Tuesday, August 5, 2025. Chump is shocked to learn that We The People don't roll over, we fight back to save democracy.
The American people have caught on to the Convicted Felon and that's very upsetting for a con artist like Chump -- the art of the con depends upon the ability to trick the marks. Donald's losing that ability. Peter Wade (ROLLING STONE) reports:
Americans are overwhelmingly skeptical of Donald Trump's handling of
information related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. In a new UMass Amherst
national poll, 70 percent of respondents said Trump is not handling the
Epstein case well, while only 18 percent said he is.
Among respondents who were aware of Epstein, the deceased billionaire
and convicted sex offender, 63 percent agreed that the Trump
administration "is hiding important information" about the case. Of
those who said the administration is hiding information, a staggering 81
percent blamed Trump for it. Others in Trump's orbit also received
blame, including Attorney General Pam Bondi (59 percent), FBI Director
Kash Patel (49 percent), and House Speaker Mike Johnson (47 percent).
Just 16 percent blamed Democrats in Congress.
The president's overall approval rating also took a dive to 38 percent, down six points since April.
This new data seems to back up reports that Trump has lost significant ground
with his MAGA base over the Epstein issue. He came to power in part
because his followers believed he would root out corruption and the deep
state. But as news continues to break about his years-long friendship with Epstein amid reports that Trump is named
multiple times in the files, the president's credibility is fading.
Fifty-nine percent of poll respondents aware of Epstein said they
believe he and Trump were "once good friends."
Trump isn't helping himself either. He complained last week that Epstein "stole" one of his victims
from her job at Trump's Mar-a-Lago property. And the Bureau of Prisons
under Trump recently transferred Epstein's longtime partner, Ghislaine
Maxwell, to a lower-security facility after she met with Deputy U.S.
Attorney General Todd Blanche. Her move to a less strict prison has
drawn scrutiny, considering Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for
sex trafficking.
Lawrence O'Donnell brought the receipts last night on MSNBC explaining what Maxwell had done, how she was a pedophile, how she was a sex trafficker, how she preyed on young girls -- you know, what she was convicted of in a US court of law and sentenced to 20 years in prison for.
Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell is
enjoying cushy new digs at a prison camp that has no cell blocks or
guard towers but does offer a full gym, yoga classes, and a “puppy
program.”
Maxwell, 63, was quietly
transferred last week from a prison in Florida to a minimum-security
camp in Bryan, Texas. Oversight at her new facility is so lax, it
partially relies on the honor system to keep inmates from—quite
literally—walking off its wall-free campus, as three women did in 2017.
Federal Prison Camp, Bryan has been
nicknamed “Club Fed,” as its inmates have access to an outdoor running
track, music programs, intramural competitions, social and cultural
events, and activities like table tennis, prison consultant Michael
Santos says.
At
the facility, Maxwell will be permitted to buy mascara ($13.10),
eyeliner ($1.70), concealer ($7.75), powder ($17), lip gloss ($3.40),
makeup wipes ($9.25), and, the priciest luxury available, L’Oréal Revita
anti-aging cream ($26.00), according to a comissary list obtained by
the Daily Beast. Inmates are allowed to spend $360 a month there.
We all know Maxwell is not American, right? So while Chump works overtime to make life better for Maxwell -- an exploiter of women -- he works just as hard to destroy the lives of immigrants who have come to this country and worked hard to make a life for themselves and their families.
He can do that because he has no core, no belief system. Donald Chump has no religion. I
also tend to doubt the faith of grown women who try to draw attention to
their cleavage with crosses so I dismiss Pam Bondi and Karoline
Leavitt's attempts to promote themselves as alleged Christians. But
does no in the administration grasp religion?
If
they did grasp the bonds of religion, I would have expected them to
realize long, long ago that targeting members of faith would destroy
Chump's war on immigrants quicker than anything else. For example, Shireen Korkzan (EPISCOPAL NEWS SERVICE) reports:
The
Diocese of New York is calling for prayers and sharing news stories,
statements and advocacy efforts on social media in response to the
arrest and detainment of the 20-year-old daughter of an Episcopal
priest, who is from South Korea.
