Step 1 Cook linguine as label directs, reserving 3/4 cups pasta cooking water before draining. Return drained linguine to pot.
Step 2 Meanwhile,
in 12" skillet, heat oil on medium-high. Add mushrooms and garlic; cook
5 minutes or until mushrooms are browned and tender, stirring. Transfer
to pot with cooked, drained linguine along with nutritional yeast,
reserved cooking water, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 3/4 teaspoon coarsely
ground pepper. Toss until well combined. Garnish with green onions.
President
Donald Trump lied to the press on Wednesday when he dismissed reporting
that White House officials would join a secret meeting to discuss how
to deal with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. As it turns out, the meeting
did happen, MSNBC reported Thursday. It's likely because Trump is
feeling "deeply betrayed" by his supporters who believed what he told
them.
Writing on Thursday, The Atlantic's Jonathan Lemire explained
that Trump spent so much time "intimating during the campaign that
something was nefarious about the government’s handling of the [Epstein]
case."
Now, MAGA doesn't believe him when he claims that it was all "fake news."
He's
done everything he can to try and distract from the matter, from
implying his government could indict former President Barack Obama to
claiming he's taking over Washington, D.C., he attacked Rosie O'Donnell,
cut the Department of Education by 40%, bragged he was "saved by God,"
got into a fight over windmills with Scotland and Republicans, announced
he was suing Fox and Wall Street Journal owner Rupert Murdoch, and many
many more. Nothing has worked.
"He—the
president, their leader, the martyr who had endured scandals and
prosecution and an assassin’s bullet on their behalf—had repeatedly told
them it was time to move on, and that alone should suffice," wrote
Lemire in July. "Why, he groused, would the White House add fuel to the
fire, would it play into the media’s narrative?"
Life changed for Chump. It got harder. Sorry if I'm unable to shed tears for him.
Thursday, August 7, 2025. Chump continues to be leader of the Grand Old
Pedophile party, Epstein survivors are not going away, redistricting
Texas is Chump's attempt to avoid a third impeachment, he should be
impeached for Alligator Alcatraz alone, and much more.
Somethings I just never understand. Carly Simon sings
that in "You Know What To Do To Me" (written by Carly, Jacob Brackman,
Peter Wood and Mike Mainieri for the HELLO BIG MAN album) and I feel
that way often. Like the nonsense an idiot House Committee Chair's
pulling these days. Simon Marks (THE PAPER) reports:
Republicans
in the House of Representatives delivered Donald Trump a wakeup call on
Tuesday. The good news for the White House: they voted to subpoena,
among others, former president Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary
Clinton, compelling them to testify before the House of Representatives
Oversight Committee as it investigates the Jeffrey Epstein affair.
But
they simultaneously delivered devastating news, sending a subpoena to
Trump’s own Department of Justice in a fresh effort to force the White
House to release Epstein-related documents and other evidence that many
core Republican supporters suspect are being covered up.
Publicly,
congressman James Comer of Kentucky – the pro-Trump bulldog who chairs
the committee – is vowing to haul the Clintons over the coals within the
next 10 weeks. In a pugnacious social media posting, he announced that
Hillary Clinton will be deposed by the Committee on 9 October, with her
husband following on 14 October.
I
get it. James Comer probably has a micro penis. It's probably gotten
smaller over the years and it's probably just a tiny little mushroom.
That's made him bitter so he does things like the above.
If
you want to subpoena Bill Clinton, by all means do. But if you're also
issuing a subpoena for Hillary Clinton, realize that we all grasp that
you are suffering from some psycho sexual problems.
There's
no reason to subpoena Hillary Clinton. You're obsessed with her, we
get it. You're a fat 52 y.o. joke of a man and she's your great white
wale that you and all the other Republican losers have never been able
to honestly lay a hand on or prove a rumor about. It's driven you crazy
and made you impotent. So we watch and we laugh as you repeatedly go
after Hillary.
You've
spent how many decades whispering she's a 'cold fish' but now you've
got a sex trafficking case and you just know she's involved. It makes no
sense. She's not been accused of traveling with Epstein. She's
certainly not been accused of procuring young girls from him. But this
is who the important, fat, stupid and under-educated Comer issues a
subpoena to Hillary Clinton -- not one to Alex Acosta who is responsible
for the sweet heart deal Epstein got in Florida when he should have
been buried in a prison and not Donald Chump who, as a sitting
president, should be at the top of the list since he claims now that he
knew Epstein was trafficking and that Epstein stole underage employees
from Chump and what the hell were 16 year old girls doing at Chump's
resort giving grown men massages? None of it make sense. None of it
has ever made sense.
But,
James Comer, we get it, you are both a failure as a human being and a
failure as a man and that harassing Hillary is the only thing that
provides meaning to his otherwise worthless life. And, yes, Comer, your
father was disappointed when you failed to become a medical doctor and
instead majored in ag but not as disappointed as he was when you reached
maturity and still had that girlish voice. What did he used to say,
"Take the cock out of your mouth when you speak so I can understand
you?"
[R]epeatedly
in recent days and weeks, those victims and allies have stepped forward
to raise serious questions about the Trump administration’s handling of
the matter. They’ve complained about favorable treatment of convicted
Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. They’ve objected to the lack of
disclosure. They’ve complained about the administration’s treatment of
them.
They’ve invoked the phrase “cover-up” on at least three occasions. Others have more subtly pointed in that direction.
Victims
have raised concerns about the government’s handling of the matter for
years – in particular focusing on a favorable non-prosecution agreement
Epstein landed in 2007 and the years before he was later charged – but
their complaints are now directed squarely at the Trump administration.
All of which makes it much more difficult for the administration to just move on, as the president would clearly prefer.
Last
week, family members of one of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s most prominent
accusers, Virginia Giuffre, cited Trump’s recent admission that he had
been aware that Epstein recruited Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago. They cited
other evidence that Trump was aware of Epstein’s affinity for young
girls and women and said, “It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions.”
(Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year.)
In
another letter, Giuffre family members and other accusers also cited
the still-unexplained prison transfer of Maxwell to a lower-security
prison camp that sex offenders like her don’t appear eligible for,
without a waiver. That news came shortly after Maxwell, who’s serving a
20-year sentence, was interviewed by Deputy Attorney General Todd
Blanche. And it comes as Trump has dangled the possibility of pardoning
Maxwell, who’s appealing her conviction.
The
survivors and their families have had enough with Donald Chump and his
gifts and favors to Maxwell. Virginia Giuffre's family spoke yesterday
on CBS MORNINGS.
In
1997, Alicia Arden became the first known victim to file a police
report for assault against Jeffrey Epstein. Yesterday, she and attorney
Gloria Allred held a press conference calling for an end to the US
government ignoring the survivors and an end to the new perks Chump
wants to give convicted pedophile Maxwell.
The
family of Virginia Giuffre is speaking out following a report that Vice
President JD Vance is hosting a “strategy session” on the Trump
administration’s handling of the so-called Epstein files.
Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent sex trafficking accusers, died by suicide earlier this year.
CNN reported that Vance planned to convene top Trump administration officials at his home in Indiana.
"Missing
from this group is, of course, any survivor of the vicious crimes of
convicted perjurer and sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey
Epstein," Giuffre's family said in a statement obtained by Scripps News.
"Their voices must be heard, above all."
The
meeting was supposed to be a secret but it began leaking Tuesday night
(we noted it in yesterday's snapshot). The meeting became a public
relations disaster. Nandita Bose (REUTERS) explains,
"A dinner for senior administration officials at Vice President JD
Vance's residence to discuss topics including the Trump administration's
handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case has been canceled after news of it
leaked, a source familiar with the matter said."
