The WSJ ahead of the weekend published a story called, "Lindsey Graham's Quest to Sell Trump on Striking Iran." In that piece, there is a nugget about the senator engaging in a campaign to help Netanyahu to persuade Trump to launch an Iran war.
"To help make the case on Iran, Graham traveled several times to Israel in recent weeks, meeting with members of the country's intelligence agency," the Journal reported Friday.
Graham is quoted in the article as saying, "They'll tell me things our own government won't tell me."
The report further states, "He spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, coaching him on how to lobby the president for action. Netanyahu showed the president intelligence that persuaded Trump to go ahead, Graham said."
Appearing on MS NOW over the weekend, Gillespie highlighted the hypocrisy of Trump's position on Iran, noting that he initially claimed military strikes would empower Iranians to choose their own leader—only to reverse course days later by declaring his intention to heavily influence Iran's next leader.
"A leader without followers is just a guy out taking a walk," Gillespie said, invoking a famous John Boehner quote. She warned that Trump is rapidly losing support among his core base.
President Trump insisted on Friday that the United States had no shortage of munitions with which to pummel Iran, even as concern grew about the risk that a monthslong war could deplete American weapons stocks and that the Pentagon would need to ask Congress for funding to replenish them.
Mr. Trump, after meeting at the White House with executives from seven major defense contractors, said the companies had already agreed to quadruple their production of what Mr. Trump referred to as “‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry,” in an apparent reference to sophisticated air defenses and cruise missiles. He said the increase would come “as rapidly as possible” to “the highest levels of quantity,” though it was not clear how long such a ramp-up would take and how much the initiative went beyond a similar one that the administration announced in January.
American forces are no longer capable of supplying missiles to U.S. allies amid its war with Iran.
Andrius Kubilius, the European Union’s defense and space commissioner, said Friday that the continent is facing a “huge challenge” in stepping up its defense production to adequately fill the gap left by the U.S. with regards to Ukraine.
“It’s very clear that after the Iranian crisis ... it became more urgent for us in Europe to ramp up production of air defense and anti-ballistic missiles,” Kubilius said in Warsaw. “Americans really will not be able to provide enough of those missiles, both for the Gulf countries, for [the] American army itself, and also for Ukrainian needs.”
For two weeks, AlbĂ© Sanchez didn’t leave their house in South Minneapolis.
“[I was] forced into survival mode,” Sanchez told Uncloseted Media and Rewire News Group (RNG). “I felt like there was an invisible wall [to the outside world] that I couldn’t cross unless I really wanted to put myself in a place where there was a chance that I might not be able to come back.”
Queer and Mexican American, Sanchez was afraid of being targeted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence in their neighborhood, even though they are a U.S. citizen.
“Every day is a risk,” they say, adding that even if they have paperwork, if they fit the profile, they are a target, making it scary to go even to work or the grocery store.
Sanchez, a 30-year-old sexual health care educator, has been taking oral PrEP, the daily preventive medication for HIV, for over a decade. But the mounting stress of ICE raids has made it harder to keep up with dosing.
“A missed dose here and there pushed me to make the appointment [for something more sustainable],” they say.
Sanchez says they felt like somebody would have their back at their local clinic. It was only a 10-minute drive from where they worked, they knew its staff from previous visits and community outreach, and they could count on finding Spanish-speaking staff and providers of Latino heritage. But not everybody has had that same experience accessing care.
Since ICE’s Operation Metro Surge began in early December, an increasing number of Latino patients in Minnesota are delaying or canceling what can be lifesaving care for the prevention and treatment of HIV.
These findings are particularly alarming for Latino communities, who, as of 2023, are 72 percent more likely than the general U.S. population to be diagnosed with HIV. And while overall infections have decreased, cases among Latinos increased by 24 percent between 2010 and 2022.
“I’m very concerned that there is going to be a sharp uptick in transmission,” says Alex Palacios, a community health specialist in the Minneapolis area.
Body camera footage newly obtained by CBS News shows the moments leading up to and after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot US citizen Ruben Ray Martinez in March 2025 and contradicts the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the killing.
Martinez was 23 when an agent killed him in his car last spring in South Padre Island, Texas. Local news outlets reported on his death at the time, but described it only as an “officer-involved” shooting. Last month, ICE finally confirmed that one of its agents killed Martinez.
