Starting with Jeffrey Epstein, Donald
Chump's roll dog of many decades who died in jail, Todd Blanche, as
deputy attorney general, as acting Attorney General and now as Attorney
General, has refused to follow the law regarding the release of the
Epstein files.. So now there's a move to beef the law up. US House Rep
Thomas Massie named names.
Tara Suter (THE HILL) reports:
Rep.
Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has been a key figure in the push to release
files linked to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the last
few years, read off more than a dozen names of what he said were
“Epstein coconspirators” on Monday.
“On the
House floor tonight, I read the names of several Epstein coconspirators
who should be investigated and prosecuted,” Massie said in a Monday
night post on the social platform X.
“I also
began collecting 218 signatures for the discharge petition to force a
vote on Epstein Files Transparency Act II,” he added.
Massie’s
post included a clip of himself on the House floor, where he said it
had “been a year since the president signed the Epstein Files
Transparency Act,” referencing legislation he spearheaded alongside Rep.
Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) last year that resulted in the release of some
files linked to Epstein.
Among
the names Massie provided were Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (former
Prince Andrew of England), David Copperfield (magician) and Jes Staley
(whom we noted in last Friday's snapshot).
Khaleda Rahman (NEWSWEEK) provides the full fourteen names, "In
the order Massie named them, they are: Jes Staley, Leon Black, Les
Wexner, David Copperfield, Lapo Elkann, Tom Pritzker, Glenn Dubin,
Frédéric Fekkai, Eduardo Teodorani, Jean-Luc Brunel, Daniel Siad, Ramsey
Elkholy, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Lesley Groff."
A
discharge petition requires 218 signatures and forces a bill or
resolution to be brought directly to the House floor for consideration,
even if it's previously been held up in the committee process.
The
second petition is designed to force the release of files the
government has redacted and gives state attorneys general, Epstein's
victims and members of Congress standing to challenge the Justice
Department in court over aspects of the original law it has not
followed.
"I never anticipated that the highest
law enforcement officer in the land would not enforce the law once it
became a law. That's what this addresses. We try to dot the i's and
cross the t's here," Massie told The Washington Times. "This is somewhat
unprecedented that Todd Blanche is stonewalling a state attorney
general, so this unambiguously gives the attorneys general in the
various states the ability to prosecute these crimes by giving them
unfettered access to the files."
J.D. Wolf (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) adds, "On
Tuesday morning, Massie escalated the pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson,
saying there were rumors that Johnson could soon recess the House until
after the midterm elections and asking whether the move would be
intended to 'avoid the vote'." We all remember the positions Johnson
put himself in to avoid the first discharge petition. This included
Johnson refusing to swear in Adelita Grijalva for fifty days
after her election because he knew the Democrat was going to immediately
sign the discharge petition. This included Johnson adjourning or
recessing the House, it included him attacking the bill (including
calling it partisan) and it included him proposing other measures.
It'll be interesting to see which stalling tactics Speaker of the Closet
Johnson might resort to.
So
214 once Aisha Wahab is sworn in later this week which means four
Republicans are needed to sign on to the discharge petition.
Chump? He's
resorting to anything and everything to try shore up midterms for the
GOP. This does involve scapegoating trans people.
Devin Dwyer (ABC NEWS) reports
Chump is requesting the Supreme Court okay his immediate firing of 29
transgender service members despite the fact that they are awaiting
hearings on the ban:
The
justices will consider this fall whether to hear the case at this early
stage, before any final ruling on the merits by a lower court.
In
the meantime, the 29 plaintiffs – who are active-duty, reservists,
National Guard members and a person seeking to enlist – will remain in
the force.
"As the Trump administration’s own
attorneys admitted, these are qualified individuals who are meeting all
military standards," said Jennifer Levi, an attorney representing the
transgender service members with the LGBTQ legal advocacy group GLAD
Law. "There is no reason to waste millions of taxpayer dollars to kick
out thousands of highly trained, skilled and decorated troops based on
nothing but hostility and this administration’s political whims."
This move echoes Texas Governor Greg Abbott's
lies. In his commercial that's run everywhere (Sabina says most often
on PLUTO) he gives a one word sentence about how he has said NO boys in
girls sports because he's protecting girls.
