The Common Ills: 2025-08-03

Wednesday, August 06, 2025

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 other news, Farrah Tomazin files "Republicans Subpoena Everyone and Anyone Over Epstein -- Except Trump" for THE DAILY BEAST. Pretty much says it all -- well that and that the Congressional Republicans did not issue a subpoena for Alex Acosta -- Acosta who served in Chump's first administration and who got the original sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein.

From WIKIPEDIA:

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.

[. . .]

In 2008, as U.S. Attorney, Acosta approved a federal non-prosecution agreement^[2] with Jeffrey Epstein. That secret agreement, conducted without consulting the victims, was later ruled illegal by a federal judge for violating the Crime Victims' Rights Act.^[26]

In March 2005, the Palm Beach Police Department began a 13-month undercover investigation of Epstein, including a search of his home, based on reports that he was involved with sex trafficking of minors.^[27]^[28] Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation resulted in a 53-page indictment in June 2007.^[27]

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 General Jeff 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.

Jennifer Bowers Bahney reports

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.

We keep getting told the story is over. But it's not. Ewan Palmer (DAILY BEAST) reports:

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.

Perhaps the biggest drag on the Trump presidency, according to the latest University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll, is Jeffrey Epstein and the handling of the evidence against the late sex trafficker.

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 several outlets reported.

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.

Andrew Lopez (LAIST) adds:

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.

Once you're in ICE custody, you're quickly disappeared. And then the real abuse begins. Héctor Ríos Morales (LATIN TIMES) reports:

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 HuffPost said 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."

We are in a struggle to save democracy. At THE BLACK COMMENTATOR, Jamala Rogers observes:

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

***WATCH FULL EVENT HERE; PHOTOS AND B-ROLL HERE***

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 constant recent events—including multiple events 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 introduced more than 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.

###

The following sites updated:

Trump defends Maxwell prison transfer amid Epstein firestorm

Lawrence: Did Trump lie when he said he didn't know about Ghislaine Maxw...

Epstein survivor says “monster” Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison move is "a sl...

How Trump's embrace of conspiracy theories kept the Epstein case in the ...

Why Was Trump On The Roof? | Trump's Disapproval Rating | Did Ghislaine ...

Hidden Details of Trump’s Creepy Letters to Epstein Exposed!

Reporter explains: How the WH press corps has changed in Trump 2.0

Tucker Carlson’s DIRTY FLASH DRIVE Sparks MAGA FURY!

Jasmine Crockett: “MAGA’s Map Is Built on Lies and Power Grabs”

Tuesday, August 05, 2025

URGENT WARNING: Trump is Planning an INVASION! Malcolm Nance

Melania POSTS ABOUT EPSTEIN, COMES OUT OF HIDING TO SHOCK!

War on numbers: Trump’s latest firing crosses a new line

Lindsey Graham IS NOT a homosexual | Will & Grace

Trump has MELTDOWN at Press Brief with UGLY CONFESSION

"Amazing Bulls***!" Robert Reich Reacts To Trump's Unhinged Move

MTG Just SCREWED Herself Over And It’s Hilarious!

Trump’s TRADE DISASTER just SCREWED HIS OWN VOTERS

Salt-N-Pepa in fight against record label for music rights

'That's about how it's going': Nicolle Wallace reacts to angry GOP town ...

Donald Trump OFF THE RAILS In Moronic, Racist Rant

🚨Trump INSTANTLY FOLDS in Case against Murdoch

WHAT THE F*** DID ELON JUST DO?!

'This has been giving them nightmares': Epstein victims react to DOJ's l...

Ghislaine makes MAJOR FILING after Trump VIDEO UNEARTHED

Trump GETS LOST on ROOF of White House as PANIC SETS IN

'Wrong, wrong, and wrong:' CNN fact checks Trump's job report claims

The Mooch Blasts Trump’s Latest Chaos | Pivot

‘How much does it cost for fascism?’: Crowd confronts GOP congressman at...