But DHS, ICE’s parent agency, was quick to deflect blame. DHS claimed that Martinez “intentionally ran over” an agent “resulting in him being on the hood of the vehicle,” adding that a separate agent “fired defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public.”
The footage released by CBS on Friday tells a different story.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement are trying to deport a journalist covering immigration, in one of the most egregious attacks on freedom of speech under Donald Trump’s administration so far, Migrant Insider reported Friday.
Estefany Maria RodrĂguez Flores, a reporter who’d been covering a series of immigration raids in Nashville, Tennessee, was headed to the gym with her husband Wednesday when her vehicle was swarmed by federal agents. Her car bore the name of her newsroom, Nashville Noticias.
The agents did not produce a warrant for her arrest, her attorney told Migrant Insider. They simply presented her with a Notice to Appear—the first of many steps toward deportation.
Reports emerged this week of the death of two more immigrants in the custody of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Emmanuel Damas, 56, a Haitian asylum seeker, reportedly died from an infection linked to a toothache that his family said went untreated for two weeks while Damas was incarcerated at the Florence Correctional Center in Arizona.
Damas appears to be the tenth person to die while in ICE custody in 2026, which would bring the total number of people to die while incarcerated by the agency under President Donald Trump to at least 39. Damas’s death was first reported by the Arizona Daily Star on March 4. That day, ICE announced that 48-year-old Alberto Gutierrez-Reyes had died in a California hospital on February 27 after falling ill at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, where the population has skyrocketed in recent months.
Chandler City Councilwoman Christine Ellis, a Haitian American and registered nurse representing the Arizona community near the prison where Damas was incarcerated, spoke to his family and relayed information to local journalists. ICE has not released a statement on Damas and did not immediately respond to a request from Truthout.
[. . .]
While ICE has not yet made an official announcement of Damas’s death, the agency did release a statement on the death of Gutierrez-Reyes, who died last month.
Austin Kocher, a research assistant professor at Syracuse University who analyzes ICE data, noted that the statement made a startling and easily debunked claim: “This is the best health care that many aliens have received in their entire lives.”
“When the [Department of Homeland Security] Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs asserts through official channels that ICE detention provides the best healthcare many detainees have ever received, that claim does not merely describe a policy reality or a policy aspiration,” Kocher wrote on March 4. “It actively forecloses accountability by reframing systemic neglect as institutional generosity.”
According to Kocher, there is no way to reconcile the claim that ICE detention provides “the best healthcare” many detainees have ever received with what Damas experienced at Florence Correctional Center, a state prison that contracts with ICE.
“What Damas experienced in the weeks before his death … is not a one-off experience,” Kocher wrote. “At this point, it’s a well-documented pattern in which complaints go unaddressed, suffering is dismissed or mocked, and transfer to emergency medical care comes only after immigrants’ bodies have already begun to fail.”
Well, as Johnny Rotten said when Elvis kicked it (quite unfairly, in that case), “Good riddance to bad rubbish.” Outside of Stephen Miller, Noem is probably the purest fascist among Trump’s second-term frontline appointees. I say this because she understands spectacle, which is such a key element of the fascist worldview. The visual humiliation of those deemed to be human vermin by the regime in power sits at the heart of the historical fascist project. Those photos of her standing in front of the nearly naked prisoners of CECOT with her Rolex prominently displayed might constitute the single most indelibly fascist image of this presidency.
So that’s the first piece of bad news about Noem’s departure: It happened for the wrong reasons. The second piece of bad news is that it’s unlikely to produce much substantive change. Markwayne Mullin, whom Trump has nominated for the job, and whom we must assume will be confirmed by his fellow senators, doesn’t seem like someone whose ideas about the world are terribly different from Noem’s.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, President Donald Trump’s next pick for Homeland Security secretary, consistently uses his social media platforms to share anti-abortion and anti-trans content.
Mullin, a former MMA fighter who has long championed Trump and thinks of him as a “true friend,” has repeatedly referred to abortion as “murder.” Last month, he shared a clip on Instagram saying he would be arrested for “assault” of a “high school male pretending to be a girl” if a transgender wrestler went up against his daughter in the sport.
As Trump announced Thursday in a Truth Social post, Mullin is poised to replace Kristi Noem at the Department of Homeland Security after she reportedly fell out of the president and key Republicans’ graces.
If confirmed, Mullin will oversee the Trump administration’s mass detention and deportation campaign, an effort that has proved uniquely dangerous for pregnant people and transgender migrants. Under his leadership, the already hazardous situation could continue unchanged—or worsen. His appointment is also the latest in a string of Trump handpicking leaders who hold anti-abortion and anti-trans views.
