LOOSE LIPS HEGSETH ATTEMPTS TO NURSE CHUMP BACK TO HEALTH VIA BREAST FEEDING
HAVING SHAT HIMSELF ALL WEEKEND, CHUMP TO ANNOUNCE TODAY THAT HE IS STEPPING DOWN AND JD VANCE IS NOW PRESIDENT
CHUMP'S JUGS DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER -- CHUMP TO SPEAK TODAY ON THE TOPIC OF MALE BREAST CANCER
Ben tackles the where-is-Chump issue at the top of this MEIDASTOUCH NEWS video.
The Department of Justice again insisted that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had no hand in dropping another case against one of her brother Brad Bondi’s clients facing felony wire fraud charges.
ABC News reported that Missouri federal prosecutors this week agreed to voluntarily dismiss an indictment against Sid Chakraverty, a property developer represented by Brad, co-chair of the Investigations and White Collar Defense practice at Paul Hastings.
Of course the bimbo had a hand in it. Maybe she just forgot she had a hand in it. Like, after she told the American people that the Epstein client list was on her desk, she then apparently forgot where on her desk it was and still can't find it.
The Justice Department on Thursday finalized a rule giving Attorney General Pam Bondi sweeping new authority to appoint virtually any attorney to serve as a temporary immigration judge — a sharp break from longstanding requirements designed to ensure expertise on the immigration bench.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the DOJ agency that oversees the nation’s immigration courts, announced the change on Wednesday in a final rule scheduled for publication in the Federal Register the following day.
Under the rule, EOIR’s director, with Bondi’s approval, can “designate or select any attorney to serve as a temporary immigration judge” for six-month renewable terms. That means the department can bypass earlier restrictions limiting temporary appointments to former immigration judges, certain administrative law judges, or Justice Department attorneys with at least a decade of immigration law experience.
The department argued those restrictions were “needlessly narrow” and hampered efforts to manage an immigration court backlog that peaked at more than 4 million cases earlier this year.
“Immigration law experience is not always a strong predictor of success as an IJ,” EOIR wrote in the rule, pointing to permanent judges hired without prior immigration law backgrounds who it says went on to become “exemplary” jurists.
The move has alarmed immigration advocates, who warn that it risks turning the courts into political instruments of the Trump administration’s mass deportation push.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted a recruitment message on social media this summer saying, “America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out.”
Setting aside the racist overtones of this messaging, even DHS itself says it’s not true. Border crossings have fallen to an all-time low — DHS’s own website boasts about it. Moreover, federal data shows undocumented people have lower rates of criminal convictions than U.S.-born citizens.
Yet immigration enforcement has dramatically ramped up. Starting this summer, the Trump administration began deploying masked, flak-jacketed men wearing military fatigues sporting the word “Police” against low-income communities of color in immigrant-heavy Southern California and elsewhere.
Some people have exhorted city police to protect people from ICE agents, but evidence abounds of local law enforcement collaborating with ICE. And ICE has routinely posed as local law enforcement in order to gain entry into workplaces and people’s homes.
This is no surprise — ICE agents are essentially federal police officers. The Trump administration has also unleashed police and ICE agents on the nation’s capital, citing high crime rates as justification. But like immigration, violent crime has fallen nationwide, especially in Washington, D.C.
Among ICE’s favored targets in D.C. are delivery drivers — not exactly fitting the profile of dangerous criminals. Police officers have been documented conducting traffic stops while ICE agents check immigration status and then make arrests.
Given all this, it’s disturbing that DHS is offering potential ICE recruits a $50,000 signing bonus — and often hiring people on the spot at job fairs.
Imagine public school teachers, librarians, nurses, or child care workers being offered $50,000 bonuses and on-the-spot hiring. If there’s a bottomless well of taxpayer funds for waging war on people, there ought to be plenty of money to spend in service of them.
Chump and his gestapo police have created a dark day in US history. This is the sort of thing you never live down and that only gets worse each year. Any of you being silent right now better be prepared with a lie for when you're children and grandchildren ask you years from now how you responded while innocent people were targeted, while they were kidnapped off US streets, while families were destroyed. As outrageous as this seems today, it will only be more outrageous in the years to come.
Let's look at some of these 'violent' people being targeted right now.
Allison Bustillo Chinchilla, a young nurse from Charlotte currently held at an immigration detention center in Georgia, has been granted relief by an immigration judge that allows her to leave the country voluntarily instead of being deported — a decision that will enable her to return to the United States without facing a 10-year reentry ban.
Allison, 20, has been detained for six months at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. She had nearly given up her legal fight due to health issues and unsanitary conditions at the facility. Then, unexpectedly, she was informed on Tuesday, Aug. 26, that she would have a hearing that same day.
She was arrested on the morning of Feb. 20 at her home in Charlotte while caring for her three younger siblings — the youngest of whom has autism — while her mother was at work.
The chaotic arrest was carried out by ICE agents who forcibly entered the apartment heavily armed, looking for someone else.
A 20 year old nurse! No criinal record! Don't we all feel safer now?
Only the idiots and fools feel safer though the liars will join them in pretending we are.
CONVICTED FELON DONALD CHUMP SAID HE WOULD DEPORT VIOLENT IMMIGRANTS AND HE MIGHT IF HE WEREN'T SO STUPID. JOHN SHIN IS THE LATEST TESTATMENT TO CHUMP'S STUPIDITY. ICE KIDNAPPED JOHN IN UTAH.
"John Shin is a longtime member of the local Salt Lake City music community," said Utah Symphony spokesperson Meredith Kimball Laing in an email. "His many contributions as a violinist have included some performances with our orchestra through the years, and our hearts go out to him and his family."
Musicians have been staging ongoing performances in protest at the Utah State Capitol and sharing their anger and concern on social media. "I am calling upon all string players in Salt Lake City to unite in support of our fellow musician John Shin, who has been detained by ICE," wrote violist Eugene Dyson on Facebook. "The time has come for us to rally together and fight for our own with unwavering solidarity."
In a Facebook post on Aug. 20, Shin's wife, DaNae Shin, shared the details of the phone call she said she received from Shin on the day of his arrest. " 'Honey, I don't have much time. I've been arrested by ICE and they are sending me to a detainment center. I love you and the kids, I will be okay, please call our attorney,' " DaNae wrote. She added, "John is not a criminal, he is an amazing husband, father, and person, and I will do whatever it takes to bring him back home." DaNae Shin set up a GoFundMe campaign to help cover her husband's legal fees. At the time of writing, it had received more than $72,000 in donations.
Malunda Destino had stopped at a gas station in Scarborough last week when several ICE agents approached his car, according to a friend who said she later spoke to him from jail.
The friend, Choisie Nyemba, said Destino told her the agents knocked on his car window and told him, in no uncertain terms, to step out of the car.
"Come out or we gonna break the window," was what the agents told Destino, according to Nyemba.
Nyemba said when she and other friends learned of Destino's arrest, they scrambled to locate him, even going to the ICE office in Scarborough, only to find he'd already be taken out of state.
"They were like 'Oh, no, he's not here anymore. They moved him to Massachusetts,'" Nyemba said.
A Pakistani native and U.S. military veteran will remain in immigrant detention after a judge said she needs more time to know if her court has jurisdiction to proceed with his request for a bond.
[. . .]
Muhammed Chaudhry served in the National Guard as a mental health specialist in the early 2000s. While he served in the National Guard, his team was later deployed under Operation Iraqi Freedom but he stayed in the states to continue his work and was deployed to different parts of the country, he told Scala. Chaudhry continued to serve in the military until he was medically retired in 2005 after an injury.
Last week, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service enacted new policies to increase scrutiny of people in the naturalization process. The new policies include increased scrutiny of anything officials deem “anti-American,” including what officials consider anti-Semitic views, or who are supportive of terrorist organizations. The Chaundrys were vocal about what’s commonly referred to as Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, especially in the Gaza strip.
So he was good enough to be accepted into this country's National Guard twenty years ago but he's been retired from that so he's no longer needed? Is that the thinking?
Here's what the American people are seeing: 4 people, none of them violent criminals. A nurse, a violinist, a soccer player and a veteran of the National Guard all being deported.
Under President Donald Trump, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has become the driving force of his sweeping crackdown on migrants, bolstered by record funding and new latitude to conduct raids, but staff are contending with long hours and growing public outrage over the arrests.
Those internal pressures are taking a toll.
Two current and nine former ICE officials told Reuters the agency is grappling with burnout and frustration among personnel as agents struggle to keep pace with the administration’s aggressive enforcement agenda.
The agency has launched a recruitment drive to relieve the stress by hiring thousands of new officers as quickly as possible, but that probably will take months or years to play out.
The burnout will continue. At least for the lucky ones. It'll force them out of a job that is a crime, one that will leave workers attempting suicide and/or self-medicating with drink and drugs in the near future in order to cope with what they've done, the lives that they have destroyed, the families that they have harmed.
As parades and other events celebrating the contributions of workers in the U.S. are held Monday for the Labor Day holiday, experts say President Donald Trump's stepped-up immigration policies are affecting the nation's labor force.
More than 1.2 million immigrants disappeared from the labor force from January through the end of July, according to preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.
Immigrants make up almost 20% of the U.S. workforce and that data shows 45% of workers in farming, fishing and forestry are immigrants, according to Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer. About 30% of all construction workers are immigrants and 24% of service workers are immigrants, she added.
A San Diego restaurant owner who serves many immigrant customers has seen business plummet. A cleaning woman avoids bringing tools to work to avoid drawing attention to herself. Her husband, a construction worker, has been unemployed for over a month. A California farm had to hire an attorney to protect workers with approved visas from deportation.
California—and other states across the country—rely heavily on the labor of immigrants. Many of those workers are living in fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, making it harder to do their jobs. Experts say this fear is restricting the rights of all workers and hurting the state’s broader economy.
Capital & Main spoke to workers and an employer in California about how President Donald Trump’s campaign against immigrants is affecting their ability to work. All of them requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation from the federal government.
President Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick continue to insist that his steep new tariffs will ultimately lead to a manufacturing renaissance in the United States. But countless economists, both left and right, are warning that the tariffs will hurt both businesses and consumers by making a wide range of goods much more expensive — from coffee to electronics to construction materials.
In an op-ed published by the Washington Post on August 29, Green Bay, Wisconsin-based Sachin Shivaram (chief executive of the Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry) details the negative effects that Trump's tariffs are having on the blue-collar workers he employs. Those workers, according to Shivaram, "overwhelmingly" voted for Trump in 2024 and are now being hurt by his economic policies.
"It’s a hard truth that some kinds of manufacturing are never going to come back in the United States, and no amount of protective tariffs will change that," the aluminum exec argues. "This truth is ignored at great peril for American workers. American manufacturing workers don't ask for much: a fair wage, steady work and the dignity of knowing their job matters. At the aluminum foundry in Wisconsin where I am chief executive, those jobs start at $27 an hour with a pension, a child care stipend and the security of long-term employment. Many of our people have built careers here, sending kids to college, buying homes and retiring with pride. They are exactly the kind of workers President Donald Trump says he wants to help. On that, we agree."
Prices have gone up under Chump. He can lie all he wants but anyone shopping in a grocery store is fully aware of how much prices have increased. Things are only expected to get worse economically over the next few months. Will Kenton (MONEYWISE) notes:
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, raised concerns about the U.S. economy following the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest report on August 1st.
In a post on X, he warned, “the economy is on the precipice of recession. That’s the clear takeaway from last week’s economic data dump. Consumer spending has flatlined, construction and manufacturing are contracting, and employment is set to fall. And with inflation on the rise, it is tough for the Fed to come to the rescue.”
Just days earlier, Zandi had observed that employment was the “remaining firewall between the weakening economy and recession.”
Prices are expected to go up this year as many companies signal plans to raise them in response to President Donald Trump's slew of tariffs.
While firms raise prices for many reasons, some were blaming price hikes on tariffs long before Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" on April 2. That's when he announced a 10% baseline tariff on imports from most countries, except Canada and Mexico, and a host of "reciprocal" tariffs on top of that.
The situation is fluid, as various countries continue to negotiate potential trade deals with the US.
Some economists have said that Trump's tariffs — and the uncertainty with his overall trade policy — could lead companies to raise prices on the goods they produce.
Here are the companies that have implemented or warned of price increases in recent months.
Adidas
Adidas said it will raise prices in the US because of a double-digit million euro hit from tariffs in the second quarter and a further predicted 200 million euro, about $218 million, cost from levies in the second half of the year.
Vietnam, which accounted for 27% of the German retailer's total volume in 2024, will face a 20% tariff from August 1. Indonesia made 19% of Adidas' products and will face a 19% tariff.
AutoZone
Philip Daniele, the CEO of the auto-parts company AutoZone, told analysts on a September earnings call that tariff policies had "ebbed and flowed over the years," and if Trump implemented more tariffs, "we will pass those tariff costs back to the consumer."
"We generally raise prices ahead of that," Daniele said, adding that prices would gradually settle over time. "So, that's historically what we've done," he said.
Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said during the company's March earnings call that Trump's tariff plans are likely to increase prices.
"Trade is critically important to our business and industry. The consumer electronic supply chain is highly global, technical, and complex," Barry said. "We expect our vendors across our entire assortment will pass along some level of tariff costs to retailers, making price increases for American consumers highly likely."
Donald Trump suffered the biggest defeat yet to his tariff policies on Friday, as a federal appeals court ruled he had overstepped his presidential powers when he enacted punitive financial measures against almost every country in the world.
In a 7-4 ruling, the Washington DC court said that while US law “bestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency”, none of those actions allow for the imposition of tariffs or taxes.
It means the ultimate ruling on the legality of Trump’s tariffs, which were famously based on spurious economic science and rocked the global economy when he announced them in April, will probably be made by the US supreme court.
Friday night on ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES, US House Rep Robert Garcia joined Chris and discussed Chump's ongoing Epstein scandal. Jeffrey Epstein is the convicted pedophile and sex trafficker who was also Donald Chump's bestie dating back to the late 80s. During Chump's first term, Epstein was convicted, went to prison and died there in what was ruled a suicide. His partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell went on the run to evade an arrest warrant and was eventually discovered hiding in her Bradford, New Hampshire mansion (one of several she owns, according to court records). She was found guilty in court and sentenced to twenty years. However, in what may be an attempt to buy her silence, Donald Chump had her moved to a cushy prison -- that's not supposed to accept sex offenders -- and has floated a pardon for her in public.
Chris notes that US Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson shut down the session in Congress in the hopes that when they returned in September everyone would have forgotten about Chump's Epstein & Maxwell connections. Did it work? Robert says no.
"This upcoming week," Garcia informed, "we have actually many of the victims of Epstein coming to Capitol Hill. We're meeting with them. They're talking to lawmakers. We're going to highlight their stories. We've got to center these victims I'll just say, one other piece of news -- that actually just developed in the last couple hours 00 is we finally got word from the Epstein estate. They're going to be providing the actual Epstein book, that famous book with that note that Donald Trump drew and doodled to Jeffrey Epstein, his so-called best friend of 10 to 15 years. The estate is actually going to actually now get us that book and a bunch of other documents that they have that's actually not been reported yet. Reporting here for the first time. We're gonna get those documents, as we understand it now, on September the 8th. And so that will continue our investigation. And again, we ask the question, where are the rest of the documents? What is Pam Bondi hiding? What is Donald Trump hiding? End the cover-up. Let’s get to the truth."
An inmate at Ghislaine Maxwell's "cushy" new prison has found herself abruptly transferred to a high-security facility after criticizing the convicted s-- trafficker in an interview.
Julie Howell, currently serving a one-year sentence for theft, faced the consequences for calling Maxwell "disgusting" in her comments to a British newspaper earlier this month, according to a report.
Howell was removed from Federal Prison Camp, Bryan in Texas, where conditions are considerably better, after voicing her opinion.
Howell's lawyer, Patrick McClain, disclosed that prison warden Dr. Tanisha Hall summoned the 44-year-old Texas native into her office, sparking the swift transfer. "You've ruined my weekend," Hall reportedly stated, expressing frustration about her phone being inundated with calls over the controversy.
The transfer happened so quickly that Howell did not have time to grab her medication or glasses. She now resides in the Federal Detention Center in Houston, known for its violent inmates and far harsher conditions.
Howell's outspokenness stems from personal experience; a family member is a victim of s-- trafficking, the very crime for which Maxwell received a 20-year sentence.
