Power and Geopolitics After Trump
1 hour ago
Friday, June 19, 2026
Thursday, June 18, 2026
The Snapshot
Thursday, June 18, 2026. Chump goes deranged as his 'deal' is called out and mocked, Todd Blanche is the man with something to hide, most Americans see Chump as "a dangerous dictator," and much more.
Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) charts Chump's early morning dementia.
Despite Trump's endorsement, Jones ended up five points behind Jackson when all was said and done.
It continued: "Blanche on Tuesday assured GOP senators in at least two private meetings that the fund is dead
and he won’t support it if Trump tries to revive the idea in the
future. But he still faces skepticism over the fund and other issues,
including an agreement that Trump reached with his administration to
shield himself and his family from IRS audits of past tax returns."
A
majority of Americans view President Donald Trump as a “dangerous
dictator” whose power should be constrained, according to a poll that
found a notable increase in that sentiment since March.
[. . .]
A
new Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll of 5,469 adults
living across all 50 states found that 59 percent believe that Trump “is
a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys
American democracy.”
Support for that view has
increased since March, when 52 percent of Americans agreed with the
statement. It also exceeds the 56 percent recorded in September 2025, when a majority of respondents similarly described Trump as a “dangerous dictator,” according to PRRI.
The
poll, which was conducted between May 1 and 18, has a margin of error
of plus or minus 1.53 percentage points. While the poll was being
conducted, headlines around the Trump administration included foreign
policy and the war with Iran, trade and tariff escalations with Europe,
and gas prices rising due to troubles in the Strait of Hormuz.
Dictator? Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan (NEW YORK TIMES) reported on
the Situation Room meetings of Todd Blanche, Pam Bondi, Susie Wiles, JD
Vance and other members of the administration to plot on how to deceive
the American people about Epstein and specifically Chump's closeness to
Epstein while also detailing the administration's discussions about implementing the Insurrectionist Act and suspending habeas corpus. The last two are why Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued the following yesterday:
Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, demanded answers from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles after recent reporting revealed Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller pushed to suspend habeas corpus rights and Vice President J.D. Vance pushed to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress peaceful protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Habeas corpus is a fundamental aspect of due process, allowing people in the United States to contest the basis of their detention.
“Donald Trump has worked to defy and undermine the Constitution to push his bigoted mass deportation campaign. New reporting shows that top White House officials openly planned to deny core constitutional rights, and the Vice President’s support to use the military against peaceful protests. Oversight Democrats will fully investigate this outrageous attack on the Constitution and the rule of law. All those responsible should be held accountable,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.
In the letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Ranking Member Garcia wrote, “Oversight Democrats are investigating the systematic violations of the Constitution by the Trump Administration through its mass deportation campaign. The Administration’s willingness to use violence against civilians, lack of oversight for violations of civil rights, and violations of court orders are widely documented. New reporting revealed that the Administration considered far more egregious violations of the constitution, and that senior White House staff, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller, advocated for the illegal suspension of fundamental civil liberties as the Administration considered suspending habeas corpus rights and invoking the Insurrection Act to suppress peaceful protests in Minneapolis. In light of this disclosure, we demand that you immediately provide records and documents which outline a draft plan by senior members of the Administration to effectively subvert the Constitution on a massive scale.”
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As Ruth noted "We still have not seen the
'deal,' 'cease-fire,' or 'memo of understanding.' Whatever you call it,
Convicted Felon Donald Chump continues to keep it under wraps." -- whatever it is, it's still unknown. But based upon Chump's incessant remarks and the sketch that's been discussed, people are forming opinions.
Toward
the end of the Obama administration’s negotiations over its Iran
nuclear deal in 2015, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump chimed in
with some advice from his book, “The Art of the Deal.”
“Message to Obama re: Iran: ‘The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it,’” he posted on Twitter.
Trump and his administration are now committing this cardinal sin in their efforts to obtain their own nuclear deal with Iran.
In fact, it looks a lot like they’re giving up on even claiming their memorandum of understanding
(MOU) with Iran is a favorable document to the US. The Trump
administration is making it abundantly clear they just want out of this
war.
Trump’s overriding desire to extract himself
has been clear for a long time; he has repeatedly pulled back on his
threats, downplayed Iranian provocations and resisted a return to
large-scale hostilities.
But over the last 24 hours, this attitude has moved from the subtext to the text.
The administration has repeatedly suggested that its handling of the MOU is about catering to Iran.
Perhaps most striking were comments the administration made without attribution.
“The
consensus of the team was we want to get this thing over with, and the
deal is the way to do it in a way that maximizes our upside and
minimizes our downside,” an administration official directly involved in
the talks told CNN’s Alayna Treene.
Holly Baxter (INDEPENDENT) sees indicators in Chump's refusal to provide details:
If
you’d like to know how Donald Trump’s closing speech at the G7 went,
it’s probably best to start at the part where he asked Scott Bessent
whether the stock market was smarter than his Treasury secretary.
“No,
sir,” Bessent dutifully replied. He was disagreeing with a notion Trump
had just posited, but it was clear from his tone of voice that he
didn’t mean to disagree. He was simply trying to make real-time sense of
what his boss had just said, which happened to be the semi-coherent and
utterly baffling: “The stock market is more brilliant than anybody
there is, including people on this stage, apart from me. What do you
think, Scott, is the stock market more brilliant than you?”
Yeganeh Torbati (NEW YORK TIMES) states, "The agreement
lifts the U.S.-imposed naval blockade of Iranian ports and, most
crucially, grants Iran waivers to begin exporting its oil even before
the negotiation of a final agreement on its nuclear program. That will
give Iran a critical economic lifeline. In recent years, its economy has
been in a tailspin, with a collapsing currency and sky-high inflation." The paper's David E. Sanger reminds:
It was less than 15 weeks ago when President Trump, at the height of his bravado about how the war with Iran would end, declared “there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
When the text of the deal intended to wind down the conflict was finally released on Wednesday, read aloud paragraph by paragraph by a senior administration official who stopped to defend each section, it read nothing like a surrender document. Instead, the Iranians emerged from a confrontation with the world’s most powerful military having not only survived, but with much to celebrate.
It starts with the resumption of Tehran’s ability to reap billions of dollars in oil sales, lifting pressure on the struggling regime even as negotiators prepare to begin haggling over a far more lengthy and critical document: the one Mr. Trump insisted in an interview on Sunday will arrest Iran’s nuclear program for the next 15 or 20 years.