Yeonsoo Go –
whose mother, the Rev. Kyrie Kim, is a priest in the diocese – went to a
routine visa hearing on July 31 at Federal Plaza in Manhattan as part
of the process to renew her visa, which is set to expire in December. An
immigration judge scheduled Go’s next hearing for October. After Go
left the hearing, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents
arrested her outside the building and placed her in federal detention
nearby before relocating her to a facility in Louisiana. Go, who’s being
accused of “overstaying her visa,” has been placed in expedited
deportation proceedings, according to Tricia McLaughlin, assistant
secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.
“[Go’s]
detention represents a disturbing ans unacceptable escalation of
enforcement against individuals in good standing with pending
immigration cases,” the Diocese of New York said in a Facebook post
promoting an Aug. 2 interfaith vigil “calling for Yeonsoo’s immediate
release and for broader accountability in how ICE is targeting
immigrants, students, and family members.” The diocese hosted the public
vigil in collaboration with the Interfaith Center of New York and the
New York Immigration Coalition.
Pushback and the faith community saved Yeonsoo Go who got released late yesterday.
The community came together and said "NO!"
It's what we need to be doing around the country to make clear that no gestapo police force belongs on our streets, that people cannot just be kidnapped off the streets of America, that, as bad as things are, Chump has not yet morphed the country into Nazi Germany.
About
400 people attended an interfaith service inside the Edwards Church on
Sunday afternoon to remember and honor people who were detained in
Massachusetts by immigration officials. Many more could not get into the
service because of the overflow crowd.
Ahead
of the event, Bill Toller of the Western Massachusetts JustFaith
community said in a statement that attendees of the vigil would stand
"in solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters who continue to
be victims of an unjust and cruel system of deportation and unlawful
arrests."
The immigrants are our brothers and sisters and Chump is not going to kidnap them and disappear them without a big fight. He's so stupid that he doesn't realize how big this fight is going to be. He's so stupid he doesn't grasp the important players that will not be on his side to smooth over his crimes.
When
Paul Hunker approached Dallas Bishop Edward Burns to introduce himself
at the bishop’s 2017 installation Mass, he did so almost “sheepishly.”
Hunker, then the lead counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement in Dallas, worried Burns might give him “a hard time.”
Just
a few weeks after President Donald Trump took office and instituted a
travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries, the installation
Mass came at one of the few times in 31 years of working for the agency
that he felt “ashamed to be working for ICE,” Hunker, a longtime member
of the Catholic group Opus Dei, told RNS.
Hunker
retired from ICE in early 2024 and soon after joined a private
immigration law practice. Now, as the second Trump administration
doubles down on a strict immigration policy, Hunker has often found
himself on the opposing side of his former employer. He has criticized
Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship and raised concerns that
Mahmoud Khalil’s detention infringed on First Amendment rights. He has
appeared on conservative-leaning Catholic television network EWTN and on
CBS Texas to share his views and explain immigration policy.
He
typically doesn’t talk about his membership in Opus Dei, seeing public
announcements about it as at odds with his lay identity, but on an EWTN
appearance, Hunker said Catholic teaching on the importance of family
ties had influenced his work at ICE, as he used prosecutorial discretion
to avoid deporting the family members of U.S. citizens.
And
maybe that story is where Chump start to worry about both his lack of faith
and his ignorance of faith? Does he really think he stands a chance of
winning an immigration case against Hunker?
Five
Supreme Court Justices would either be voting with Hunker or recusing
themselves. Or does Chump not know of the ties to Opus Dei that Supreme
Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Brett
Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito have?
He started a war on immigrants and he started this war as stupid as he always is. He had no idea what he was starting, no idea what he was unleashing.
Look at the townhall in Nebraska yesterday that Ben notes on MEIDASTOUCH NEWS this morning.
US House Rep Mike Flood got a taste of America and an insta-poll on American attitudes at that townhall last night.
It was not the victory walk Flood hoped it would be. It was a complete repudiation of Donald Chump.
People are not applauding what Chump has done to Los Angeles. We're all outraged. July 31st, Senator Alex Padilla's office issued the following:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla
(D-Calif.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.)
raised the alarm on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) recent
usage of Predator drones and aerial surveillance against peaceful
protesters in Los Angeles. This surveillance is a clear threat to the
protesters’ privacy and their constitutional rights guaranteed by the
First Amendment.
In their letter
to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the Senators likened
DHS’ aerial surveillance to authoritarian regimes controlling dissent
and warned of the risks of using this technology to target communities
of color. They noted that DHS did not give any justification for its use
of the drones, nor any details about what information was collected or
how it was used.
On June 8, during the Los Angeles protests, DHS deployed Predator
drones with high resolution cameras capable of identifying individuals
in a crowd to fly over protests in Paramount and Los Angeles. The
Senators blasted DHS’ usage of the footage to create a dramatic video
posted June 10 to X with the caption “WATCH: DHS drone footage of LA
rioters. This is not calm. This is not peaceful. California politicians
must call off their rioting mob.”
“Even if the technology were perfectly accurate, this form of
surveillance could have a chilling effect on constitutionally protected
rights, particularly freedom of assembly and speech. Protesters may fear
that showing up at a rally could result in DHS or other government
entities logging their names into a government database, sharing records
with law enforcement, or even subjecting them to reprisal,” wrote the Senators.
“That fear is not theoretical. Authoritarian regimes already use facial
recognition to track down dissidents. But even in democratic societies,
such tools can disproportionately target and harm communities of color,
intensifying existing biases in law enforcement and eroding trust in
public institutions.”
“The publication of these videos appears to be a violation of the
Department’s own requirement limiting the disclosure of video collected
on an aircraft to authorized personnel with an authorized purpose,” continued the Senators.
“Americans could easily understand the publication of this video as an
implicit threat to reveal the identities of protesters, instilling fear
in any members of the public who seek to exercise their constitutionally
protected rights to speech and assembly.”
Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) also signed the letter.
The lawmakers requested responses by August 21, 2025, to questions including:
What cameras, radar, or other surveillance equipment were equipped
on the Predator drones that flew over Paramount and Los Angeles during
the June protests?
Did DHS officials identify any individuals based on information
collected by the unmanned aircraft that surveilled the California
protests, including in combination with other information or with the
assistance of facial recognition technology?
Which agencies and officials requested support from the Predator
drones, when was the request made, and when and by whom were they
approved?
What data privacy protocols are currently used to govern information captured by aerial surveillance at U.S. protests?
How are DHS staff with access to aerial surveillance data trained on data management protocols?
What was the approval process for publishing videos taken by the Predator drones of the protests in Los Angeles on X?
Has DHS deployed manned or unmanned aircraft systems to photograph,
record, or otherwise monitor other protests since January 20, 2025?
Senator Padilla has been outspoken in criticizing Trump’s
unprecedented militarization with the deployment of National Guard
troops and active-duty U.S. Marines to respond to overwhelmingly
peaceful protests in Los Angeles. Earlier this month, Padilla placed a hold
on Trump’s nominee to serve as vice chief of the National Guard Bureau,
Lieutenant General Thomas Carden, until the Trump Administration
releases all remaining U.S. military forces from their unjustified
deployment to Los Angeles. He also recently introduced the VISIBLE Act to
require immigration enforcement officers to display clearly visible
identification during public-facing enforcement actions. Last month, he led the entire Senate Democratic Caucus
in demanding that President Trump immediately withdraw all military
forces from Los Angeles and cease all threats to deploy the National
Guard or active-duty service members to American cities.
Full text of the letter is available here and below:
Dear Secretary Noem,
In the face of peaceful protests against the Trump administration
all across the country — through the public’s exercise of its
constitutionally protected rights to assemble and express its views —
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has responded with
surveillance and intimidation. For example, DHS deployed at least two
Predator drones over the recent protests in Los Angeles, published the
collected footage online, and called for local officials to crack down
on protestors. This Big Brotherism invades Americans’ privacy and chills
the exercise of their constitutional rights. We are writing to request
more information on DHS’s use of aerial surveillance at recent protests
and to urge DHS to respect the public’s privacy and the First Amendment.
DHS has disclosed little about its use of Predator drones to
surveil protests across the country. On June 8, 2025, flight watchers
noticed aircraft without a callsign circling protests in Paramount,
California, and downtown Los Angeles for hours. By listening to Air
Traffic Control transmission, these observers determined that the
aircraft were Predator drones. DHS later confirmed that it had deployed
the drones to support “federal law enforcement partners in the Greater
Los Angeles area, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” but
denied that it was “engaged in surveillance of First Amendment
activities.” But DHS has provided no explanation of who specifically
requested the support of Predator drones in Paramount and Los Angeles,
why that support was needed, what information was collected, or whether
drones were deployed during other protests. In other words, DHS is
keeping the public in the dark on the important question whether it is
conducting aerial surveillance during protests and infringing on
Americans’ First Amendment rights.
Although extraordinary circumstances could justify drone flights
over protests, these flights also raise serious concerns about
individual privacy and may be intended to intimidate the public and
chill free speech rights. As was the case with the Predator drones in
Los Angeles, unmanned aircraft are often equipped with high-resolution
cameras that can capture images and video of individual protesters
within a crowd. DHS could then attempt to use facial recognition
technologies to identify those individuals. Facial recognition
technologies have known limitations — including reduced accuracy when
images are low quality, blurry, obscured, or taken from the side or in
poor light — creating serious risks of false identification.
Even if the technology were perfectly accurate, this form of
surveillance could have a chilling effect on constitutionally protected
rights, particularly freedom of assembly and speech. Protesters may fear
that showing up at a rally could result in DHS or other government
entities logging their names into a government database, sharing records
with law enforcement, or even subjecting them to reprisal. That fear is
not theoretical. Authoritarian regimes already use facial recognition
to track down dissidents. But even in democratic societies, such tools
can disproportionately target and harm communities of color,
intensifying existing biases in law enforcement and eroding trust in
public institutions.
DHS’s own best practices recognize that the use of drones to
monitor protests and the retention or publication of images of
individuals who are engaged in protest can harm constitutionally
protected rights. In particular, in 2013, DHS conducted a privacy impact
assessment (PIA) covering the Predator B drone. In that PIA, the
Department acknowledged that images and video taken from these drones
potentially include images of individuals that can be associated with
personally identifiable information. To address the privacy risks with
unmanned aircraft, the PIA explained that “the video or other data
collected from [Customs and Border Protection] aircraft may only be
accessed by authorized personnel with an authorized need to know, and
the CBP-held video or other data is controlled through chains of custody
and stored in secure locations until it is destroyed.” While this data
may be used to support “other DHS components” or “federal law
enforcement agencies,” the PIA emphasizes that “each request for
information follows a standard process and is reviewed and considered in
terms of the requesting agencies’ authorities to receive the sought
after information, CBP’s own authority to lend assistance, and CBP’s
ability to integrate the information collection into its mission.”
Although DHS updated this PIA in 2018 and 2024 to cover tethered and
small unmanned aircraft systems, the relevant section and privacy
analysis on the Predator drone has not changed.
But DHS appears to have ignored these requirements in Los
Angeles. On June 10, the Department posted a video to X — collected from
a drone — overlayed with a dramatic soundtrack and a caption stating
“WATCH: DHS drone footage of LA rioters. This is not calm. This is not
peaceful. California politicians must call off their rioting mob.”8 The
publication of these videos appears to be a violation of the
Department’s own requirement limiting the disclosure of video collected
on an aircraft to authorized personnel with an authorized purpose.
Americans could easily understand the publication of this video as an
implicit threat to reveal the identities of protesters, instilling fear
in any members of the public who seek to exercise their constitutionally
protected rights to speech and assembly.
Given the serious dangers to individual privacy and free
expression from the aerial surveillance of protesters, we request
written responses to the following questions by August 21, 2025.
1. What cameras, radar, or other surveillance equipment were
equipped on the Predator drones that flew over Paramount and Los Angeles
during the June protests?
a. Did the drones collect any information on individual protesters?
b. If so, what information did the drones collect?
c. What has DHS done with this information?
2. Did DHS officials identify any individuals based on
information collected by the unmanned aircraft that surveilled the
California protests, including in combination with other information or
with the assistance of facial recognition technology?
a. If so, how many individuals were identified at the California protests?
b. Why did DHS seek to identify individual protesters?
c. Did DHS provide records of the identities of individual protesters to any other agencies or third parties?
d. How long does DHS intend to maintain records of the identities of individuals at these protests?
e. Is DHS creating a database of individuals identified at these protests?
3. Which agencies and officials requested support from the
Predator drones, when was the request made, and when and by whom were
they approved? Please provide all documents related to the request and
approval of these flights.
4. What data privacy protocols are currently used to govern information captured by aerial surveillance at U.S. protests?
a. Does DHS still follow the 2013 privacy impact assessment?
b. If so, how does the aerial surveillance of the Paramount and Los Angeles protests comport with it? If not, why not?
5. How are DHS staff with access to aerial surveillance data trained on data management protocols?
6. What was the approval process for publishing videos taken by
the Predator drones of the protests in Los Angeles on X? Please provide
all documents related to the decision to publish this video.
7. Has DHS deployed manned or unmanned aircraft systems to
photograph, record, or otherwise monitor other protests since January
20, 2025? If so, for each such deployment, please provide:
a. the date and location of the deployment;
b. the original request from the state, local, or national agency for this support;
c. all approval documentation;
d. the kinds of manned or unmanned aircraft used;
e. all monitoring equipment on the flights; and
f. whether any individuals were identifiable, and if so,
(i) how many were identified,
(ii) for what purposes,
(iii) whether that data was provided to any other agencies or third parties,
(iv) how long DHS intends to maintain the identities of individual protesters, and
(v) whether DHS is creating a database of protesters identified at these protests.
Thank you for your attention to this important issue.
Sincerely,
###
No one is safe.
And we realize that. We realize that this is where we stand up and say "NO!" or we kiss democracy goodbye. Donald Chump is finally getting a taste of pushback.
Colombian
immigrant and green-card holder who has lived in Oklahoma for more than
a decade and has American children has been detained by U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to her boyfriend.
Newsweek reached out to ICE via email for comment.
A
GoFundMe was recently created to help raise funds for legal fees
pertaining to the detainment of Daniela Villada Restrepo, who lives in
Oklahoma City and works in health care. She has three children, all born
in the U.S. She is a lawful permanent resident, meaning she has a green card.
It's not one area of the country. It's the whole country. It's a prairie fire across the country as the people push back against these crimes. City by city, you see people standing up. Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon (ATLANTA CIVIC COUNCIL) notes:
About
600 protesters marched through downtown Atlanta on Saturday morning as
part of a national “Rage Against the Regime” day of action against the
Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda and U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement’s “secret police” tactics.
The
demonstration, organized by the progressive group 50501, began at the
Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park and proceeded down
Auburn Avenue to Big Bethel AME Church, concluding at the Atlanta ICE
Field Office.
Organizers handed
out pamphlets listing demands, including an end to ICE’s use of masked
agents and unmarked vehicles, halting deportations to third countries,
and stopping attacks on birthright citizenship.
“Why
are they ashamed?” asked Georgia NAACP president Gerald Griggs, who
condemned ICE agents for wearing masks. “Everybody that wears a badge
ain’t the law,” he said.
Griggs added that there
are documented instances of US citizens and military veterans being
detained. “It’s incumbent upon us, the real American citizens, to say
something about it,” he said.
Griggs also
called for solidarity between immigrant and minority communities. “Black
immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean are facing the same issues as
our brown brothers and sisters from Central America and South America,”
he said.
Why are we pushing back? Because we see the cruelty. We see the harm. We see the attacks on our neighbors. Neighbors we know and that we know are not violent criminals. But they're treated like violent criminals. The rule of law is shredded so that ICE can attack. WTNH reports:
The
Wilbur Cross High School student that was detained by ICE last week is
expected to return to New England after being moved to three facilities
across the country.
Esdrás,18, was allegedly picked up by ICE while working at a car wash on July 21.
“ICE
is arresting people who have no violent history that are productive
members of the community so it’s really disheartening when they have
arrested a young boy,” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said.
Since then, the community has been working to get him legal support and bring him back home to Connecticut.
Children are being targeted. Grandparents are being targeted. Young parents are being targeted. Nursing mothers are being targeted. And none of them are criminals. It's the ENOUGH point and the country has reach it. Hosam Elattar (VOICE OF OC) reports:
Officials
in Orange County’s largest cities are taking a stand against widespread
immigration enforcement this summer by challenging deportation sweeps
in federal court, reporting out enforcement activity to residents or
offering financial aid to the families impacted.
These
are actions most local elected officials in OC are unwilling or
struggling to take amid a federal immigration crackdown that ramped up
in June despite pressure from residents who have demanded at city
council meetings that leaders take a stand and help immigrants.
Last
month, officials in both Anaheim and Santa Ana voted to join a federal
lawsuit challenging widespread ICE raids in parts of Southern California
and alleging federal immigration officers are racial profiling people
to make warrantless arrests.
It’s an
allegation that Department of Homeland security officials have
repeatedly denied after conducting sweeps across the region and
aggressively rounding up day laborers at Home Depots as well as people
at immigration court houses and car washes.
In every state in this country, We The People are fighting back and working on ways to fight back because we happen to believed that democracy actually does matter. We happen to believe that our country is worth fighting for. And we are appalled by the way our government is treating immigrants. One example, MY NORTHWEST notes:
An
immigrant advocacy group raised concerns about possible tuberculosis
(TB) cases at the Northwest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Processing Center in Tacoma, according to KIRO 7.
La
Resistencia, a local advocacy organization, claimed there may be as
many as seven individuals showing signs of TB among those detained at
the facility. The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) is
monitoring the situation, though the cases remain unconfirmed at this
time.
“We can confirm that the Tacoma Detention Center
has 7 suspected TB cases that have started treatment based primarily on
imaging and symptoms,” the DOH stated. “To date, there are no confirmed
positive MTb specimens/cases reported to us.”
La
Resistencia has since accused the facility of inhumane conditions. The
group is calling for increased transparency and improved healthcare
protocols inside the detention center.
Let's note this from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's office:
Whitehouse’s Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act would make Social Security solvent forever without shrinking benefits
Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) slammed comments made by the Trump administration’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessentcalling the administration’s tax-deferred investment accounts a “backdoor for privatizing Social Security.”
“Secretary Bessent’s comments are the latest Trump
administration attack on Social Security. Social Security is a sacred
trust that hardworking Rhode Islanders paid into through their whole
careers, but Republicans continue to be obsessed with handing seniors’
money off to private equity sleazeballs,” said Whitehouse, a founding member of the Expand Social Security Caucus.
“Here’s how you fix Social Security and protect seniors’ benefits
forever: you have the wealthy start paying their full fair share into
the system.”
Whitehouse’s Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act would
protect the solvency of Social Security and Medicare for the
foreseeable future by requiring the nation’s highest earners to
contribute a fairer share of their income into the system. Whitehouse
also cosponsored the Social Security Fairness Act,
which was signed into law by President Biden in January. The
legislation eliminated two policies that reduced Social Security
benefits for public service employees.
Over 230,000 Rhode Islanders receive Social Security benefits.