Saturday, April 4, 2026

Those trashy McMahons grifters

 Earlier this week, in "Linda McMahon -- grifter and accused of being involved in a pedo ring," I noted I was shocked to discover Chump's inept Secretary of Education was accused of being involved in a pedo ring and the case is still to be determined.  Today, Sophie Clark (Independent) reports more problems for Linda's husband:

Vince McMahon is facing further allegations of assault by former World Wrestling Entertainment employee Janel Grant, as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the former WWE CEO.

A new graphic and disturbing 40-page affidavit filed by Grant accuses McMahon of rape, coercion, and physical and mental abuse. It also alleges that current WWE President Nick Khan was aware of her circumstances, and accuses other WWE employees of abuse and cover-up. 

This affidavit is part of Grant’s lawsuit, which was launched in January 2024. McMahon is fighting the suit while reportedly attempting to return to WWE.

“I felt used, leveraged, humiliated, shamed, dehumanized, intimidated, and exploited for the business and the sexual gratification of these men,” stated Grant in her affidavit obtained by The Independent.

Grant’s affidavit alleges that she met McMahon through a friend. Shortly afterward, he helped her get a job in the WWE legal department in 2019 after she suffered from a family tragedy. She alleges his predatory behavior began almost immediately.

She says that as soon as she got the job, “Vince made his next overtly sexual move and, despite my saying no and to stop, put his hand in my pants. I do not remember what happened next because I blacked out.”

She added, “in retrospect I see that Vince created my job so he could monitor me and engage in predatory behaviors more easily.”


Andreas Hale (ESPN) adds:


Grant was hired to work in WWE's legal department in 2019, and said her encounters with McMahon -- who lived in the same condominium complex -- became sexual relatively quickly. By 2020, she said she felt trapped in her relationship because of the COVID-19 pandemic relegating her and McMahon to work from home in the same building.

"Vince had unlimited access to me to act on his sexual impulses on any day, at any time. I could not escape from him at work or home," she said.

Grant said she was forced into multiple threesomes with McMahon, his "friend" and on another occasion with Laurinaitis.

Grant also offered more details on her interactions with Lesnar, the WWE superstar whom she previously identified as someone McMahon would traffic to. Although the two never met in person, Grant said in the new filing that she was contacted by Lesnar in 2021, that he went by "Polish Joe" and that he asked for nude photos and sought to have her travel to meet him.

"I now understood that I would not only be expected to perform sexually for Brock, but I would also be expected to travel to other states to do so," she said in the affidavit.


The McMahons are not only accused of being part of a pedo ring, her husband is also accused of harassment.  And she's a sitting member of Chump's Cabinet?  

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Friday, April 3, 2026.  Chump fires Bondi, Hegseth fires generals (in the midst of a war, no less), Kristi and Corey's tawdry show continues, polling shows Chump growing even more unpopular, Senator Patty Murray calls out Chump's illegal transfer of student loan debt to the treasury department, and much more. 



And it probably will continue to happen under Chump. 

But not under Pam da Bimbo Bondi.  As Elaine noted yesterday in "Good riddance, Pam Bondi is gone as AG," Pam's gone.  Chump fired her yesterday.  She will be with the department for another month as she trains Deputy AG Todd Blanche to take over the duties of the Attorney General.  Chump has made Blanche the interim AG while he looks for someone to nominate.  


Stacey Young, the founder of Justice Connection, a group of former Justice Department employees, said Pam Bondi had taken a “sledgehammer” to the department and its workforce, causing damage that could take decades to rebuild. But she said she believed President Trump had dismissed Bondi only because “she didn’t go far enough.”

She may also have been dismissed due to the Epstein files.  Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:


Bondi’s ouster is the culmination of Trump’s growing frustrations around the intense, inadvertent scrutiny that she brought upon the administration, as she went from saying the Epstein client list was on her desk, to claiming it didn’t exist, to handing out big dramatic white binders for a photo op with MAGA influencers that contained no new information. She continuously tried and failed to declare the case closed, while exposing Epstein’s victims to more abuse by identifying them in the files. Eventually, even Republicans on the House Oversight Committee agreed to subpoena Bondi over her “possible mismanagement” of the files.

There were probably many reasons.  I'll hold my tongue on one of them.  But as for Epstein, it had already been reported that Chump was not happy when Pam announced she had The Epstein Files on her desk.  He was said to have been surprised by that announcement and had told Susie Wiles that Bondi was trying to get press for herself.  She was said to have been called to the carpet over those remarks immediately after she made them on FOX "NEWS."  

Since these remarks later became more important -- Bondi warns Chump in May that he's in The Epstein Files much more than anyone thought -- because suddenly the files are not going to be released.  This causes the huge headache for Chump -- even before this year's revelation that Jane Doe 4 told the FBI on three different visits that Chump assaulted her when she was a teenager -- that builds and builds into the scandal that it is today.

So not only was he mad at her the day she announced on FOX "NEWS" that The Epstein Client Files were sitting on her desk and would be released shortly, but this was also the initiating incident that first peeled the teflon of Chump.  





The former Trump attorney interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell and oversaw her sweetheart prison deal, and has also been publicly prosecuting the case to not release all the files in the department’s possession.

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, Blanche said he was aware of some of the concerns MAGA’s rank-and-file had expressed about the Justice Department, which they believe had been weaponized under past administrations.

“The attorney general Pam Bondi, the president and myself—we are changing things,” he sought to assure the unconvinced crowd.




Pam Bondi is, of course, still set to be deposed by a Congressional Committee.  Michael Gold (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:

The House Oversight Committee was scheduled to depose Pam Bondi on April 14 over the Justice Department’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and its handling of investigative material in the case. But Bondi had not yet committed to appearing, according to people familiar with the discussions between her and the committee.

Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the panel, said in a statement that Bondi was still “legally obligated to appear before our committee under oath,” and Representative Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican who moved to subpoena for Bondi, said that “my subpoena still stands.”


Whether she will appear before the Committee or not remains to be seen.  If she does appear, no one knows as yet whether or not she'll bring her slam book with her so she can flip through it and serve up insults that she's prepared ahead of time.  The House Oversight Committee Democrats did issue a statement yesterday -- but on Homeland Security:


Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, demanded answers from William Walters regarding Salus Worldwide Solutions and his other companies as Oversight Democrats escalate their probe into Corey Lewandowski’s alleged pay-to-play scheme at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Salus Worldwide Solutions and Walters’ other companies may have been awarded profitable DHS contracts under suspicious contracting conditions. In 2025, Salus drew attention after winning a three-year contract worth nearly $1 billion amid allegations DHS ignored regulatory standards and competition requirements.

“Every day, we find new evidence that corruption tied to Corey Lewandowski runs deep inside the Department of Homeland Security. Our taxpayer dollars may have been diverted to pay off connected insiders on a massive scale. Oversight Democrats are focused on identifying every suspicious contract and demanding answers from the companies involved. We will not stop until this corruption is fully exposed and those responsible are held accountable,” saidRanking Member Robert Garcia.