For a president who prizes leverage above all else, that decision is just another mystery of the war. But the wording of the “Memorandum of Understanding” also suggests that, over time, Iran may negotiate some permanent way to exercise sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. That seems in contradiction to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s declarations just a few weeks ago that anything other than the kind of free passage through the strait that the world knew before the war was “not acceptable” and “cannot happen.”
Max Rego (THE HILL) notes a Republican senator who's calling the deal out:
Republican
Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.) on Wednesday slammed the deal between the Trump
administration and Iran, two days before the two sides are set to sign
it.
“The details that I’ve seen so far look …
awful. This will go down as a tremendous foreign policy blunder,”
Cassidy told Nexstar’s Reshad Hudson on Capitol Hill.
Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is not mincing words when it comes to President Donald Trump’s newly-announced deal with Iran.
“Worst foreign policy blunder in decades,” Cassidy said.
In
a post to X on Wednesday, the exiting Louisiana senator — who was
defeated in a primary race in May, after President Trump endorsed one of
his opponents — sounded off on the deal, which he believes is a massive
win for Iran.
“Reagan is rolling over in his
grave,” Cassidy wrote. “Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and
they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will
undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new
infrastructure under this deal.”
He added,
“Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by
sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans
are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be
lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy
blunder in decades.”
Cassidy is not the only Republican in Congress who is disappointed with the deal. Bayliss Wagner, Robert Jimison and Tim Balk (NEW YORK TIMES) explain:
President Trump’s agreement with Iran opened new fissures in his party on Wednesday, with Republicans on Capitol Hill and beyond questioning whether his administration had secured adequate concessions from Iranian leaders after months of a costly and unpopular war.
After the Trump administration released the text of the arrangement on Wednesday, some Senate Republicans reacted with fierce criticism, skepticism and alarm. Prominent members of the G.O.P.’s old guard from outside Congress also sounded dubious notes. And even some of the president’s allies in the conservative news media voiced concern.
[. .]
The reactions underscore a challenge Mr. Trump faces five months ahead of the midterm elections, as he works to free Republicans from the political albatross of the war while navigating varying views about it within his own party. While Mr. Trump has won praise for the deal from some Republican allies, consolidating support in a party with competing factions is proving to be a difficult task.
Retired
four-star Army Gen. Jack Keane on Wednesday said the tentative deal
between the U.S. and Iran is a “long way from accomplishing” President
Trump’s objectives in the Middle Eastern country.
Keane
told hosts John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby on the “Cats and Cosby
Show” on WABC 770 AM that his “gut reaction” to the deal was “more about
what’s not in there than what’s in it,” referring to a lack of
restrictions on Iran’s missile capabilities and inspections of its
nuclear facilities.
Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) notes Stephanie Ruhle whose MS NOW program now airs in the morning:
Donald Trump’s pride in getting an Iran deal done, despite accusations that it was a complete capitulation to Iran’s leadership, led MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle to haul out the “Trump Always Chickens Out” (TACO) taunt.
During
a discussion of the deal with former diplomat Richard Haas and MS NOW’s
David Rohde, she asked the two experts what the US got out of the deal.
According to both, the US was definitely on the losing end and the deal could easily fall apart.
“There's
concerns that [Israel Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu is going to try to
blow up this deal because it's so bad for Israel in the long term,”
Rohde explained before adding a curt, “It is.”
“I
was really expecting a little more meat on the bone,” he said. “We’re a
long way from accomplishing the objectives that the president wants to
accomplish here with the Iranians. … We’re at the beginning of a process
that’s going to take some time here for sure.”
Keane,
who served a stint as acting Army chief of staff in 1993, noted that
Iranian officials will look at the U.S. response to the deal as
“something of a victory for themselves because the war is not
continuing.”
“They got a ceasefire,” he told
Catsimatidis and Cosby. “Now they’re moving towards a final agreement.
And they’re going to delay that as much as possible, believing that the
closer we get to the midterms, the less likely the president will return
with military operations.”
Meanwhile, Damian Paletta (WALL STREET JOURNAL) ponders whether JD Vance is up to selling the deal as Chump intends for him to do:
This week, Vance is selling more than books.
He
has been all over the airwaves in the past few days trying to sell the
Iran deal that President Trump announced Sunday afternoon. In addition
to The View, he showed up on Megyn Kelly’s show. Kelly is a leading
conservative voice who has been sharply critical of the Iran war. Vance
calmly and persistently pushed back on hawkish conservative critics who
allege the White House is being duped by Iran.
“They
are proposing an endless conflict,” Vance said of the critics. “They
want this to go on until every bomb has been dropped or until every
Iranian is dead. That’s not what the President of the United States
wants.”
One challenge for Vance: No one has
seen the fine print on the deal, leading to screams from conservatives
that perhaps Trump has been duped (The WSJ reported Tuesday
that a draft of the deal would allow Iran to sell oil, and Iranian
tankers have already been permitted to depart through the U.S.
blockade).
When not expecting Vance to sell whatever, Chump enjoys pitting him against Marco Rubio. Isabel van Brugen (DAILY BEAST) notes:
Donald Trump pitted JD Vance against Marco Rubio during a private dinner, asking Rupert Murdoch to compare the 2028 Republican contenders while they sat at the same table.
The awkward exchange was detailed in an excerpt from Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, obtained by Axios.
The book about Trump’s second term, set for publication on June 23,
offers a glimpse into the 80-year-old president’s habit of holding
impromptu popularity contests among his allies.
Trump has long positioned
his vice president, 41, and secretary of state, 55, as potential rivals
in the 2028 presidential race. While he has not publicly endorsed
either, he has asked friends and advisers to compare the two.
According
to Haberman and Swan, Trump hosted Murdoch, Vance, Rubio, and several
White House aides at a private dinner on Oct. 16, 2025. During the
gathering, Trump turned to the 95-year-old conservative media mogul and
asked him to assess the two men widely viewed as leading candidates for
the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.
The president asked Murdoch whom he preferred, Vance or Rubio, while adding that he thinks “they’re both great.”
“What do you think of JD?” Trump asked.
Murdoch replied: “Well... I think JD has the potential to be great.”
“And what do you think of Marco?” Trump asked.
Murdoch answered immediately: “Marco is brilliant.”