Democrats are preparing to launch investigations into Kristi Noem’s conduct at the Department of Homeland Security.
Noem was removed from her post Thursday by President Trump, who has appointed her as the newly created special envoy for “The Shield of Americas.” But now, Democrats in Congress as well as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are taking aim at Noem for the widespread misconduct and lawless behavior at DHS under her watch.
“We need a reckoning with the fact that there were murders that took place under her watch,” Representative Jamie Raskin told NBC News Thursday after her removal. “There was mass violence and violation of people’s civil rights and civil liberties. There’s been intense corruption, and there’s been rampant lying in the courts and disobeying of court orders.”
“She abused her power. She engaged in corruption. She spent millions of taxpayer funds on a luxury jet fleet with beautiful bedrooms, and her masked federal agents killed Americans,” Representative Ted Lieu said. “We’ll definitely investigate anyone within DHS who violated criminal law.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal, the ranking member of the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, wants the panel to investigate Noem for perjury because at a hearing Tuesday, she denied that her aide and rumored boyfriend, Corey Lewandowski, had any say in how DHS handled its funding.
“Her firing doesn’t absolve her or relieve her of potential liability for perjury,” Blumenthal said. “We are going to pursue an investigation of the evidence that she lied, because it relates to corruption in the administration.”
The Justice Department released F.B.I. documents on Thursday describing several interviews with a woman who made an accusation against President Trump. The pages had been previously withheld from the vast trove of documents related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein because of what officials called a mistaken determination that they were duplicates.
The typewritten notes recounted multiple interviews the F.B.I. conducted in 2019 with the woman, who said she had been sexually assaulted by both Mr. Epstein and Mr. Trump. She came forward shortly after Mr. Epstein was arrested that summer on charges of federal sex trafficking.
Her accusations against Mr. Trump date back to the 1980s, when she was a teenager. Her description of being assaulted by Mr. Trump is among a number of uncorroborated accusations against well-known men, including the president, contained in the millions of documents released by the Justice Department.
The department had already released documents describing the existence of the memos released Thursday, indicating that the F.B.I. had conducted four interviews related to her claims and had written summaries of each conversation. But only one of those interviews, in which she described being assaulted by Mr. Epstein, appeared to be included in the initial release, raising questions about why the remaining three were missing.
The documents detail an FBI interview in 2019 with a woman who alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1980s, when she was between the ages of 13 and 15 years old.
The allegations within the documents have not been corroborated by any additional evidence. However, the decision to exclude them from the Epstein files database has led to widespread suspicion that the DOJ was concealing them on Trump’s behalf, in violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which prohibits files from being restricted for the purpose of protecting someone’s reputation.
For years, Trump’s conservative backers have attacked LGBTQ+ people, drag queens, immigrants, and others, claiming a desire to protect women and children from rapists and groomers. Trump even boasted that “whether the women liked it or not,” he would “protect” them from migrants, whom he slandered as “monsters” who “kidnap and kill our children.”
But when given the opportunity to seek justice for countless women and children who were trafficked, abused, and exploited by the world’s wealthiest, most powerful people, the MAGA movement and its leaders have shown a startling disinterest in accountability. During her hearing Bondi tried desperately to deflect attention, claiming that the stock market was more deserving of public attention than Epstein’s victims.
Even the Republican rank-and-file is now mysteriously detached from the Epstein files.
Dr. Bernard Kruger, a doctor in Manhattan, has stepped away from roles at two concierge medicine practices after the public disclosure of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy sex offender who died in a jail cell in 2019.
The head of one practice, the Atria Health and Research Institute, sent an email to employees on Monday saying that Dr. Kruger had “recently retired and is no longer involved with Atria.” He had been a part-time, nonpracticing physician there, the email said.
A spokeswoman for the other practice, Sollis Health, a private emergency room, said on Friday that Dr. Kruger was on leave from the company’s board of directors “pending a review launched by management in consultation with external legal counsel when it became aware of Dr. Kruger’s past interactions with Jeffrey Epstein.”
The doctor had been part of a small circle of specialists catering to Mr. Epstein in the last decade of his life, The New York Times reported last week.
[. . .]
Dr. Kruger was a longtime physician to Mr. Epstein. In 2016, a private emergency room in Manhattan that he co-founded charged Mr. Epstein $15,000 for an annual membership that covered him and five “girls,” emails show. An accountant told Mr. Epstein that the practice — called Priority Private Care at the time, but now Sollis Health — did not require naming the patients, which would give him “more flexibility.” (A spokeswoman for Sollis said names were added later, and also said Dr. Kruger had never been a practicing physician there.)
Dr. Kruger’s medical office in Manhattan also appears to have allowed Mr. Epstein to book appointments without using names. In one case in 2018, the office sought to reschedule an appointment for “Jeffrey’s assistant” but didn’t know which assistant. (It turned out to be a lawyer close with Mr. Epstein, and Dr. Kruger’s spokesman said the doctor never saw patients without knowing their identities.)
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Murray: “It has become all too clear that Republicans would rather keep DHS shut down than work with Democrats to prevent more Americans from being killed by masked federal agents.”
Murray: “Instead of blocking bills to pay TSA agents—or wasting time with dead-on-arrival legislation—Republicans should finally listen to their constituents who want to see ICE reined in—and work with us to enact the reforms we need. I remain ready to get it done.”
***WATCH: Senator Murray’s floor remarks***
Washington, D.C. — Today—as Republicans set up more failed votes on the Homeland Security funding bill and drag their feet on common-sense reforms to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, spoke on the Senate floor and pushed to pass a new bill that would fund every agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—except ICE, CBP, and the Office of the Secretary—while negotiations continue to rein in ICE and Border Patrol.
However, Senate Republicans blocked Senator Murray’s request to pass the bill through unanimous consent—after they underscored all week that it is imperative that Congress fund the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other important DHS functions.
As negotiations proceed on measures to rein in ICE and Border Patrol, the legislation Senator Murray introduced today:
- Funds FEMA, TSA, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Secret Service, CISA, and other important DHS components.
- Excludes funding for ICE, CBP, and the Office of the Secretary.
Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:
“It has been nearly six weeks—six weeks—since Alex Pretti was killed by masked federal agents in broad daylight. It has been over nine weeks since Renee Good was killed.
“And day after day, week after week, we have seen Americans brutalized by an out-of-control Department of Homeland Security.
“American citizens detained without cause. Children ripped away from their families as this administration treats them like political pawns in their sick games. We’ve seen peaceful protestors have their windows broken in by untrained and unidentifiable agents. And we’ve seen more people get hurt and even die because of how ICE and Border Patrol have been conducting themselves.
“And this entire time, Democrats have been pushing for serious reform to rein in these agencies.
“For months, I have been at the table, in good faith, pushing to secure basic accountability measures for ICE and Border Patrol. We are talking about standards local police already follow across the country.
“But even before Alex Pretti was shot and killed, Republicans and this White House, in particular, were telling us ‘no’ on many basic reforms that would rein in ICE and CBP.
“We pushed for common-sense steps to make sure that poorly trained agents and officers do not trample the basic rights of American citizens and kill them for no reason. And we pushed for steps to prevent these rogue agencies from hiding the facts from the public and sweeping everything under the rug.But my colleagues across the aisle came back to us and said, ‘Sorry, we cannot agree to those.’
“Sometimes, my Republican colleagues were willing to take one modest step or another, which I appreciated—only to come back to say the White House was not willing to do it and that they had to hold the line. Or worse, they backtracked on measures we had agreed to because of fears of what the White House would think.
“And now, here we find ourselves—nearly six weeks after Alex Pretti’s brutal killing and Republicans have so far continued to refuse to join us to pass any common-sense reforms to prevent more Americans from being hurt—or even killed—by masked federal agents.
“As I have said many times: we are not asking for the moon. We are asking for basic steps to protect Americans’ constitutional rights—and their safety.
“There is nothing new or controversial about body cameras—or requiring identification be displayed. There is nothing extreme about insisting ICE and Border Patrol follow the same standards as everyone else when it comes to use of force or needing a warrant before smashing in someone’s door and dragging them away.
“These are common sense, and they are overwhelmingly popular. This is what the American people are demanding.
“But Republicans have decided they would rather shut down DHS than work with us to rein in these rogue agencies. Republicans know full well—Democrats want to ensure TSA, CISA, FEMA and other important agencies are funded.
“What Democrats have a problem with—is funding rogue agencies that are actively violating court orders and our civil rights, and putting Americans’ safety at risk. We cannot, we will not, cut a blank check—funding without reforms—for ICE and Border Patrol.
“But if Republicans keep dragging their feet on those basic reforms we are asking for, to protect people from these rogue federal agencies, then we should at least make sure that TSA agents get paid, and FEMA is fully funded while those negotiations continue.
“TSA agents should not go without pay because Republicans refuse to agree to commonsense reforms instead of cutting another blank check for Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller to terrorize Americans.
“So yes, let’s pay our Coast Guard and our TSA agents, let’s replenish the Disaster Relief Fund, and support other work that we overwhelmingly all agree on.
“I have a bill, that I will offer in a moment, that will do that, and we can pass it right now while pressing ahead with negotiations on ICE and Border Patrol to get basic reforms and accountability the American people want.
“All week, I have heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle loudly say funding for DHS could not be more important in this moment. They have argued the instability this President has unleashed with his reckless war in Iran means Democrats must fund DHS—including ICE—with no reforms at all.
“Now, there are some obvious problems with that argument—like the bizarre notion that because Trump started a reckless war with Iran, Democrats now must run and rush and cut ICE a blank check, or the fact that the biggest threat to cyber and counterterrorism work at DHS seems to be Kristi Noem who by the way, over the last year, has gutted CISA and has taken folks off the [counter]terrorism beat to deport farmworkers with no criminal history.
“Well put all that aside—I completely agree that we should fund our cyber defense agency, and FEMA, and TSA.
“So, I hope my Republican colleagues, who also believe, I know they do, that these agencies are important, and who have been making the case that they do need funding immediately—will join with me to get this bill passed today, while talks on ICE, Border Patrol, and much-needed reform and accountability measures can continue.
[MURRAY’S RESPONSE TO REPUBLICAN OBJECTION]
“Unfortunately, what has become very clear is that Republicans would rather keep DHS shut down than work with Democrats to prevent more Americans from being killed by masked federal agents.
“My Democratic colleagues and I have been very, very clear on the reforms we need. It is not secret, and we have been pushing for them for weeks on end—in good faith—to finalize a DHS bill that funds TSA and FEMA while reining in ICE and CBP.
“But Republicans and the White House have—now for months—refused to agree to the basic reforms we need to keep Americans safe. And they have said again and again that we need to fund FEMA and TSA and other key agencies.
“Well, I just tried to pass a bill that would make sure that those agencies are funded—while talks on reforms and accountability measures for ICE and Border Patrol continue—so guess what? They blocked that too.
“This is not complicated: Democrats want to get TSA officers paid and fund disaster relief, but we will not vote to help Republicans spend one more dime letting Stephen Miller terrorize American cities.
“And we will not vote to cut a blank check so that ICE can barge into Americans’ homes without a warrant. We will not vote to allow ICE agents to continue wearing masks as they terrorize our communities and evade accountability. We need accountability for ICE and Border Patrol.
“And it is not just Democrats saying that, the American people
overwhelmingly agree that Trump and Noem’s lawless rampage has got to
come to an end.
“People feel that way, because we have all seen
what is happening, it is in plain sight. We have all seen the videos of
people that are tackled and pepper sprayed in the face, of protesters
who are gassed for no reason.
“We have seen the horrific shootings of Renee Good and Alex
Pretti, and we have seen Kristi Noem, ICE, and Border Patrol blatantly
lie and slander people like Renee, and Alex, and Marimar Martinez by
falsely calling them domestic terrorists.
“What we have not yet seen is accountability. That has got to end. No amount of Republican revotes on the same failed bill is going to change that.
“And while our bill to fund the Coast Guard, and TSA, and FEMA as negotiations continue was just objected to. So Mr. President, I am ready at any time to pass that, it is the right thing to do.
“Instead of blocking bills to pay TSA agents—or wasting time with dead-on-arrival legislation—I hope that Republicans will listen to what we are asking for, listen to what their constituents are asking for—we need to see ICE have accountability, and work with us to pass those reforms in order to fund that full agency. With that, and with my colleagues, I will continue to work to get that done.”
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Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Perks Of The Job" went up Friday afternoon and the following sites updated:
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Off Today16 hours ago
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Markwayne and other disgusting things21 hours ago
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Markwayne and Junior22 hours ago
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A grifter is getting investigated22 hours ago
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Everything he touches turns to dirt22 hours ago
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Lemon Pasta in the Kitchen22 hours ago
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THE BRIDE!22 hours ago
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Idiot of the Week1 day ago
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