Lawrence weighed in last night on Epstein and many other topics including Chump's potty mouth.
In
Texas, Donald Chump's minions want to redistrict the state -- again.
It's already taken place after the 2020 census. But Chump wants more
Republicans in Congress so he's called on Governor Greg Asshole and the
rest to ignore the law, ignore the costs and redistrict.
After the Census Bureau released detailed population and demographic
data from the 2020 census, states and local governments began the
once-a-decade process of drawing new voting district boundaries known as
redistricting. And gerrymandering — when those boundaries are drawn
with the intention of influencing who gets elected — followed.
The latest redistricting cycle was the first since the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling
that gerrymandering for party advantage cannot be challenged in federal
court. Here are six things to know about partisan gerrymandering and
how it impacts our democracy.
Gerrymandering is deeply undemocratic.
Every
10 years, states redraw their legislative and congressional district
lines following the census. Because communities change, redistricting is
critical to our democracy: maps must be redrawn to ensure that
districts are equally populated, comply with laws such as the Voting Rights Act,
and are otherwise representative of a state’s population. Done right,
redistricting is a chance to create maps that, in the words of John
Adams, are an “exact portrait, a miniature” of the people as a whole.
But
sometimes the process is used to draw maps that put a thumb on the
scale to manufacture election outcomes that are detached from the
preferences of voters. Rather than voters choosing their
representatives, gerrymandering empowers politicians to choose their
voters. This tends to occur especially when line drawing is left to
legislatures and one political party controls the process, as has become
increasingly common. When that happens, partisan concerns almost
invariably take precedence over all else. That produces maps where
electoral results are virtually guaranteed even in years where the party
drawing maps has a bad year.
There are multiple ways to gerrymander.
While
legislative and congressional district shapes may look wildly different
from state to state, most attempts to gerrymander can best be
understood through the lens of two basic techniques: cracking and
packing.
Cracking splits groups of people with similar
characteristics, such as voters of the same party affiliation, across
multiple districts. With their voting strength divided, these groups
struggle to elect their preferred candidates in any of the districts.
Packing is the opposite of cracking: map drawers cram certain groups of
voters into as few districts as possible. In these few districts, the
“packed” groups are likely to elect their preferred candidates, but the
groups’ voting strength is weakened everywhere else.
Some or all of these techniques may be deployed by map drawers in order
to build a partisan advantage into the boundaries of districts. A key
note, however: while sometimes gerrymandering results in oddly shaped
districts, that isn’t always the case. Cracking and packing can often
result in regularly shaped districts that look appealing to the eye but
nonetheless skew heavily in favor of one party.
Gerrymandering has a real impact on the balance of power in Congress and many state legislatures.
In 2010, Republicans — in an effort to control the drawing of congressional maps — forged a campaign to
win majorities in as many state legislatures as possible. It was wildly
successful, giving them control over the drawing of 213 congressional
districts. The redrawing of maps that followed produced some of the most
extreme gerrymanders in history. In battleground Pennsylvania, for
example, the congressional map gave Republicans a virtual lock on 13 of
the state’s 18 congressional districts, even in elections where
Democrats won the majority of the statewide congressional vote.
Nationally, extreme partisan bias in congressional maps gave Republicans a net 16 to 17 seat advantage for
most of last decade. Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania alone —
the three states with the worst gerrymanders in the last redistricting
cycle — accounted for 7 to 10 extra Republican seats in the House.
On the state level, gerrymandering has also led to significant partisan bias in maps. For example, in 2018, Democrats in Wisconsin
won every statewide office and a majority of the statewide vote, but
thanks to gerrymandering, won only 36 of the 99 seats in the state
assembly.
Though Republicans were the primary beneficiaries of
gerrymandering last decade, Democrats have also used redistricting for
partisan ends: in Maryland, for instance, Democrats used control over map-drawing to eliminate one of the state’s Republican congressional districts.
Regardless
of which party is responsible for gerrymandering, it is ultimately the
public who loses out. Rigged maps make elections less competitive, in
turn making even more Americans feel like their votes don’t matter.
Gerrymandering affects all Americans, but its most significant costs are borne by communities of color.
Residential
segregation and racially polarized voting patterns, especially in
southern states, mean that targeting communities of color can be an
effective tool for creating advantages for the party that controls
redistricting. This is true regardless of whether it is Democrats or
Republicans drawing the maps.
The Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause
greenlighting partisan gerrymandering has made things worse. The Voting
Rights Act and the Constitution prohibit racial discrimination in
redistricting. But because there often is correlation between party
preference and race, Rucho opens the door for
Republican-controlled states to defend racially discriminatory maps on
grounds that they were permissibly discriminating against Democrats
rather than impermissibly discriminating against Black, Latino, or Asian
voters.
Targeting the political power of communities of color is
also often a key element of partisan gerrymandering. This is especially
the case in the South, where white Democrats are a comparatively small
part of the electorate and often live, problematically from the
standpoint of a gerrymanderer, very close to white Republicans. Even
with slicing and dicing, discriminating against white Democrats only
moves the political dial so much. Because of residential segregation, it
is much easier for map drawers to pack or crack communities of color to
achieve maximum political advantage.
Gerrymandering is getting worse.
Gerrymandering
is a political tactic nearly as old as the United States. In designing
Virginia’s very first congressional map, Patrick Henry attempted to draw
district boundaries that would block his rival, James Madison, from
winning a seat. But gerrymandering has also changed dramatically since
the founding: today, intricate computer algorithms and sophisticated
data about voters allow map drawers to game redistricting on a massive
scale with surgical precision. Where gerrymanderers once had to pick
from a few maps drawn by hand, they now can create and pick from
thousands of computer-generated maps.
Gerrymandering also looks
likely to get worse because the legal framework governing redistricting
has not kept up with demographic changes. Before, most people of color
in the country’s metro areas lived in highly segregated cities. Today,
however, a majority of Black, Latino, and Asian Americans live in diverse suburbs.
This change has given rise to powerful new multiracial voting
coalitions outside cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston that have
won or come close to winning power. Yet the Supreme Court has not
granted these multiracial coalition districts the same legal protections
as majority-minority districts, making them a key target for
dismantling by partisan map drawers.
Federal reform can help counter gerrymandering — so Congress needs to act.
The Freedom to Vote Act,
a landmark piece of federal democracy reform legislation that has
already passed the House, represents a major step toward curbing
political gamesmanship in map drawing. The bill would enhance
transparency, strengthen protections for communities of color, and ban
partisan gerrymandering in congressional redistricting. It would also
improve voters’ ability to challenge gerrymandered maps in court.
With redistricting now beginning in many states, the need for Congress to pass reform legislation is more urgent than ever. Fair representation depends on it.
With
Texas Republicans using every lever of power in their attempt to give
themselves five new House seats, state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer told
Salon that it’s time for national Democratic leaders to either “do
something — or get out of the way.”
Earlier
this week, Democrats in the Texas state legislature left their homes
behind in order to deny Republicans the quorum needed to force through
new House maps, maps which would deliver Republicans five new, safe
Republican seats in the 2026 midterms.
To prevent
Republicans from pushing through the new maps, state Democrats have fled
the state, breaking quorum, and preventing the Texas House from taking
up business while they are gone. Many of the state representatives have
gone to states like New York and Illinois, where local leaders have
promised to help them as much as they can.
In
response, Gov. Greg Abbot threatened to bring bribery charges against
Democrats who left the state and ordered their arrest. The Republicans
in the Texas House have proceeded to issue civil arrest warrants for the
Democrats who left the state.
Chump
very publicly wants to gerry mander Texas districts to lower the impact
Democrats can have. He wants few Democrats coming out of Texas to the
US Congress. And this is how he thinks he can make it happen. A
functioning Supreme Court would have already stopped him and protected
voting rights. But we don't have a functioning Supreme Court We have a
court that has been misled by Chief Justice John Roberts for about two
decades now.
He will go down in history as the worst chief justice ever and as the enemy of democratcy that he truly is.
A
growing number of blue-state House Republicans — at risk of being drawn
out of their own seats — are speaking out against their party's
mid-decade redistricting efforts.
Why it
matters: Their comments represent a sharp break with President Trump and
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who have both endorsed efforts in Texas
and other states to carve out more Republican House seats.
Democrats in states like California and New York have threatened to respond in-kind by attempting to redo their maps.
Caught
in the crossfire are a cohort of blue-state Republicans, who tend to be
more moderate than the average House Republican and often represent
swingier districts.
Driving the news: Rep. Kevin Kiley
(R-Calif.), a swing-district member, took a shot at Johnson on Tuesday,
saying in a Fox News interview that he "needs to step up and show some
leadership" on the issue.
"This is not
something that is popular among members of our conference," added Kiley,
who has introduced legislation to ban mid-decade redistricting in all
states.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said Monday that he will
introduce similar legislation after saying in PBS News interview over
the weekend: "I don't think Texas should do it."
Rep. Nicole
Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) said in a Bloomberg interview: "I don't care if
it's the Republicans or the Democrats that are doing it — it's wrong and
it should not be done."
“I
think it’s wrong, what Texas is doing,” he said of Texas Republicans’
release of the new map during a Tuesday evening appearance on CNN. “I
don’t support it. I think it is wrong.”
Lawler
compared the situation to the situations in Illinois and New Jersey,
which have also been criticized for doing the same, in some cases even
seeing their maps struck down because of it.
“We have to actually have neutral districts across this country,” he said. “It would serve the country better.”
Lawler
mentioned that he plans to introduce legislation to “outright ban
gerrymandering,” a term coined more than 200 years ago in the U.S.
that’s used to describe political manipulation in legislative mapmaking,
according to The Associated Press.
“This is
fundamentally why Congress is broken,” he continued. “You do not have
competitive districts, and so most members are focused on primaries and
not actually engaging in a general election.”
It's so hilarious to hear Chump fall back on 'elections have consequences'
You know what else has consequences?
Bad legislation.
Legislation
that rips apart the safety net and destroys Medicaid and schools to
give tx breaks for the super wealthy, for the most corrupt in this
country.
Donald lied to Republicans in the House that voting for his 'big beautiful bill' would not have negative consequences.
The
town halls continue to be brutal for House Republicans. Chump lied to
them. And now he tries to save his own ass -- he's afraid of another
impeachment -- by getting states to redistrict.
The
White House is driving the showdown between Texas Democrats and
Republicans over a gerrymandering scheme to protect President Donald
Trump from getting impeached for a third time, according to a reporter
from a conservative publication.
Texas Gov.
Greg Abbott has asked the state Supreme Court to remove state Rep. Gene
Wu from office as the so-called "ringleader" of the Democrats who fled
the state to deprive the Republican-led legislature of a quorum needed
to pass a controversial redistricting plan, and National Review
correspondent Audrey Fahlberg told "CNN This Morning" why the
president's team was pushing the move.
"The
White House is driving this because clearly they are worried about
losing the midterms," Fahlberg said. "They're convinced that if House
Democrats flip the House, that Trump is going to get impeached again,
right. The 'big beautiful bill' is not polling super well right now, so
they're going on offense here. They're driving this into motion in
Texas. They're looking at other states, as well. We may see this
continue in states like Florida, Indiana. Vice President [JD] Vance is
meeting with state legislators there and their Republican governor."
I'm
not for redistricting when it's already been done in the decade. But
I'm also not for standing on high ground while the other side breaks
every rule in the book. What California Governor Gavin Newsom and other
Democrats are proposing is self-defense at this point. And it's the
only way to save this country.
Donald is a huge
liar. But even he grasps that the Republicans are not going to pull
off the mid-terms via the voters. So he's calling for redistricting in
an attempt to grab five extra seats in Texas, X in Indiana, go through
the list. It's about rigging the system and cheating.
Vice
President JD Vance is being sent to Indiana to try to convince the
state’s legislative leaders to redraw its congressional map in the
latest gerrymandering battle.
Vance will arrive
in the Hoosier state on Thursday for an RNC fundraiser in Indianapolis
and also will meet with Gov. Mike Braun, House Speaker Todd Huston, and
Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, where the topic of trying to
give the GOP any advantage it can ahead of the 2026 midterms is expected
to come up, the Indianapolis Star reports.
Both
Vance and Braun are being coy about what the Republicans plan to
discuss during their meeting. A spokesperson for Vance told the Daily
Beast that the vice president will meet with Braun and “other state
officials to discuss a variety of issues.”
The
governor told Indiana’s statehouse the issue of redrawing the
congressional map is “exploratory” but there have been “no commitments
made.”
NBC6 is only using her first name because she worries about her family’s privacy and possible online harassment.
“It's inhumane the way that they're keeping their residents,” she told NBC6.
Lindsey provided NBC6 documentation that shows she arrived at the
so-called "Alligator Alcatraz" on July 6 and worked at the controversial
detention center for about a week before she caught Covid and had to
isolate.
From the beginning, she told NBC6 the situation was tough.
“When I got there, it was overwhelming,” she said. “I thought it would get better. But it just never did.”
Lindsey provided NBC6 with her State of Florida credential, which lists her position as a “corrections officer.”
She says she was told the job would be five days on, two days off.
Lindsey also provided a copy of her contract with GardaWorld Federal
Services, a security company reportedly one of the vendors at "Alligator
Alcatraz."
A job posting on the company’s LinkedIn account shows they were
hiring for the position a month ago and offered $26 an hour for the
job.
“I was aware that it was going to be the Alligator Alcatraz,” said
Lindsey, who added that while she knew she would be living in a shared
trailer, she said the conditions were rough for everyone there.
“We had to use the porta-johns. We didn't have hot water half the time. Our bathrooms were backed up,” she said.
NBC6 has reported similar accounts of conditions inside from advocates, detainees and their families.
When talking about the space where detainees are being held, Lindsey said it look like “an oversized kennel.”
She says each tent had eight large cages, which hold 35 to 38 inmates, which means each tent holds close to 300 detainees.
“They have no sunlight. There's no clock in there. They don't even
know what time of the day it is,” Lindsey said. “They have no access to
showers. They shower every other day or every four days.”
She added: “The bathrooms are backed up because you got so many people using them.”
On rainy days, she said, water pours into the tents. She described
the conditions as miserable, not to forget — the constant battle with
mosquitos.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
“[W]e have concerns that
President Trump’s interests in Trump Mobile could lead him, his business
partners, or his appointees in his administration to improperly
interfere with regulators at the expense of consumers and competitors.”
“Trump Mobile offers yet another avenue for tech and telecom companies to purchase influence with President Trump…”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) led Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Adam Schiff
(D-Calif.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), along with Representatives
Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) and Greg Casar (D-Texas), in writing to federal
agencies to ask how they plan to mitigate potential conflicts of
interest involving the new wireless service offered by Trump Mobile.
President Trump stands to reap profit from Trump Mobile, while as
President he has significant influence over the agencies that oversee
the venture and its competitors. The letter was sent to the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the
Department of Commerce, the Department of the Treasury, the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA), and the United States Trade Representative.
“We write because we have concerns that President Trump’s interests
in Trump Mobile could lead him, his business partners, or his appointees
in his administration to improperly interfere with regulators at the
expense of consumers and competitors,” wrote the lawmakers.
In June, Trump Mobile, the Trump Organization, and Donald Trump’s
sons announced T1 Mobile LLC and the flagship $499 “made in USA” T1
smartphone, since backtracking on the “Made in the USA” claims to say
that the smartphones are “[d]esigned with American values in mind.” The
Trump Mobile site uses the Trump name under a trademark license, which
is managed by a corporation fully owned by President Trump, who earned more than $6.6 million from his various licensing deals in 2024 alone.
“It is crucial for agencies tasked with upholding laws and
regulations for wireless services to be able to do so unimpeded,” said
the lawmakers.
The agencies named in the letter are responsible for overseeing the
different parts of the marketplace that the T1 Mobile venture could
affect. The FCC is responsible for regulating and enforcing the laws
around interstate and international communications which includes mobile
virtual network operators (MVNOs) like Trump Mobile. The FTC is
responsible for ensuring that companies like Trump Mobile do not make
false or misleading claims when marketing products. The FDA is in charge
of regulating medical devices, software, and mobile medical
applications, which Trump Mobile appears to plan to integrate
through telehealth services provided by Doctegrity and its proprietary
medical device, LifeVitals. The Departments of Commerce and Treasury,
along with the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, help oversee tariff
policy, which presents another venue for administration officials to
potentially favor Trump Mobile over other competitors.
“Trump Mobile heightens the risk that President Trump could expect
preferential treatment from your agencies for this company and those
that partner with it—or expect you to penalize competitors,” wrote the lawmakers.
Analysts have already raised concerns that the FCC
and other regulators are favoring companies that support the
President’s policies rather than evaluating mergers and other matters on
the merits.
“It is critical that federal regulators continue to evenhandedly
enforce competition and consumer protection laws against Trump Mobile
and any companies with which it works, especially in the face of this
opportunity for corruption and self-dealing for President Trump,” concluded the lawmakers.
The members of Congress asked the agencies to respond to a series of
questions by September 5, 2025, including: whether they have discussed
the venture with President Trump, the Trump Organization, or Trump
Mobile; their plans to avoid undue political influence; and whether they
would allow President Trump to intervene in the agencies’ decisions
related to Trump Mobile.
Add the tomatoes, basil, salt and pepper to taste and gently place the meatballs in the sauce.
Don’t
worry if they are snug in the pot or aren’t completely covered in
sauce. If you have to, stack a few on top of each other as needed but
don’t smash them.
For the spaghetti:
Break 12 ounces of dried spaghetti in half and spread them in one or two layers over the meatballs. Do not stir.
Pour in 2 cups of low-sodium chicken broth.
Lock the lid on and make sure the valve is set to seal. Set to cook on HIGH pressure for 8 minutes.
Use the quick release to let the pressure out once it's done, then shut off and uncover.
Stir pasta into the sauce, it will thicken and soak the sauce up so no worries if it looks too watery.
Serve immediately with grated cheese and basil for garnish.
As
the wheels of the chartered getaway jet lifted off the Austin-Bergstrom
runway Sunday afternoon, Houston state Rep. Ann Johnson had a sad
realization.
It wasn't a pang of regret or
worry. She'd done this before, fled Texas to break quorum so she
wouldn't be forced to vote on legislation that hurts Texas voters. And
unlike the first time she joined her colleagues in a walkout in 2021,
she was prepared, remembering to bring all the little stuff – brush,
hair spray, mouthwash – so she wouldn't have to make a risky CVS run
that could allow someone to track her. She didn't have any doubts that
it was the right thing to do – a quick survey of Houstonians at a
breakfast taco place the day before she left for Austin had assured her
that people were paying attention to what was happening with
redistricting and that they didn't approve of the Republican power
grab.
No, what struck her was
the realization that, in this divided, chaotic political climate, the
only way to represent the Texans she was elected to serve was to leave
them behind.
"It's extraordinary that the best
way I can speak for my people is to get my body out of this state,"
Johnson told me Monday night in a phone interview. "That's a sad
comment, it really is."
It sums up the
desperation of Texas House Democrats as they try to fend off a rare,
mid-decade redistricting plot ordered by President Donald Trump to
squeeze five extra Republican congressional seats out of Texas maps that
were already gerrymandered to benefit Republicans.
And
it sums up the lapdog state of Texas leadership in Austin, where
extremism has replaced reason, entitlement has trumped mutual respect
and acquiescence to Trump has blown away the last gritty residue of
independence clinging to some West Texas lawmaker's boot.
Wednesday, August 6, 2025. Chump still can't silence the Epstein story,
survivors continue to speak out, his was on immigrants gets hammered by
actual truths, and much more.
Last
night, Jeffrey Epstein survivor Haley Robson spoke with BBC NEWSNIGHT's
Matt Chorley Haley was only 16 when Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
began exploiting her.
Newsnight hears from a
survivor of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse, Haley Robson, who delivers an
emotional plea to Donald Trump. She also says convicted sex trafficker
Ghislaine Maxwell’s move to a minimum security prison is "a slap in the
face" to all of Epstein’s victims. Interview by Matt Chorley.
As
Convicted Felon Donald Chump moves pedophile and sex trafficker Maxwell
to Club Fed and works on a sweetheart deal for her (and her silence),
we need to remember that this isn't one girl who got victimized or two,
it was hundreds. It wasn't one day's activity, it was a crime spree
that ran for years.
Haley asks, "To be clear,
Ghislaine Maxwell’ is in prison for her counts of child exploitation and
trafficking why would anyone give somebody like her who is a monster
and a liar a time of day to explain anything?"
In 2007–2008, as U.S. attorney, Acosta approved a plea deal that allowed child-trafficking ring-leader Jeffrey Epstein to plead guilty to a single state charge of solicitation, in exchange for a federal non-prosecution agreement.[2] After Epstein's arrest in July 2019 on sex trafficking
charges, Acosta faced renewed and harsher criticism for his role in the
2008 non-prosecution agreement, as well as criticism and calls for his
resignation as Secretary of Labor; he resigned on July 19 and was
replaced by Eugene Scalia.
Acosta, then the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, agreed to a plea deal,[29]
to grant immunity from all federal criminal charges to Epstein, along
with four named co-conspirators and any unnamed "potential
co-conspirators". That agreement "essentially shut down an ongoing FBI
probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who
took part in Epstein's sex crimes". At the time, this halted the
investigation and sealed the indictment.
Renewed interest
In
2017, Acosta was nominated for Secretary of Labor. His handling of the
Epstein case was discussed as part of his confirmation hearing.
On November 28, 2018, as rumors circulated that Acosta was being considered as a possible successor to Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions, the Miami Herald published an investigation detailing Acosta's role in the Epstein case.[27]
That story revealed the extent of collaboration between federal
prosecutors and Epstein's attorneys in their efforts to keep victims
from learning of the plea deal.
The Miami Herald describes an email from Epstein's
attorney after his off-site meeting with Acosta: "'Thank you for the
commitment you made to me during our Oct. 12 meeting,' Lefkowitz wrote
in a letter to Acosta after their breakfast meeting in West Palm Beach.
He added that he was hopeful that Acosta would abide by a promise to
keep the deal confidential. 'You ... assured me that your office would
not ... contact any of the identified individuals, potential witnesses
or potential civil claimants and the respective counsel in this matter,'
Lefkowitz wrote."
The Miami Herald article stated that certain aspects of
Acosta's non-prosecution agreement violated federal law. "As part of the
arrangement, Acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary, that
the deal would be kept from the victims. As a result, the
non-prosecution agreement was sealed until after it was approved by the
judge, thereby averting any chance that the girls — or anyone else —
might show up in court and try to derail it." Victims, former
prosecutors, and the retired Palm Beach police chief were among those
quoted criticizing the agreement and Acosta's role in it.[30]
Victims' rights violation
After
a lawsuit was filed in federal court, in 2019, a court ruled that the
non-prosecution agreement was invalid and that prosecutors had violated
the victim's rights with their non-prosecution agreement.
On February 21, 2019, a ruling in federal court returned Acosta's role in the Epstein case to the headlines.[31] The decision to keep the deal with Epstein secret until after it was finalized was found to be a violation of the Crime Victims' Rights Act of 2004
(CVRA), which requires notifying victims of the progress of federal
criminal cases. The CVRA was new and relatively untested at the time of
the Epstein non-prosecution agreement. In 2008, representatives for two
of Epstein's victims filed a lawsuit in federal court aiming to vacate
the federal non-prosecution agreement on the grounds that it violated
the CVRA.[30]
For more than a decade, the U.S. Attorney's office denied that it acted
in violation of victims' rights laws and argued that the CVRA did not
apply in the Epstein case.[32]
The government's contention that the CVRA did not apply was based on
questions of timing (whether or not CVRA applied prior to filing of
federal charges), relevance (whether the CVRA applied to non-prosecution
agreements), and jurisdiction (whether the case should be considered a
federal case or a state case under the CVRA). The court rejected those
arguments in the February 21, 2019 ruling, finding that the CVRA did in
fact apply and that victims should have been notified of the Epstein
non-prosecution agreement in advance of its signing, to afford them the
opportunity to influence its terms. At the conclusion of his ruling, the
federal judge in the case noted that he was "not ruling that the
decision not to prosecute was improper", but was "simply ruling that,
under the facts of this case, there was a violation of the victims
rights [for reasonable, accurate, and timely notice] under the CVRA."[33]
Because the CVRA does not specify penalties for failure to meet
victims notification requirements, the judge offered both parties
opportunities to suggest remedies—Epstein's victims who were party to
the suit asked for rescission of the federal non-prosecution agreement
with Epstein, while the government suggested other approaches,
maintaining that other victims were against rescinding the agreement due
to privacy concerns and possible impacts to restitution paid under the
agreement.[34]
Following the Herald investigation and related news coverage,
members of Congress submitted a formal request to the U.S. Department of
Justice for review of Acosta's role in the Epstein deal,[35] and several editorials called for Acosta's resignation or termination from his then-current position as U.S. Labor Secretary.[36][37] In February 2019, the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility notified Senator Ben Sasse that it had opened an investigation into Epstein's prosecution.[38][39]
Epstein's arrest and Acosta's resignation
On
July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against
Children Task Force on sex trafficking charges stemming from activities
alleged to have occurred in 2002–2005.[40]
Amid criticism of his mishandling of the Epstein case, Acosta
resigned his role as Secretary of Labor effective July 19, 2019, after a
public outcry.[41]
An anonymous source claimed that when Acosta was vetted for his cabinet
post in the Trump administration, he stated “I was told Epstein
‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”[42]
According to an internal review conducted by the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility
(OPR), which was released in November 2020, Acosta showed "poor
judgment" in granting Epstein a non-prosecution agreement and failing to
notify Epstein's alleged victims about this agreement.[43]
In the report, Acosta denied that Epstein was an intelligence asset.
The OPR report also stated that it found no evidence that Epstein was a
cooperating witness or an intelligence asset.[44]
Seems
to me if you're trying to find out what happened and how, you start
with the man who gave the sweetheart deal that shut down the FBI
investigation.
Also speaking of Maxwell yesterday was Chump. This is from MSNBC's THE LAST HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE.
No concern expressed over the victims from Chump's mouth.
Two victims of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein attacked President Donald Trump's administration in letters to the court where grand jury testimony in the case remains sealed, according to CNN.
The
victims, who remained anonymous, both filed letters with the court
Monday, "condemning the Justice Department’s request to unseal grand
jury testimony" and citing a lack of respect toward them by Trump and
the DOJ.
“Dear United States, I wish you would have
handled and would handle the whole ‘Epstein Files’ with more respect
towards and for the victims," one woman wrote. "I am not some pawn in
your political warfare. What you have done and continue to do is eating
at me day after day as you help to perpetuate this story indefinitely."
The other victim accused the administration of only caring about the “wealthy men” involved in the case.
“(I)
feel like the DOJ’s and FBI’s priority is protecting the 'third-party',
the wealthy men by focusing on scrubbing their names off the files of
which the victims, 'know who they are,’'” she wrote.
One
letter continued, “I appreciate your time reading my short thoughts and
feeling and my anxiety and frustration is NOT aimed at you, obviously.
It is aimed at the very government here, the ones asking to release
these transcripts, exhibits, etc., of which the victims are not privy to
while they have concluded that there is nothing more to see on the
files they hold. Yet no one has seen them, but them," adding, "I am
beside myself.”
The story is
not going away. Today, there's a big meet-up with Vice President JD
Vance where they're going to try to figure out a way of addressing this
topic and bringing it to a close. That is just not happening. Chump
acts guilty in public and his actions are questionable.
Lawrence O'Donnell covered many of the new issues that have arisen in the video below.
Donald Trump was warned about Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct around “younger girls” over a decade before he was exposed as a pedophile, said an author who has written extensively about the financier.
Barry
Levine, author of The Spider: Inside the Criminal Web of Jeffrey
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and former executive editor at the
National Enquirer, told CNN’s OutFront that Trump was cautioned back in
1992 not to host a party at which he and Epstein would be the only two
men present.
“There was a 1992 party in which
Donald Trump had 28 young women at a party at Mar-a-Lago, his only guest
at that particular party was a man named Jeffrey Epstein,” Levine told
OutFront host Erin Burnett.
“The Florida
businessman who put this party together for the ‘calendar girls’
competition that took place at Trump casinos, specifically told Donald
Trump… ‘I’m going to ban Jeffrey Epstein from events like this, I don’t
like him going after younger girls.’ And he was very concerned about the
party on this particular night.”
Levine
was referencing a claim first made by The New York Times in July 2019
after Epstein’s arrest on federal sex trafficking charges. The article
details how Trump and Epstein had been friends for years, but Trump
insisted they hadn’t spoken for over 15 years following a reported
falling out over a Palm Beach real estate deal.
The businessman in question was George Houraney, who organized the 1992 “calendar girl” competition party at Trump’s request.
Houraney told The Times how Trump dismissed his warning about Epstein after learning he would be at the Mar-a-Lago event.
“I
said, ‘Look, Donald, I know Jeff really well, I can’t have him going
after younger girls,’” Houraney told the Times in 2019. “He said, ‘Look
I’m putting my name on this. I wouldn’t put my name on it and have a
scandal.’”
Houraney added that Trump “didn’t care” and that he “pretty much had to ban” Epstein from his events.
Trump
eventually barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago in late 2007, more than a
year after Epstein was first accused of soliciting underage
prostitutes.
The media
continues to discover new information daily. This story is not over and
the American people aren't buying what's been put out by Chump. Oliver O'Connell (INDEPENDENT) reports:
A new poll on his performance
has President Donald Trump underwater by 20 percentage points, with
Americans disapproving of him on every major issue, including
immigration.
Of
those surveyed, 63 percent believe the administration is withholding
information about the case and 81 percent specifically hold the
president responsible.
Just
as Donald ignores the suffering of Epstein's victims, he ignores the
suffering of the immigrants whose lives he is destroying. At HUFFINGTON POST, Ian Kumamoto notes:
The first time
I learned of Donald Trump’s political aspirations was in 2015, when he
announced his intent to run for president and made a speech claiming
that Mexico was sending scores of violent criminals over the border.
As
an immigrant from Mexico, hearing him talk about my community in that
way was jarring. But like many others, I didn’t think he could actually
rise to power, given his political inexperience and, well, his personality.
Ten
years later and just a few months into his second presidential term,
Trump is just as eager to purge the U.S. of its Latin American
immigrants. This time around, he’s realizing it won’t be as easy as he
thought.
When
he started his second presidential term, Trump was ambitious. White
House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller announced in May that
Immigration and Customs Enforcement would seek to arrest at least 3,000
immigrants per day to reach the administration’s mass deportation goals,
as severaloutletsreported.
The
number is outlandish; it’s assumed that he’s looking for people who
have committed crimes, but those who are paying attention are seeing it play out differently.
In
a court filing last week, Justice Department lawyers said the
Department of Homeland Security had never actually set such a quota for
arrests and deportations, The Guardian reported.
This
sudden amnesia about that lofty quota feels a bit suspect. Trump’s
whole campaign was run on the premise of arresting and deporting as many undocumented people as possible.
In his process of trying to get rid of them, it seems that Trump is
learning how beautifully entwined immigrants are in the fabric of this
country.
The
backtracking on this 3K-a-day quota might boil down to the reality that
there aren’t nearly as many undocumented criminals as the
administration had hoped. ICE has resorted to arresting people who are leaving immigration courts,
some of whom are in the middle of seeking legal asylum. Even when
allegedly playing dirty, the administration has managed to deport only
around 700 people per day. On top of that, 65% of the immigrants
detained since last October have no criminal convictions, according to the Cato Institute.
People
are noting the very real damage that ICE is doing. They're talking
about it to neighbors, they're protesting in the public square, they're
writing letters to the editor.
“California law targets ICE agents’ use of masks,”
(sacbee.com, July 22) When ICE sweeps people off the streets without
identifying themselves and holds them in detention without due process
or contact with their families, it is acting as if this country were a
repressive totalitarian government. Justifying this practice as a thinly
veiled need to protect ICE officers’ safety and security is absurd.
Other local, state or federal law enforcement officers who also face
safety dangers carry out their duties without the need for masks. The
purpose of this ICE practice is solely to intimidate and sow terror and
fear in our communities. California Senate Bill 627 — as well as federal
legislation — is needed to reject this horrendous policing practice.
Shirlie Marymee North Highlands
Lives have been destroyed and lives are being destroyed. David Dayen (TAP) notes that local economies have also been destroyed:
The absurd yet dangerous removal of the commissioner of
the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the offense of reporting jobs figures
as they are collected has overshadowed the reasons why U.S. employment is struggling. There’s the argument that tariff uncertainty has finally caught up to the real economy, and the argument that the country only produces AI data centers and sick people
for the health care system to manage. But one important issue has been
pushed off to the side: the predictable economic impact of ICE’s terror
campaign against immigrant communities.
This will have long-term macroeconomic consequences. Net immigration,
which provides a steady supply of available workers in key fields, is way down this year. Employers are scrambling to find substitute workers and worrying about productivity losses. Remittance payments to Mexico have plummeted,
suggesting a decline in these workers’ economic contributions, not only
to their relatives, but to industries like home care, agriculture, and
construction. Recent drops in residential construction could result from a lack of available workers as well.
This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on July 24, 2025.
By
midday on a recent Monday, only a few customers had trickled into La
Chispa de Oro, a once-busy Mexican eatery on Cesar Chavez Avenue in
Boyle Heights.
Behind the counter, owner Melchor Moreno monitored
the money in his till, counting the few hundred dollars in sales — about
half a typical weekday.
He glanced at his staff, counting with his fingers how much he’d owe in wages that day. The math didn’t add up.
“It doesn’t help that there’s no foot traffic, too…. The streets are empty. It’s kind of scary,” Moreno said.
Since
immigration raids began sweeping through Los Angeles neighborhoods,
Eastside restaurants have been scraping by, as even longtime customers
are keeping themselves and their dollars at home out of fear of
potential immigration enforcement. While the full economic toll is still
uncertain, many business owners already feel the squeeze.
Moreno has cut staff hours. He’s stepped in to wash dishes. With fewer customers, his staff goes home with fewer tips.
“They’ve
noticed it. The waitresses are taking less money home every day,” he
said. “I don’t know how much longer we can keep doing this.”
Moreno,
who is still paying off electricity bill debt accumulated during the
COVID-19 pandemic, estimates his restaurant has lost more than $7,000
since the raids began on June 6. To stay afloat, he’s now closing
Tuesdays through the summer until fear stemming from the ICE raids
fades, he hopes.
Other than terror and destruction, what is ICE accomplishing? Blaise Malley (SALON) points out, "According to internal figures obtained by CBS News, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
is holding roughly 59,000 people in detention, likely the highest
number in American history. Nearly half have no criminal record."
B-b-b-but Chump said these were violent criminals!
Chump lies a lot.
These
are not violent criminals. These are not criminals. These are people
who go to work and school and try to make a difference in their families
and their neighborhoods and they're being terrorized.
And this is happening not just to immigrants, it's happening to American citizens as well. Cerise Castle (TAP) notes:
Since federal agents descended onto Los Angeles streets in early
June, several United States citizens have been detained and held in
immigration detention centers. A Capital & Main review of local
reporting, video and social media posts found at least nine citizens
were taken into custody by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement or U.S. Customs and Border Protection after protesting near
or observing immigration raids in the Los Angeles area since June 6. Two
are currently facing federal charges.
Job Garcia arrived at the Home Depot in Hollywood for his delivery
gig for another company on the morning of June 19 expecting to have a
regular day. But moments later, Garcia — a U.S. citizen — was tackled,
arrested and detained by federal agents.
Garcia said he spotted vans pulling into the store’s parking lot, and
began filming as federal agents started breaking the window of a truck
with a man sitting behind the wheel. Videos taken by Garcia and other
bystanders show several masked men in green vests that read “POLICE” and
“U.S. Border Patrol” approach Garcia and tackle him to the ground.
“Give me your f**king hand! You want it, you got it,” one agent said. “You want to go to jail? You got it.”
The agents took Garcia to Dodger Stadium, where he told Capital &
Main he was held for hours before being transported to the Metropolitan
Detention Center in downtown L.A. The federal prison’s basement has
been turned into a detention facility for people apprehended by federal
immigration enforcement officers, where civil rights advocates say
detainees are being kept in grossly overcrowded, dungeon-like
conditions. One of the Border Patrol agents who detained Garcia is the
same man who was subsequently arrested and charged with assaulting a
Long Beach police officer and resisting arrest in a separate incident,
according to Capital & Main’s review of the footage. “This matter is
under investigation,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson
said in a statement to Capital & Main.
“This is a case of Border Patrol and ICE essentially punishing
citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights. It goes against
the values of this country,” said Ernest Herrera, an attorney at the
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who is representing
Garcia in a claim against Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol,
and ICE. “It looks more like the behavior of a crackpot military
dictatorship in a different country. But it’s here. This is happening
right now in our country.”
It’s unclear how many U.S. citizens federal agents have arrested
since undertaking a series of immigration raids in Southern California
starting in June. Federal officials did not answer Capital & Main’s
questions about the detention of U.S. citizens.
Under the Trump administration's aggressive immigration
crackdown, more women detained by immigration authorities are being
exposed to sexual violence, mistreatment, and the denial of basic rights
in detention centers across the United States, according to a new report.
Many women interviewed by the HuffPostsaid
they were raped, denied medical care during their pregnancies, and
subjected to other serious human rights violations while in U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.
Serious
pregnancy complications, sexual assault allegations, and suicide
attempts are among the most frequently reported issues in ICE detention
facilities, the report added. These incidents accounted for 60 percent
of 911 calls made from the 10 largest ICE centers nationwide, according
to a WIRED investigation published in June.
As
of late June, about 22,000 women were being held in ICE custody —
nearly 40 percent of the agency's total detainee population — according
to Detention Reports, a platform that analyzes publicly available data on immigration detention.
Advocates
for women's rights told HuffPost that ICE's refusal to release
gender-specific detention data is itself part of a broader pattern of
rights violations and institutional opacity.
"They're
creating this black box of impunity, where they're keeping women who
are pregnant or who have advanced health needs," Zain Lakhani, director
of migrant rights and justice at the Women's Refugee Commission, told
the outlet. "There's no one watching for human rights abuses."
The current administration made
sweeping mutilations of policies, institutions
and programs which celebrated and protected
diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Cuts in
Medicaid, veterans’ affairs, education for
public institutions and housing directly
impact Black people. Attacks on voting rights,
LGBTQA+ rights and workers’ rights is about
us. The rise of the police state targets us.
Immigration and the travel ban restrictions
include us. Black livelihoods and Black bodies
are all in the crosshairs. To pretend that
trump’s policies will not disproportionately
affect poor and working-class people,
especially Black folks, is disingenuous.
Further, any effort to persuade Black folks
against fighting for their survival and
uniting with other groups of people with
common cause, is counterrevolutionary.
We are in dangerous times and
our people need more guidance and motivation
to get organized, not less. This is not the
first regime in history to consolidate state
power, to silence the media, to dismantle
internal checks on abuse of power, to
legitimize the criminalization of sectors of
society, to expand the police state and target
dissidents. Let us recognize the period we are
in, learn from the lessons of the not-so
distant past, and prepare our communities for
the battles ahead. One important lesson to
highlight is that a passive or an unorganized
response to fascism doesn’t end well for a
democracy and its people.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Republicans just passed $1 trillion in health care cuts and are kicking roughly 15 million
people off their health care; Republican bill bans Planned Parenthood
from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursement funding—threatening to
shutter clinics across the country
ICYMI
on Friday: Senator Murray Statement on Trump Ripping Away Access to
Abortion Care for Women Veterans Who Were Raped or Whose Health is in
Danger
Seattle, WA – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and a senior
member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions (HELP) Committee, held a roundtable discussion with patient
advocates and health care providers from Washington state and Idaho to
discuss how recent moves by President Trump and Republicans in Congress
to attack access to health care—especially reproductive health care—and
slash Medicaid are harming people in Washington state and across the
entire Pacific Northwest.
Joining Senator Murray for the event were; Rebecca Gibron, CEO,
Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaiʻi, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky;
Dr. Keemi Ereme, OB/GYN at UW Medicine and Assistant Professor of
Obstetrics and Gynecology; Dr. Caitlin Gustafson, family physician from
rural Idaho and co-president of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare;
Kayla Smith, a patient storyteller who traveled to Washington from Idaho for necessary abortion care and former plaintiff in Adkins v. State of Idaho;
Emily Cuarenta, a patient storyteller and student at Eastern Washington
University; and Heather Mullin, a patient storyteller and local
advocate from the Seattle area.
“The horror stories caused by abortion bans have not stopped
since Republicans ended the right to abortion, implemented cruel bans,
and plunged this country into a full-blown health care crisis. And
unfortunately, Republican attacks on abortion care have not stopped.
Republicans passed devastating new attacks on health care and
reproductive rights as part of their Big Ugly bill, which ‘defunds’
Planned Parenthood—a longtime dream for the far right and an absolute
nightmare for everyone else. Clinics will close, putting abortion care,
birth control services, cervical and breast cancer screenings, and other
basic preventive care out of reach for millions of women,” said Senator Murray. “And
let’s not forget all the other ways Trump and Republicans are attacking
abortion. Trump ripped away protections ensuring women can get abortion
care to save their lives. He put in place a near-total abortion ban for
veterans and servicemembers at DoD and VA. He and Republicans are
packing our courts with the most radical anti-abortion extremists.
Meanwhile, Republicans are still trying to rip away access to safe
medication abortion and advance dangerous ‘fetal personhood’ provisions,
and they are still trying to ban abortion nationwide and put women and doctors in jail—blatantly overriding the will of the American people.”
“But we are still pushing back and fighting for reproductive rights in every way we can,” Senator Murray continued.
“As Appropriations Vice Chair, I am working to reject Trump’s proposal
to slash Title X and eliminate the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program,
among other awful ideas. The funding bill we passed out of committee
last week funds these programs. Democrats are pushing to reverse the
damage from Trump’s Big Ugly Bill, so we can restore Planned Parenthood
funds, save patients from losing care, and save hospitals. And we are
keeping our spotlight on how Republicans’ anti-abortion extremism is
hurting women every day. From abortion care to rural hospitals, health
care is under attack here in America. The fight to change this is today
and every day until we can reverse these cuts and keep making progress.”
Defunding Planned Parenthood puts at least 200 health centers across
the country at risk of closure—90 percent of them in states where
abortion is legal—and will rip away health care for more than 1.1
million people, many of whom might not be able to get care anywhere
else. Every year, Planned Parenthood provides health care to more than
two million people, including STI testing and treatment, cancer
screenings, birth control, HPV vaccines, wellness exams and other
critical services. Recent research from the Guttmacher Institute found
that, contrary to Republicans’ claims, Federally Qualified Health
Centers do not have the capacity to
readily serve the millions of people who currently rely on Planned
Parenthood for care. Defunding Planned Parenthood will cost an estimated
$261 million over the next decade.
President Trump also has taken direct aim at reproductive health care in the first few months of his term through a multitude of executive actions—issuing anti-choice executive orders, pardoning violent anti-abortion extremists, and taking a host of other actions to roll back efforts to protect access to reproductive health care across the country. On Friday, the Trump administration moved to revoke
women veterans’ ability to receive abortion care through the Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA) when their pregnancy is putting their health
at risk, or is the result of rape or incest, which Senator Murray
swiftly condemned as an attack on the reproductive rights of women
veterans.
“In the fall of 2022, my husband and I found out we were pregnant again with our second child. And this was just after Roe was overturned,” Kayla Smith, a patient storyteller and former plaintiff in Adkins v. State of Idaho. Kayla was Senator Patty Murray’s State of the Union guest last year. “The
only thing that we were concerned about was preeclampsia, because that
was what I had dealt with before in my prior pregnancy. And then, the
day after the trigger law went into effect to ban abortion in the State
of Idaho, we found out that our son had several fatal fetal anomalies.
And so our maternal fetal medicine specialist shared with us that,
unfortunately, if we wanted to end this very wanted pregnancy, that she
would no longer be able to help us in the state of Idaho… We had to take
out a $16,000 personal loan to drive eight hours from Idaho here,
actually to the University of Washington… It was the most tragic thing
we ever had to deal with to make that decision, but then to also be
forced to flee our state to have to go somewhere else to get care that
we should have gotten was just devastating… In that moment, I did not want
an abortion, but I needed one. And I felt like my providers were not
able to give me that standard of care that should be available to
everyone… These abortion bans are not saving lives, they are actually
putting more lives at risk.”
“Access to safe and legal abortion through Planned Parenthood
saved my life,” said Heather Mullin, a patient storyteller and local
advocate from the Seattle area. “I
was the victim of a predator who was a respected person in our
community and used his position of power and access to harm children. He
once told me that he had noticed me when I was in the sixth grade,
which makes me about 11 years old. I was repeatedly sexually assaulted
from the age of 13 until I became pregnant when I was 15. And I knew
that when I became pregnant at the time that I was not going to have the
baby. I felt very afraid and alone, and I didn’t want my abuser’s baby
to be my life sentence. So, I sought out a legal and safe abortion at
Planned Parenthood. I took the bus during spring break of my freshman
year of high school, when my parents thought I was at track practice.
And I got an abortion, and nobody knew about it for a really long
time—and I didn’t really talk about it publicly until the Dobbs
decision. And I really felt it was important for people to know that
all sorts of reasons there are for having an abortion, that you probably
know someone who has had an abortion. And when I started talking about
my story, I realized it was really a much more common experience than we
sometimes think about and talk about. In our current state where we
have outright abortion bans, including no exclusions for rape or incest,
we’re talking about forcing children to give birth. And that’s the kind
of thing that really keeps me up tonight, and why I’m here today to
talk about the importance of funding abortion care and access to
abortion. It’s disturbing to me that some of our government officials
seem to be protecting predators instead of victims.”
“Before the ban on abortion care in the state, I was able to
help my patients through deeply personal and often complicated
decisions, in the privacy of an ER bay or exam room. Even our ability to
do the jobs we were trained to do in time-sensitive and
health-threatening emergencies, such as bleeding or infection or organ
failure, put us in the crosshairs. Would we provide the stabilizing care
they needed in their community healthcare system, with the providers
they know and trust, and where their support system is in place for
them, but risk going to jail for doing so?,” said Dr. Caitlin
Gustafson, a family medicine obstetrician in rural Idaho for two decades
and President of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare Foundation,
representing over 1,500 Idaho healthcare professionals and concerned
community members. “A maternal health care
crisis has ensued. The longer Idahoans must travel out of state to get
the care they need, not only will we face increasing maternal health
complications, but also worsening physician shortages. By 15 months
after the Dobbs decision and the Idaho trigger ban going into
effect, nearly a quarter of my OBGYN colleagues and more than half of
the maternal fetal medicine specialists I previously referred my
patients with high-risk pregnancy conditions to stop practicing
obstetrics in our state; and we have been unable to recruit physicians
to replace them because of the chilling effect of these abortion bans.
And it got worse after the initial exodus: In a peer-reviewed study
published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week
by an Idaho colleague of mine, Idaho has suffered 35 percent net decline
in OB/GYNs who practice obstetrics in Idaho since Idaho’s abortion bans
went into effect. What this has meant is that Idaho continues to lose
much needed medical professionals that are the cornerstones of women’s
healthcare, not just during pregnancy, but across the entire lifespan.
For example, I have patients suffering from post-menopausal bleeding who
must wait months to get into an OBGYN to consult for the hysterectomy
that they need. The reduction in this workforce further threatens
healthcare access, not just for women but for all Idahoans. With pending
Medicaid cuts looming, our ability to do our jobs to keep our
communities safe and healthy will become that much more difficult.”
“Planned Parenthood affiliates in Washington provide high
quality reproductive health care to more than 100,000 patients every
year, including patients who come across state lines because their state
has eliminated preventive care access and banned abortions entirely.
But care in Washington is at risk like it is everywhere else: the
Republican budget bill will eliminate health insurance for tens of
thousands of Washingtonians, and will defund Planned Parenthood by
banning us from Medicaid,” said Rebecca Gibron, CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky.
“Without support from state and local governments to fill the gap,
health centers in Washington will close and patients will lose access to
care. We are thankful to Senator Murray for being the national leader
on reproductive health and rights as she fights to restore funding and
reverse the ban, and we are thankful for leaders in Washington who are
committed to finding local revenue to keep our doors open.”
“My husband serves in the Air Force, and attacks on
reproductive freedom and access to health care feel like a slap in the
face. We worry about the hostility of the next state we are stationed
in,” said Emily Cuarenta, a student at Eastern Washington
University who lives with her husband on an Air Force base in Spokane.
Emily spoke about the abortion care she received in Georgia prior to the
Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, where she was
forced to travel and undergo a waiting period, an ultrasound, and
medically inaccurate counseling that misinformed her about the risks of
having an abortion. “The Dobbs decision opened the
floodgates to oppressive, medically inaccurate laws that endanger the
lives of pregnant people. In addition to suffering poor maternal health
outcomes, pregnant people now fear criminalization of their pregnancy
outcomes.”
“This legislation strips people of their access to
reproductive healthcare, their choices in family planning and their
fundamental human right to health care. This legislation will lead to
many preventable deaths, and that is simply unacceptable,” said Dr.
Keemi Ereme, an OB/GYN at UW Medicine and Assistant Professor of
Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Senator Murray has been the leading voice in the Senate speaking out and raising the alarm against Republicans’ efforts to defund Planned Parenthood through their One Big Beautiful Bill Act. She has held constantrecentevents—including multipleevents in Washington state—to sound the alarm on the devastating cuts in Republicans’ reconciliation bill. As the Senate was considering the legislation, Senator Murray put forward an amendment to
strike a provision of the legislation that achieves anti-abortion
extremists’ long-sought goal of “defunding” Planned Parenthood;
Republicans blocked the amendment. Recently, Senator Murray introduced legislation to reverse the massive health care cuts Republicans passed into law last month and restore federal Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.
Senator Murray is a longtime leader in
the fight to protect and expand access to reproductive health care and
abortion rights, and she has led Congressional efforts to fight back
after the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Murray has introducedmorethan a dozen pieces of legislation to protect reproductive rights from further attacks, protect providers, and help ensure women get the care they
need; Murray has led efforts to push for passage of these bills on the
floor multiple times. Last January, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Murray led her colleagues in
hosting a “State of Abortion Rights” briefing with women who have
suffered firsthand from Republican abortion bans, and last June, she
chaired a HELP Committee hearing titled “The Assault on Women’s Freedoms: How Abortion Bans Have Created a Health Care Nightmare Across America.” Recently, Murray helped lead efforts to force Republicans on the record on votes to protect access to contraception and access to IVF (twice) last year, and she led her colleagues in
raising the alarm about the threat a second Trump administration would
pose to reproductive rights and abortion access in every state, as outlined in Project 2025. At a forum Senator Murray held this year on the anniversary of the Dobbs decision, Senator Murray spoke about Republicans’ plan to institute a backdoor nationwide abortion ban, including by defunding Planned Parenthood.