The
ProPublica and Post story detailed how Ryan Richardson continued to
coach teenage girls for years at his gym in Pharr, Texas, amid
allegations of misconduct, even after he was suspended in early 2025 and
subsequently ruled “permanently ineligible” this February by the U.S.
Center for SafeSport, an oversight group. On its public disciplinary list,
SafeSport said it found that Richardson had an intimate relationship
with a minor, committed sexual misconduct involving a minor, and engaged
in physical misconduct and bullying.
Juan J.
Flores Jr., a supervisor in a Homeland Security Investigations unit that
focuses on child exploitation in the Rio Grande Valley, told ProPublica
and The Post that he had launched the probe into Richardson in response
to the story, which included allegations from a parent and former
players that he had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old player
beginning in 2022 and that he groomed and emotionally and physically
abused others.
“My plan is to turn over every rock, have every conversation. I know he’s still coaching,” Flores said.
That
was early 2025 when he was suspended. And Abbott did nothing. He's
still done nothing. He pretends he wants to protect girls.
Abbott
is not a protector of girls. And he has no leg to stand on when he
talks about girls and sports because he allowed the predator Ryan
Richardson to coach in Texas after being suspended in early 2025 for his
inappropriate action with girls.
Chump lies and lies and lies again.
Fact
checking Chump is hard because there are days where every other
sentence he spits out is a lie. Aaron Blake (CNN) is someone who's
addressed Chump's lies for many years now. In
his latest for CNN, he notes:
It
should surprise nobody that the president who tried to overturn the
2020 election based on lies — and didn’t seem to mind his supporters
rising up violently on January 6, 2021 — might try to monkey with the
2026 midterm elections.
It remains to be seen whether President Donald Trump’s efforts to interfere in the 2026 election will actually work.
But recent developments should serve as a reality check that he’s trying, with potentially ugly results.
While that might not sound shocking in and of itself, there is plenty about it that’s irregular.
The
effort involves using an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
called Homeland Security Investigations, which typically handles other
crimes like human trafficking and drug smuggling.
But
mostly, the reason it should raise eyebrows is because of the proximity
to the 2026 election, now just a little more than two months away. As
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Tierney Sneed and Gabe Cohen note, the federal
government typically avoids such “overt” investigatory actions so close
to an election. The reason is that mere allegations that haven’t been
thoroughly examined could influence the election.
But when it comes to Trump and alleged voter fraud, that’s a feature rather than a bug.
Trump
has spent a decade trying and failing to substantiate his claims of
widespread fraud. In his first term, he launched a voter fraud
commission that folded with little to show. His campaign paid people to find widespread fraud after the 2020 election, to no avail.
What the administration has produced of late is a lot of manufactured smoke.
The DHS effort would seem to be geared toward promoting such claims, given the department’s purview.
But
if other efforts to find widespread voter fraud didn’t produce anything
substantive, the odds would appear slim that DHS will change that in
just two months.
Of course, producing ironclad
evidence of fraud probably isn’t the point. The Trump administration’s
goal appears to be seeding more doubt — and possibly even creating a
pretext for more federal intervention in the election (which we’ll get
to).
The other big development this week was an unnamed federal whistleblower issuing a major warning
about the Trump administration’s new system for verifying mail ballots.
The system has devolved into what workers describe as a “sh*t show”
that could lead to mass disenfranchisement of mail voters, the
whistleblower says
An
anonymous official with "direct knowledge" has come forward to warn
about "potentially catastrophic problems" with the government's proposed
takeover of the vote-by-mail system, according to a whistleblower complaint filed in federal court on Monday.
The official's concerns were documented on a docket in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by plaintiffs in one of many lawsuits challenging the rule that would have the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) wrest control of mail-in voting away from the states.
The whistleblower claims the major problem with the Trump administration's
sea change is with the "secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally
flawed process for the creation and implementation of an entirely new
and untested set" of information technology systems. These
systems are related to a so-called "Portal" envisioned by the USPS in
which state and local election officials are expected to input each and
every voter's information in order to receive a qualifying postal mail
ballot and to "adhere to…data reporting standards."
To
hear the whistleblower tell it, the government has simultaneously
rushed the "final rule" while spending little time on the systems needed
to administer the proposed national mail-in voter database.
"The
Whistleblower believes on or about June 2026 work began in earnest on
the USPS election ballot mail IT project, just three months (which
reportedly includes a one month period when work was paused) before the
date USPS is currently working toward to launch that system," the
original whistleblower letter dated Aug. 30 reads.
Army
Secretary Dan Driscoll has become the latest high-ranking U.S. military
official to leave the Pentagon amid reports of tensions with Secretary
Pete Hegseth.
No official reason has been
offered for Driscoll’s departure following 18 months in the role but it
comes after CNN and Reuters said he had been butting heads with Hegseth
for several months.
According to sources cited
by The Atlantic, Driscoll recently “brought up concerns with the
administration surrounding Army transformation and readiness and
Hegseth’s blocking those efforts specifically by firing the generals who
were responsible.” His mission was seemingly unsuccessful.
Nevertheless,
President Donald Trump was said to be “surprised and concerned” about
the number of the cuts to the department and the seniority of those who
have left, The Atlantic reports. The department now has fewer generals
than any point in recent history, the outlet adds.
While
President Trump and his self-styled secretary of state for “War”, Pete
Hegseth, dismissed it as ‘fake news’, by all accounts, life for the
5,000 men and women on board the USS Abraham Lincoln had become a living
nightmare after more than 260 days at sea without respite.
The
nuclear-powered warship left San Diego in November and has, until
recently, been stationed in the Middle East to support the U.S. war
against Iran. While the Lincoln left the Middle East on August 22 on its
way home, with a planned Thailand stop, she has spent a record amount
of time at sea without a port visit. Stories abound about poor food, bad
hygiene, blocked toilets, intermittent showers, plummeting morale and
shredded mental health. Reports in the Military Times and the Stars and
Stripes claimed that sailors even tried to jump overboard as the
deployment kept going.
Despite
the official denials, including Trump’s tetchy assertion to White House
reporters that the deployment ‘should have been longer!’, the number of
accounts from families of those on board are persuasive. An emergency
town hall meeting in San Diego, earlier this month, attended by roughly
200 families, saw many desperate relatives confronting Navy leadership
over the prolonged deployment and worsening conditions. During the
meeting, the wife of one sailor aired her tearful grievance: “They’re
trapped in a metal prison in the middle of the ocean. They eat
prison-like food and sleep in tiny, cramped beds just like prisoners.”
In
an official statement, acting navy secretary Hung Cao confirmed the
ship had completed 266 days deployed, 200 days in a combat zone and more
than 10,000 sorties, and acknowledged that the sailors had been pushed
very hard. “There is no question our young men and women have been
pushed to their limits – but they have never been broken,” said Cao.
“However, it is clear, knowing the whole story, our force and their
families are not victims. They are the epitome of American strength and
resilience.”
He
is a hateful, little boy trying to ass himself off as a man. But grown
men do not mock children. And he's such a piece of trash that he's now
taken to publicly mocking children.
Dexter Brinson (MOUNT OLIVE CHRONICLE) notes:
Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth is under fire for a recent social media post
mocking a Canadian youth cadet instructor’s appearance, drawing
widespread condemnation amid a growing leadership crisis at the
Pentagon. The controversy comes as top officials continue to resign and
internal conflicts threaten the stability of the U.S. Department of
Defense under Hegseth’s tenure in 2026.
On
Monday, Hegseth shared a photo originally posted by the Vernon Cadet
Training Center in British Columbia, which depicts a smiling cadet
receiving a medal. The Canadian facility is a youth program for ages 12
to 18 that teaches military-style leadership and drills under the
Department of National Defense. However, Hegseth singled out one image,
added a Canadian flag, and captioned it with the dismissive remark,
“(this is real),” seemingly mocking the cadet’s physical appearance.
The
post quickly drew backlash from veterans, military supporters, and
social media users who criticized the Defense Secretary for body-shaming
a volunteer-led youth group rather than focusing on his
responsibilities. A Canadian veteran remarked, “The Secretary of Defense
is body shaming cadet groups. This is a youth group, not a military
unit. They are kids seeking adventure and service values.” Others
questioned the appropriateness of Hegseth’s comments during a time of
ongoing conflict, labeling the attack as “unhinged” and “embarrassing.”
***PHOTOS AND B-ROLL HERE***
Port Townsend, WA – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), toured Jefferson
Healthcare and discussed the new challenges health care providers are
facing over a year after Republicans passed the largest health care cuts
in history in their Big Ugly Bill. Throughout the tour, Senator Murray
heard from providers about the impact of the Republicans’ cuts to
Medicaid and their failure to extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax
credits—causing massive premium hikes for families in Washington state.
The Republican reconciliation bill, which was signed into law in July 2025, cut more than $1 trillion from
Medicaid and the ACA over the next 10 years and will make health care
more expensive and harder to access. The nonpartisan Congressional
Budget Office (CBO) estimates that Republicans’ health care cuts will
terminate health insurance for roughly 15 million Americans nationwide.
“Republicans passed the largest cuts to health care in
history and have singlehandedly created a national health care crisis.
Meanwhile, providers are left to wonder how they will keep their staff
paid and their doors open,” said Senator Murray.
“Providers are doing incredible work, but they’re being asked to do a
more with a whole lot less. If that weren’t damaging enough, Republicans
refused to extend the health care tax credits—which millions of people
relied on to afford health coverage. The fallout from that has been
devastating. Families saw their premiums double, triple, or even worse.
When families in Jefferson County can’t afford coverage, they don’t get
less sick—they just end up in emergency rooms where hospitals eat the
cost and everyone else foots the bill. Congress needs to repeal Trump’s
cuts to health care—getting there won’t be easy, but we must fight hard
and make sure all Americans understand the harm these cuts are doing.”
ABOUT TRUMP’S MEDICAID CUTS:
Nationwide, the Republican health care cuts represent a more than $400 billion hit to America’s hospitals—with one estimate finding that over 170 rural hospitals will
likely be forced to close or scale back their services, which will
force more Americans to travel further for maternity care and emergency
room visits, and face longer wait times. Washington state is one of the
states most at-risk, with 22 hospitals at-risk of closing or reducing services. An estimated 477,000 health workers will lose their jobs as a result of the Republican cuts to Medicaid. Senator Murray has consistently advocated for rural health care access across the state, hosting numerous events to emphasize the importance of investment into rural communities.
Hospitals in Washington state could lose at least $662 million in
Medicaid revenue every year under the One Big Beautiful Act
(OBBBA)—forcing hospitals to lay off staff, cut services, or close their
doors entirely. Overall, Washington state is expected to lose between
$31 billion and $51 billion in federal Medicaid dollars over the next
decade. In 2024, Washington had an uninsured rate of 4.8 percent—the
lowest in the country—but the Republican bill is expected to balloon
that number into the double digits.
In Washington state, nearly 2 million people—roughly 1 in 5—are enrolled in Apple Health, the state’s Medicaid program. Washington’s 4th Congressional District has the highest Medicaid enrollment in Washington state, with nearly 300,000 people—38 percent of all residents—reliant on Apple Health, including 70 percent of all children in the state.
ABOUT GOP REFUSAL TO EXTEND ACA TAX CREDITS:
Senator Murray forced the issue of the ACA tax credits at every
opportunity before Republicans ultimately refused to take any action, speaking out nonstop about the urgent need to save health care and calling on Republicans
to come to the negotiating table to work out a bipartisan deal to
extend the ACA tax credits. She took to the Senate floor in November
2025 with her Democratic colleagues to call for a clean one-year extension of the ACA tax credits, and held numerous virtual press conferences with Washingtonians, as well as residents of neighboring states Idaho and Montana,
about the exploding health care premiums that Americans would see due
to the expiration of the tax credits. As the top Democrat on the Senate
Appropriations Committee, Senator Murray led legislation supported
by the Democratic caucus that would have addressed the health care
crisis during the government shutdown last fall. Senator Murray has also
cosponsored multiple pieces of legislation over the past year—the Health Care Affordability Act and the Protecting Health Care and Lowering Costs Act—that would make the ACA tax credits permanent.
As then-chair of the Senate Health Committee, Senator Murray played a
critical role in passing the ACA enhanced premium tax credits into law
in the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and extending them in
the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.
###