'Firing the BLS commissioner is serious': National Review rebukes Trump

Fox News COLLAPSES ON AIR as Trump’s PLAN IS DESTROYED

Unearthed Karoline Leavitt Past Footage is WILD!

Trump FREAKS OUT Over Bad Report

Total HAVOC BREAKS LOOSE as Trump gets MORE DESPERATE

LAW STRIKES BACK: Lawyers doing Trump's bidding targeted where integrity...

Representative Mike Flood’s Constituents Let Him Have It!!

Trump’s Texas Plan BACKFIRES as GOP BLINKS FIRST

The Snapshot

Tuesday, August 5, 2025. Chump is shocked to learn that We The People don't roll over, we fight back to save democracy.

The American people have caught on to the Convicted Felon and that's very upsetting for a con artist like Chump -- the art of the con depends upon the ability to trick the marks. Donald's losing that ability. Peter Wade (ROLLING STONE) reports:

Americans are overwhelmingly skeptical of Donald Trump's handling of information related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. In a new UMass Amherst national poll, 70 percent of respondents said Trump is not handling the Epstein case well, while only 18 percent said he is.

Among respondents who were aware of Epstein, the deceased billionaire and convicted sex offender, 63 percent agreed that the Trump administration "is hiding important information" about the case. Of those who said the administration is hiding information, a staggering 81 percent blamed Trump for it. Others in Trump's orbit also received blame, including Attorney General Pam Bondi (59 percent), FBI Director Kash Patel (49 percent), and House Speaker Mike Johnson (47 percent). Just 16 percent blamed Democrats in Congress.

The president's overall approval rating also took a dive to 38 percent, down six points since April.

This new data seems to back up reports that Trump has lost significant ground with his MAGA base over the Epstein issue. He came to power in part because his followers believed he would root out corruption and the deep state. But as news continues to break about his years-long friendship with Epstein amid reports that Trump is named multiple times in the files, the president's credibility is fading. Fifty-nine percent of poll respondents aware of Epstein said they believe he and Trump were "once good friends."

Trump isn't helping himself either. He complained last week that Epstein "stole" one of his victims from her job at Trump's Mar-a-Lago property. And the Bureau of Prisons under Trump recently transferred Epstein's longtime partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, to a lower-security facility after she met with Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche. Her move to a less strict prison has drawn scrutiny, considering Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.

Lawrence O'Donnell brought the receipts last night on MSNBC explaining what Maxwell had done, how she was a pedophile, how she was a sex trafficker, how she preyed on young girls -- you know, what she was convicted of in a US court of law and sentenced to 20 years in prison for.

Josh Fiallo (THE DAILY BEAST) notes Chump's moved Maxwell from an actual prison to Club Fed:

Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell is enjoying cushy new digs at a prison camp that has no cell blocks or guard towers but does offer a full gym, yoga classes, and a “puppy program.”

Maxwell, 63, was quietly transferred last week from a prison in Florida to a minimum-security camp in Bryan, Texas. Oversight at her new facility is so lax, it partially relies on the honor system to keep inmates from—quite literally—walking off its wall-free campus, as three women did in 2017.

Federal Prison Camp, Bryan has been nicknamed “Club Fed,” as its inmates have access to an outdoor running track, music programs, intramural competitions, social and cultural events, and activities like table tennis, prison consultant Michael Santos says.

At the facility, Maxwell will be permitted to buy mascara ($13.10), eyeliner ($1.70), concealer ($7.75), powder ($17), lip gloss ($3.40), makeup wipes ($9.25), and, the priciest luxury available, L’Oréal Revita anti-aging cream ($26.00), according to a comissary list obtained by the Daily Beast. Inmates are allowed to spend $360 a month there.

We all know Maxwell is not American, right? So while Chump works overtime to make life better for Maxwell -- an exploiter of women -- he works just as hard to destroy the lives of immigrants who have come to this country and worked hard to make a life for themselves and their families.

He can do that because he has no core, no belief system. Donald Chump has no religion. I also tend to doubt the faith of grown women who try to draw attention to their cleavage with crosses so I dismiss Pam Bondi and Karoline Leavitt's attempts to promote themselves as alleged Christians. But does no in the administration grasp religion?

If they did grasp the bonds of religion, I would have expected them to realize long, long ago that targeting members of faith would destroy Chump's war on immigrants quicker than anything else. For example, Shireen Korkzan (EPISCOPAL NEWS SERVICE) reports:

The Diocese of New York is calling for prayers and sharing news stories, statements and advocacy efforts on social media in response to the arrest and detainment of the 20-year-old daughter of an Episcopal priest, who is from South Korea.

Yeonsoo Go – whose mother, the Rev. Kyrie Kim, is a priest in the diocese – went to a routine visa hearing on July 31 at Federal Plaza in Manhattan as part of the process to renew her visa, which is set to expire in December. An immigration judge scheduled Go’s next hearing for October. After Go left the hearing, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested her outside the building and placed her in federal detention nearby before relocating her to a facility in Louisiana. Go, who’s being accused of “overstaying her visa,” has been placed in expedited deportation proceedings, according to Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.

“[Go’s] detention represents a disturbing ans unacceptable escalation of enforcement against individuals in good standing with pending immigration cases,” the Diocese of New York said in a Facebook post promoting an Aug. 2 interfaith vigil “calling for Yeonsoo’s immediate release and for broader accountability in how ICE is targeting immigrants, students, and family members.” The diocese hosted the public vigil in collaboration with the Interfaith Center of New York and the New York Immigration Coalition.

Pushback and the faith community saved Yeonsoo Go who got released late yesterday.

The community came together and said "NO!"

It's what we need to be doing around the country to make clear that no gestapo police force belongs on our streets, that people cannot just be kidnapped off the streets of America, that, as bad as things are, Chump has not yet morphed the country into Nazi Germany.

Time and again, it is the communities fighting back against Chump's evil. Dave Roback (MASS LIVE) reports:

About 400 people attended an interfaith service inside the Edwards Church on Sunday afternoon to remember and honor people who were detained in Massachusetts by immigration officials. Many more could not get into the service because of the overflow crowd.

Ahead of the event, Bill Toller of the Western Massachusetts JustFaith community said in a statement that attendees of the vigil would stand "in solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters who continue to be victims of an unjust and cruel system of deportation and unlawful arrests."

The immigrants are our brothers and sisters and Chump is not going to kidnap them and disappear them without a big fight. He's so stupid that he doesn't realize how big this fight is going to be. He's so stupid he doesn't grasp the important players that will not be on his side to smooth over his crimes.

Specifically, Aleja Hertzler-McCain (RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE) reports:

When Paul Hunker approached Dallas Bishop Edward Burns to introduce himself at the bishop’s 2017 installation Mass, he did so almost “sheepishly.” Hunker, then the lead counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dallas, worried Burns might give him “a hard time.”

Just a few weeks after President Donald Trump took office and instituted a travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries, the installation Mass came at one of the few times in 31 years of working for the agency that he felt “ashamed to be working for ICE,” Hunker, a longtime member of the Catholic group Opus Dei, told RNS.

Hunker retired from ICE in early 2024 and soon after joined a private immigration law practice. Now, as the second Trump administration doubles down on a strict immigration policy, Hunker has often found himself on the opposing side of his former employer. He has criticized Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship and raised concerns that Mahmoud Khalil’s detention infringed on First Amendment rights. He has appeared on conservative-leaning Catholic television network EWTN and on CBS Texas to share his views and explain immigration policy.

He typically doesn’t talk about his membership in Opus Dei, seeing public announcements about it as at odds with his lay identity, but on an EWTN appearance, Hunker said Catholic teaching on the importance of family ties had influenced his work at ICE, as he used prosecutorial discretion to avoid deporting the family members of U.S. citizens.

And maybe that story is where Chump start to worry about both his lack of faith and his ignorance of faith? Does he really think he stands a chance of winning an immigration case against Hunker?