“With
Vance and Rubio sitting awkwardly at the table, Murdoch was notably
more effusive about Rubio,” Haberman and Swan wrote, according to the
excerpt obtained by Axios.
Chump's lame duckery becomes more and more evident. Thomas Kika reports:
President Donald Trump is trying to "get creative to avoid embarrassment" after one of his much-prized endorsements went down in flames in a key swing state, per a new analysis from MS NOW.
Trump built up a notable win-streak of 2026 midterm endorsements in recent weeks, costing numerous state and federal lawmakers their reelection bids in retaliation for standing up to him. However, as the weeks have gone by, his endorsements have proven to be far from bulletproof, most recently when the Trump-backed Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones lost his gubernatorial bid to businessman and healthcare executive Rick Jackson, sending him into the general election to face Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms in the crucial battleground state.
Two weeks ago, in Iowa’s gubernatorial race, Trump threw his support behind Rep. Randy Feenstra, who narrowly lost his Republican primary to Zach Lahn. This week, it happened again. MS NOW reported:
Healthcare executive Rick Jackson clinched the Republican gubernatorial nomination on Tuesday, pulling off a win over Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and securing a spot in the November election against Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms. […]
Jackson, a businessman who entered politics as an outsider candidate, sought to position himself as an alternative to career politicians.
Trump endorsed Jones, the incumbent lieutenant governor, who ended up losing his primary bid by roughly 5 points.
Yes, sir? No, sir? What, sir? It was clear at that point, just a couple of minutes in, that nobody — including his own team, or perhaps especially his own team — had any idea what Trump was talking about.
This was probably the most alarming Trump appearance to date. He was breathless and incoherent, ill-seeming and off-piste. He spent 32 minutes justifying his deal with Iran to the world before mentioning a single discussion that had taken place among the G7 countries at the summit, and the justifications spoke for themselves.
"This wasn't a three-month deal," he declared. "This was years in the making. You know why? Because I was the one who killed General Soleimani."
Soleimani, who has been dead since 2020, enjoyed repeated cameos throughout the proceedings. Trump called him "a mad genius" and "the boss of Iran," returning to him again and again like an aging musician who keeps bringing audiences back to his biggest hit because the new material isn't getting much applause. The implication, of course, was that Soleimani represented a job well done to Trump himself. This deal? Not so much.
Turning to Toad Blanche, acting Attorney General. Chump has nominated him to be the next Attorney General. Thomas Kika reports Toad is facing some harsh winds:
President
Donald Trump is keen to get his newest judicial attack dog properly
installed at the top of the Justice Department, but according to a new report from The Hill, he has run into a serious wall of Republican "skepticism" in Congress.
Todd Blanche, who previously served as Trump's personal attorney, was promoted to acting Attorney General following the departure of Pam Bondi.
Since then, he has wasted little time attempting to rack up "wins" in
order to endear himself further to the president and audition for the
proper AG job. It seems to have worked out for him, as Trump nominated
him for the position earlier this month.
However,
he now faces considerable pushback from Republicans in the Senate who
will have to confirm his appointment, The Hill reported on Wednesday,
much of it stemming from his involvement in the settlement of Trump's IRS lawsuit.
"Acting
Attorney General Todd Blanche is headed for a rocky Senate confirmation
process to take on the role permanently as several Republican senators
raise concerns about his credibility and independence from President
Trump," The Hill reported. "Blanche faced withering criticism from
Senate Republicans during a private meeting last month at which more
than 20 GOP lawmakers vented their frustrations with the administration
and panned the proposal he rolled out to establish a $1.8 billion 'anti-weaponization' fund."
Legal analyst Elie Honig (THE INTELLIGENCER) weighs in:
Hanging
over Blanche’s confirmation hearings are damaging new revelations about
the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. No
senator will be able to cast a vote for him without either embracing or
forgiving his cynical politicization of the Epstein matter.
,
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, in new reporting
for the New York Times excerpted from their forthcoming book, Regime
Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, offer
astonishing insights into the dishonesty and incompetency of the leaders
overseeing the bungled Epstein response. And Blanche stands
inextricably at the center of it all.
,
Most
fundamentally, Haberman and Swan expose that Blanche and Justice
Department leadership handled the Epstein case as a matter of politics,
not prosecution. Their reporting flatly discredits Blanche’s
self-congratulatory refrain that, under his watch, the Justice
Department stands above and beyond political concerns. At his
confirmation hearing for the deputy-AG position, for example, Blanche
declared, “Politics would play no role in my decisions as deputy
attorney general.” And when asked in December 2025 if political
motivations influenced redactions from the Epstein files, he fired back,
“Absolutely, positively not.”
Turns out, that was bulls[**]t.
,
In
fact, Haberman and Swan report in detail how key decisions around the
Epstein files were made by Blanche and other DoJ leaders who worked
intensively with (and at times took direction from) top White House
officials. Unsurprisingly for a Justice Department that now hangs on its
headquarters a massive banner of Donald Trump’s glowering face, the
DoJ’s priority was not to pursue criminals, to protect victims, or to
inform the public but to minimize political damage to the president and
his administration.
,
The
panic level around the unfolding public-relations crisis was so intense
that Blanche reportedly met with White House brass in the Situation
Room — the same ultrasecure facility used during national-security
crucibles from the Cuban Missile Crisis to 9/11 to COVID. The
decision-making that came out of those meetings was questionable at
best. At times, Blanche vouched for desperate measures intended to
mitigate individual brushfires, only to accelerate the larger
conflagration.
For example, as
public confidence collapsed around the DoJ’s vexing and often
self-contradictory messaging, Blanche devised an underhanded ploy to
create an illusion of transparency. Haberman and Swan report
that he suggested prosecutors could formally ask judges to unseal
secret grand-jury records relating to the investigations of Epstein and
Ghislaine Maxwell. But, as Blanche understood based on his own
prosecutorial experience, the judges likely would deny the motions
(which they all eventually did). And even if by some fluke a judge
granted the DoJ’s disingenuous request, Blanche knew the grand-jury
records would contain nothing new or interesting. He believed it would
be a win-win; either way, Justice Department leaders would look like
they tried, and nothing damaging would be revealed.
When
that gambit satisfied precisely nobody, Blanche tried something even
more desperate. He flew to Florida and interviewed Maxwell face to face
with the expectation that the convicted child sex trafficker — who
actively solicited a presidential pardon — would clear Trump of
wrongdoing. Haberman and Swan report that Vice-President J.D. Vance (who
“appeared panicked” over the right-wing response to the Epstein mess)
initially proposed that carnival barker Tucker Carlson do the dirty
work, meet with Maxwell behind bars, and tell his audience that all was
well. The plan fell through, and Blanche emerged as Carlson’s understudy
— not exactly a sparkling résumé item for an aspiring attorney general.
Meanwhile another woman accuses Chump in The Epstein Fields. Edith Olmsted (NEW REPUBLIC) notes:
Buried in the Department of Justice’s massive trove of files on Epstein, an interview
conducted by the FBI on June 19, 2020, included allegations that the
president had previously used Trump Tower as a hunting ground for young
women, RawStory reported Wednesday.
In
the early 1990s, the woman worked at a luxury shoe store near Trump
Tower, and would study in the building’s public atrium during her lunch
breaks. One day, she met a colleague at the atrium who pointed out two
men lurking nearby.
“[She] described one of the
men was dark haired and looked like Antonio Banderas, while the other
man was blonde and looked like the surfer type,” the FBI report stated.
“Her colleague told her that the men constantly picked up [redacted]
women.”
The woman was then approached by the
dark-haired man, who struck up a conversation with her. “He asked if she
knew who Donald Trump was and told her he was meeting people that day,”
the report stated.
“[She] told the man that
she knew who Trump was. The man asked if she wanted to meet Trump and
told her that she did not need to work so hard to go to school,” the
report stated. “The man winked and said he could do whatever she liked.”
“[She]
felt that it was clear that sex was on the table, even though the man
never mentioned sex,” the report stated. “[She] felt these men were
playing the role of recruiters for Trump.”
“The
man told her that if she did not want to meet Trump right then, she
could go to a party. The man told her that she could bring a friend if
the friend looked like her, but she could not bring a guy,” the report
stated. The invitation for the party had Epstein’s address on it, the
woman told the FBI.
When she declined the
invites, she said she began receiving death threats. “The threats
consisted of the men saying that they knew where she worked and could
find her. [She] never told the police because she did not think they
would believe her,” the report stated. They never approached her again.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
The Children Harmed in Life-threatening or Dangerous (CHILD) Labor Act would strengthen labor law, give Department of Labor greater enforcement power
“In fiscal year 2025, more cases of federal child labor violations were uncovered than during any other year since the Great Recession, and hazardous work violations ticked up again after declining in the year prior.” – MORE from the Economic Policy Institute
Murray and DeLauro’s legislation is more urgent than ever as child labor law violations spike and the Trump administration has undermined existing enforcement efforts while Republicans push for even weaker standards
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, former chair and senior member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), and U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee and Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education reintroduced legislation to protect children from exploitative child labor practices and hold the companies and individuals who take advantage of them accountable. The Children Harmed in Life-threatening or Dangerous (CHILD) Labor Act strengthens our ability to combat child labor by cracking down on employers who violate child labor laws with stronger penalties and allowing children who have been seriously injured to sue their employers. The bill also expands child labor provisions to hold suppliers and subcontractors throughout the supply chain responsible.
According to recent reporting, the number of child labor violations has risen fivefold in the last 10 years and Republican-led state legislatures are continuing to propose and pass legislation at the state level that rolls back child labor regulations with the goal of eroding federal standards–as outlined in Project 2025.
“It should never be cheaper for a company to break child labor laws than to follow them—but right now, it is. Violations are at their highest level in years, Republicans are gutting protections in state after state, and the Trump administration has all but stopped enforcing the laws on the books,” said Senator Murray. “Children should not be subjected to abusive and dangerous work environments—they should not be working the night shift operating heavy equipment and in unsafe conditions with no consequences. My bill would deliver real penalties, real accountability for giant corporations, and real recourse for kids who get hurt.”
“No child should have to risk their life or their future because of a job,” said Congresswoman DeLauro. “Yet across this country, children are being put to work in dangerous jobs that threaten that future while companies reap massive profits from their labor, and this Administration weakens the agencies responsible for enforcing labor laws and protecting children from abusive labor practices. Corporations cannot cut corners – especially not when it comes to our children. The CHILD Labor act will put a stop to this by holding companies accountable and ensuring our children’s futures are protected.”
The CHILD Labor Act would protect children by enhancing the Fair Labor Standards Act to hold liable contractors or subcontractors for child labor violations in the same manner as the employer who employs the child in oppressive child labor; increase the civil penalty amount for child labor violations from $16,000 to $160,350—or 10 times the inflation-adjusted amount; increase the criminal penalty fine from $10,000 to $750,000; require any person who violates child labor provisions to be liable to each employee affected by the violation in an amount no less than $75,000; and require federal contracts to contain child labor provisions that prohibit the use of oppressive child labor.
The legislation would also require the Secretary to report to Congress data and recommendations concerning overall trends for work-related injuries, illnesses, or deaths to Congress on an annual basis.
In the Senate, the legislation is cosponsored by Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tina Smith (D-MN), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
In the House, the legislation is cosponsored by Representatives Alma Adams (D-NC-12), Judy Chu (D-CA-28), Danny Davis (D-IL-7), Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA-10), Dan Goldman (D-NY-10), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-18), Seth Magaziner (D-RI-2), Jim McGovern (D-MA-2), Mark Pocan (D-WI-2), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-9), Shri Thanedar (D-MI-13), Jill Tokuda (D-HI-2), and Lauren Underwood (D-IL-14).
The legislation is endorsed by the National Employment Law Project, and the Center for Law and Social Policy.
A one-pager on the bill is available HERE.
A section by section of the bill is available HERE.
Full text of the legislation is available HERE.
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Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Linda Goes After The Kids Again" went up last night.
The following sites -- plus Ann's "Grifting Nepo Baby MegHam McCain" -- updated:
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Chump needs assistance sitting down8 hours ago
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Chump refuses to put up or shut up8 hours ago
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Pathetic Chump8 hours ago
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Litigious loser Chump8 hours ago
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Spahetti alla Nerano in the Kitchen8 hours ago
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Chump's continued decay8 hours ago
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Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Linda Goes After The Kids Again"
The Snapshot
Wednesday, June 17, 2026. Chump fizzles at the G7, he still won't release the memo passed off as a deal, Markwayne Mullin 'forgot' about disclosure, JD Vance has a book to pimp, staffers with the House Oversight Committee went to Bryan, Texas to check up on Maxwell, and much more.
Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell quickly agreed that a special counsel probe of "possible misconduct" was warranted.
The G7 took place. Chump attended. Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) reports how sad and humiliating it was for Chump.
Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Bet He Had To Sit By Himself At Lunch As Well" went up last night and noted Chump at the G7 -- alone.
Rob Gillies (AP) notes, "Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will leave the G7 summit on
Wednesday without a formal meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump as
the free trade agreement between their countries faces an uncertain future. Canadian
leaders typically get a bilateral meeting with American presidents at
summits of the world’s leading industrialized democracies, but Carney
dismissed any notion of a snub." Tom Nichols (THE ATLANTIC) adds:
Donald Trump arrived in France yesterday for this morning’s G7 summit and promptly confirmed America’s capitulation to Iran. Instead of merely repeating the outlines of what looks to be a terrible peace deal, however, Trump made a series of statements so bizarre, even by his usual standards, that they raise the question of whether the president still understands the words that come out of his own mouth.
The president began with a classic Trumpian move, daring his listeners to forget today what they knew yesterday. Just this winter, Trump had promised the Iranian people that the tyrants who ruled them would be gone. But now? “I never cared about regime change,” he told reporters, waving away his failure to achieve a primary strategic goal by denying that it had ever been a goal at all.
One
of the largest fertilizer companies in the world, the Mosaic Company,
is losing money because a small amount of a specific ingredient is stuck
in the Strait of Hormuz.
Mosaic makes
phosphorus fertilizer, which contains sulfur and ammonia. The war in
Iran has disrupted the world’s supply of sulfur, a fifth of which
travels through the strait. The price Mosaic receives for one ton of
fertilizer is about $800, and half that cost — before processing,
shipping and labor — now goes just to acquiring sulfur.
“If
we’re losing money every ton, the total losses can mount quickly,” Ben
Pratt, Mosaic’s vice president of public affairs, said in an interview.
Mosaic lost $258 million in its quarter ending March 30, and said it
would slow production at some of its plants. Even as the United States
and Iran reached a preliminary agreement on Sunday to end the war that
has roiled the region since March, it would take months for ship traffic
and supply chains to return to normal, and years for destroyed energy
and fertilizer infrastructure to be rebuilt.
A
full reopening of the strait will eventually cause fertilizer prices to
fall, but they will remain above their prewar levels for years to come,
said Shawn Arita, an agricultural economist at North Dakota State
University.
“The spike resolves with the
Strait; the premium resolves with reconstruction, and that looks more
like a 2028 story than a 2027 one,” he wrote in an email.
Chump
may have ended the Iran War he started, he may not have. We won't know
until Friday at the earliest.
But we do know fertilizer will remain high this
year and next. And we can all thank him for that.
The war has set in motion changes that will be hard to reverse.
The
near shutdown in oil and gas deliveries from the Middle East and the
leap in prices are causing a shift in power. Energy producers from the
Gulf to the Americas are jockeying to maintain or increase their
dominance, and customers are struggling to reduce their dependency and shore up their supply.
As a result, the energy market is changing, the energy mix is changing and the energy players are changing.
[. . .]
Inflation
is also starting to roar. In the United States, it rose for the third
month in row, hitting an annual rate of 4.2 percent in May. And instead
of planning for the next drop in interest rates, Wall Street is
expecting the Federal Reserve to increase rates at least once this year.
Last week, the European Central Bank raised rates to 2.25 percent. “The war in the Middle East is generating inflation pressures,” the bank said.
The paper's Emmett Lindner tackles the issue of gas prices:
Drivers
hopeful that the U.S.-Iran framework deal will translate to lower
gasoline prices will probably have to wait weeks, or longer, to see
meaningful improvement.
Energy analysts refer
to the swing of prices as “up like a rocket, down like a feather” — a
phenomenon that means gasoline costs quickly rise alongside the price of
crude oil but are slow to follow its descent.
One
of the main reasons is that gas station owners tend to lose money or
make only small profits when prices are shooting up because they are not
able to raise prices fast enough to make up for soaring costs. So when
wholesale prices start to go down, station owners are slow to bring
retail prices down to make up for their poor financial performance on
the way up.
The average price of regular
gasoline in the United States went up roughly 50 percent between Feb.
28, when the United States and Israel attacked Iran, and the middle of
May. It has receded since then and was $4.04 a gallon on Tuesday,
according to the AAA motor club.
All of the above goes a long way towards detailing the current march away from the GOP. Martha McHardy (DAILY BEAST) explains:
Americans are fed up with the Republican Party, according to a new poll.
Polls have already shown the Republicans trailing the Democrats ahead of the midterm elections amid Trump’s record low approval ratings and concerns about the economy and the war in Iran.
But a new CNN/SSRS poll,
conducted between May 7 and 31 among 2,480 adults, shows Republicans
are facing growing political headwinds ahead of the November elections,
with fewer voters identifying as Republicans.
The
survey found that among registered voters, Democrats now hold a slight
advantage over Republicans, with 31 percent identifying as Democrats
compared to 28 percent who identify as Republicans. Another 41 percent
say they do not identify with either major party.
That
marks a notable reversal from 2024, when Republicans held a three-point
advantage in party identification among registered voters. At that
time, 34 percent identified as Republicans, 31 percent as Democrats, and
35 percent said they belonged to neither party.
Young children often struggle to
admit blame. Demented old man can suffer from the same avoidance. With
young children, their emotional regulating is still developing and a
mistake can cause them to question their self-worth and activate
feelings of shame. Apparently, elderly men suffering from dementia,
like Donald Chump, go through something similar. Owen Scott (INDEPENDENT) reports:
The
Trump administration has hit out at former President Obama after the
Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool water turned green, despite a
much-touted $14 million renovation.
Work on the
pool was completed last week, after President Donald Trump vowed to
paint the space an “American flag blue.” However, the familiar green
algae often spotted in the pool returned just days later.
The
Washington Post revealed on Tuesday the latest cost estimates for
President Donald Trump’s highly controversial ballroom, which he
promised the American people would be funded entirely by private donors.