In the letter to Salus Worldwide Solutions CEO William Walters, Ranking Member Garcia wrote, “Mr. Lewandowski may have used his position in the Trump Administration and close relationships to President Trump and Secretary Noem to enrich himself while serving as a special government employee (SGE) by shaking down contractors for kickbacks. Recent reporting connects one of your companies, Salus Worldwide Solutions (Salus), to Mr. Lewandowski’s alleged pay-to-play scheme, allegedly directing subcontractors to funnel taxpayer dollars to consultants affiliated with Mr. Lewandowski. Additionally, Salus and several related companies were awarded substantial contracts under questionable circumstances during Mr. Lewandowski’s tenure. We ask for your cooperation in our investigation.”

This letter is an escalation of Oversight Democrats’ investigation into Corey Lewandowski’s role at the Department of Homeland Security. Last month, Ranking Member Garcia demanded answers from GEO Group after new NBC News reporting alleged Corey Lewandowski, a Special Government Employee at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), attempted a pay-to-play scheme with the private prison company over DHS contracts. Ranking Member Garcia also joined Rep. Rick Larsen, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, to demand an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General into Corey Lewandowski’s employment. Additionally, the Ranking Members wrote directly to DHS and demanded all communications and internal records regarding Corey Lewandowski’s involvement in DHS personnel and contracting decisions.

In September, Ranking Member Garcia wrote to the Office of Government Ethics and to then Secretary Kristi Noem demanding the public release of Corey Lewandowski’s financial disclosures, which they have illegally failed to produce. Lewandowski meets the qualifications to be a public filer, meaning that legally, his financial disclosures must be made public.

In August, Ranking Member Garcia wrote to then-Secretary Kristi Noem regarding Corey Lewandowski’s employment as a Special Government Employee, demanding a complete accounting of his service days (including records and logs), assessment on whether he has exceeded his 130 day limit as an SGE, all documents and communications regarding his role in personnel decisions (firing/hiring) and grant approvals in FEMA operations, and all documents and direct communications between Lewandowski and any lobbying firm, lobbyist, or government contracting consultant.

 
###



Corey's got other things on his mind of late.  TMZ notes:


Kristi Noem has had a very tough week with the embarrassing news of her cross-dressing husband -- but one person she can always count on to be by her side is her political advisor, Corey Lewandowski -- and that hasn't changed one bit, according to a new report.

The New York Post says Corey has got Kristi's back despite the alleged photos published Tuesday in the Daily Mail, showing Bryon Noem dressing up like a Barbie doll with augmented silicone breasts and tight pink spandex shorts. Bryon reportedly dove into a bizarre online fetish world called “bimbofication” in which he led a secret life chatting with other fetishists and sharing his cross-dressing photos, which were eventually leaked.





Webcam model Lydia Love has alleged that Bryon Noem, husband of the former Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, Kristi Noem, was a client of hers.

In an interview with British newspaper The Times, Love, who the newspaper says uses a stage name, said: “I definitely remember his face, but there’s no way I could ever forget the fake chest.”
Love shared the interview to her social media, where she has made further comments about the situation, her decision to speak about it publicly and the criticism she has received in response.

“I didn’t know who he was,” Love said in a video shared to her Instagram, and said: “When the pictures came out, I recognized his face.”

We're noting that because if Kristi said her husband was gay (see yesterday's snapshot) that does not appear to be accurate.  Did she say it?  I have no idea.  But it is the sort of thing a woman having an affair might say in order to justify her affair.  I didn't know he was a cross dresser but I had been told that he had a fetish.  And this was about three or four months ago.  And I was told Kristi knew about it.  This was not a surprise to her.  She's now attempting to pretend it is and save face in public.  But this fetish was encouraged by Kristi in the past.  

For those who are still confused, Kat Blaque explains Byron Noem's fetish in the video below.




Before he fired Bondi, Chump fired Noem.   Jacob Wendler (POLITICO) reports a new development at Homeland Security:

The Department of Homeland Secretary on Wednesday revoked a Noem-era policy requiring the secretary to personally approve contracts and grants worth over $100,000, one of Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s first moves as he inherits a department mired in controversy.

DHS confirmed that the policy had been rescinded, saying in a statement that Mullin “re-evaluated” the department’s contract processes to ensure it best serves taxpayers.
"Today, the Secretary rescinded the $100,000 contract review memo," DHS said in the statement. "This will streamline the contract process and empower components to carry out their mission to protect the homeland and make America safe again."


Are you getting how important that policy change was?  When Camp Mystic was flooded back in July of last year, Kristi Noem had many other things to take care of.  For example, THE ECONOMIC TIMES reported:



Senate Democrats have joined their House counterparts in investigating allegations Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tried to make a “multimillion-dollar investment” in defense stocks right before the Iran War—which the defense secretary has strongly denied—raising questions about the ethics of such a purchase but also how Hegseth would’ve funded such a major money transfer.
Hegseth’s stock broker at Morgan Stanley reached out to BlackRock in February, before the Iran invasion, about making a “multimillion-dollar investment” in the firm’s ETF for defense stocks, the Financial Times reports based on multiple anonymous sources, and the inquiry was flagged internally at BlackRock.
[. . .]
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee were first to launch an investigation following the Financial Times report, sending letters Tuesday to Hegseth, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock in light of the reporting. “Attempting to profit from a war you helped engineer using insider information is shocking and outrageous even by the standards of the Trump Administration,” the Democrats wrote to Hegseth, asking him to preserve all communications regarding his financial investments and turn over documents to the committee by April 14. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., then sent a letter to Hegseth Wednesday evening that argues the Financial Times’ reporting would be a “serious breach of the public's trust” if accurate, and asks him to answer questions about his finances and what steps he’s taking to avoid conflicts of interest.


Last night and this morning, MEIDASTOUCH NEWS reported on Hegsth firing in the midst of the ongoing Iran war. 





Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the highest-ranking Army officer in the country in the middle of the U.S. war on Iran.

On Thursday, CBS News reported that Hegseth had asked Gen. Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff, to step down and retire. The Biden appointee’s term was set to end in 2027; Army chiefs of staff typically serve four-year terms. George joins more than a dozen high-ranking military officers who have been fired since Hegseth and his ultra-hawkish ideology took over at the Pentagon.



The tension with Mr. Hegseth was not rooted in substantive differences over the direction of the Army, military officials said. Rather it is the product of Mr. Hegseth’s long-running grievances with the Army, battles over personnel and his troubled relationship with Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, the officials said.

Over the last year, General George and Mr. Driscoll had formed a tight partnership, officials said.

Mr. Hegseth has also clashed in recent months with General George and Mr. Driscoll over the defense secretary’s decision to block the promotion of four Army officers to be one-star generals.