Five Supreme Court Justices would either be voting with Hunker or recusing themselves. Or does Chump not know of the ties to Opus Dei that Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito have?

He started a war on immigrants and he started this war as stupid as he always is. He had no idea what he was starting, no idea what he was unleashing.

Look at the townhall in Nebraska yesterday that Ben notes on MEIDASTOUCH NEWS this morning.

US House Rep Mike Flood got a taste of America and an insta-poll on American attitudes at that townhall last night.

It was not the victory walk Flood hoped it would be. It was a complete repudiation of Donald Chump.

People are not applauding what Chump has done to Los Angeles. We're all outraged. July 31st, Senator Alex Padilla's office issued the following:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) raised the alarm on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) recent usage of Predator drones and aerial surveillance against peaceful protesters in Los Angeles. This surveillance is a clear threat to the protesters’ privacy and their constitutional rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

In their letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the Senators likened DHS’ aerial surveillance to authoritarian regimes controlling dissent and warned of the risks of using this technology to target communities of color. They noted that DHS did not give any justification for its use of the drones, nor any details about what information was collected or how it was used.

On June 8, during the Los Angeles protests, DHS deployed Predator drones with high resolution cameras capable of identifying individuals in a crowd to fly over protests in Paramount and Los Angeles. The Senators blasted DHS’ usage of the footage to create a dramatic video posted June 10 to X with the caption “WATCH: DHS drone footage of LA rioters. This is not calm. This is not peaceful. California politicians must call off their rioting mob.”

“Even if the technology were perfectly accurate, this form of surveillance could have a chilling effect on constitutionally protected rights, particularly freedom of assembly and speech. Protesters may fear that showing up at a rally could result in DHS or other government entities logging their names into a government database, sharing records with law enforcement, or even subjecting them to reprisal,” wrote the Senators. “That fear is not theoretical. Authoritarian regimes already use facial recognition to track down dissidents. But even in democratic societies, such tools can disproportionately target and harm communities of color, intensifying existing biases in law enforcement and eroding trust in public institutions.”

“The publication of these videos appears to be a violation of the Department’s own requirement limiting the disclosure of video collected on an aircraft to authorized personnel with an authorized purpose,” continued the Senators. “Americans could easily understand the publication of this video as an implicit threat to reveal the identities of protesters, instilling fear in any members of the public who seek to exercise their constitutionally protected rights to speech and assembly.”

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) also signed the letter.

The lawmakers requested responses by August 21, 2025, to questions including:

What cameras, radar, or other surveillance equipment were equipped on the Predator drones that flew over Paramount and Los Angeles during the June protests?
Did DHS officials identify any individuals based on information collected by the unmanned aircraft that surveilled the California protests, including in combination with other information or with the assistance of facial recognition technology?
Which agencies and officials requested support from the Predator drones, when was the request made, and when and by whom were they approved?
What data privacy protocols are currently used to govern information captured by aerial surveillance at U.S. protests?
How are DHS staff with access to aerial surveillance data trained on data management protocols?
What was the approval process for publishing videos taken by the Predator drones of the protests in Los Angeles on X?
Has DHS deployed manned or unmanned aircraft systems to photograph, record, or otherwise monitor other protests since January 20, 2025?

Senator Padilla has been outspoken in criticizing Trump’s unprecedented militarization with the deployment of National Guard troops and active-duty U.S. Marines to respond to overwhelmingly peaceful protests in Los Angeles. Earlier this month, Padilla placed a hold on Trump’s nominee to serve as vice chief of the National Guard Bureau, Lieutenant General Thomas Carden, until the Trump Administration releases all remaining U.S. military forces from their unjustified deployment to Los Angeles. He also recently introduced the VISIBLE Act to require immigration enforcement officers to display clearly visible identification during public-facing enforcement actions. Last month, he led the entire Senate Democratic Caucus in demanding that President Trump immediately withdraw all military forces from Los Angeles and cease all threats to deploy the National Guard or active-duty service members to American cities.

Full text of the letter is available here and below:

Dear Secretary Noem,

In the face of peaceful protests against the Trump administration all across the country — through the public’s exercise of its constitutionally protected rights to assemble and express its views — the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has responded with surveillance and intimidation. For example, DHS deployed at least two Predator drones over the recent protests in Los Angeles, published the collected footage online, and called for local officials to crack down on protestors. This Big Brotherism invades Americans’ privacy and chills the exercise of their constitutional rights. We are writing to request more information on DHS’s use of aerial surveillance at recent protests and to urge DHS to respect the public’s privacy and the First Amendment.

DHS has disclosed little about its use of Predator drones to surveil protests across the country. On June 8, 2025, flight watchers noticed aircraft without a callsign circling protests in Paramount, California, and downtown Los Angeles for hours. By listening to Air Traffic Control transmission, these observers determined that the aircraft were Predator drones. DHS later confirmed that it had deployed the drones to support “federal law enforcement partners in the Greater Los Angeles area, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” but denied that it was “engaged in surveillance of First Amendment activities.” But DHS has provided no explanation of who specifically requested the support of Predator drones in Paramount and Los Angeles, why that support was needed, what information was collected, or whether drones were deployed during other protests. In other words, DHS is keeping the public in the dark on the important question whether it is conducting aerial surveillance during protests and infringing on Americans’ First Amendment rights.

Although extraordinary circumstances could justify drone flights over protests, these flights also raise serious concerns about individual privacy and may be intended to intimidate the public and chill free speech rights. As was the case with the Predator drones in Los Angeles, unmanned aircraft are often equipped with high-resolution cameras that can capture images and video of individual protesters within a crowd. DHS could then attempt to use facial recognition technologies to identify those individuals. Facial recognition technologies have known limitations — including reduced accuracy when images are low quality, blurry, obscured, or taken from the side or in poor light — creating serious risks of false identification.

Even if the technology were perfectly accurate, this form of surveillance could have a chilling effect on constitutionally protected rights, particularly freedom of assembly and speech. Protesters may fear that showing up at a rally could result in DHS or other government entities logging their names into a government database, sharing records with law enforcement, or even subjecting them to reprisal. That fear is not theoretical. Authoritarian regimes already use facial recognition to track down dissidents. But even in democratic societies, such tools can disproportionately target and harm communities of color, intensifying existing biases in law enforcement and eroding trust in public institutions.

DHS’s own best practices recognize that the use of drones to monitor protests and the retention or publication of images of individuals who are engaged in protest can harm constitutionally protected rights. In particular, in 2013, DHS conducted a privacy impact assessment (PIA) covering the Predator B drone. In that PIA, the Department acknowledged that images and video taken from these drones potentially include images of individuals that can be associated with personally identifiable information. To address the privacy risks with unmanned aircraft, the PIA explained that “the video or other data collected from [Customs and Border Protection] aircraft may only be accessed by authorized personnel with an authorized need to know, and the CBP-held video or other data is controlled through chains of custody and stored in secure locations until it is destroyed.” While this data may be used to support “other DHS components” or “federal law enforcement agencies,” the PIA emphasizes that “each request for information follows a standard process and is reviewed and considered in terms of the requesting agencies’ authorities to receive the sought after information, CBP’s own authority to lend assistance, and CBP’s ability to integrate the information collection into its mission.” Although DHS updated this PIA in 2018 and 2024 to cover tethered and small unmanned aircraft systems, the relevant section and privacy analysis on the Predator drone has not changed.

But DHS appears to have ignored these requirements in Los Angeles. On June 10, the Department posted a video to X — collected from a drone — overlayed with a dramatic soundtrack and a caption stating “WATCH: DHS drone footage of LA rioters. This is not calm. This is not peaceful. California politicians must call off their rioting mob.”8 The publication of these videos appears to be a violation of the Department’s own requirement limiting the disclosure of video collected on an aircraft to authorized personnel with an authorized purpose. Americans could easily understand the publication of this video as an implicit threat to reveal the identities of protesters, instilling fear in any members of the public who seek to exercise their constitutionally protected rights to speech and assembly.

Given the serious dangers to individual privacy and free expression from the aerial surveillance of protesters, we request written responses to the following questions by August 21, 2025.

1. What cameras, radar, or other surveillance equipment were equipped on the Predator drones that flew over Paramount and Los Angeles during the June protests?

a. Did the drones collect any information on individual protesters?

b. If so, what information did the drones collect?

c. What has DHS done with this information?

2. Did DHS officials identify any individuals based on information collected by the unmanned aircraft that surveilled the California protests, including in combination with other information or with the assistance of facial recognition technology?

a. If so, how many individuals were identified at the California protests?

b. Why did DHS seek to identify individual protesters?

c. Did DHS provide records of the identities of individual protesters to any other agencies or third parties?

d. How long does DHS intend to maintain records of the identities of individuals at these protests?

e. Is DHS creating a database of individuals identified at these protests?

3. Which agencies and officials requested support from the Predator drones, when was the request made, and when and by whom were they approved? Please provide all documents related to the request and approval of these flights.

4. What data privacy protocols are currently used to govern information captured by aerial surveillance at U.S. protests?

a. Does DHS still follow the 2013 privacy impact assessment?

b. If so, how does the aerial surveillance of the Paramount and Los Angeles protests comport with it? If not, why not?

5. How are DHS staff with access to aerial surveillance data trained on data management protocols?

6. What was the approval process for publishing videos taken by the Predator drones of the protests in Los Angeles on X? Please provide all documents related to the decision to publish this video.

7. Has DHS deployed manned or unmanned aircraft systems to photograph, record, or otherwise monitor other protests since January 20, 2025? If so, for each such deployment, please provide:

a. the date and location of the deployment;

b. the original request from the state, local, or national agency for this support;

c. all approval documentation;

d. the kinds of manned or unmanned aircraft used;

e. all monitoring equipment on the flights; and

f. whether any individuals were identifiable, and if so,

(i) how many were identified,

(ii) for what purposes,

(iii) whether that data was provided to any other agencies or third parties,

(iv) how long DHS intends to maintain the identities of individual protesters, and

(v) whether DHS is creating a database of protesters identified at these protests.

Thank you for your attention to this important issue.

Sincerely,

###

No one is safe.

And we realize that. We realize that this is where we stand up and say "NO!" or we kiss democracy goodbye. Donald Chump is finally getting a taste of pushback.

Too many people have suffered in the last months and too many continue to suffer. Nick Mordowanec (NEWSWEEK) notes:

Colombian immigrant and green-card holder who has lived in Oklahoma for more than a decade and has American children has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to her boyfriend.

Newsweek reached out to ICE via email for comment.

A GoFundMe was recently created to help raise funds for legal fees pertaining to the detainment of Daniela Villada Restrepo, who lives in Oklahoma City and works in health care. She has three children, all born in the U.S. She is a lawful permanent resident, meaning she has a green card.

It's not one area of the country. It's the whole country. It's a prairie fire across the country as the people push back against these crimes. City by city, you see people standing up. Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon (ATLANTA CIVIC COUNCIL) notes:

About 600 protesters marched through downtown Atlanta on Saturday morning as part of a national “Rage Against the Regime” day of action against the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “secret police” tactics.

The demonstration, organized by the progressive group 50501, began at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park and proceeded down Auburn Avenue to Big Bethel AME Church, concluding at the Atlanta ICE Field Office.

Organizers handed out pamphlets listing demands, including an end to ICE’s use of masked agents and unmarked vehicles, halting deportations to third countries, and stopping attacks on birthright citizenship.

“Why are they ashamed?” asked Georgia NAACP president Gerald Griggs, who condemned ICE agents for wearing masks. “Everybody that wears a badge ain’t the law,” he said.

Griggs added that there are documented instances of US citizens and military veterans being detained. “It’s incumbent upon us, the real American citizens, to say something about it,” he said.

Griggs also called for solidarity between immigrant and minority communities. “Black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean are facing the same issues as our brown brothers and sisters from Central America and South America,” he said.

Why are we pushing back? Because we see the cruelty. We see the harm. We see the attacks on our neighbors. Neighbors we know and that we know are not violent criminals. But they're treated like violent criminals. The rule of law is shredded so that ICE can attack. WTNH reports:

The Wilbur Cross High School student that was detained by ICE last week is expected to return to New England after being moved to three facilities across the country.

Esdrás,18, was allegedly picked up by ICE while working at a car wash on July 21.

“ICE is arresting people who have no violent history that are productive members of the community so it’s really disheartening when they have arrested a young boy,” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said.

Since then, the community has been working to get him legal support and bring him back home to Connecticut.

Children are being targeted. Grandparents are being targeted. Young parents are being targeted. Nursing mothers are being targeted. And none of them are criminals. It's the ENOUGH point and the country has reach it. Hosam Elattar (VOICE OF OC) reports:

Officials in Orange County’s largest cities are taking a stand against widespread immigration enforcement this summer by challenging deportation sweeps in federal court, reporting out enforcement activity to residents or offering financial aid to the families impacted.

These are actions most local elected officials in OC are unwilling or struggling to take amid a federal immigration crackdown that ramped up in June despite pressure from residents who have demanded at city council meetings that leaders take a stand and help immigrants.

Last month, officials in both Anaheim and Santa Ana voted to join a federal lawsuit challenging widespread ICE raids in parts of Southern California and alleging federal immigration officers are racial profiling people to make warrantless arrests.

It’s an allegation that Department of Homeland security officials have repeatedly denied after conducting sweeps across the region and aggressively rounding up day laborers at Home Depots as well as people at immigration court houses and car washes.

In every state in this country, We The People are fighting back and working on ways to fight back because we happen to believed that democracy actually does matter. We happen to believe that our country is worth fighting for. And we are appalled by the way our government is treating immigrants. One example, MY NORTHWEST notes:

An immigrant advocacy group raised concerns about possible tuberculosis (TB) cases at the Northwest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center in Tacoma, according to KIRO 7.

La Resistencia, a local advocacy organization, claimed there may be as many as seven individuals showing signs of TB among those detained at the facility. The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) is monitoring the situation, though the cases remain unconfirmed at this time.

“We can confirm that the Tacoma Detention Center has 7 suspected TB cases that have started treatment based primarily on imaging and symptoms,” the DOH stated. “To date, there are no confirmed positive MTb specimens/cases reported to us.”

La Resistencia has since accused the facility of inhumane conditions. The group is calling for increased transparency and improved healthcare protocols inside the detention center.

Let's note this from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's office:

Whitehouse’s Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act would make Social Security solvent forever without shrinking benefits

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) slammed comments made by the Trump administration’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calling the administration’s tax-deferred investment accounts a “backdoor for privatizing Social Security.”

“Secretary Bessent’s comments are the latest Trump administration attack on Social Security. Social Security is a sacred trust that hardworking Rhode Islanders paid into through their whole careers, but Republicans continue to be obsessed with handing seniors’ money off to private equity sleazeballs,” said Whitehouse, a founding member of the Expand Social Security Caucus. “Here’s how you fix Social Security and protect seniors’ benefits forever: you have the wealthy start paying their full fair share into the system.”

Whitehouse’s Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act would protect the solvency of Social Security and Medicare for the foreseeable future by requiring the nation’s highest earners to contribute a fairer share of their income into the system. Whitehouse also cosponsored the Social Security Fairness Act, which was signed into law by President Biden in January. The legislation eliminated two policies that reduced Social Security benefits for public service employees.

Over 230,000 Rhode Islanders receive Social Security benefits.

Mike covered the topic last night in "They're coming after Social Security when they're not trying to rescue Pedophile Maxwell."

The following sites updated: