Monday, November 17, 2025. Chump throws moving vehicle into reverse as he tries to get ahead of what appears to be a huge embarrassment this week when the House votes on whether or not to release the Epstein materials, his lie about a peace deal is revealed (it wasn't even a cease-fire), North Carolina gets targeted by the corrupt Homeland Security, and much more.
Dumpster fire Donald Chump can't stop lying. All it took was diving poll numbers, former supporters going on Tik-Tok to burn their MAGA gear, members of Congress on both sides standing up to him and the public's growing suspicion that he's hiding something with regards to his best friend Jeffrey Epstein. That's all it took to put Chump in turnaround. Helen Sullivan (BBC NEWS) reports:
US President Donald Trump has called on House Republicans to vote to release the Epstein files, in a reversal from his previous position.
"House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday night.
The shift from days of Trump fighting the proposal comes as the House is expected to hold a vote this week on legislation that would force the Justice Department to release the files to the public.
Supporters of the proposal appear to have enough votes to pass the House, though it is unclear whether it would pass the Senate.
AP's Kevin Freking and Chris Megerian explain, "The president's shift is an implicit acknowledgement that supporters of the measure have enough votes to pass it the House, although it has an unclear future in the Senate. It is a rare example of Trump backtracking because of opposition within the GOP." Mia McCarthy (POLITICO) notes:
President Donald Trump is coming to grips with his impending loss on the Jeffrey Epstein files and a rare moment of tenuous control over the House GOP.
In a late Sunday Truth Social post, Trump said House Republicans should vote to release DOJ records on the late convicted sex offender “because we have nothing to hide.”
“I DON’T CARE!” he said. “All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT.”
Trump’s reversal after a months-long pressure campaign came as dozens of Republicans — perhaps as many as 100 — were already poised to break with him in a vote Tuesday. As Meredith Lee Hill and Mia report, even close allies of GOP leadership were weighing whether to defect from the president.
Apparently the most convincing way to convey that you don't care about something is to scream in all caps "I DON'T CARE!" Or at least that's what you think if you're a nut case named Donald Chump.
At MEIDASTOUCH NEWS, Ben's of the opinion that this new and false stance is prep for the announcement "Oopsie! Ongoing inesstigation! We can't release anything!"
Ashley Ahn (NEW YORK TIMES) adds, "In a Sunday interview on ABC News, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who has helped lead congressional efforts to release the files, suggested that “100 or more” House Republicans could vote in favor of releasing the Epstein files this week despite opposition from Mr. Trump. The House speaker also predicted a significant number of G.O.P. votes."
Chump lies and his underlings lie. Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) reports on Deputy AG Todd Blanche:
"An important side note about today's Epstein/Trump revelations," noted conservative attorney George Conway on X. "They show that Todd Blanche's questioning of Ghislaine Maxwell was either (a) completely incompetent; or (b) intentionally crafted not to elicit facts incriminating Trump. Either way, he is not fit to serve as Deputy Attorney General of the United States."
Blanche spoke to Maxwell over two days in July at a prison where she's serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and other charges, and he publicly asserted that she had told him she never saw Trump act inappropriately, and he disputed Conway's criticism.
"George, you’ve never been confused for a trial lawyer, and these kinds of posts explain why," Blanche replied. "When I interviewed Maxwell, law enforcement didn’t have the materials Epstein’s estate hid for years and only just provided to Congress. Stop talking. It’s unbecoming."
The Justice Department official's explanation didn't pass the smell test for many social media users, however.
"Todd, didn't the Justice Department have these emails when they seized Epstein's computers, phones, iPads, and other electronic devices from his homes in Manhattan and the US Virgin Islands?" posted Business Insider's Jacob Shamsian.
"Mr. Blanche - When you questioned Maxwell you simply let her spew a narrative contradicted by evidence already in your possession," said retired attorney Tirah Att. "I'm not sure what the point of the interview was, but we know the result - she was moved to a cushy prison not meant for sexual predators."
If she lied to him, Todd has croaked for months, she could face legal consequences. Well she did lie. Jen Psaki (MS NOW) points that reality out noting the photo of Virginia Giuffre with the King of England's brother Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell:
I’ll spare you the rest of the truly wretched details, but Giuffre said that she and Andrew had sex that night at Epstein and Maxwell’s direction. It was the first of three such encounters.
Both Maxwell and Andrew have vehemently denied that any of this ever happened. A key part of that denial has been asserting that the photo of the trio is fake.
Even just this summer, in an interview with Donald Trump’s personal lawyer-turned-deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, Maxwell flat-out denied it and told him she believed it was “literally a fake photo.”
However, according to one of the emails included in the trove of documents released on Wednesday, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
On July 1, 2011, just months after the photo was first published in the British tabloids, Epstein allegedly sent an email in which he wrote: “Yes she was on my plane, and yes she had her picture taken with Andrew.”
Epstein denied everything else that took place and seemed to defend the photo by adding that many of his employees had taken pictures with Andrew.
It should be noted that Epstein himself is not exactly a reliable or trustworthy source. But the idea that Epstein, way back in 2011, said this photo was real throws into question everything both Andrew and Maxwell have said about the rest of that story.
The fact that, just months ago, Maxwell told Blanche that the photo was fake now adds all the more reason to be skeptical that anything she told the deputy attorney general in that meeting was true.
She lies. Jen's documented it. Ghislaine Maxwell lied. So she goes back to a real prison now? Of course not. She got the deal she wanted in order to shut her up. We have someone in the Oval Office thqt federl prisoner can and did blackmail to get what she wanted. That's another reason you never elect a convicted felon.
Changing topics, ABC7 CHICAGO reports:
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has left its "Operation Midway Blitz" command center at Naval Station Great Lakes, city officials confirmed to ABC7 Chicago Sunday.
The development comes as 200 federalized Texas National Guard members also vacated the base this week, and Customs and Border Protection Cmdr. Greg Bovino also left the Chicago area, being seen during a new surge in immigration enforcement in Charlotte, North Carolina.
And they took the chaos with them to North Carolina. Another peaceful city destroyed by Chump's gestapo. Eduardo Medina and Sonia A. Rao (NEW YORK TIMES) report,
The Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigrants arrived in Charlotte this weekend, resulting in 81 arrests on Saturday. It continued on Sunday, with Border Patrol agents fanning out across the largest city in North Carolina.
An immigrant rights group said the tally, reported by a senior Border Patrol official on social media, was the largest number of immigrant arrests in the state’s recent history.
The presence of the agents, led by Gregory Bovino, who directed similar operations in Chicago and Los Angeles this year, has startled people in one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Much of that growth has been spurred by international migration, especially from Latin America. The city is also home to large corporations in the retail, banking and manufacturing sectors.
Nick Sullivan (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER) explains that every where in the city of Charlotte was a target -- even churches:
Congregants of an east Charlotte church scattered into the woods Saturday when masked federal agents arrived and detained one of their members, according to witnesses. About 15 to 20 church members were doing yard work on the property off Albemarle Road while their children played games and their spouses cooked meals. Agents parked just outside a closed gate leading to the church parking lot and ran into the yard, said the pastor, who did not want to identify himself or his church. The agents asked no questions and showed no identification before taking one man away, whose wife and child were inside at the time, the pastor said. They attempted to grab others, too.
The location didn't matter and citizenship didn't matter. Charlotte's WCNC reports:
As US Customs and Border Patrol began its operation in Charlotte on Nov. 15, 2025, a handful of encounters with agents were reported across the city. This included an encounter near a bar and grill on South Boulevard that a man said led to his truck's window being smashed.
Elsewhere in Charlotte, another encounter was captured on viral video. WCNC Charlotte first brought the video live in a special edition of our Live Impact News show on the WCNC+ platform. The location is unclear, but the video shows agents confronting a woman holding a cell phone. She then stumbles on a grassy area. Agents then proceed to handcuff her, and as she is handcuffed as she says, "I'm a US citizen," and bystanders yell at agents. Her phone is also confiscated during the encounter.
More storm trooper action from the lawless and feckless Chump administration. All this money going into Homeland Security? And it's not really about securing the homeland, remember that. Alexia Underwood (THE NEW REPUBLIC) reports:\
President Donald Trump’s obsessive focus on deporting immigrants has led to extreme changes at the Department of Homeland Security and undermined efforts to combat child exploitation and sex trafficking, a new report found.
According to The New York Times, the department has been forced to shift its priorities and sideline other important law enforcement activities to make way for the president’s agenda.
Agents investigating sexual crimes against children have been temporarily reassigned, a national security probe into the Iranian black market slowed and lost momentum, and agents working on sex trafficking issues have been forced to pause their work in order to support the Trump administration’s deportation goals. Even the Coast Guard has been pulled in to aid the deportation work, the Times reported.
The new data that the report is based on comes from previously unseen internal DHS documents, and interviews with more than 60 officials.
People inside the agency spoke of being “berated” by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller for not arresting enough people. Yet the Trump administration’s extensive focus on immigration hasn’t played out the way they might have imagined. Less than 40 percent of people ICE arrests carry criminal convictions, the report says.
Border patrol is not homeland security. We had border patrol on September 10, 2001. We didn't have Homeland Security. The Dept of Homeland Security was voted into law in November of 2002 and started business on March 1, 2003. The department was created in response to 9/11. This was one of the ways that the country was going to be protected. That's not what they work on these days. Nicholas NehamasMichael H. KellerAlexandra BerzonHamed Aleaziz and Zolan Kanno-Youngs (NEW YORK TIMES) report:
The Department of Homeland Security has diverted thousands of federal agents from their normal duties to focus on arresting undocumented immigrants, undermining a wide range of law enforcement operations in response to mounting pressure from President Trump, a New York Times investigation has found.
Homeland security agents investigating sexual crimes against children, for instance, have been redeployed to the immigrant crackdown for weeks at a time, hampering their pursuit of child predators.
A national security probe into the black market for Iranian oil sold to finance terrorism has been slowed down for months because of the shift to immigration work, allowing tanker ships and money to disappear.
And federal efforts to combat human smuggling and sex trafficking have languished with investigators reassigned to help staff deportation efforts.
Sadly, instead of protecting Americans, Homeland Security is staffed with corrupt people doing a money grab on US tax dollars. Here's Elaine's post Friday:
How much corruption is Kristi Noem going to be allowed to get away with?
Kristi Noem is corrupt. That's not in question at this point. The question is, how much corruption is she going to be able to get away with? Did you miss the latest:
A firm owned by a long-term friend of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and who is married to her senior communications advisor secretly won work on a $220 million border TV advertising blitz in a “corrupt” arrangement, according to a bombshell report.
Benjamin Yoho, 38, has worked and socialized with Noem and Corey Lewandowski, her closest adviser and alleged lover, for many years. He is also the husband of Noem’s loyal Assistant Secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, 31.
Now Yoho’s Strategy Group is alleged to have helped film a DHS TV commercial for the government’s “Stronger Border, Stronger America” campaign, per an investigation published Friday by ProPublica—even though the firm’s name isn’t listed on any public documents.
Instead, the main recipient listed is a shell company, Safe America Media, which had been created only days before it was awarded more than $143 million by DHS, after the department invoked a “national emergency” to bypass competitive bidding.
On Oct. 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a television ad. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the camera with a stern message for immigrants: “Break our laws, we’ll punish you.”
Noem has hailed the more than $200 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign as a crucial tool to stem illegal immigration. Her agency invoked the “national emergency” at the border as it awarded contracts for the campaign, bypassing the normal competitive bidding process designed to prevent waste and corruption.
The Department of Homeland Security has kept at least one beneficiary of the nine-figure ad deal a secret, records and interviews show: a Republican consulting firm with long-standing personal and business ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS. The company running the Mount Rushmore shoot, called the Strategy Group, does not appear on public documents about the contract. The main recipient listed on the contracts is a mysterious Delaware company, which was created days before the deal was finalized.
No firm has closer ties to Noem’s political operation than the Strategy Group. It played a central role in her 2022 South Dakota gubernatorial campaign. Corey Lewandowski, her top adviser at DHS, has worked extensively with the firm. And the company’s CEO is married to Noem’s chief spokesperson at DHS, Tricia McLaughlin.
--------------- end of Elaine's post ------------------------------
Chump is a liar who has destroyed our country. His new lie is he wants the Epstein documents released. But it's just today's big lie. He lies constantly. He lied that he'd brought about a peace deal between Gaza and Israel. Peace deal? He didn't even bring about a cease fire. Kevin Reed (WSWS) reports:
According to information compiled by the Government Media Office in Gaza and reported by Al Jazeera, the Israeli military has repeatedly violated the ceasefire that was imposed on Palestinians by the Zionist state in collaboration with the government of President Donald Trump.
The Al Jazeera report says that between October 10 and November 10, Israel breached the agreement at least 282 times, resulting in the death of 242 Palestinians and the wounding of 622.
Through ongoing sustained military offensives and occupation actions, Israel has criminally violated the terms of the ceasefire.
The Gaza Media Office figures show that Trump’s so-called “peace plan” amounts to a continuation of the campaign of violence and repression that began in October 2023 at the outset of the genocide. Cloaked in the language of “security” and “counter-terrorism,” the ongoing targeted assassinations and airstrikes have repeatedly hit civilian Palestinian infrastructure and humanitarian zones, obliterating homes, schools and medical facilities.
Israeli forces have continued to directly target those attempting to deliver and receive humanitarian aid, further deepening the starvation and misery of Palestinians. Despite promises to allow up to 600 aid trucks daily, actual deliveries have fallen far short, a shortage compounded by Israeli announcements to further limit or halt distribution entirely.
The overall death toll continues to mount with Gaza’s Ministry of Health now reporting over 69,000 Palestinian dead and tens of thousands more injured, with many bodies still trapped under debris. These figures alone expose any talk of “peace” as a cynical cover for ongoing atrocities.
Following Trump’s high-profile Gaza “peace plan,” Israel has escalated its military operations under the banner of restoring order but in reality, orchestrated new massacres. Al Jazeera has detailed several of these episodes, including the deadliest day so far, when Israeli attacks killed 45 Palestinians in a series of coordinated strikes shortly after the ceasefire was proclaimed.
Chump lies all the time. It's all he does and it's all he knows.
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