Two of the officers targeted by Mr. Hegseth are Black and two are women on a promotion list that consisted of 29 other officers, most of whom are white men. Mr. Hegseth’s highly unusual decision to remove the officers prompted some senior military officials to question whether they were being singled out because of their race or gender, officials said.

Mr. Hegseth had been pressing Mr. Driscoll and General George for months to remove the officers from the promotion list. But Mr. Driscoll and General George refused, citing the officers’ long records of exemplary service.

Two weeks ago, General George asked Mr. Hegseth to meet with him to discuss the removal of the four officers from the one-star list, as well as the general’s view that Mr. Hegseth was interfering unnecessarily in Army personnel decisions overall, the officials said. Mr. Hegseth refused to meet with General George about the matter, they said.

[. . .]

In addition to removing General George, Mr. Hegseth also fired Gen. David M. Hodne, who was promoted in October to lead the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, a key four-star position focused on Army modernization and doctrine.

Mr. Hegseth also fired Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the Army’s top chaplain, an official said.


In the midst of a war, Hegseth is firing generals?  A war that has gone very poorly and is extremely unpopular?  


The American people don't like the war and they don't like Chump. 

Donald Chump and his administration struggle to be seen as competent and ethical by the American people.  Chump's polling is not going well.  Sam Stevenson (NEWSWEEK) notes


Young voters are abandoning President Donald Trump, with new polling showing his standing among Gen Z collapsing sharply in just a matter of weeks.

[. . .]

Trump’s approval rating among Americans aged 18 to 34 has deteriorated dramatically since the start of the year, according to two CNN polls conducted by SSRS.
In a survey conducted from January 9 to January 12, 2026, 30 percent of adults in that age group said they approved of how Trump was handling his job as president, while 69 percent said they disapproved. That left him with a net approval rating (those who approve minus those who disapprove) of minus 39 among Gen Z voters.
The January poll surveyed 1,209 adult Americans recruited from a probability‑based panel. Results for the full sample carried a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
By late March, those numbers had worsened substantially.
A follow‑up CNN/SSRS poll conducted from March 26 to March 30 found Trump’s approval among 18‑ to 34‑year‑olds had fallen to just 20 percent, while disapproval increased to 80 percent, putting his net approval rating among young adults at minus 60.
That represents a significant 21‑point swing in net approval in the wrong direction since January, marking one of Trump’s sharpest demographic declines over the period.

Stevenson also reports on another troubling group that's turned against Chump:


New CNN polling conducted by SSRS shows a dramatic decline in Trump’s approval rating among Americans earning less than $50,000 a year.
In a CNN/SSRS poll conducted from January 9 to January 12, 2026, Trump’s approval among adults in households earning under $50,000 stood at 38 percent, while 60 percent disapproved of the way he was handling his job as president. 
That produced a net approval rating (those who approve minus those who disapprove) of minus 22 points for this income group.
That survey was based on 1,209 adult Americans recruited from a probability-based panel. According to CNN, the margin of sampling error for total respondents was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
Less than three months later, the numbers worsened substantially.
A second CNN/SSRS poll conducted from March 26 to March 30, 2026, found Trump’s approval rating among Americans earning under $50,000 had fallen to 29 percent, while disapproval had risen to 70 percent. That resulted in a net approval rating of minus 41 points.
The March poll surveyed a random national sample of 1,201 adults. Results for the full sample had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
Taken together, the two surveys show a 19-point net approval swing in the wrong direction among lower-income voters over roughly 10 weeks. 


Chump supporters may be less in number but they're more active in lying these days.  Adam Lynch notes:

MS NOW anchor Nicolle Wallace blasted conservative media personalities, accusing President Donald Trump’s allies Megyn Kelly and Laura Ingraham of trying to absolve him of responsibility in his own Iran war.
Wallace set up the destruction by playing a clip from Monday’s edition of “The Ingraham Angle,” during which the Fox News host asked whether Trump was “fully briefed about the risks” of the military operation in the Persian Gulf region before launching missile strikes.
“Was he then able to take it all in and understand the complexity of this — how complex it could actually get and further possibilities of casualties or other damage, the difficulty of dealing with these people — or was he told this would be relatively quick in and out?” Ingraham asked.
But Wallace razzed that take, calling it “quite convenient.”
“Apparently, Donald Trump is never wrong. But when he is wrong, when he gets something wrong, as the MAGA newscasters are starting to worry, maybe it must be someone else’s fault,” said Wallace, adding that in the eyes of Trump’s loyal backers, the president “can’t fail.” Instead, “he can only be failed.”

Along with FOX "NEWS" and former FOX "NEWS" employees trying to make excuses for Chump, there's the White House getting creative for him.  Annabella Rosciglione (DAILY BEAST) reports:

The White House posted and then rushed to delete an hour-long recording of an event with President Donald Trump that captured him lashing out at the Supreme Court after justices signaled expressed skepticism about his birthright citizenship case.
The president privately hosted a group of MAGA pastors and religious allies Wednesday for an Easter luncheon at the White House. Trump made several bonkers remarks during the event, which was never meant to be seen by the public, as the White House quickly deleted the footage from its official pages.
The footage, however, was saved online by Business Insider reporter Bryan Metzger.
While he thought the cameras weren’t rolling, the president let it rip about his true feelings about Supreme Court justices, including his own appointees, after he stormed out of oral arguments at the court earlier that day.
“Republicans, judges, and justices,” Trump began. “They always want to show that they’re independent.”
“‘I don’t care if Trump appointed me, I don’t care, if it doesn’t make any difference to me. I’m voting against him!” Trump said, visibly annoyed.
“Cause they want to show their independence, you know, stupid people,” complained Trump.
He also insulted French President Emmanuel Macron, whom he is trying and failing to get to commit to fully supporting his war with Iran.
Trump implied that Macron’s wife, Brigitte Macron, gets physical with him.
“I called up France, Macron, whose wife treats him extremely badly, and he’s still recovering from the right to the jaw,” he said, soliciting laughs from the faithful audience.

In that instance, they took down the embarrassing footage.  In another instance, they tampered with footage they posted.  Lesley Abravanel (OK!) reports:

The White House was busted for sloppy spin control after social media sleuths noticed they tried to cover up booing during President Donald Trump's visit to the Kennedy Center premiere of the musical Chicago.
The president and his wife, Melania (whom conspiracy theorists insisted was a body double), attended the Tuesday, March 31, performance and were loudly booed by the sparse audience.
The White House claimed unanimous applause via its official “Rapid Response 47” X account. Still, social media pounced on that claim, debunking the narrative of a purely positive reception by sharing unedited footage of the event that featured audible boos and jeers from the crowd.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:


Committee Ranking Members argue that the scheme “will set the stage for more dysfunction in a federal student aid system that the Trump Administration has already made more expensive and confusing to navigate”

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) pressed Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to rescind their plans to move the administration of federal student loans to the Treasury Department (Treasury), the latest move in the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education (ED).

The lawmakers are the Ranking Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee; Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee; Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; Senate Finance Committee; and Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.

“This latest illegal scheme from the Trump Administration threatens to trap student loan borrowers, students, and families in chaos and bureaucracy, all while American taxpayers are left to foot the bill for Treasury to administer programs that ED can and should administer itself,” wrote the lawmakers.

Congress recently reaffirmed on a bicameral, bipartisan basis that ED has no authority to transfer its statutory responsibilities to other agencies, stating that doing so would “create inefficiencies, result in additional costs to the American taxpayer, and cause delays.”

Contrary to that directive, ED’s most recent interagency agreement (IAA) transfers its responsibilities of managing student loans and federal student aid to Treasury, without Congressional authorization. Previous IAAs transferred ED’s management of career and technical education programs, adult education grant programs, along with dozens of programs for early childhood, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education out of ED.

“The Trump administration’s record of haphazard decision making and utter disregard for the actual issues facing students, families, and student loan borrowers suggests that this IAA will be implemented in a way that leaves borrowers with limited options and little to no guidance while increasing the number of borrowers in default and economic distress,” warned the lawmakers.

The senators argued that the first phase of the IAA is likely to worsen the student loan default crisis, because it tasks Treasury — an agency with no experience in student loan administration — with collecting on defaulted student loan debt and helping borrowers exit default. They cited the Treasury Department’s reductions in force as reason to doubt the success of the new arrangement, in addition to a pilot study where Treasury was made responsible for collections and loan rehabilitation for several thousand student loan borrowers but only successfully completed rehabilitations for eight.

Further, the senators argued that the second and third phases of the IAA — in which Treasury will be tasked with potentially managing the entire federal student loan portfolio and administering the FAFSA form — are illegal and likely to throw the financial aid system into further disarray.

“Treasury’s lack of expertise in the federal student aid system could be disastrous for the implementation of the latter phases of the IAA, as the federal student aid system is highly complex and administrative errors could endanger access to financial aid or statutory debt cancellation,” wrote the senators. “This ill-advised plan also ignores the laws of Congress.”

ED’s IAA with the Department of Labor for Career and Technical Education and Adult Education, programs which are a fraction of the size and less complex than student loan programs, have cost ED over $1 million in extra program costs and resulted in weeks-long delays in grant disbursements, harming students and schools.

“(I)t is reckless for ED to enter into another IAA with no information or clarity on the cost,” said the senators.

“The ED-Treasury IAA will set the stage for more dysfunction in a federal student aid system that the Trump Administration has already made more expensive and confusing to navigate…We call upon you to rescind these IAAs immediately,” concluded the lawmakers.

The senators asked Secretary McMahon and Secretary Bessent to provide details on the cost of transferring student loan administration to Treasury, basic information on the staff responsible for and the timing of the IAA, and how Treasury will be held accountable for poor performance in administering its new student loan responsibilities by April 15, 2026.

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’s use of IAAs to dismantle the Department—but Republicans refused to include new, binding language. The final agreement did, however, make clear there is no legal authority for the Department of Education to slough off core responsibilities through these agreements.

The full text of the letter is available HERE.

###


The following sites updated:


  •  
  • Thursday, April 2, 2026

    Stephen Rodrick nails grifter Robert Kennedy Junior

    Love it when grifters get exposed.  For ROLLING STONE, Stephen Rodrick exposes grifters Robert Kennedy Junior and Tulsi Gabbard.  This is from his section on Junior:

    Last September, RFK Jr. appeared again before Cassidy and the Senate. The senator, realizing he had been played at Kennedy's confirmation, had grown tired of RFK's charade. In 2025, the country entered a terrifying measles outbreak that is still ongoing. Kennedy published an op-ed on Fox News where he declared the measles vaccine worthwhile, but then he added: "The decision to vaccinate is a personal one."  

    Exasperated, Cassidy laid a trap for Kennedy. Cassidy mentioned that President Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for overseeing Operation Warp Speed, the governmental program that developed a Covid vaccine that, according to Cassidy, saved millions of lives. 

    RFK Jr. agreed.

    "Senator, absolutely."

    Cassidy grimaced a bit.

    "But you just told Senator [Michael] Bennett that the Covid vaccine killed more people than Covid. That was a statement. … You also said as lead attorney for the Children's Health Defense, you engaged in multiple lawsuits attempting to restrict access to the Covid vaccine. … It also surprises me because you've canceled, or HHS did, under your direction, $500 million in contracts using the mRNA vaccine platform that was critical, Operation Warp Speed - again, an accomplishment that I think President Trump should get a Nobel Prize for - you canceled $500 million in contracts."

    Kennedy's face turned the color of a toasted cigarette. He said Cassidy's interpretation of his remarks to Bennett was incorrect. He then offered some weak sauce on Trump and Operation Warp Speed.

    "He also brought in therapeutics like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and protocols for treatments and all," said Kennedy. "And there were no mandates."

    Cassidy cut him off and noted that some of his new ACIP appointees were serving as paid witnesses for individuals suing drug companies over vaccine issues.

    "If we put people who are paid witnesses for people suing vaccines, that actually seems like a conflict of interest. Do you agree with that? 

    Kennedy was defiant.

    "No, I don't. It may be a bias, and that bias, if disclosed, is okay."

    Cassidy was out of patience. He noted that the chaos and conflicting statements being issued by the HHS had left doctors and patients unclear of who was eligible for Covid shots and who needed a prescription for the vaccine. He looked back at Kennedy.

    "I would say, effectively, we're denying people vaccines."

    Cassidy yielded his time before RFK Jr. could respond.


    Last month, the RFK-appointed ACIP panel was declared illegal by a federal judge. The judge noted "only six appear to have any meaningful experience in vaccines" and that the group failed the legal standard for a balanced committee. The panel's policy decisions of the past year were voided. American vaccine policy now drifts and the CDC still has no permanent director six months after Monarez's resignation. The country doesn't have a Surgeon General either as Kennedy ally and fellow health weirdo Casey Means lacks the 50 votes needed for confirmation. Her appointment remains in political limbo. A recent Politico poll found that 52 percent of Trump voters didn't think the administration was making America healthy again. 

    To be sure, RFK Jr. has had his achievements during his HHS tenure. He laid off over 10,000 HHS staffers. He dropped a video where he did a cold plunge with Kid Rock in his blue jeans. Nuzzi released American Canto, an indecipherable memoir that included oblique references to an affair she had with Kennedy after profiling him for New York magazine. In a particularly moving passage, Nuzzi worried about Kennedy's brain being invaded by a worm.

    "I loved his brain. I hated the idea of an intruder therein. Others thought he was a madman; he was not quite mad the way they thought, but I loved the private ways that he was mad. … He made me laugh, but I winced when he joked about the worm. ‘Baby, don't worry,' he said. ‘It's not a worm.'"

    I can't help but think how different the world would be if it was a worm.

    Love it. 

    This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


    Thursday, April 2, 2026.  Chump vows to continue the illegal war, Homeland Security's corruption in payments for warehouses and other buildings to be retro-fitted as prisons and gulags gets more exposure, Kristi Noem's personal scandal continues, the administration is not honoring FISA requests, and much more.


    Shortly before Convicted Felon Donald Chump addressed the nation last night, Isabel van Brugen (DAILY BEAST) noted:

    Public backlash to President Donald Trump’s Iran war is exploding as he is reported to be plotting to use thousands of American service members to conduct ground operations in the region.

    The 79-year-old president has deployed about 10,000 ground troops to the Middle East. According to The Washington Post, the Pentagon is gearing up for weeks of ground operations in the region, with potential plans including seizing Iran’s oil production to put pressure on the regime. He’s also reported to be considering troop reinforcements.
    Just 14 percent of Americans support sending U.S. troops to Iran, 62 percent are opposed to the move, and 24 percent of respondents haven’t made up their minds, according to an Economist-YouGov poll conducted Friday through Monday among 1,679 U.S. adults.

    The same poll shows that the war, which has killed thousands and sparked an energy crisis, is becoming more unpopular as it continues.

    The Economist-YouGov poll found that 28 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat support the war with Iran, while 59 percent oppose it, for a net support of -30. That marks a decline from net support of -23 in an Economist-YouGov poll conducted from March 13 through 16.


    And then he spoke.




    I think any press person who watched President Trump’s Iran cheer-up session speech on truth serum would have to concede that this was a speech he shouldn’t have given. He meandered. He looked bad and worn out. He had the requisite moments when his degenerate inner monologue creeps into the open: he said that free passage through the Strait of Hormuz is something for importer countries in Asia to deal with, that they should “grab and cherish” the Strait, as though it were some underage beauty pageant contestant Trump was hungering to assault. What is important is that in political and public opinion terms, there was nothing new or newsworthy in this speech. They didn’t even manage to accomplish this in the narrow and cynical sense of saying anything new that could be a fresh point of public discussion. It was a rambling set of unconvincing excuses no one with any real concern or anxiety about this war (the only real audience) would find convincing. Why are you complaining, he asks? This war hasn’t gone on nearly as long as World War II! LOL.

    Video coverage includes the following.



    "Clearly, there is no plan for the Strait," Patrick De Haan, petroleum market analyst for GasBuddy, posted on X.

    "What the f--- was that?" Andrew Feinberg, White House correspondent for The Independent, posted on X. 




    More than a month into the war in Iran, President Trump gave a prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday to make the case for why he believes the conflict is necessary.

    In a 19-minute speech from the White House, Mr. Trump said Iran’s missiles and drone systems have been “dramatically curtailed and their weapons factories and rocket launches are being blown to pieces.”

    Although the U.S. and Israeli militaries have destroyed many of Iran’s ballistic missiles and launchers in airstrikes, Iran continues to fire missiles in the region.

    Still, Mr. Trump described the military action as a major success and called on Americans, who are uneasy about its costs, to keep things in perspective. He estimated that the war should wind down within three weeks.

    Mr. Trump oscillated between endorsing negotiations to end the war and promising an escalation of violence.

    “We are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly,” he said. “We are going to hit them extremely hard. Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing.”

    Iran has said there are no direct talks with the United States, and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the Iranians are willing to keep channels of communication open but not to make concessions at this point.


    Oil prices surged and stock markets sank on Thursday, hours after President Trump declared in a national television address that the U.S. military campaign against Iran was an overwhelming success but failed to offer a clear exit strategy.

    On Wednesday night, in his first prime-time address from the White House since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, Mr. Trump threatened to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” and repeated his threats to hit Iranian infrastructure, including electrical plants, unless a deal was struck.

    Investors hoping for clearer signals of a de-escalation appeared disappointed. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, jumped more than 7 percent in early trading on Thursday, the steepest daily rise in three weeks. Stock markets around the world fell, with indexes in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas from the Middle East, hit particularly hard.

    Mr. Trump said in his speech that Iran’s “ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed.” On Thursday morning, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said that American and Israeli strikes had not decimated the country’s missile production centers, long-range drones, air defenses or electronic warfare systems. The United States and Israel “know nothing about our vast and strategic capabilities,” the Guards said in a statement on Thursday.



    If that was the best case President Donald Trump could make for why launching a war against Iran was necessary, it’s clearer why he didn’t bother to make it before he started the war a month ago.

    In a prime-time address from the White House, a decidedly lethargic president argued both that the war was necessary — lest Iran rain destruction down on America and much of the world — and that the war is going great and will soon be over. If there is anyone not already on board with Trump’s war who would have been convinced by that speech, it’s hard to imagine who and where they are.

    The speech featured many of Trump’s familiar rhetorical tics. The military, he said, has delivered “victories like few people had ever seen before,” while Iran was about to obtain “a nuclear weapon like nobody’s ever seen before.” Everyone, apparently, is in awe: “The whole world is watching, and they can’t believe the power, strength, and brilliance, they just can’t believe what they’re seeing.” And before you know it, the war will be just a memory. “We are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong.”

    And the global energy crisis the war touched off? Not Trump’s fault, certainly. “This short-term increase” in gas prices, he said, “has been entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks at oil tankers.” It’s hard to consider those attacks “deranged” when they were both utterly predictable and have given Iran the best leverage it has to force an end to the conflict on favorable terms.

    Trump also insisted that “We’re now totally independent of the Middle East” and “America has plenty of gas. We have so much gas,” and therefore don’t have to worry about the restriction in oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz. This would be news to anyone who has filled up their gas tank in the past few weeks.



    DHS?  So much news.  Let's drop back to last month when Kristi Noem was still Secretary of Homeland Security and she appeared before the Senate Committee.  In the March 3rd Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Cory Booker offered an example of how Kristi's contracts were wasteful -- here he is noting where she paid twice the worth of a property.


    Senator Cory Booker:  ICE officers entered the grounds of a high school in Minneapolis.  That's a fact.  Elementary school children in New Jersey are terrified of your agents.  When they came up a school bus top, they fled.  Another school, higher education, Columbia University. your agents reportedly lied to students, told them they were searching for a missing person to gain access to private spaces, to non public areas of campus.  Secretary Noem, these are kids.  They're terrified in our communities.  How do you think that affects them when children in my stage go running, fleeing and often you will pursue children throwing them to the ground, getting on their backs,putting them in handcuffs.  I want to talk to you about this incredible empire of for-profit companies that are profiting at rates we've never seen and the way you're using money.  Let's -- let's drill down on the warehouses, the DHS has been buying over the last several months, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.  Are you familiar with the acquisition of a warehouse DHS recently bought in Roxbury Township, New Jersey?  

    Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes.

    Senator Cory Booker:  You are familiar with that.  

    Secretary Kristi Noem: I'm familiar.

    Senator Cory Booker: How much you spent of it?

    Secretary Kristi Noem: No, sir.  I do not.  

    Senator Cory Booker: $129.3 million.  Do you know how much it was assessed for in New Jersey?

    Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, we're purchasing centers across the country to build efficiency into our detention system.  Efficiency so that we can --

    Senator Cory Booker:  As a person who's run tight budgets before and had taxpayer dollars.  You paid $129.3 million for a facility in my state that was assessed at less than half of that at $62 million to work for a president that says he's a great dealmaker.  I can't believe he thinks that you're a great dealmaker.  

    The property was assessed at $62 million and Kristi okayed the contract to purchase it with our tax dollars for twice that amount, for $129.3 million.  


    What Corey pointed out was, in fact, the standard and not the exception.  Rachel Maddow (MS NOW) notes:

    The grassroots group Maryland Coalition to Stop the Camps asked people to come from all over the state to Hagerstown to show opposition to the prison camp that Trump is trying to put there.

    This piece of this story is worth watching right now, especially after Kristi Noem was ousted as homeland security secretary and a new guy, former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, is taking over. 

    One of the things that has emerged about the warehouse purchases the administration has been making for its prison camps is that for some reason the government appears to have been eager to wildly overpay. 

    In Salt Lake City, the administration paid almost 50% more than the property appeared to be worth. It was assessed at $97 million, and the government paid more than $145 million. In Roxbury, New Jersey, one warehouse was assessed at $62 million, but the Trump administration came in and offered $129 million for it — more than double the cost. In Georgia, one of the properties valued last year at $26 million was purchased for $129 million
    On Friday, The Washington Post reported on an internal department memo that circulated last week, the day after Mullin was sworn in as the new head of Homeland Security. The memo reportedly said that the process of turning these warehouses into Trump prison camps was going to be slowed down and that the proposals for these facilities are going to be revised to start incorporating feedback from stakeholders — whatever that means — before they move ahead.

    Simultaneously, CNN reported that there is a new inspector general investigation into alleged corruption at the department concerning the soliciting and handling of contracts, including the involvement of Noem and her top adviser, Corey Lewandowski. 

    There was already an audit that had been sparked in the department; now, on top of that, there’s a new and apparently urgent investigation, which reportedly included investigators searching the offices of one Homeland Security official who had been placed in a job at the agency by Noem and Lewandowski.
    That investigation came after NBC News reported on March 19 that Lewandowski reportedly sought multimillion-dollar payments from companies contracting with Homeland Security, including companies that operate immigration prisons.

    Yesterday, Senator Elizabeth Warren's office issued the following:

    ICE Director intent on building warehouse system like “[Amazon] Prime, but with human beings” 

    “Cramming tens of thousands of people into warehouses meant for packages, without the ventilation, temperature control, plumbing, or sanitation systems necessary for human habitation, would almost certainly exacerbate…deaths in custody, assaults, and infectious disease outbreaks.”

    Letter to CoreCivic (PDF) | Letter to GEO Group (PDF) | Letter to GardaWorld Federal Services (PDF)

    Letter to Newmark Group (PDF) | Letter to KVG LLC (PDF) | Letter to PNK Group (PDF)

    Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, led 52 members of Congress in a new investigation into whether government contractors, real estate brokers, and property owners are corruptly profiting from the White House’s fast-tracked expansion of inhumane warehouse-based immigration detention facilities. The lawmakers wrote to six companies, pressing them to explain how much they expect to earn from the new detention warehouses, their lobbying efforts to land these lucrative government contracts, and more.

    “These warehouses were built to hold products, not people…Given the public’s grave concerns about this warehouse system, we request prompt answers to questions about your involvement in the system,” wrote the lawmakers.

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is working at breakneck speed to implement its “Detention Reengineering Initiative,” a warehouse system to hold nearly 100,000 people by November 2026. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has described the vision as “[Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.”

    Experts have warned that because of the speed of the operation, it will be nearly impossible for ICE to build the infrastructure necessary for human habitation in warehouses. Immigrants in existing detention centers suffer from inhumane conditions, including lack of access to adequate medical care and poor-quality food.

    “Placing thousands of people in warehouses that were never intended to house human beings will only exacerbate these problems,” wrote the lawmakers.

    With the Trump administration planning to spend $38.3 billion on the warehouse system, the project promises to be extremely profitable for vendors, property owners, and real estate brokers. And for many of the warehouse contracts, ICE appears to be circumventing the normal competitive bidding processes.

    ICE is using a Navy’s contracting program, diverting DoD resources to avoid a competitive bidding process and avoid disclosing contract details that would typically be made public, triggering concerns of unnecessary costs and corruption.

    For example, ICE paid $129 million for a facility in Georgia — nearly five times the amount it was assessed for last year. The details of some of these transactions have been kept secret, including through the use of non-disclosure agreements.

    Additionally, some senior Trump officials have close ties to immigration contractors that could profit from the warehouse system. For example, David Venturella, who recently joined ICE after leaving the GEO Group — a top ICE detention contractor — is leading the ICE division that oversees detention contracts even though his former employer is competing for lucrative warehouse contracts. Attorney General Pam Bondi is also a former lobbyist for the GEO Group. Tom Homan, the “Border Czar,” and Corey Lewandowski, a former Homeland Security official, have reportedly helped contractors secure contracts to line their own pockets.

    The lawmakers asked the contractors and real estate firms to provide clarity on: their roles in the warehouse expansions; their expected profit margins from the project; whether they’ve donated to the Trump campaign or cabinet officials; and whether they will commit to not allowing their work to be used to facilitate inhumane conditions at these detention centers, by April 13, 2026.

    Senators Edward Markey (D-MA), Bernard Sanders (D-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) joined in signing the letters.

    Representatives Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Julia Brownley (D-Calif.), Sean Casten (D-Ill.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Jesus García (D-Ill.), Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), April McClain Delaney (D-Md.), Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Ilhan Omar (D-M.N.), Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), Patrick Ryan (D-N.Y.), Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.), Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.), Jan Shakowsky (D-Ill.), Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill), Donald Beyer (D-V.A.), and James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) joined in signing the letter.

    ###




    Staying with Kristi Noem, William Vaillancourt (DAILY BEAST) reports:


    Kristi Noem admitted months ago that her husband, who reportedly crossdresses while paying and chatting with adult performers, was gay.

    Noem’s 56-year-old husband, Bryon, allegedly shelled out thousands of dollars while dressing up as the opposite sex, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday. The former Homeland Security secretary, whom President Donald Trump fired earlier this month, was “devastated,” her spokesperson said, adding that “the family was blindsided by this.”
    However, Noem, 54, apparently told a reporter last year that there was one aspect of her marriage that wasn’t conventional.

    On the Aug. 25, 2025, episode of conservative political commentator Ryan James Girdusky’s podcast It’s a Numbers Game, the host talked about a “fascinating” piece of “D.C. gossip.”
    “There is a member of Trump’s Cabinet. I’m not going to name names until this comes out publicly, but you guys put two and two together and you’ll know what I’m talking about,” he began. “There is a member of the Cabinet who’s well known, and it’s well known that this member—it’s a woman—is having an affair, a very semi-public affair, and if you’re in political circles, you know."

    Noem was long rumored to be having an affair with her top aide, Corey Lewandowski, who is also married with children. Both of them have denied it.

    If Kristi did say it, that doesn't make her husband gay.  He may be gay, he may not be.  What's been said is that he likes to dress up as a woman.  And Kristi knew that for years.  Matthew Rozsa adds:


    “The Daily Mail reports that it has reviewed hundreds of messages involving Byron and three women ...” Steve Schmidt, a former Republican strategist who consulted the last GOP president before Trump, said in his recent Substack post.

    Schmidt went on to describe the litany of controversies surrounding the Noems, including Kristi Noem’s alleged affair with her unqualified adviser Corey Lewandowski and her bragging about murdering a puppy after it did not properly hunt despite inadequate training. He particularly singled out Noem spending millions in taxpayer dollars on glorified photo opportunities for herself.

    “Over and over again, Kristi Noem wanted attention on herself,” Lewandowski said. “Look at the photographs. Look at the pictures. Here's Kristi Noem in the Coast Guard. Here's Kristi Noem in a fire costume. Here's Kristi Noem. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.” Yet despite these moral offenses, as well as “signing contracts on dozens of warehouses across the country, paying five times their value, eight times their value, to turn them into concentration camps, to turn them into prisons,” Schmidt remarked that Noem now wants Americans’ prayers after her husband’s photographs leaked.
    “There is no official who has abused more people, broken more laws, or engaged in more corrupt acts — besides Trump himself,” Schmidt said. And Bryon Noem, despite leaving his wife’s side when she refused to deny her alleged affair with Lewandowski, did not seem to object to his wife’s violence and murdering toward innocent people while Secretary of Homeland Security.

    “The simple truth is: Kristi Noem, when American citizens were murdered, she called them terrorists,” Schmidt said, playing a clip in which she used that term.

    “And you know what?” Schmidt concluded. “She doesn't deserve any sympathy. She doesn't deserve any respect. And she absolutely doesn't deserve any of our restraint. Byron Noem and Kristi Noem were up to no good.”

    I don't know what Byron Noem was up to but I can agree with Schmidt that Kristi was up to no good.  That's why she was part of this administration.


    Tom Holman is part of the corrupt administration.  He is the guy Chump assigned to swoop in and save Homeland Security and ICE. Good thing Tom's bribe from 2024 didn't prevent him from holding office.  Colin Kalmbacher (LAW & CRIME) reports:

    Two Trump administration agencies are violating the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to release information about some $50,000 worth of "bribes" accepted by Border Czar Tom Homan, according to a double whammy of federal lawsuits filed Monday.

    In a 15-page complaint filed against the Department of Justice and a 14-page complaint filed against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Democracy Defenders Fund accuses both agencies of violating statutory deadlines and unlawfully withholding records.
    The lawsuits stem from a September 2025 report by MS Now that Homan was recorded the year before accepting a $50,000 bag of cash from undercover FBI agents, who were pretending to be business executives looking to secure sweetheart government contracts in the event Donald Trump returned to the White House.

    "[T]he investigation into Mr. Homan began during the end of the Biden Administration, when a target in a different investigation disclosed that Mr. Homan, who expected an appointment by President Trump, was accepting bribes in exchange for future contracts," one of the lawsuits explains. "[T]he FBI planned to wait to see whether Mr. Homan would deliver on the promised contracts once he was appointed by President Trump."
    The FBI's "investigation against Tom Homan was dropped without explanation after the Trump Administration assumed control of the Department of Justice," one of the lawsuits notes.

    As Law&Crime previously reported, once Kash Patel's FBI and Attorney General Pam Bondi's DOJ took the reins of the corruption probe, the agencies said "no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing" was uncovered and the Homan case was closed.

    In both lawsuits, the nonprofit group says the agencies have simply taken too long to respond to the FOIA requests.

    But that's not all.

    The DOJ-focused lawsuit also claims the agency has "failed to produce responsive records" or explain why such records "cannot be produced because of exemptions" under the FOIA statute — suggesting the agency has such records in its possession but refuses to give them up for one reason or another and refuses to explain why.

    The corruption in this administration never ends.  Just when you think you've absorbed it all, you learn more ways and learn of more corruption.  



    Let's turn to Chump's friend Jeffrey Epstein.  Henry Giardina (QUEERTY) reports:


    One of the most damning accusations concerned Tr*mp, a girl between 13 and 15 years old, and a bitten member. That story showed up in the files and was proved credible by FBI during a 2021 interview.

    For a time, files concerning an Epstein victim—who claimed to have been forced by Tr*mp to perform oral sex on him and then bit him in response—were logged and available to view. Then, they mysteriously… disappeared.
    While some of the files reappeared again later on, others went missing despite remaining logged on the site. The apparent cover-up was quite sloppy, and mainstream outlets were quick to take notice.

    Now, everyone’s taking notice after someone printed out king-sized banners of the documents in question and plastered them all over New York and Miami. Now that’s protest art!
    [. . .]
    Since the scandal first broke in late February, however, the White House has been desperately angling to keep citizens distracted by the pointless, nonsensical war in Iran. They’re counting on Americans forgetting what we already know about Tr*mp’s predatory past with young women and girls and memory-holeing the whole incident. Thanks to these posters—which are likely to show up in other major cities across the US—that’s not looking likely.
    “Put it all over Florida!” wrote one thrilled commenter. “So his family can’t miss it!”

    “This is good,” another said. “But tbh, it needs to go up on BILLBOARDS and the Times Square MEGA SCREEN.”


    Let's wind down with this from Senator Alex Padilla's office:

    SAN JOSE, CA — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) toured the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center with frontline physicians to highlight the real-world, devastating consequences of health care cuts from Republicans’ billionaire-first reconciliation bill, which was signed into law last summer.

    Santa Clara Valley Medical Center — a county-run hospital that serves 2 million residents — is already feeling the strain. Health care spending accounts for roughly one-third of the county’s total budget. Because of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” new federal cuts are deepening a projected $1 billion deficit, threatening patient care, hospital services, and access to critical treatment for working families.

    As Republicans continue to slash funding, doctors are warning of longer wait times, reduced access to care, and fewer resources for working families, seniors, and vulnerable patients who rely on the county system to survive. Padilla’s visit alongside Santa Clara County Medical Physicians and the Valley Physicians Group comes as communities across California feel the devastating consequences of Washington Republicans’ decision to cut health care to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy — shifting the burden to local hospitals and the patients they serve.

    “Republicans would rather spend trillions on tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, bankroll Trump’s unauthorized war in Iran, and fuel ICE’s cruelty than ensure Americans can access lifesaving health care,” said Senator Padilla. “Thanks to Donald Trump and Republicans’ not so beautiful bill, hospitals in the Bay Area and across the country are now facing massive budget shortfalls, driving up wait times, restricting access to critical treatment, and raising costs for hardworking families, seniors, and at-risk patients. I’ll continue supporting physicians on the front lines working tirelessly to address Trump’s manufactured health care crisis.”

    “Medically, I can prescribe medication for the reflux. I can prescribe laxatives for constipation. I can alert social work and direct patients to food banks to help with food access. But I cannot prescribe safety. And until our children feel safe — until the threat of sudden, traumatic separation is removed — their bodies will continue to bear the burden of that fear,” said Rachel Ruiz, MD, Pediatric Gastroenterologist, Chair of VPG.

    “Public healthcare is our safety net to help maintain quality care for all patients, allowing them to return to their lives and jobs at full capacity. Protecting it is important for all of us to help maintain a functioning society and economy. Critical services such as trauma and stroke are utilized by everyone, and increased wait times for patients at public systems will spill into each and every hospital, regardless of zip code. The effects of HR1 will be felt by everyone, even the wealthy,” said Praveen Anchala, MD, Chair of Radiology, Vice Chair of VPG.

    “Access to affordable, life-saving HIV antiretroviral therapy is paramount to ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Antiretroviral therapy helps keep patients living with HIV/AIDS healthy as well as the community. HR-1 directly threatens insurance coverage and enrollment, putting more pressure on federal programs such as the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program to fill the gap which is already stretched thin. These events taken together will lead to increased morbidity and mortality for people living with HIV/AIDS, new infections and overall a decline in the health of our population,” said Joseph Cooper III, MD, Infectious Disease Physician, Secretary of VPG.

    “A 60-year-old breast cancer survivor, mid-reconstruction, rushed her surgery in December — not because she was ready, but because she was afraid. Afraid that after December 31st, she couldn’t afford to be insured. She had a port in her chest and a tissue expander in her breast — devices that require surgery to remove — and she needed them out while she still had coverage. She has not been able to follow since. She should be on maintenance chemotherapy. We don’t know if she is,” said Jennifer Cheeseborough, MD.

    “Santa Clara Valley Healthcare is one of the largest healthcare systems in Santa Clara County and Northern California. Our physicians, hospitals, and clinical systems have helped patients throughout the County, regardless of geography, income, insurance status or ability to pay. We have taken care of elderly patients on commercial Medicare plans admitted for acute illnesses such as stroke, heart attack, heart failure to name a few, because other healthcare systems did not have capacity, were too far away, or did not accept the patient’s insurance. We have helped patients seeking substance use and behavioral health treatment not available in other partner healthcare systems, such as for adult and pediatric opioid use disorder, serving as the safety net for all residents with acute substance and mental health crises. H.R.1 will have devastating impacts on our public healthcare system, with even more detrimental effects on hundreds of thousands of people that rely on public coverage. Our healthcare systems collectively will see more high-cost emergency utilization for preventable illness, higher justice-involvement and incarceration for preventable substance use and mental health crises, and worse, it would exacerbate strain on already inundated systems — thus not being able to effectively ensure all our County residents have timely, equitable access to the highest standards of care that all people deserve. Imaging taking your mother to the nearest emergency room only to learn the wait-time is several hours until she can be seen. Imagine searching for months for a substance treatment program when you fear your child may overdose at any time. These impacts will be felt by every county resident, and most tragically, with disproportionate harm to our most underserved, vulnerable patients and communities. H.R.1 will make applying for and renewing healthcare coverage administratively more complicated and challenging that many will simply not be able to keep up despite eligibility. Furthermore, many community members are weighing risks to seek care because of active, ongoing ICE activity and surveillance. We hope that by working together we can ensure the viability of our public safety net hospital and clinical systems, and ultimately, ensure all people — our families, our neighbors, our communities — have access to healthcare,” said Annie Chang, MD.

    “My experience, over twenty plus years as a hospital pediatrician, is that families always want to do the right thing for their child. But now, they’re not sure what the right thing is. Should they bring their sick child to the hospital to get medical treatment? Or should they stay home to avoid the risk of deportation? This is a heartbreaking choice I wish no family had to face,” said Monica Stemmle, MD, Pediatric Hospitalist.

    “I recently launched a food referral program at our clinic because hunger isn’t a social problem — it’s a medical one. H.R. 1 doesn’t just cut a budget line; it cuts into the health of real children. I see it in my exam room every day: kids without enough food struggle in school, carry the weight of depression and anxiety, and fall further behind with every missed meal. Feeding children isn’t a political position — it’s a moral baseline,” said Iliana Harrysson, MD, General Pediatrician.

    “Trauma patients are uniquely vulnerable to catastrophic health expenditures because traumatic injuries are unpredictable, often require expensive and complex care, and disproportionately affect poor patients of racial and ethnic minorities. I wrote a paper in 2020 detailing catastrophic expenditures in California trauma patients before and after the Affordable Care Act. We found that of over 7,500 trauma patients, more than 20% experienced catastrophic health expenditures (out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures exceeding 40% of post-subsistence income), including 89% of uninsured patients. However, the implementation of the ACA was associated with a 74% lower risk of catastrophic spending by trauma patients, with greater decreases among Black and Hispanic patients. The HR1 bill, which will cause 10-17 million people to lose healthcare coverage, will significantly increase the number of patients experiencing catastrophic health expenditures — not just trauma patients, but also anyone suffering from an unexpected health emergency,” said Tiffany Chao, MD, Trauma Surgeon.

    Additional photos and b-roll footage from today’s event are available here.

    Padilla has consistently fought against Trump and Republicans’ reckless cuts to health care to hand out tax cuts to billionaires. Last July, Padilla blasted Senate Republicans’ passage of their tax bill that that is gutting critical health care and nutrition assistance programs while devastating families in California and across the country. Last June, Padilla joined the entire Senate Democratic Caucus in calling on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to reverse course on Republicans’ plan to take health care and food assistance away from millions of Americans — including seniors, children, people with disabilities, and veterans — to pay for tax breaks for ultra-wealthy Americans.

    Padilla also consistently slammed President Trump and Senate Republicans for rejecting Democrats’ bill to protect health care coverage for millions of Americans. In December, Padilla called on Republicans to pass Senate Democrats’ proposal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits for three years before they expired. After Senate Republicans voted against Democrats’ plan to prevent millions of Americans’ health care costs from skyrocketing, Padilla also hosted a virtual press conference to sound the alarm on the looming Republican health care crisis. In September, Padilla joined California health care leaders in Los Angeles to call on Congressional Republicans to work with Democrats to protect health care coverage for nearly 2 million California residents and avoid a Republican-caused government shutdown.

    ###

     
    The following sites updated: