alan shayne and norman sunshine are the authors of 'double life a love story from broadway to hollywood.' this is the book that marcia and read this summer for our summer read. so be sure to visit her site for her thoughts on the book.
usually we try to go with something fun and sometimes campy. we were thinking we'd do that again but found out about this book and decided to go with it.
in 1958, norman and alan became a couple. they are still together today and they've been in a relationship all this time.
in 1955, alan got married. he was pursuing an acting career. he and a woman had a friendship. both were tired of their families asking when they'd find some 1 and get married? she was a lesbian and she knew he was gay and they thought it could work for both of them. it didn't. they divorced.
and that was it for alan's pretending. he met norman and things changed.
norman was an illustrator. alan would go from acting to casting to producing t.v. and have a wonderful career. norman? he wanted to be an artist. and he would become 1, a talented and recognized artist. but there would be starts and stops along the way.
like when he was asked for help by frances lear - help with her magazine. and he gave it but that was the beginning of a strange and dramatic work situation.
they lived in nyc to begin with and soon bought a weekend home and fixed it up, and then another, and then another. then they moved to los angeles for alan's t.v. career and they found a home and worked on it to make it their home only to have a fire leave it half destroyed. while they waited for it to be repaired, they lived across the street at their neighbor's home - their neighbor rock hudson.
there's a great deal going on in the book. and it's amazing to think that they started this relationship that has lasted 68 years.
it's a personal story of a love affair that has spanned decades. and you get to know them in this book, you really emerge from the book feeling like you've had dinner with alan and norman - a great dinner (not like the 1st 1 that norman cooked for alan).
it's just a pleasure to read and i highly recommend it.
Alan Shayne will turn 101 in November. He is still alive as I type this. He and his husband Norman Sunshine are the writers of the memoir Double Life: A Love Story From Broadway to Hollywood.
Friday, August 7, 2026. Chump squeals "treasonous leaks" thereby
confirming that the leaks are true regarding the decimation of
stockpiles of US weapons, his war on immigrants continues, Pete Hegseth
continues to fail in his role as Secretary of Defense -- and it's
failure in one way after another, Senator Patty Murray notes that a
vote to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General is a vote to destroy
reproductive rights, and much more.
On the sixth day of the war with Iran, Donald Trump made a curious comment at a White House event.
“Yesterday, my administration announced decisive action to help keep down the oil prices,” the president declared. Moments later, the Republican went on to say oil prices “have pretty much stabilized.”
It’s
never been clear what “decisive” actions the president was referring
to. And while a variety of words come to mind when describing oil prices
of late, “stabilized” isn’t one of them.
In
fact, exactly five months to the day after Trump’s misplaced boast, he
delivered remarks in Las Vegas and warned American consumers about the
possibility of renewed volatility.
After noting
recent improvements in oil prices, the president told his audience, “We
may have to send it up again. We may have to — you know what happens
when we send it up. But we hope we don’t have to.”
Chump's
telling his followers that oil prices might need to increase again?
Does he really not get how many Americans are struggling in the wrecked
economy that he created?
The view from the cliffs must have been exciting
And up to the peaks you were bound
Now you're stranded alone
And the path is unknown
And there is no easy way down
No, it isn't very easy
When you're left on your own
No, it isn't very easy
When each road you take
Is one more mistake
And there's no one to break your fall
And lead you back home
-- "No Easy Way Down," written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, she first recorded the song for her album WRITER
Worse
yet, Republicans are poised to lose big in the November midterm
elections. Trump seems more interested in fighting with Senate
leadership than in helping Republicans hold their majorities, and that
fight is leaving some in his own party open to moving away from him.
Trump
still has a strong grip on the Republican voter base, but the party
needs a plan for what happens after he leaves office in 2028. There's no
better time to start building it than heading into a likely November
beatdown.
His popularity has imploded. It's gone. It's not coming back. Nick Hilden notes more bad news for the Chump:
On
Wednesday, the National Review – the preeminent conservative magazine
since 1955 — called it: President Donald Trump has done the
“impeachable.”
“There is no plausible defense of Trump's TruthSocial scheme,” declared
National Review Senior Editor Charles Cooke. “It is flagrantly corrupt.
It is impeachable. Congress should intervene. (It won't, I know.)” He
posted this assertion over his latest article, entitled “Truth Social’s Early-Access Scheme Is Indefensible.”
As
he explains, over the weekend, the Trump Media & Technology Group
announced the creation of a “real-time feed on the Truth Social website
that will give paying institutions early access to certain high-profile
posts for between $60,000 and $100,000 per month.” Cooke doesn’t hold
back with his assessment of the scheme, writing, “There is no credible
defense of this. The only reason that anyone would want priority access
to Truth Social is to gain priority access to President Trump’s
pronouncements on that platform. And the only reason that anyone would
want priority access to President Trump’s pronouncements on that
platform is to act on them for pecuniary gain.”
As
Cooke elaborates, “Trump often uses Truth Social as the primary forum
for his announcements — announcements that include changes to personnel,
the imposition or rescission of tariffs, key foreign policy decisions,
and more. These announcements are extremely useful to financial
institutions, and, in the age of high-speed trading, the faster those
financial institutions can obtain them, the more money those financial
institutions can make. Facilitating this access is not a byproduct of
Truth Social’s API offering; it is its core — perhaps its sole —
purpose. Simply put: President Trump is charging Americans a fee — a fee
that, in part, goes into his family’s pockets — for the privilege of
receiving news about his official actions earlier than those who do not
pay.”
According to Cooke, it
is “obvious how unequivocally corrupt this setup is. Technically
speaking, the beneficiaries will not gain the information they seek
directly from Trump himself, but indirectly, via an API (Application
Programming Interface) whose output will be processed by a bunch of
semi-autonomous servers and acted upon according to a set of
predetermined parameters. But the results will be the same as if Trump
had personally picked up the phone.”
There is "no easy way down" for Chump as he continues his descent. Sarah K. Burris notes:
Voters who elected President Donald Trump are not happy.
John
Gannon, a lifelong Republican and Texas businessman, who voted for
Trump, told CBS News the president's administration is "destroying
families, jobs." His fiancée was detained by ICE. "They are picking up
law-abiding citizens," he told the report.
The couple was headed to Las Vegas for a convention when Gannon's fiancée was nabbed by plainclothes federal agents.
"After
leaving the United room, eight officers, ICE agents, swarmed Yasmin and
detained her. (They) didn't tell us why and wrestled her off into a
car," he recalled of fiancée Yasmin Suarez Reyes.
Trump
said throughout the 2024 campaign that he was only going to deport the
"worst of the worst" and "criminals." The reality has been something
different. Top Trump advisor Stephen Miller, at one point, put a quota
on ICE to arrest at least 3,000 people daily. Politico reported that the White House then began to backtrack on the demand.
"Go
after the criminals. We're all for that. But leave the mom and pops and
the kids alone. Man, he's destroying families," Gannon added.
They
weren’t methodically tracking known criminals. They were Googling the
nearest Home Depots, targeting any Latinos they saw, pulling stunts for
social media and behaving like they are above the law.
We’ve
seen it firsthand. Last June, I responded to an ICE raid in Huntington
Park where then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had an entire
camera crew — complete with a hair and makeup team — while families were
left terrified.
The Harbor Area Peace Patrol documented ICE
agents on Terminal Island swapping license plates and even removing them
from their vehicles all together.
These raids have been the
most sickening abuse of government power in my lifetime. We are a long
way away from accountability — but the ACLU’s work has helped bring the
truth to light.
A federal judge held the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in contempt following the agency’s
delay in complying with an order to release digital copies of
communication on the cellphones of more than 800 immigration agents,
according to an order unsealed Tuesday.
District
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of former President
Biden, ordered DHS to provide imaging from agents’ personal cellphones
in January following several immigration raids in Los Angeles last
year.
In the order, plaintiffs alleged the
cellphone communications had evidence to support racial profiling
allegations against immigration officers.
The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Public Counsel and other
immigration advocacy groups also accused agents of using racial slurs
during interactions and argued that access to cellphone data would
provide evidence to support their claims.
Chump's
given free reign to crazies like the now gone Gregory Bovino and the
still present Stephen Miller to attack and terrorize immigrants (and
people mistaken for immigrants). That was always how it was going to be
and that's why some of us noted the importance of supporting Kamala
Harris (while others, like Amy Goodman on DEMOCRACY NOW!, did "two
[segments] slamming Kamala, two saying Kamala and Chump were the same
and one focusing on what Chump did in his first term" -- see Ava and my
"Media: How Amy Goodman harmed immigrants and helped elect Chump"). We knew
that it invited racial profiling. It invited targeting. And it would
target immigrants with no criminal background while also targeting US
citizens. Nicole Charky-Chami (RAW STORY) notes:
An
11-year Army soldier said he felt shocked and betrayed after ICE agents
stormed into his wife's green card interview and detained her, Newsweek reported on Thursday.
Staff
Sergeant Alexis Jaramillo, 43, described the disbelief after his wife,
Maisa Lopes Eliaser, 32, was ripped from his side during what he, his
wife, their son and translator thought was an adjustment-of-status
appointment on July 8 in Montgomery, Alabama, according to Newsweek.
Lopes Eliaser is a Brazilian national with no criminal record.
"I
feel really betrayed," Jaramillo told Newsweek. "I serve this country.
And I deserve some security with my family. We were very excited because
we knew we were doing the right thing and complying with the
government. Then two people came and told me she was going to be
detained."
[. . .]
Recent
Associated Press reporting shows more than 50 parents and spouses of
active-duty service members have been detained since President Donald
Trump's second term began in January 2025. At least six have been
deported and one self-deported.
Pete Hegseth can't stand up for the troops the way
a real Secretary of Defense would do. Prissy Pete's too busy trying to
be one of the boys. In the process, he's failing the troops. Another
example? Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) notes:
Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth is accused of deliberately obscuring the true
human cost of the war with Iran – and potentially depriving benefits
from the families of service members killed in the conflict.
Sen.
Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) publicly called out the Pentagon for quietly
removing recent casualty figures from an internal tracking system and
reclassified them under a vaguer category, saying the move was "an
ongoing manipulation by the Trump administration to hide the true cost
of the war in Iran to the American people," reported MS NOW.
“For
the purposes of the VA, for example, when you become a veteran, you get
a different pension based on whether or not you are a combat-connected
injury, or whether your injury was just in operational service,”
Duckworth said, calling the reclassification “a slap in the face to our
Gold Star families.”
“We actually have folks
who have been killed," she added, "and we have one who is still missing
in action, that the Gold Star families now don’t have real answers from
the Trump administration as to what has happened to their loved ones."
The
Illinois Democrat, an Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient,
plans to introduce the Honoring the Sacrifice of Troops in War Act in
the Senate on Thursday, legislation aimed at forcing transparency in how
the Defense Department tracks and reports casualties from military
operations, and restoring all casualty records tied to Iran operations
dating back to Feb. 28.
It's
a shame that Duckworth has to go through the trouble of introducing
legislation for this. But that's what happens when a preening Pete
becomes Secretary of Defense. All the make up in the world can't hide
the psoriasis and all the make up in the world can't make him look like a warrior either.
U.S.
Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and the entire New Mexico
congressional delegation are demanding answers from Defense Secretary
Pete Hegseth after revelations that a Department of Defense GPS jamming
exercise contributed to a medical plane crash that killed four crew
members and ignited a wildfire that burned nearly 32,000 acres.
In
a letter obtained exclusively by MeidasTouch, Heinrich was joined by
Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández, Melanie
Stansbury, and Gabe Vasquez, all Democrats, in pressing Hegseth for
accountability over the Pentagon's role in the May 13 crash in Lincoln
County.
Just before midnight that night, a
Beechcraft King Air medical transport plane carrying two pilots and two
flight nurses took off from Roswell bound for Sierra Blanca Regional
Airport in Ruidoso to pick up a patient for transport to Albuquerque.
According to the lawmakers, the aircraft's GPS was jammed by a scheduled
military test event in the area, causing the routine medical flight to
overshoot its landing pattern by 10 miles. At 12:15 a.m. on May 14, the
plane slammed into the side of the Capitan Mountains, killing all four
crew members instantly and sparking a wildfire that burned for three
weeks before crews could contain it.
And
yet the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States
stayed silent about it for months and months. They didn't apologize to
families of the four killed, they didn't own up to the American people
what had taken place. And they still haven't. They seem to think no
one will know if they just continue to ignore what took place.
Hegseth's failures just keep piling up. In yesterday's snapshot, we noted the conditions on the USS LINCOLN and Bruce Golding (INDEPENDENT) reports:
Morale
is plummeting on an American aircraft carrier that's running short of
food and other supplies as its exhausted crew wages President Donald
Trump's war against Iran, worried family members say.
Sailors
and Marines serving on the USS Abraham Lincoln have told relatives
about being served a half-cup of rice and two tortillas for a meal, and
said the ship's store often lacks soap, deodorant and toothpaste, MS NOW
reported Wednesday.
Crew
members are also worn out by working long, grueling shifts, with some
rarely getting a day off, and described broken toilets, moldy showers
without hot water and no laundry service for weeks at a time, relatives
said.
“The morale is not good,” said Bonnie
York, whose stepson is aboard the Lincoln. “Apparently, the ship’s
doctor or therapist said they need to hit port soon or people are going
to start, you know, losing their minds.”
Dan
F. was alarmed when his daughter, a Marine aboard the USS Tripoli, a
warship deployed to fight the Iran war, sent him a photo of a meal
served on the ship. A lunch tray, two-thirds empty, carried one small
scoop of shredded meat and a single folded tortilla.
A
picture of a mid-April dinner on the USS Abraham Lincoln, shared by a
service member with his family, was similarly unappetizing – a small
handful of boiled carrots, a dry meat patty and a gray slab of processed
meat.
Dan and other military family members
worried that their loved ones deployed to the Middle East are going
hungry are filling boxes with items they hope could help service members
ride out prolonged deployments in the Middle East – homemade fudge,
Jolly Ranchers, crossword puzzle books, playing cards, toothpaste, Girl
Scout cookies and fresh socks.
But mail
delivery to military ZIP codes across the Middle East has been
indefinitely suspended as of April, and packages in transit now hang in
limbo.
Dan asked to go by his first name only to protect his daughter from retaliation.
Both the Navy and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth denied reports of food problems.
"My
team confirmed the logistics stats for the Lincoln & Tripoli,"
Hegseth said in a post on X. "Both have 30+ days of Class I supplies
(food) on board. NavCent monitors this everyday, for every ship. Our
sailors deserve -- and receive -- the best."
Well,
Pete, doesn't seem like you're ensuring that the troops have the best.
Not if the issue is still being raised over three months later. In
fact, that would appear to indict you as a lying, do-nothing who wants
the title of Secretary of Defense but doesn't want to do any actual work
that comes with the position. Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, Lloyd Austin,
Leon Panetta -- even Donald Rumsfeld -- would have been publicly
raising hell if they found out that sailors on US carrier didn't have
adequate provisions. Adam Lynch notesMS NOW's Priya Sridhar reporting:
“Deployment
was extended for a second time, and they're concerned that this could
lead to accidents that could potentially turn deadly,” said Sridhar. And
then on top of that, … they're telling me that the sailors and the
marines can't take hot showers, that the toilets are nonoperational,
that for weeks at a time, there are no access to working laundry
facilities, and that they're having to stand in lines to get into the
ship's store for 1 to 2 hours. And when they get there, there are no
basic hygiene items like toothpaste, deodorant or soap.”
The
families’ frustration, added Sridhar, is that they’re hearing about the
nation’s winnowing stockpiles of munitions and weapons, which Trump and
his defense secretary keep blowing on Iran, and a $67 billion
Department of Defense request, and they want their loved ones to be part
of the conversation too.
President
Donald Trump is crashing out about a report that he confronted Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth over the U.S. military’s depleted munitions
stockpile.
Trump took to Truth Social within the first hour of Thursday to hit back at The Washington Post for reporting
that tensions between Hegseth and the president had “boiled over” on
the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting at Camp David last week.
“The
U.S. has massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types,”
Trump wrote. “Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and
shipped to the U.S. as needed. Defense companies are building the
largest number of plants and factories in our country’s history.”
“The
‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down. Long
term jail sentences will be sought!” Trump wrote. Notably, Trump didn’t
deny unloading on Hegseth.
This isn’t the first time
the Trump administration has challenged reports that the country’s
weapons stockpile is low, and still managed to threaten the leakers with
jail time. If the story is false, then why would it be treasonous to
tell it?
The
first problem with this is that Trump’s efforts to downplay the
depleted stockpiles contradict comments he made last week, when the
Republican acknowledged the problem he now seems eager to paper over.
The
second problem is that Trump’s online statement contradicts itself: The
president can argue that the latest reporting is false, or he can argue
that the reporting is based on “treasonous leaks.” But to argue both at
once doesn’t make sense. As Mother Jones’ David Corn recently summarized in response to a different story, “It’s only a leak if it’s true.”
Using
publicly available data, the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), a national security think tank, estimated that by the
end of July, the US had between 759 and 827 Patriot missiles left, down
from 2,330 before the conflict began.
It also estimates the US
has now used around 60% of terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD)
missiles, which are deployed to intercept strikes, Mark Cancian, a
retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at CSIS, said on
Wednesday.
Joe
Scarborough was off from Morning Joe on Thursday — but still managed to
deliver a hot take that’s sure to get people talking in Washington and
beyond.
In a fiery post on X on Thursday, Scarborough sounded off about the blockbuster Washington Post report about President Donald Trump clashing at Camp David
with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over what The Post characterized as
“extreme munitions shortages that now threaten to limit military
options with Iran.”
Scarborough called it an “unforgivable blunder” compounded by Hegseth’s refusal to acknowledge the shortage.
“When
Hegseth attacks media questions on this extreme munitions shortage as
“fake news,” he makes this unforgivable blunder worse,” Scarborough
wrote. “Congress needs to take action. Americans need the truth. Hegseth
can’t give it. He needs to go.”
President Donald Trump's plan to haul Rupert Murdoch into a deposition just hit a wall.
A
federal judge on Wednesday granted The Wall Street Journal's request to
freeze discovery in Trump's defamation lawsuit over the newspaper's
reporting on Jeffrey Epstein, a significant procedural victory that came
just hours after lawyers argued over whether the case should be
dismissed altogether.
U.S. District Judge Darrin P.
Gayles issued the order after hearing oral arguments in Miami federal
court on the Journal's motion to dismiss Trump's amended complaint. In a
paperless order entered later that day, Gayles stayed, or paused, all
discovery pending his decision on whether the lawsuit can proceed.
The
decision means Trump cannot force Murdoch, or anyone else connected to
the case for that matter, to sit for depositions while the judge decides
whether the lawsuit survives. If Gayles ultimately dismisses the case
with prejudice, as the Journal has requested, Murdoch may never have to
answer Trump's questions under oath.
The
former Fox News host invoked the late sex offender – and former Trump
pal – Jeffrey Epstein as a symbol of the elite class to which the
president belongs and has failed to hold accountable, and Carlson
seemingly took a step toward a possible 2028 presidential bid by
outlining his "America First" priorities, reported The Daily Beast.
The
57-year-old broadcaster has spent months building a dissident wing
within MAGA, teaming with former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, 52, who
resigned from Congress earlier this year after a bitter split with Trump
over what she called broken campaign promises.
Both
accuse Trump, 80, of abandoning "America First" principles by
entangling the U.S. in the Iran war, deferring to Israel on foreign
policy, and mishandling the release of the Epstein files.
New
Mexico’s attorney general sued the Trump Administration’s Department of
Justice and acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche this week over
the DOJ’s refusal to share un-redacted documents from its files on
Jeffrey Epstein. The state is investigating crimes that took place at
Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in Stanley, New Mexico (pictured above, located in
Santa Fe County). The ranch, which Epstein purchased in 1993, is
mentioned more than 10,000 times in the files.
“New
Mexico has a duty to protect survivors and investigate crimes committed
in our state so that perpetrators can be held accountable,” New
Mexico’s Attorney General Raúl Torrez said in a statement. “We asked the
Department of Justice to cooperate by providing access to records that
may be critical to identifying victims, witnesses, and additional
criminal conduct at Zorro Ranch. Their delay is actively hurting our
criminal investigation and delaying justice Epstein survivors deserve.”
The lawsuit (which can be read here)
was filed in federal court in Washington, DC yesterday, and argues that
the DOJ’s refusal to provide the documents “violates the Administrative
Procedure Act and unlawfully interferes with New Mexico’s sovereign
authority to investigate and prosecute crimes committed within its
borders.”
CNN's Jake Tapper was stunned to hear New Mexico's attorney general suggest that a Trump official lied under oath.
During
an interview with Tapper on Wednesday, New Mexico AG Raul Torrez
discussed the Department of Justice's handling of records related to
dead sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein's Zorro Ranch. Torrez filed a lawsuit against the DOJ on Wednesday after it ignored a deadline to hand those records over.
"They've
never worked with us," Torrez said. "We asked for this information as a
law enforcement agency. It's a very common practice for us to reach out
to federal prosecutors and investigators and ask for the kinds of
investigative files that are at issue here."
Torrez
said that the DOJ directed them to the District of New Mexico, "which
was odd," and he "knew full well" that that office "didn't have the
whole range of files that we were looking for." Torrez complied
nonetheless but was still unable to get unredacted files that he needed
to investigate Zorro Ranch.
"The bottom line is they're
not cooperating," Torrez said. "They're stonewalling this
investigation, and that's why we had to take legal action today."
Tapper
pointed out that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who currently
heads the DOJ, told Congress under oath that the DOJ would cooperate
with the New Mexico Department of Justice and help it get the
information that it needed. What Torrez was describing suggested that
this wasn't true and that Blanche was refusing to cooperate with the New
Mexico AG.
"I'm just stunned because you're
suggesting that he lied to Congress when he said that under oath,"
Tapper said. "Lying to Congress is obviously illegal."
MS NOW notes that the Senate is wrapping up business today before going on their planned recess which starts Saturday.
One of the things that they want to do is confirm
Todd Blanche as Attorney General. And on that, let's note this from
Senator Patty Murray's office:
Murray: “Mr.
Blanche told us all exactly what he plans to do if Senators confirm him.
His goal was to make the Dobbs decision ‘permanent in every single
state.’ Every. Single. State.”
Murray: “This isn’t
just a confirmation vote anymore—it’s a roll-call vote on which
Senators endorse banning abortion in all 50 states from the federal
level. I’m voting NO.”
ICYMI:
At Hearing with Acting AG Blanche, Senator Murray Blasts Outrageous
Creation of $1.8 Billion MAGA Slush Fund, Presses for Apology to Epstein
Victims
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, spoke on the
Senate floor ahead of the vote to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney
General. Murray condemned Blanche for his disqualifying track record and
outright corruption. Murray also sounded the alarm on Blanche’s recent comments made during a private call where Blanche says he will work to make the Dobbs decision “permanent in every single state.”
Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:
“M. President, I was never going to come out here and support Todd
Blanche for a long list of reasons. I believe he is one of the most
corrupt Justice Department officials in our country’s history, for one.
He was Trump’s former personal lawyer—and it seems that he never quit!
“The only difference now is that the taxpayers are signing his checks
instead of Trump. He was the one who negotiated a $1.8 billion slush
fund to pay off violent insurrectionists, and who cut a backroom deal to
give the President and his entire corrupt family immunity from IRS
investigations.
“Not to forget, Todd Blanche is the guy who botched the
Epstein files so badly that survivors had their names and faces exposed,
while the names of alleged abusers were hidden. This is a man, who
wouldn’t meet with survivors until Senators put him under a tremendous
amount of public pressure. And when the meeting eventually got on the
books, survivors made it crystal clear that Blanche didn’t listen to
them. He was more interested in checking a box than hearing their
stories or bringing them justice.
“All of that is of course absolutely unacceptable and disqualifying.
But I come here today to sound the alarm on some of the most disturbing
comments I have ever heard from our nation’s top law enforcement
official. M. President, I guess Todd Blanche thought no one was
listening.
“Because on a private call with anti-abortion activists Mr.
Blanche told us all exactly what he plans to do if Senators confirm him.
“His goal was to make the Dobbs decision ‘permanent in every
single state.’ Every. Single. State. Not just Texas or Idaho. He wants
to ban abortion in Washington state. California. New York. In every
state.
“He told them, ‘We will have victory, and victory will be
soon, and it will be permanent.’ Victory over what, exactly? Victory
over women who just want to make their own health care decisions?
Victory over patients in states where abortion is legal?
“Where voters have said, over and over, at the ballot box: keep your hands off our rights.
“Now, a DOJ spokesperson tried to clean up Blanche’s words. Saying he
was only focused on restricting access to medication abortion in all 50
states—as if that’s somehow better.
“Well, I’m here to say I believe the tape. I believe Todd Blanche’s own words.
“So let’s be crystal clear about what this vote is. A vote to
confirm Todd Blanche is a vote to endorse his fight to ban abortion in
all fifty states. Whatever happened to this is states’ decision? So
every Republican who votes yes is voting for exactly that—his words, not
mine. And any Republican who votes to confirm him will own that. In
every state. In every election.
“So, M. President, this isn’t just a confirmation vote anymore—it’s a
roll-call vote on which Senators endorse banning abortion in all 50
states from the federal level. I’m voting no.”
Republicans are increasingly antsy over ending the war with Iran.
In
Congress, and campaigns across the country, many are desperate for a
resolution to the five-month conflict that has kept gas prices above $4
per gallon in an election cycle where cost-of-living is top of mind.
But
the regular messaging guidance the White House and other parts of the
administration provided to Republicans at the start of the war has
dwindled to almost no communication at all in recent weeks on how to
talk to voters on Iran, according to six people with direct knowledge of
the matter who, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to
discuss ongoing conversations.
Briefings on campaign trail guidance are scarce and “tone deaf,” according to multiple House Republicans.
At
a briefing last month, for example, White House officials encouraged
drawing a contrast with radical Democrats who they argue are
unelectable, “rather than standing on our accomplishments, which on the
cost of living side are mixed, at best, with the war,” one House
Republican said.
White
House officials also have continued to press GOP incumbents to tout the
benefits of the tax cuts and spending bill they passed last summer,
which GOP lawmakers note are being undercut by the higher gas prices and
other costs of the war.“It is ironic we keep focusing on the threat of
these ‘little Mamdanis,’ when even some White House officials have
recognized he won because he was talking about salient and real
affordability issues people care about,” a second House Republican said.
There’s
little insight into the administration’s overall plans to end the war
or advice on how Republicans should explain it to voters on the campaign
trail, according to the six people.
they've got a messaging problem and the problem includes that there's no way to sell the iran war. people are sick of it. they're sick of the fact that netanyahu and lindsey graham talked chump into it. they're sick of it continuing. they're sick of the rising costs that have resulted from it.
they sick of chump most of all.
and republicans are scared to run against chump.
'general hospital'?
curtis' trial took place today. we don't know the outcome yet but we know that brook lynn is trash for not showing up and sayig, 'it wasn't isaiah that failed to render aid, i was the other driver who left without stopping to see what happened when jordan crashed her car.'
there's no coming back from this. she gets no sympathy for it. she didn't do the right thing. at 1 point, she tried to set willow up getting lucy to lie to the police and say willow was out on the road that night and on top of that, brook lynn even went so far as to have willow's gps messed with to make it look like she was on the road that night.
brook lynn is trash, plain and simple.
and so is martin. martin acted as curtis lawyer and he lied and he attacked portia on the stand.
but, again, brook lynn's the disgusting trash in all of this. and when it does come out, she's going to have to address the fact that she lied, she tried to set some 1 else up for her actions and she never came forward.
willow got a restraining order against jacinda barring jacinda from being around willow and michael's 2 children.
jacinda goes to the crooked city council man who used to a be a client when she was a prostitute. she needs drugs. he says she shouldn't take them alone and volunteers to take them with her. she says no. because she's not planning on taking them herself. when she goes to nina's to pick up some stuff for work and finds willow there, she drops the pills into willow's drink (i think it was an iced coffee).
lucy goes to laura wanting to know when laura's husband kevin will be returning? not for some time. laura got him and their grand son ace to leave town to protect them from sidwelll. though sidwell is aparently gone kevin has to finish teaching overseas before they can come back.
jack meets with laura who wants to know why the wsb hadn't taken sidwell in yet? jack explains that the wsb is keeping a lower profile on this. he doesn't explain that's due to the wsb blaming everything on cassius and sidwell to protect the wsb. ross, head of the wsb in port charles until he got shot, was in cahoots with sidwell. cassius was actually a good guy but he died in the shooting and they're blaming him to avoid blaming ross. (*but cassisus didn't die and has been shipped elsewhere by the wsb.) laura wishes the wsb would just take sidwell off to 1 of their prisons.
lucy's daughter flirted with jack at the metro court pool before moving on to the target her mother assigned her: michael. michael was nice to her but didn't seem interested in her.
Thursday, August 6, 2026. New Mexico is being stalled and ignored in
their request to the US Justice Dept for information regarding Jeffrey
Epstein, non-journalism major Bari Weiss continues to show off her lack
of journalistic training and knowledge, Hegseth face multiple scandals,
and much more.
Chump's a mess, as Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes in the video above. And not very in touch with reality. Iraq? AL JAZEERA reports:
Iraqi
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi is facing a mounting political and security
crisis as a September 30 deadline to restrict all weapons to state
control approaches.
While a number of armed
groups, such as Saraya al-Salam, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib al-Imam
Ali, have agreed to integrate into the state’s armed forces, the defiant
stance of some powerful Shia paramilitaries threatens to derail the
initiative.
Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-aligned Iraqi
paramilitary group and one of the country’s most heavily armed
factions, has explicitly rejected the government’s mandate, pledging
instead to retain what it calls “resistance weapons” and further develop
its arsenal.
Similarly, the influential
Harakat al-Nujaba has said the government’s push to confiscate arms
should target illegal weapons causing chaos, not those held by fighters
who “defended Iraq, its holy sites, and its people during the most
difficult circumstances”.
The
militias are not going to be turned out by Ali al-Zaidi. Before the US
troops left, the Shi'ite militias were already present and were already
disobeying the rules and laws (you couldn't, for example, be a militia
with a military wing and also be a political party elected to
Parliament). A few prime minister candidates did make claims to the
effect that they would end the militias but none of them did. The
militias are too much a part of Iraq now. They were folded into the
government forces many, many years ago.
If
Chump and his administration thought Ali would be able to address this
-- and apparently they did think that -- then they know nothing of
Iraq's recent history.
Let's move over to the US miliary and the fact that they killed some people. No, not over in Iran, here in the United States. Joe Wilkins (FUTURISM) notes:
New bombshell reporting by Wired reveals
an incident in which the testing of an experimental GPS jammer resulted
in a medical plane crashing into the side of a mountain.
The
horrifying incident happened in May, the publication reports, when a
small twin-engine medevac aircraft carrying two pilots and two medical
workers departed from Roswell, New Mexico. Heading West for the small
mountain village of Ruidoso, the crew became the victim of an electronic
warfare exercise being conducted at the nearby White Sands Missile
Range, a test which rendered their navigational system inoperable.
Due
to a combination of low visibility and an air-traffic control that was
stretched far beyond capacity — at least three other planes reported
navigation disruptions due to the GPS jamming — the pilots failed to
register a mountainous formation between their plane and the landing
strip.
As airline pilot and aviation crash
analyst Juan Browne told Wired, the visual effect of that approach would
have been stupefying. “When those lights go out, man, you know you are
in big trouble,” Browne explained.
Unfortunately,
the disoriented crew ran straight into the side of a mountain they
likely never saw, resulting in the loss of every life on board. It’s the
first known instance where military GPS jamming played a role in
downing a civilian plane in US airspace. Reported incidents of GPS
jamming within the continental US have skyrocketed in recent years.
According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the number of
GPS interference events went from four in 2020 to 50 in 2024, and 40
across 2025.
Jeff Wise reported on this at WIRED July 30th.
Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense. This is on him. And he
should have announced it when it happened Instead, he thought he could
lie and not say anything. He thought he could lie to the American
people. He thought he could cover this up. Hegseth is not fit to be
Secretary of Defense. This was clear when JD Vance had to provide the
tie splitting vote to get him confirmed. He wasn't qualified for the
post in any manner, shape or form. He'd never run a big agency or
organization. His money problems as the head of DoD? Reflect his mad
spending as the head of two different charity organizations. And his
non-stop lies? That's what the country has learned to expect from FOX
"NEWS" TV personalities.
There should be a Congressional investigation into this.
And,
it goes without saying, apologies to the family members of the
deceased. But Hegseth will probably attempt to play this off as not his
fault and not anything that the country needs to be concerned about.
Outraged
is mounting over a new report revealing U.S. military testing in New
Mexico may have played a role in a fatal plane crash.
“Defund
them,” wrote attorney and political consultant Briahna Joy Gray Tuesday
in a social media post on X, referring to the U.S. military.
The
fatal flight ended on May 14 when a civilian plane on a medical
transport mission crashed into the side of a mountain after the pilots
became "disoriented," Wired reported last week.
While
the cause of the crash has yet to be officially determined, Wired's
aviation reporter Jeff Wise noted testing at the White Sands Missile
Range may have played a role in the incident.
“While
the crash was the first fatal accident in the US known to be linked to
electronic warfare, there’s no reason to think it will be the last,"
Wise wrote.
Christopher Hale, a Democratic
political operative and former congressional candidate, laid the blame
for the accident squarely on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing
him of being responsible for “killing everyone on board” the aircraft.
Moving
over to the late Jeffrey Estein whose decades long friendship with
Donald Chump has earned him protection even in death. Alexandra Miller (SCRIPP NEWS) reports:
Scripps
News has learned the New Mexico Department of Justice has filed a
40-page lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice, accusing the
agency of failing to comply with repeated records requests related to
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The
state is seeking documents tied to investigations into Epstein, his
associate Ghislaine Maxwell, his Zorro Ranch in New Mexico and any
alleged co-conspirators.
New
Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he has made repeated requests
for the records since taking over the investigation earlier this year.
The
U.S. Department of Justice has argued Torrez's requests are overly
broad and has cited privacy concerns and ongoing investigations as
reasons for withholding the records. The New Mexico Department of
Justice disputes those claims, arguing Deputy Attorney General Todd
Blanche has made clear the department is not conducting any active
investigations into the matter.
So
grasp that Todd Blanche thinks he deserves to be confirmed as Attorney
General yet as acting Attorney General, he's unwilling to comply with
requests from the New Mexico Dept of Justice. Grasp that the message
New Mexico is being given includes that they can't honor the requests
because of "ongoing investigations." Ongoing investigations? Blanche
and Ka$h Patel have both claimed that there is nothing more that the
Justice Dept can do. But they're denying records to New Mexico on the
grounds of "ongoing investigations."
Todd
Blanche, when making an effort (what he considers an effort) to garner
support for becoming AG, will not supply New Mexico with the needed
documents.
CBS
News pushed back after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) released a report
suggesting the network "suppressed" a "60 Minutes" segment about Jeffrey
Epstein, calling the claim "categorically false."
"We
are proud of our aggressive and extensive reporting on the Epstein
scandal," a spokesperson for CBS said in a statement to media. "That
reporting continues. We air pieces when they are ready, and suggesting
that an interview is being 'suppressed' for any reason is categorically
false."
Bari Weiss. Stupid,
transphobic Bari Weiss. Stupid, transphobic, opinion columnist Bari
Weiss. No one's suggesting "an interview" has been suppressed. We're
suggesting an investigative report has been suppressed. Because it has
been.
On March 26, 2026, Senator Wyden sat for a taped interview at a Senate Finance
Committee hearing room with former 60 minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. The interview
was part of a broader segment being prepared by 60 minutes regarding the conduct of Wall Street
banks and the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands with regard to Jeffrey Epstein and his
associates. Over the course of the interview Senator Wyden answered questions related to his
multi-year investigation into transactions financing Epstein’s sex trafficking operation and
potential consequences for banks over potentially willful violations of federal anti-money
laundering laws.
However, shortly after the taping of the interview with Senator Wyden, CBS News
Leadership led by Bari Weiss made the decision to fire Sharyn Alfonsi.218 As a result, the
interview with Senator Wyden will not be aired and it is unclear whether Bari Weiss and CBS
News Leadership will allow the broader segment to ever be aired.
Again,
were a real journalist overseeing this -- not columnist Bari Weiss who
holds a history degree and has no real training in journalism --
it would have been grasped that a news segment would be more than just
an interview with one person. Sharyn Alfonsi is an investigative
journalist and she interviewed Wyden at the end of March and worked on
the segment beyond the interview with Wyden.
Bari
is an untrained idiot. It's not as if she went to journalism school
and then attempted to be that (bad) columnist for THE NEW YORK TIMES.
She didn't study journalism. She studied history. She doesn't know
what she's doing and that's why the ratings have tanked for CBS NEWS
since she took over. She's uneducated and she's unqualified.
Wyden, a ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, released the report on August 4.
The
committee said it concerned “years of complicity by top officials at
multiple Wall Street Banks” and alleged that Epstein was able to move
large sums of money while banks delayed reporting suspicious activity.
Newsweek could not independently verify the claims made in the report.
“I
said from the start that if you want to get to the bottom of the
Jeffrey Epstein cover-up, you had to follow the money,” Wyden said in a
statement after the report’s release.
“My
small team of investigators did what Trump’s attorney general and
Treasury secretary said was impossible: they connected the dots and
found evidence of multiple crimes related to Epstein’s associates.”
He
wrote in the report: “Wall Street banks looked the other way as Epstein
withdrew millions of dollars in cash with no clear business purpose and
was party to thousands of suspicious wire transfers worth more than $1
billion.”
One of the most striking claims involves Deutsche Bank.
Wyden’s
Senate report alleged that the bank failed to promptly report more than
$250 million in suspicious Epstein-related transactions.
Bank
of America was also cited with over roughly $170 million in alleged
transactions linked to another billionaire, while JPMorgan Chase was
also mentioned in the report.
The
transactions in question reportedly total more than $420 million and
involve exchanges with disgraced investor Leon Black, as well as
payments to individuals in Russia and Eastern Europe. While
representatives for the banks and Black have maintained that they did
not facilitate wrongdoing or were engaged in legitimate business, the
Senate report argues that these institutions effectively turned a blind
eye to obvious warning signs.
The fallout from
the report extends beyond Wall Street, raising questions about
transparency at the highest levels of government and media. Wyden has
pointed to roadblocks in obtaining Treasury files and alleged that a
recent media merger played a role in suppressing a broadcast interview
about his findings.
By the way, Chris Wallace weighed
in on the proposed PARAMOUNT and WARNER BROS merger and, no surprise,
he's for it. (No surprise because he's a ghoul and because he works for
PARAMOUNT.) He writes:
Over
my 55 years in the news business, I have built a reputation for being
fair, for playing it straight. Here's some straight talk. I have
problems with some of the journalism at CBS News. Just as I had problems
with some of the journalism at Fox and CNN when I worked at both of
those news operations. But I don't believe government - either at the
federal or state level, whether it is controlled by Republicans or
Democrats - should use its powers to determine who owns a news platform
or to control how that outlet reports the news.
No
one with true news knowledge has ever seen you as fair or as someone
who played it straight. Nor did anyone see your father as such and
you're worse than your sexist father was -- and I'm not just referring
to his Barbra Streisand interview, we can go back, we can all the way
back to when he was forced to work with Jacqueline Susann and his
snippy nonsense that he pulled then. It's amazing, however, that he
wants to write about TV news while noting (a) that the lawsuits he's
addressing don't bring up the issue of TV news and insisting that thanks
to YOUTUBE, et al, TV news doesn't matter anymore. No, Chris Wallace,
you're what no longer matters. And people reading headlines on YOUTUBE
or anywhere and yacking about the news aren't doing news.
I've never mistaken what I do here as news unless I'm covering a Congressional hearing I attended.
Amy
Goodman does not do a news program. She does a public affairs
program. And that's what most of the YOUTUBE videos qualify as. So,
no, it's not news.
(B)
WARNER BROS shouldn't be sold off right now. That's because it was
purchased in 2022. And a few of us were loudly opposed to that takeover
merger (in Congress, Joaquin Castro was the loudest voice and the
sanest). But the Chris Wallaces of the world were all for it. And
what happened? The sleaze bags who took over shelved three films
because they figured that could get more money ripping off the insurance
companies. They cancelled a ton of shows. They took their cheap ass
'reality' and 'lifestyle' programs and tried to pimp them and multiply
them. We don't need another merger.
And
we certainly don't need PARAMOUNT's just greenlit again CLUELESS TV
show where non-actress Alicia Silverstone will return as Cher 30 years
later with her life turned into a tizzy when her own daughter -- should
be granddaughter, it's 30 years later -- enters high school. That's the
kind of 'brave' and 'new' and 'innovative' programming that we can
expect from PARAMOUNT and they'll quickly move that same brave and
innovative programming to WARNER BROS if they get approval for the
merger.
Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth’s nominee for Army chief of staff could struggle
to win confirmation because Republicans on the Senate Armed Services
Committee oppose his candidacy, according to a report.
Gen.
Christopher LaNeve, who commanded the famed 82nd Airborne Division, has
served in the role in an acting capacity since Hegseth controversially
fired the popular Gen. Randy George in April.
Hegseth
had wanted to nominate LaNeve in May, The Wall Street Journal reports,
but was informed at the time by the committee’s chairman, Mississippi
Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, that his man did not have the votes to win
out.
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and her GOP
colleagues are reportedly concerned that LaNeve has only been a
four-star general for six months, whereas most chiefs of staff have
typically served at least 18 months at that rank before assuming the top
role, the WSJ said.
The
Republican Party’s confidence in United States Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth appears to be waning, amid growing frustrations over the war
with Iran dragging on with no end in sight.
“I
don’t have any confidence in him anymore. I think he’s all over the
place,” Senator Thom Tillis said of Hegseth in an interview with US
newspaper The Hill last week. “I think he’s got a massive insecurity
complex, he has a lack of experience in large organisations, he m
Tillis
spoke of a growing crisis of confidence in Hegseth’s leadership within
the Senate, as the US and Iran appear no closer to a lasting peace deal
despite the soaring costs of the war that the US and Israel launched on
Iran on February 28.
“I have heard out of the
Pentagon that there’s a loss of confidence – within the Pentagon,” the
senator said. “And of course then everyone here on [Capitol Hill] hears
those same concerns.”
Sailors
fighting President Donald Trump’s war with Iran are washing in moldy
showers and rationing meals in the ninth month of a mission that shows
zero signs of ending.
The USS Abraham Lincoln
sailed out of San Diego in November on a deployment supposed to last
seven months. Trump, 80, launched his air campaign against Iran in
February. The carrier has been in the fight ever since, and its
5,000-plus sailors and Marines still have no homecoming date. The
president said the conflict would last a “few weeks.” It’s been five
months.
Bonnie York, whose stepson is aboard the Lincoln, told MS NOW
she had been told a doctor or therapist on the ship warned the crew
needed to reach port before people started “losing their minds.” She
voted for Trump—and partly because he promised not to start any new
wars. She no longer believes the country is safer for it. “You’ve
essentially stranded them out there,” she said of the crew.
Relatives
of the crew told the network they fear the exhaustion on board will get
someone killed. A dozen spoke to the outlet about the conditions, and
most asked not to be named, fearing retaliation against their relatives
on the vessel.
Brett Snow, a Navy veteran with a son on the
ship, said the grind has produced a situation “ripe for accidents.” Even
in peacetime, he said, a carrier is one of the most hazardous places to
work.
Apparently Hegseth has not
only never been stationed on a naval carrier, he also doesn't have a
mind capable of learning what it entails.
Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing sharp public backlash after President
Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday, August 3, appointing
Hegseth's third wife, Jennifer Rauchet, as the chairwoman of the newly
created Presidential Military Spouse Commission.
Critics
have labeled the appointment a "scam" and an act of favoritism, citing
Rauchet's lack of formal government credentials and her history of
controversial involvement in Pentagon operations.
The Presidential Military Spouse Commission is a newly formed White House panel consisting of more than 20 military spouses.
It
is tasked with advising the commander-in-chief on critical
quality-of-life issues impacting military families, including employment
stability for military spouses facing high unemployment rates,
healthcare access and child care availability, housing security and
education during frequent relocations.
Critics argue that appointing the Defense Secretary's spouse
to lead an advisory council on military affairs bypasses highly
qualified, independent advocates with deeper backgrounds in the military
community.
The
Trump administration has detained dozens of parents and spouses of
active-duty U.S. troops, an Associated Press investigation has revealed,
as it rolls back immigration protections for military families in
pursuit of its mass deportation agenda.
This marks a significant departure from decades of bipartisan consensus that shielded such individuals from deportation.
More
than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members have been
detained since Trump took office, with at least six already deported,
according to the AP’s first accounting of these cases, which the
government does not track.
Currently, at least eight immediate family members of U.S. service members remain in federal immigration custody.
Experts warn that this reversal could undermine military preparedness, even as the U.S. is engaged in conflict abroad.
The
policy has left military personnel without crucial emotional support
and caretakers for their children, delayed deployments, and forced some
to take leave.
"How can I even focus on my
military career because I have to worry about how my wife is doing?"
said Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, whose wife was detained in
front of their 6-year-old daughter in July while he was stationed at
Fort Bliss, Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states it does not compile data on these cases.
[. . .]
Experts
in military immigration law, including Dan Gividen, who served as ICE’s
deputy chief counsel from 2016 to 2019 under Trump, describe this as a
stark shift.
Gividen
stated that during his tenure, immigration authorities rarely detained
service members' immediate family members unless they had committed
violent crimes.
"We would not place them into removal proceedings, period. That’s insane," Gividen said.
"The
fact that they’re doing it now is just outrageous." Margaret Stock, an
immigration attorney and retired lieutenant colonel, noted that previous
administrations typically canceled past removal orders to ensure troops
could focus on their duties. "If soldiers are preoccupied with detained
or deported family, they're not concentrating on their job anymore,"
she explained.
President
Donald Trump’s administration has detained dozens of parents and
spouses of active-duty U.S. troops as it rolls back immigration
protections for military families to pursue its mass deportation agenda, an Associated Press investigation found.
More
than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members have been
detained since Trump took office for a second term, and at least six have been deported and one self-deported, the AP found in the first accounting of such detentions,
which the government does not track. At least eight immediate family
members of U.S. service members remain in federal immigration custody.
[. . .]
The
Department of Homeland Security has said it does not compile data on
these cases. The AP obtained information by analyzing thousands of
federal court records compiled by Habeas Dockets,
a project run by the Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative; by
reviewing existing media coverage; and by verifying information with
family members and attorneys. The actual number is likely much higher
than the 52 cases AP found.
And
yet as this goes public, silence from Hegseth who, as the Secretary of
Defense, should have been raising this issue all along. But the troops
are just props to him.
One hunger striker in an immigration detention center was force-fed for almost six months.
One
detained immigrant with mental health problems was about to be
force-fed, until his attorney intervened and stopped the process.
And another hunger striker was almost force-fed, but gave in and broke her hunger strike as coercive procedures loomed.
These are among 10 separate cases the Guardian found,
since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, in which
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has attempted to subject
detained hunger strikers to involuntary medical procedures, including
force-feeding. Of those, ICE subjected at least three – but probably
five – who were protesting against the conditions of their confinement,
to the procedures. Human rights organizations have widely condemned
force-feeding as torture.
Now, as ICE detains more
immigrants nationwide, immigrant rights organizations and medical
experts worry more people will be subjected to involuntary medical
procedures.
Among the 10 cases, the Guardian
can exclusively reveal, are an Afghan man who was force-fed for months
in Texas, a Ukrainian man with mental health problems in detention whose
looming force-feeding in Florida was stopped by his attorney, and a
Saudi Arabian woman who ended up in hospital while on hunger strike in
Louisiana and eventually broke her strike in Texas before she was
subjected to the procedure.
ICE
has targeted immigrants -- and those they suspect of being immigrants
-- from the start. Even those immigrants who went through all the hoops
to come into this country have been targeted. Billal Rahman (NEWSWEEK) notes:
A
federal judge has ordered the release of a 20-year-old Tongan man who
was legally admitted to the United States and found that Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “coerced” him into signing a document
that the government later claimed waived his rights to challenge
deportation.
In a 3-page
order issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Noël Wise of the Northern
District of California ruled that ICE coerced Cornelius Kaihau Holani, a
20-year-old citizen of New Zealand of Tongan ethnicity with no criminal
record or prior immigration enforcement history, into signing a
document after detaining him at Oakland International Airport and
transporting him to an ICE office in San Francisco.
The ruling is a blow to the Trump administration’s deportation system, with the court finding that federal immigration officials likely violated basic due process protections.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Reports raise corruption
concerns, question whether administration officials and their families
may be exerting improper influence over DoD awards
“Our service members in
harm’s way and the taxpayers footing the bill deserve to know that those
dollars are being spent through a competitive process, not funneled
into the bank accounts of administration cronies.”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.); Representative Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of
the House Oversight Committee; Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.),
Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations (PSI); and Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), in writing
to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense (DoD), asking for
an investigation of recent reports of $3.2 billion in government awards
flowing to over a dozen companies with ties to President Trump’s sons.
“We are concerned about a growing cloud of corruption amid questions
about whether the President’s family and administration officials may be
abusing their positions to influence DoD awards, and the extent to
which this is undermining the competitive, apolitical contracting
process used to ensure that service members have the best equipment and
most effective technologies and weapons systems on the market,” wrote the lawmakers.
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are affiliated with two investment
companies, 1789 Capital and American Ventures, which have reportedly
poured money into at least 15 companies in the defense sector. New
reports revealed that, after the Trump-tied firms became involved, these
companies received $3.2 billion in federal awards and an additional
$3.1 billion in future contract options.
“The potential for corruption is obvious,” wrote the lawmakers.
The lawmakers requested the Inspector General determine which
Pentagon awards under the Trump administration have involved companies
with ties to the Trump family and other administration officials, and
asked for a review of the decision-making process to determine whether
DoD officials or outside entities complied with ethical guidelines.
“Your determination of whether any Trump-affiliated company may have
obtained financial benefits from DoD contracts or awards is particularly
important in light of President Trump’s admission that his children
“have inside information” in “almost anything they do” with regard to
their investment portfolios,” wrote the lawmakers.
The lawmakers also asked the DoD IG to examine the Pentagon’s
existing framework for award-making to determine whether it is
sufficient to prevent conflicts of interest, and whether it should be
strengthened. Specifically, they requested an evaluation of several
proposals in the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act
(NDAA) meant to strengthen ethics requirements for Pentagon awards,
including a provision that requires a new code of conduct for employees
of the Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) and other investment arms of
the Pentagon.
“Our service members in harm’s way and the taxpayers footing the bill
deserve to know that those dollars are being spent through a
competitive process, not funneled into the bank accounts of
administration cronies,” concluded the lawmakers.
The lawmakers are escalating their oversight as reports of
Trump-affiliated entities gaining huge DoD contracts grow, and the
administration refuses to address concerns about self-enrichment and
influence peddling at the Pentagon.
“[Previous] unsatisfactory response[s] left us with more concerns
that OSC is unaware of or willfully ignoring the potential for
corruption in the awards process at the expense of U.S. national
security,” wrote the lawmakers.
Senator Warren has had longstanding concerns over potential conflicts
of interest, revolving door abuse, and national security concerns in
DoD’s acquisition process:
In July 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) grilled
Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg and Director of OSC David
Lorch on the DoD’s new initiatives to populate a new contracting office
with finance, tech, and defense industry insiders — and offering them
government paychecks of up to $438,000 annually.
In July 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed
Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg about conflicts of
interest in his overseeing Golden Dome contracts going to companies tied
to the private equity firm he founded, Cerberus.
In June 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed DoD
on the potential conflicts of interest surrounding lucrative DoD loans
and deals following reporting that the White House allegedly intervened
to secure an OSC loan to a Trump Jr.-backed company.
In June 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pushed for
a provision in the fiscal year 2027 NDAA prohibiting OSC from making
equity investments in companies where the President, Vice President,
Cabinet members, other executive officers with a role in investment
decisions, and their families hold a stake.
In March 2026, after DoD failed to provide answers to the vast
majority of questions in her January letter, U.S. Senator Elizabeth
Warren (D-Mass.) pressed DoD and OSC on the processes in place to ensure that DoD contracts and loans are being fairly awarded to companies.
In January 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) raised concerns about DoD and OSC handing out loans and contracts to companies with ties to the Trump family.
In September 2023, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter
to Heidi Shyu, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering
at DoD, reiterating her request for increased transparency from OSC and
seeking clarification on how DoD is interpreting ethics restrictions.
In July 2023, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) raised concerns
that DoD’s OSC hired private sector individuals who appeared to have
direct financial conflicts of interest with defense consultants and
defense contractors.