The Post obtained
a “detailed project summary prepared for the White House by the
contractor” that instead showed the cost would come in at $600 million,
with over half the cost being burdened by the public. Even more
remarkable, the Post notes, Trump received the estimate three weeks
before publicly saying the project would cost $400 million and include
no public funding.
“This is taxpayer-free. We have
no taxpayer putting up 10 cents,” Trump declared in the Oval Office on
March 31, well after receiving the estimate.
“President
Trump and generous American patriots are funding the ballroom to the
tune of approximately $400 million, which will be a secure and
appropriate venue for Presidents for generations to come,” White House
spokesman Davis Ingle wrote in a statement to the Post.
The
Post also reached out to the contractor that prepared the estimate,
McLean, Virginia-based Clark Construction, which said through a
spokesperson that “all project details are confidential and referred
questions to the White House.”
On the topic of childish Chump and actual children, he continues his war on education. Annie Ma (AP) reports,
"President Donald Trump’s administration is further dismantling the
Department of Education, moving oversight of special education and civil
rights to other agencies. The Department of Justice will take on
enforcement of civil rights in education, while the Department of Health
and Human Services will oversee special education. The Trump
administration made the announcement on Tuesday." Bianca Quilantan, Mackenzie Wilkes and Rebecca Carballo (POLITICO) add:
The
shift of special education in particular is likely to garner some
pushback on Capitol Hill, including among Republican lawmakers who want
to ensure that the federal government is meeting its legal obligations
to students with disabilities.
Advocates for
children with disabilities have warned that moving special education out
of the Education Department could derail progress made in educating
students with disabilities and splitting its responsibilities between
multiple agencies could dampen coordination among offices responsible
for enforcing civil rights laws and carrying out K-12 programs. The
special education office is also responsible for ensuring states are in
compliance with the federal disability education law.
As
of last June, over 30 states and territories need assistance with
meeting IDEA requirements for students with disabilities ages 3-21. And
roughly 20 states and territories need assistance meeting federal
mandates for early intervention services for infants and toddlers,
according to an analysis of Education Department information. A handful
of states “need intervention” which could mean a state has to create an
improvement plan or strike a compliance deal with the federal
government.
Zachary Schermele (USA TODAY) points out, "The
announcement is also the latest attempt by the Trump administration to
use so-called "interagency agreements" to, effectively, kill the
Education Department without congressional action. Over the past year,
the Education Department has initiated more than a half dozen
partnerships with other federal agencies, including the Labor and
Interior Departments, to outsource much of its work." He's dismantling
the entire cabinet. Arthur Jones II (ABC NEWS) notes, "President Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on closing the agency."
Turning to Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin is the Secretary of the department and Kenneth P. Vogel and Christina Jewett (NEW YORK TIMES) report a 'woopsie!' on his part:
For
years, federal health officials have warned about the risks associated
with a supplement derived from the leaves of kratom trees that adherents
say can kill pain or boost energy. Sold in gas stations across America,
kratom has been linked to liver toxicity, seizures and thousands of
deaths.
Powerful figures close to President
Trump, including Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, pushed to
downplay those concerns.
Mr. Mullin, until
recently a Republican senator from Oklahoma, played a key role in a
sprawling influence campaign spearheaded by the kratom industry that
courted Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Vice President JD
Vance, among others in the Trump administration, an investigation by The
New York Times found.
Only when he was
nominated by Mr. Trump in March to lead the Homeland Security Department
did it become clear that Mr. Mullin had a financial connection to the
supplement. In a disclosure statement,
he listed an investment worth as much as $1 million in a kratom
company, Botanic Tonics, that could benefit from the changes he has
sought.
[. . .]
In
July, while still a senator, Mr. Mullin showed up at a Food and Drug
Administration news conference and endorsed proposed federal
restrictions on more powerful synthetic supplements that compete with
kratom for shelf space. In explaining his position, Mr. Mullin pointed
to a history of addiction in his family, though health experts say
kratom products have also been shown to be addictive.
His
disclosure form did not indicate when he acquired his stake in Botanic
Tonics, but he has not filed paperwork to indicate that he has divested
from it.
The Homeland Security Department did
not answer questions about the investment. In a statement, the
department said that Mr. Mullin “follows all ethics and conflict of
interest standards and has not lobbied for any individual or company.”
It's
been months since the Department of Homeland Security issued a press
release accusing a Rhode Island federal judge of knowingly ordering the
release of an international homicide suspect in a habeas corpus case. The falsehood is still online
in its original form to this day, "despite the government's knowledge
that it is false," and the suspect remains at large, according to the
court. And now, a DOJ lawyer has been called on the carpet for making
the equivalent of an "affirmative false statement" to protect his
client.
On Tuesday, the
U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island provided
Law&Crime with a statement and the outcome of an investigation into
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Bolan. Law&Crime previously reported
that U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose, in late April, granted the release
of Bryan Rafael Gomez. In response, DHS posted a press release calling
the ruling "yet another example of an activist judge trying to thwart
President Trump's mandate from the American people to remove criminal
illegal aliens from our communities."
The
problem then and the problem now is that the government claimed DuBose
knew Gomez had a homicide warrant out for his arrest in the Dominican
Republic, but that the Joe Biden-appointed judge ordered his release
anyway to endanger the American public. Once the judge forced Bolan to
testify in court, however, it became clear that DuBose had no such
knowledge about the warrant.
Bolan said that he
"sincerely" apologized for the "consequences" of his "lack of
disclosure," claiming he was following ICE's guidance that he was not
allowed to "disclose that information," not knowing that ICE "had
previously disclosed that same information on April 16, 2026," and
publicly, though not directly to DuBose.
In case that representation wasn't clear enough, acting Attorney
General Todd Blanche's name appeared on a filing that clarified DuBose
"did not have knowledge at the time of her ruling that Gomez was wanted
by authorities in the Dominican Republic."
When
DuBose questioned Bolan during a show-cause hearing, he said he reached
out to anyone capable of getting the DHS post taken down, but those
efforts were in vain. The judge heard the apology and explanation but
nonetheless referred the matter for potential disciplinary action,
considering the government's withholding of "highly relevant information
and their lack of candor to this Court[.]"
The top federal judge in Rhode Island is slamming the Trump administration for unfairly issuing a “public attack” on one of his colleagues that “put her in personal danger and undermined public faith in the federal courts.”
The
statement Tuesday comes after a special counsel he appointed to
investigate alleged misconduct by a Justice Department attorney
concluded that the lawyer had made a serious ethical violation, but that
he should not face formal disciplinary proceedings.
Chief
Judge John McConnell said that that a special counsel “found sufficient
evidence to conclude” that Kevin Bolan, a top lawyer in the Rhode
Island US attorney’s office, hadn’t followed his obligation to be honest
and transparent in court when he deliberately withheld information
about a years-old homicide arrest warrant for a migrant. District Judge
Melissa DuBose later ordered officials to release the migrant from ICE
custody.
[. . .]
The
situation in Rhode Island is among a series of professional mishaps by
Justice Department lawyers over the past 16 months that have frustrated
federal judges sifting through thousands of cases stemming from
President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation push and other
controversial moves that have been challenged in court.
Earlier
this month, a different judge in the Ocean State referred several other
government attorneys for disciplinary proceedings after their conduct
in a case over the administration’s probe into the provision of
gender-affirming care for minors raised questions about whether they
were acting improperly in court.
Miss Sassy JD
Vance has a book to sell and with his personality? It's a stretch.
But he's going around to anyone who will have him. Monday it was FOX
AND FRIENDS. Kathleen O'Boyle (THE MIRROR) notes the reaction to that appearance:
But
while the vice president spoke about the alleged threat, social media
was zoned in on what some viewers believed was his eyeliner.
One
person wrote, “JD Vance [went] heavy on the eyeliner this morning.”
“Guess the Senate’s new makeup includes a touch of glam, because even
politicians need a good winged liner for those filibuster selfies,”
someone else responded.
A third
person joked, “JD: I’m sorry, but My Chemical Romance is not going to
hire you as their rhythm guitarist.” “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe
it’s Maybelline,” one person quipped.
Another
added, “The more stress he’s under the more eyeliner JD applies,” and
one more saying, ““This is very, very dark stuff.” Clearly referring to
his guyliner.”
“What’s up with JD Vance using heavy eyeliner this morning on Fox and Friends?” a final person asked.
This
is not the first time Vance’s appearance has sparked conversation
online. He has long faced speculation about whether he wears eye makeup
or has enhanced lashes. During the 2024 election debates, viewers, both
familiar and unfamiliar with Vance, questioned his appearance, with some
suggesting he appeared to be wearing makeup around his eyes.
Yesterday, he stopped by THE VIEW.
Sunny Hostin then brought up the Epstein files, asking why the administration has yet to release the entirety of the documents.
“I
wanted to have full transparency. What I disagree with is the idea the
White House wasn’t committed to full transparency,” Vance said. He
added, “I have to defend my boss,” noting that “Epstein hated Donald
Trump” because “Trump literally reported Jeffrey Epstein to the police.”
(According to a recently released FBI interview summary, Trump
reportedly told police officers in Florida “thank goodness you’re
stopping him” in relation to Epstein in 2006.)
Behar
pushed back on Vance, saying of Trump and Epstein, “They were best
friends for a decade.” And Navarro argued that Trump and Epstein’s
fallout had nothing to do with the latter’s sex crimes but rather a
“real estate deal they got into a fight over.” “Let’s be truthful and
transparent. They didn’t just know each other. They were close friends,”
she said.
CNN's Brian Stelter notes the Epstein moments as follows:
On
the topic of Epstein, he confirmed reporting in Maggie Haberman and
Jonathan Swan’s forthcoming book “Regime Change” that says White House
chief of staff Susie Wiles privately described Vance as a conspiracy
theorist.
“I love Susie, but absolutely, she
thinks I’m a conspiracy theorist on the Epstein stuff,” he said,
“because I think that it’s crazy that you had this guy who is clearly a
sex predator who was hanging out with a lot of very wealthy and powerful
people. Like, that really bothered me. I don’t know what’s there, of
course, nobody knows exactly what happened unless you were there, but
that really bothered me, and I wanted to have full transparency.”
Vance
repeatedly pushed back when the co-hosts pointed out Trump’s past ties
to Epstein. He falsely suggested that the friendship was “back in the
1980s,” when in fact the close relationship was documented throughout
the 1990s.
According to an FBI document, Trump called
the Palm Beach Police Department when the police opened an
investigation into Epstein in the mid-2000s and said, “Thank goodness
you’re stopping him. Everyone has known he’s been doing this.”
Vance
depicted the call this way: Trump “narced on him to the police and led
ultimately to Jeffrey Epstein’s downfall.” But an investigation was
already underway at the time.
Vance
told the show that “I have to defend my boss,” and in doing so, he
cited how Trump kicked Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago resort and reported
Epstein to police, according to the files.
He
also signed the Epstein Transparency Act, Vance said, only to be told by
Ana Navarro that this was done “under duress” after a MAGA backlash and
dissent within his own ranks.
Vance rejected this. “I was there, he called the senators and said, you know what, pass this bill, I’ll sign it,” he insisted.
“Why haven’t we seen the release of over 2.5 million additional Epstein final documents?” asked Sunny Hosten.
“I’m
going to check on this to make sure, but my understanding is that a lot
of those are duplicates of things that have already been released,”
Vance replied.
“We’re not holding anything back.”
What
I disagree with is the idea that the White House wasn't committed to
full transparency. We need to remember, like, I was inside the room when
some of these decisions were made.
Yes, he was. And last week, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan (NEW YORK TIMES) reported on
the Situation Room meetings of Todd Blanche, Pam Bondi, Susie Wiles, JD
Vance and other members of the administration to plot on how to deceive
the American people about Epstein and specifically Chump's closeness to
Epstein. That would have been a strong topic to address.
In other news, Nicole Charky-Chami (RAW STORY) notes:
Ghislaine
Maxwell has reportedly assembled a "highly secretive" prison group
behind bars as more details behind her incarceration at a minimum
security facility have been revealed, The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.
The
former partner and co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein has befriended
three women and allegedly sees them as the "finest and best educated"
among the population at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas, according to
The Mail. These friends include Bethany Cataldi, 54, "a disgraced
doctor serving eight years for charging the government for non-existent
procedures." Another is former CFO Antonietta Nguyen, 58, "who plundered
$9 million from company funds to splurge on purses and luxury
vacations."
Maxwell's reported
best friend is Jennifer Bengston Cook, 58, a former bookkeeper who
"wrote checks worth $1.6 million to herself."
"They
are highly secretive. They whisper to one another and cover their
mouths so nobody can understand what they are saying," a source told The
Mail.
There are also reports of special privileges
for Maxwell behind bars, including the decision over who she bunks with
at the location. She has also only had one roommate, while most other
prisoners have to bunk with two other people.
"The
cozy arrangement caused a stink because it's normally up to prison
counsellors to decide who sleeps where inside the 37-acre compound that
accommodates 635 women," The Mail reported.
Yesterday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued the following:
Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, issued the following statement after Todd Blanche’s Bureau of Prisons (BOP) failed to answer basic questions relating the Committees’ investigation into Ghislaine Maxwell’s unprecedented prison transfer and preferential treatment at Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan, following a Committee staff visit to the facility.
“Today, investigators from our Committees traveled to FPC Bryan, where Ghislaine Maxwell is serving her sentence, despite BOP policies barring sex offenders from this minimum-security facility absent a special waver. We went to Camp Bryan seeking answers about Ms. Maxwell’s unprecedented transfer and VIP treatment.
“While the Camp Bryan staff provided an extensive tour of the grounds and programming of the facility, Bureau of Prisons leadership repeatedly shut down our lines of questioning or could not provide basic information about our central concerns, including Ms. Maxwell’s extraordinary treatment, allegations of sexual assault at the facility, and retaliation against inmates who tried to blow the whistle. We also have serious concerns about the accuracy and veracity of information received by our investigative staff.
“The American people are tired of seeing the Trump Administration pamper a sex trafficker and obstruct Congress’s investigation into Attorney General Blanche’s role in ensuring Ms. Maxwell remains comfortable and quiet.
“This investigation will continue.”
###
Meanwhile Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) reports:
In
a note written on July 22, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein appeared to portray
himself “as a victim of the #MeToo movement,” and also compared his
situation to the 19th century antisemitic persecution of a French Army
officer, The New York Times revealed Tuesday after obtaining a collection of “never seen before” notes from the convicted child sex offender.
The
note in question was written four days after Epstein had been denied
bail, and scrawled across the top was the phrase “J’ACCUSE,” which
roughly translates to “I accuse” in English. The phrase, the Times
notes, is a likely reference to the 1898 open letter of the same name
accusing the French government of antisemitism for the persecution of
Alfred Dreyfus, a military officer who was falsely accused of espionage
and imprisoned on a brutal prison island.
“‘Jewish
– Rich – Politics,’ he wrote, seemingly comparing himself to Dreyfus,”
the Times’ report reads. “‘Believe the victim = Believe the Accuser’ he
wrote, adding, ‘CRAZY!’”
It would also be just
hours later after the note was written that Epstein would be discovered
in his cell semi-conscious with a noose around his neck in what was
reported to be a suicide attempt, though Epstein initially claimed his cellmate had attacked him before walking the allegation back.
Of
course, many people attempted to help him make and form that argument
over the years. Intellectual Noem Chomsky was one. Kathy Ruemmler was
another.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Murray slams the Inter-Agency Agreements inked today by the Education Department to offload the responsibilities of the Office for Civil Rights to Todd Blanche’s DOJ and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to RFK Jr.’s HHS
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement on Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s announcement today that the Department of Education is illegally transferring the responsibilities of the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through Inter-Agency Agreements (IAA).
“The Trump administration is abandoning kids with disabilities and its most basic legal responsibility to protect the rights of every student in the classroom.
“After spending the last year smashing the Office for Civil Rights to pieces, President Trump and Secretary McMahon are now turning to Todd Blanche to deliver the final blow. And after spending months vowing she would protect students with disabilities, Secretary McMahon is ignoring the families of students with disabilities who pleaded with her not to entrust RFK Jr. with the responsibility of ensuring their kids get the education they deserve. It makes zero sense to scatter federal education programs all over the government—with different agencies managing different educational programs and each of them lacking the expertise to do it.
“Instead of helping kids get a great education, this administration is spending its time, energy, and taxpayer resources fixated on where employees sit and illegally trying to shutter the Department of Education. It’s an outrageous betrayal that undoes decades of hard-won progress for students. More kids with disabilities will be denied the education they are entitled to by law, and more college students who were harassed or assaulted will go without the justice they are owed.
“Democrats tried hard to block these illegal arrangements in our most recent funding bill, but Republicans refused. It’s past time Republicans join us to say enough is enough. I’m going to keep fighting to force this administration to help students get the education they are entitled to under law.”
OCR is charged with enforcing federal civil rights laws to protect students’ rights in the classroom, and the Department of Education Organization Act of 1979 mandates the existence of the Office for Civil Rights at the Education Department to carry out these responsibilities.
Last year, the Trump administration thoughtlessly eliminated more than half of the staff in the Office for Civil Rights and closed half of the regional field offices, and in the time since, there has been a precipitous drop-off in the resolution of students’ cases. In 2025, the Department reached the lowest number of resolutions in 12 years and reached zero resolutions for students facing serious incidents including sexual harassment, sexual violence, seclusion, restraint, racial harassment, and discriminatory school discipline. Senator Murray has mobilized against the administration’s efforts to hollow out OCR, called out how it’s hurt students and families, and she’s repeatedly pressed Secretary McMahon on the issue.
OSERS is charged with implementing and enforcing the Rehabilitation Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which mandate that students with disabilities get the free appropriate public education and independence they deserve. In April, Senator Murray pressed Secretary McMahon on her plans to potentially offload OSERS’ responsibilities and told McMahon: “That is exactly why these parents and advocates are spitting mad because what they want to make sure is that their child with a disability has an education.”
Senator Murray has aggressively pushed back against Secretary McMahon’s efforts to dismantle the Department, including through the illegal use of IAAs, and she fought to insert ironclad language in the fiscal year 2026 funding bill for the Department that would bar Secretary McMahon from using IAAs to dismantle the Department—but Republicans refused to include new, binding language that would block arrangements like the ones announced today.
###
Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Miss Sassy Has A Book To Sell" and "Bet He Had To Sit By Himself At Lunch As Well" went up last night. The following sites -- plus Ann's "The racists" and Kat's "Taylor Swift, Bonnie Tyler, Carly Simon" -- updated:
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Chump's hissy fit7 hours ago
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Junior freaks out7 hours ago
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Kenny Loggins7 hours ago
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The Theory of the Vulgar Class1 day ago
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