From Edward Winter's Chess Notes, Item no. 4772

<Less than a week after Republicans passed Trump’s big brutal bill into law, national media awaits Trump’s next performative show of force. The bill signing ceremony, however, will be a tough act to follow.

Trump signed his heinous creation into law in an overly produced, lavishly made-for-Fox-TV moment paid for by American tax dollars. On the Fourth of July, cameras zooming in, Trump raised his sharpie, perfectly choreographed to follow B2 bombers flying overhead in formation, at a cost to taxpayers of $2 million per.

Once again using the nation’s military as a political prop, Trump’s high-res production team finally turned out the spectacle he’s been craving since his military parade became an international joke. Trump got to perform his assault on America’s interests on America’s own birthday, after he forced his 950 page abomination of a bill down scared Republican throats. No democrat in either chamber voted aye.

July 4 was the artificial deadline Trump imposed for Congress to pass the bill, to guarantee that no one would have time to read it before they voted for it. Dubbed the cruelest piece of legislation in US history, Trump’s monstrosity will:

Remove over $1 trillion from Medicaid, which will leave 12 to 14 million Americans without health care;

Extend already unaffordable, damn-near-theft tax cuts to wealthy Americans and corporations that don’t need them;

Adjust Medicaid payments forcing many rural hospitals to close their doors;

Slash Food Stamps and food assistance for approximately 42 million Americans, including children and senior citizens; while

Increasing the already-bloated federal deficit by $3.4 trillion, an unprecedented debt level many economists consider dangerous.

Trump and his party are spending money like drunk sailors on leave, dampening the economy with a deficit to GDP ratio that will affect interest rates, bond markets, the strength of the US dollar, and the cost of repaying the national debt owed to foreign governments, including, primarily, China.

What about the political backlash, you ask? Too clever by half, republicans delayed cuts to Medicaid until after the midterms to insulate themselves from consequences.

Republicans just created an American police state

Even worse than the misery awaiting America’s poor and working class, the bill specifically funds a new and unprecedented American police state. Draped in anti-immigrant language, the bill creates a standing army of masked ICE agents, and funds enough of them to terrorize every city in the nation.

The bill provides $45 billion to build new immigration detention centers, and a 265 percent annual budget increase to ICE’s current detention budget. This funding level is a 62 percent larger budget than the entire federal prison system, where 155,933 inmates are currently incarcerated, some of them for life. Trump will soon spend more on ICE domestic apprehensions, transportation and detentions than most nations spend on their entire military budgets.

Republicans are building a police state beyond the comprehension of most Americans. We’ve all seen the videos of ICE goons beating migrants in front of their children; any one of them could have been recruited from Trump’s applicant pool of pardoned felons. After Trump was somehow re-elected, he pardoned rioters who were convicted of violent felonies and assaults against police officers during Trump’s J6 uprising. Here, he at least gets a nod for sinister efficiency: J6 cultists who thrive on hate in service to Trump need something to do. They were already armed and in search of political violence, why not give ‘em an ICE badge? If they were recorded while beating capital police with vigor, or carrying a noose for Mike Pence because he honored the Constitution over Trump, all the better.

Trump’s $1 trillion defense budget will not end well

Trump now has $1 trillion—with a T— to spend on his defense budget. Anyone wondering how he’s going to spend it, after shamefully withholding military aid and weaponry Congress already approved for Ukraine, should consider Pete Hegseth. Trump’s SecDef recently testified before Congress and described how national defense, under Trump, is transitioning from a force fighting foreign threats into a “domestic affair,” testifying that,

“we’re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland.”

Juxtapose that promise over Trump telling reporters that the worst threat to national security is ‘the enemy within,’ ie, people who don’t support him, and it all comes into view. Pan wide for Trump’s wet dream gulag agenda: ICE facilities where migrants, political prisoners and journalists are baked alive, guarded by reptiles, or denaturalized and deported....>

<....Republicans have empowered a lunatic

With this bill’s passage, Trump has now been handed the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in United States history.

This follows the Supreme Court making him the most unchecked and unbridled president in our nation’s history, both by allowing him to break criminal laws with broad impunity, and by blocking nationwide injunction orders to stop him. The republican 6-3 majority on SCOTUS has now permanently knee-capped federal judges who were doing their best to stop Trump from doing his worst.

The criminally insane president they empowered wants masked ICE goons and military tanks on every city street, and Congress has just written him the check to pay for it. Whether they accept or acknowledge their culpability or not, Trump’s Supreme Court justices bear complete moral responsibility for the crimes against humanity and suffering about to come.

Trump was barely elected; this was not a mandate

Despite Trump’s bluster, which Fox News repeats on the nanosecond, Trump was not elected “by a mandate.” He eked out his win by a margin of only 1.5 percent over Harris, while 91 million voters were so disgusted by the election, or so disillusioned, or so stoned, they didn’t bother to vote.

Trump’s bill was tied 50-50 in the Senate and squeaked by with one vote when JD Vance voted to break the tie. It passed by only two votes in the House. Polls show most Americans opposed the bill now law, which suggests one of the following:

· Republicans in Congress assume Americans’ short attention span and memory loss will save them; or

· They have faith in Trump’s spin machine to control the narrative, presented 24/7 by Fox News, OAN, Newsmax and more than 1500 rightwing radio stations; or

· They know there won’t be any real mid-term elections.

If anyone doubted Trump’s death grip on the Republican Party, the police state we’re embarking on will remove all doubt. Republicans will now die with Trump, or democracy will die with them.>

<On Friday, Trump barred an American AI developer, Anthropic, from doing further business with the federal government, and barred all contractors from doing business with Anthropic — an extreme punishment typically reserved for adversarial countries.

Anthropic’s crime? Refusal to let the Department of Defense use its AI system, Claude, for surveilling American citizens or in autonomous weaponry that removes humans from decisions to kill.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — the man who group texted attack plans to a reporter, wanted to punish an astronaut for stating the law, then shot party balloons with potent lasers despite FAA warnings that the lasers could blind pilots while they were in the sky with passengers — demanded that Anthropic let him use its AI system without contractual restrictions. When Anthropic said no, Trump blacklisted them.

It’s hard to say what’s more appalling — that the Trump administration is building tools for mass public surveillance like China’s, or that an undisciplined dry drunk like Hegseth has access to lethal toys.

Keeping up with China … in the worst way

Trump has said he wants to keep up with China through “global technological dominance” and the “widespread use of AI.” China’s authoritarian government uses one of the most advanced public surveillance systems in the world, collecting extensive facial recognition, biometric data, and personal profiles from private citizens against their wishes.

China captures these data from citizens’ faces, conversations, social media posts, phones and other devices while people stand at crosswalks, ride the bus, and go to the store, then feeds the data into an AI database used for oppression: for law enforcement, “monitoring social behavior,” and controlling access to services.

China’s system is similar to what Trump oligarch-supporting Peter Thiel’s Palantir is building, namely, a high-level data integration platform that will enable U.S. law enforcement, ICE, the IRS, DHS, DOJ, the military, and any other rogue agency Trump wants to weaponize to collect facial recognition, license plate readers, and other biometric data for mass surveillance.

Poor Pete, nobody believes him

There were clauses in Anthropic’s contract with the DOD that prevented Claude from being used for either mass surveillance of Americans or autonomous weaponry. While Anthropic had integrated Claude into some classified military networks, that $200 million contract expressly prohibited using it for mass surveillance of Americans as well as autonomous weaponry, “killer robots” that can identify, select, and kill targets without a human in the decision-making loop.

These were the contractual restrictions Hegseth’s DOD demanded be removed. But Anthropic wasn’t having it.

Just before Trump blacklisted them, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei said the company could not, “in good conscience” agree to the Pentagon’s request. Amodei has expressed concern that Claude could be used for mass surveillance by automatically assembling “scattered, individually innocuous data into a comprehensive picture of any person's life,” which seems to be exactly what Trump is trying to do.

In a series of angry social media posts, Undersecretary of Defense Emil Michael accused Anthropic of “lying” about using Claude for mass surveillance because the Dept. of Defense “doesn’t do mass surveillance as that is already illegal.”

Apparently the DOD does do comedy, because the suggestion that this regime will follow the law is a joke.

Forget about the hundreds of court orders Trump has already violated. How many people have been murdered off the coast of Venezuela with zero legal justification? Claiming without evidence that we’re in an "armed conflict" with "narco-terrorists" is not a legal justification; it’s a dictator’s “shoot now, ask questions never” strategy for breaking the law....>

<....What can the AI do?

Most Americans are blissfully unaware of how the emerging AI landscape could change their lives, and not for the better. Since I’m no AI expert, I asked Google AI to explain in simple terms how Anthropic’s Claude, if left to Hegseth’s command, could be used to spy on Americans. Here’s how AI described Claude’s functional capacity, verbatim:

・Mass Data Synthesis (Sorting Huge Amounts of Info): Imagine a super-fast robot reading billions of text messages, emails, and internet posts all at once. It looks for "moods" (like who is angry or unhappy) and makes a map of where those people live.

・Intelligence Dossiers (Digital Secret Files): Using smart computer programs to read thousands of pages of documents about one person instantly. It acts like a digital detective, putting together a secret file on someone's whole life.

・Automated Tracking (Digital Footprints): Looking at where people drive, what websites they visit, and who they talk to. This combines records to draw a map of where someone goes, like cameras on streets tracking cars.

・Law Enforcement Support (Police Tech Tools): Companies like Palantir create software for the police. This software combines information from cameras, bank records, and phone calls to track suspects and help police find them quickly.

The dispute has put Silicon valley on edge. If Trump and Hegseth can change the terms of AI contracts after the fact, why sign contracts at all?

The regime’s dishonesty isn’t helping. Before Trump blacklisted Anthropic, Pentagon officials said they had “no interest” in using the illegal surveillance tools outlined above, while seeking unfettered access to them. Color me, and anyone with half a brain, skeptical.>

<At the risk of taking a political stand within the context of a vicious criminal attack on girls and women, it is time for Democrats to push much harder on all matters connected to Jeffrey Epstein. Political fortunes align with doing far more than the less-than-minimal action currently undertaken.

With the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and congressional heat on billionaire Les Wexner, members of the public around the world want to see a real investigation and consequences. Indeed, other nations are initiating their own investigations. Momentum is building.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and FBI Director Kash Patel are far angrier at the people wanting answers than at the people who raped girls. It's time to use that fury against them.

In the name of the victims, Democrats must push for America to undergo "De-Epsteinification.”

Want more breaking political news? Click for the latest headlines at Raw Story.

DOJ must be pressed to release all the files. Given its obvious reluctance and obfuscation, along with Trump's demand that the nation "move on," Democrats must be actively preparing contempt and impeachment proceedings, to initiate the moment they have control of Congress next year (presuming, of course, that they gain it. Polling suggests that they will.)

But this isn't about just releasing the files. It is more about putting people in prison.

Congressional Democrats must now start to call for De-Epsteinification through a special prosecutor's office, sitting outside Bondi and Trump's control, staffed with prosecutors from any or no party and given four directives:

・Rid the nation of this stench and suspicion.

・Punish rapists and their enablers.

・Publish a 9/11-like report on the entirety of what is found.

・Find justice for the victims.

The British chose to prosecute a member of their own monarchy. American legitimacy rides on this nation's willingness to deal with ours, formerly the untouchables.

As an attorney, I understand there are constitutional considerations, but given that Congress can apply overwhelming pressure for the appointment of special prosecutors, there is likely a means — once Democrats regain control.

Of course, it shouldn't have to be this way. The attorney general and FBI director used to be fiercely independent. But like so much else in the Trump era, it's now all about loyalty, and if we've learned anything about this regime, it is that loyalty to the king trumps all.

This is made especially true in light of the recent shocking allegations that DOJ actively suppressed one of the most gruesome allegations arising out of an alleged attack by Trump on a girl then aged around 13, in 1983. A nation dedicated to the rule of law cannot survive if such a gruesome allegation goes without real investigation, never mind is actively hidden.

So take it out of their hands. Establish a congressional De-Epstenification Office, give it a pile of money, and let it work.

When even the Joe Rogans and Shawn Ryans of the world recognize the current investigation is a sham, it's time to do more and do it around the administration. The American public is ready for someone to take control. It should be Democrats in Congress.

There is literally no one else....>

<....The push has to start before the power is secured, there may be enough Republicans who might crossover prior to the election, but, if not, it can and should be a campaign issue. Outside the pursuit of a true sense of justice, the political advantages are clear.

The public will hear Trump's fury and panic, forcing him to daily confront questions as to why he doesn't want rapists brought to justice. And even the push will act as a major incentive for Bondi, her deputy Todd Blanche and Patel to move forward in a way that convinces the public that such a prosecutorial group isn't necessary.

To be sure, a special prosecutor's office is never an ideal solution. Investigation would be done behind closed doors instead of through congressional hearings. Additionally, as we saw with both Robert Mueller and Jack Smith's prosecutions, such investigations take an immense amount of time. There would also be some pretty valid constitutional challenges.

Push it anyway. Yes, justice delayed is justice denied. But justice redacted, covered up, and politicized is no justice at all.

If Trump committed crimes in relation to Epstein, it will be all but impossible to prosecute him personally. He will pardon himself for everything while on the way out the door, no matter what happens. But we can at least attempt to ensure that the "Trump Kennedy Center" loses a sponsor, no airports will ever bear his name, victims can seek restitution, and his legacy will lie in history's landfill. Meanwhile, even billionaires can face the threat of prison.

It is the right thing to do. This is the time to start to do it. And to the extent that politics should play a role in any of this, let it do so in a way that punishes those who seek to evade punishment. The "De-Epsteinification of America" should start now.

Never again.>

<"Well, what else could we do? (Till) was hopeless. I'm no bully; I never hurt a (epithet) in my life. I like (epithet) -- in their place -- I know how to work 'em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, (epithet) are gonna stay in their place. (epithet) ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a (epithet) gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we got some rights. I stood there in that shed and listened to that (epithet) throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind. 'Chicago boy,' I said, 'I'm tired of 'em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I'm going to make an example of you -- just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.'">

<Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict.

The rationale drew divided reviews from top members of Congress who on Monday evening received the first briefing by the Trump administration since it ordered the air campaign to begin over the weekend.

Rubio; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; and joint chiefs of staff, chair Dan Caine; spoke to the lawmakers behind closed doors in the Capitol ahead of a vote expected later this week in the House of Representatives on a war powers resolution that presents an unlikely opportunity to force Trump to end hostilities against Iran.

“It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone – the United States or Israel or anyone – they were going to respond, and respond against the United States,” Rubio told reporters at the Capitol.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

JD Vance said in an interview on Fox News on Monday night that the US aim was to make sure “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon”.

“The president wants to make it clear to the Iranians and to the world that he is not going to rest until he accomplishes that all-important objective of ensuring that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon,” the vice-president said.

Vance has been the member of Donald Trump’s administration most opposed to military interventions and has spoken less frequently about US actions in Iran than Rubio.

Since the conflict began, the United States and Israel have carried out waves of airstrikes across Iran, and Tehran has retaliated with drone and missile attacks against US-aligned countries across the Middle East.

The air campaign has killed several of Iran’s top military and political leaders, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US military has acknowledged the deaths of six service members, while the Iranian Red Crescent Society said more than 500 people have been killed in the country.

Reactions to the administration’s explanation for entering the war split along party lines, with Republicans rushing to defend Trump’s gambit while Democrats condemned what they view as an unnecessary conflict with unclear goals.

“This is Trump’s war. This is a war of choice. He has no strategy, he has no endgame,” the Senate’s Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer said before going into the briefing.

As he exited, Schumer said that lawmakers present asked “a whole lot of questions” but he found the officials’ responses “completely and totally insufficient. In fact, at least to me, that briefing raised many more questions than it answered.”

Mark Warner, the Democratic vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said he was worried for the implications of the US allowing Israel to essentially force it into a new war.

“There was no imminent threat to the United States of America by the Iranians. There was a threat to Israel. If we equate a threat to Israel as the equivalent of an imminent threat to the United States, then we are in uncharted territory,” Warner said.

On Monday night, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told Fox News that Iran had been building new underground sites “that would make their ballistic missile programs and their atomic bomb programs immune within months”.

“If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future,” he said.

Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon.

In recent interviews with news outlets, Trump has outlined various goals in the war, including destroying Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and their navy, preventing the country from developing a nuclear weapon and cutting off Tehran’s support of proxy forces elsewhere in the Middle East....>

<....Rubio, however, mentioned only two goals to reporters: destroying Iran’s ballistic missile capability and their navy. Following the classified briefing, Warner said he was not sure what Trump’s endgame is.

“I think the president needs to come before the Congress, for that matter, the American people, and decide amongst these four or five goals that have been laid out, what is the real goal?” the Virginia senator said.

“What is the objective? What is our exit plan? What obligation do we have now to the Iranian people if they do rise up, based upon his call for them to go to the streets? And what is the imminent threat to the United States’s interest to cause this conflict?”

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House and close Trump ally, defended the president’s course of action, saying he had ordered a “defensive operation”.

“Israel was determined to act in their own defense here, with or without American support. Why? Because Israel faced what they deem to be an existential threat,” Johnson said.

While the war’s objective, he said, was not “to go in and take out the regime”, he nonetheless cheered the ayatollah’s death.

“That happened and in my estimation, that is a great development for freedom loving people around the world,” Johnson told reporters, speaking alongside the Republican chairs of the House intelligence and appropriations committee – the latter’s presence an indication that lawmakers may soon be asked to approve additional defense funding necessitated by the war.

Trump ordered the attack on Iran without first seeking Congress’s permission, though Rubio said a group of lawmakers known as the Gang of Eight – composed of the Democratic and Republicans leaders in each chamber, as well as the two parties’ top lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees – were notified before the attack began.

The House is expected later this week to consider a war powers resolution that, if enacted, forces Trump to end hostilities against Iran. It faces a high bar to passage. Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and rarely cross Trump in significant numbers.

Even if Congress were to approve the resolution, Trump could veto it, and Congress could override that only with a two-thirds majority vote.

Previous war powers resolutions introduced in this Congress have been voted down, and Johnson said he was confident the latest one would not pass the House.

“The idea that we would take the ability of our commander in chief, the president, take his authority away right now to finish this job, is a frightening prospect to me. It’s dangerous,” Johnson said. “I am certainly hopeful and I believe we do have votes to put it down.”>

<State Rep. Jamie Thompson (R-Brownstown Township) paid her son Jackson more than $24,000 in consulting fees from August 2024 through December 2025 for canvassing and general consulting, according to campaign finance disclosures reviewed by the Detroit News.

That amount totals around 15% of the campaign’s expenditures in that period, and includes over $5,000 since her son was charged with domestic violence in Wayne County last September. There is no law in Michigan against paying family members for services with campaign funds, though the Detroit News noted that it is increasingly rare in Lansing.

Thompson defended the payments to her son, arguing that, when seeking her seat in the Legislature, which she was first elected to in 2022, she “didn’t have fancy out of state donors or some massive team locally.”

“I needed my family’s support as I fought to bring people together and be a voice for workers and their families in our area,” Thompson said in a statement to the Michigan Advance. “I needed their legwork as we talked with people in Monroe and Wayne Counties about what matters to them.”

“My son works in politics, and he has helped me through this process,” she continued, though her statement did not address the charges against her son. “Moving forward, I will continue to have my family’s back and the backs of so many other families who are dealing with high costs, government overreach, challenges in accessing health care, and more.”

Jackson Thompson’s trial is set for April, and he has not been convicted on any of the charges, which also includes a felony charge of interfering with electronic communications.

The charges against her son and the continued payments to him struck a particular nerve for some, especially as Thompson recently introduced a resolution in February to raise awareness for teen dating violence.

Janise O’Neil Robinson, the Democratic candidate running against Thompson for her House seat, also called the payments “offensive,” saying that Thompson is “treating her campaign account like a personal bank account for her family.”

“This is a gross misuse of funds and a clear display of misplaced priorities,” Robinson said. “We need a representative in Lansing who is focused on lowering costs for Michigan families, not one focused on subsidizing a family member accused of violent crime.>

<On Tuesday in Texas, Democratic voters in Dallas and Williamson Counties, Texas, had their work cut out for them if they wanted to vote. They had to figure out, on the day of, where their polling places were. That’s because the local Republican parties backed out of the years-long tradition of holding joint primaries, and that information wasn’t communicated widely. One voter reported showing up at his polling place and being sent somewhere else, a 15-minute drive away, only to be told to return to the original location. This is just flat-out voter suppression— designed to deny people their right to vote.

It feels like a test run for the midterm elections.

According to posters on Twitter who had receipts in the form of videos like this one, Black and Brown voters showed up to vote, only to be told that the polling place was “only for Republicans.” This type of last-minute gambit is appalling. But voter suppression is nothing new to Democrats in the Deep South. In fact, it defines the landscape. Examples range from mailers targeting Black voters that tell them their day to vote is the Thursday after an actual election to last-minute changes to assigned polling place locations to impossibly long lines to inadequate ballot deliveries to heavily Democratic boxes that require voters to wait for additional deliveries before they can vote.

We expect and try to prepare our communities for those experiences. We shouldn’t have to.

So far this cycle, the president of the United States has asked state Republican leaders to draw new, rigged voting maps so he can try to retain Republican control of the House. He tried to pass a major voter suppression law, the SAVE Act. And he has repeatedly called on Republicans to “nationalize” elections, which is to say to take control away from local folks (Democrats) who are charged with running them. It’s an open call for mass voter suppression. Last night was yet another wake-up call.

As we have recently discussed—and it bears repeating—voting is a right, not a privilege. Increasingly, Republicans, frequently motivated by the leader of their party, feel free to treat it like a privilege, one that exists only for them. I hate the advice I’m about to give, because it should be easy for every qualified American to vote, but the reality is, we are going to have to work hard and fight to be able to exercise that right this year. That means:

Advance planning so you can register to vote, stay registered, vote, and make sure your vote is counted (I write about this in detail in my book, Giving Up is Unforgivable: A Manual For Keeping A Democracy)

Using your financial resources to obtain, and if you can, help others get the ID they need through groups like VoteRiders.

Getting involved with your local League of Women Voters to help spread advance education about polling places and voting requirements in your community.

The time to figure out where you’re going to plug in is now. There are lots of groups who will warmly welcome you. Sharing information with friends and family is critically important, and something each of us can to do make sure everyone is up to date or important details like changes in polling places.

But there’s more.

Last month, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion in U.S. Postal Service v. Konan. He held that the government could not be sued for intentional nondelivery of mail. That, of course, includes mail-in ballots. The decision was 5-4. In a dissent authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor argued that the majority delivered far more protection from lawsuits to the Postal Service than Congress had intended to give it and that it’s not “the role of the Judiciary to supplant the choice Congress made because it would have chosen differently.”

But choose differently, the majority did. Although Konan is about the delivery of residential mail, its impact on voting will be far-reaching, removing any consequences of even intentional misdelivery or withholding of mail-in ballots. That’s alarming in the context of a government office that has a history, under the leadership of Trump crony Louis DeJoy, of using anti-voter tactics. DeJoy stepped down last March after reporting surfaced that he had invited DOGE to help him find “further efficiencies” at USPS. David Steiner, a former Waste Management CEO who has served on the board of USPS competitor FedEx, is the new Postmaster General....>

<....Trump is undoubtedly pleased by the Supreme Court’s recent opinion, given his well-documented hostility toward mail-in ballots—an animosity that remains puzzling given that he (and reportedly other Republicans) frequently uses them. People who want to keep other people from voting may see value in the Konan decision, because it adds an element of uncertainty into mail-in voting, and people who were planning on using it or have no other option may just give up because they think their ballot won’t get counted. And, with no consequences for even intentional failure to deliver mail, there could be a disruption of ballots from, say, certain parts of certain counties in advance of election day.

That’s not to say that Konan should permit the Post Office to do this, and there are other laws that protect elections. But increasingly, we live in a world where we have to contemplate the worst case scenario and prepare for it when it comes to voting if we want our votes to count.

Many people, and especially those who are ill, away for school, have a disability, or must travel on election day rely on mail-in voting. Eight states permit elections to be conducted entirely by mail: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington state. Nebraska and North Dakota permit counties to opt in to mail-in voting. Other states have a mail-in voting option for small elections or rural counties. If the Court ends the counting of late-delivered ballots, it will undoubtedly disenfranchise voters who may not hear about the new rule in time and appreciate the consequences. Without regard to which candidates are hurt the most by this—apparently Republicans who are pursuing these actions are betting it will be Democrats—it’s rank voter suppression.

The only real answer to this debacle is that voters who routinely use mail ballots need to advance their timelines, and people who need to apply for an absentee mail ballot should do so as soon as possible and mail it in as soon as possible. It will be increasingly important to track your ballot’s delivery and make sure it gets counted.

Everything Trump touches dies. Sadly, even the Postal Service.

All of this puts us on notice of what to expect this year: more of the same old voter suppression. Expect some of it to land close to election day, changing the rules and moving the goal posts late in hopes that many people won’t learn of it. So, we need to raise awareness about this now and remind people that they wouldn’t be trying so hard to keep us from voting if our votes didn’t matter. I have no doubt that we are more determined to save the Republic than Trump is to steal our votes. Information and preparation are our tools. Let’s go.>

By the bye, <dicetwat>: if the content here is such a bother, stay the f*** away!

Yew heah me, <boy>?

<In The Hunt for Red October, we learn that Soviet submarine carried a “political officer,” a Communist Party appointee whose job wasn’t navigating or torpedoing things, but making sure everyone on board remained sufficiently loyal to the regime. Not to spoil a 42-year-old book, but the Red October had — against all odds in the Soviet Navy — been staffed by officers who had slipped through the thought police cracks, rising through the ranks and now wanting to defect. And so the political officer “slipped on some tea” a few pages in.

But “political officer” concept struck American audiences at the time as both absurd and a testament to the USSR’s ultimate fragility. The government’s hold on power had grown so flimsy that it willingly traded competence for lockstep compliance. The political officer served as a symbol of the USSR’s institutional rot.

Anyway, in 2026, the Trump administration is conducting 1L job interviews with a White House official sitting in to vet the political loyalty of each candidate.

An email sent to Liberty University School of Law students over the weekend lays out, in refreshingly unvarnished terms, what the administration’s hiring pipeline actually looks like. And it’s exactly as bad as everyone suspected:

The two most important requirements are you MUST be aligned politically with President Trump and his administration and you must be willing to work hard. Don’t be scared off by the transcript requirement. GPA is not a strong factor. If you meet those two requirements, you have a shot.

Imagine a career services office writing this paragraph and not expecting it making a laughingstock of the law school? “GPA is not a strong factor” doesn’t make for a ringing endorsement of any law school’s mission. Telling students at a law school ranked in the 140s that their GPAs don’t matter if a candidate is politically correct enough is just open mockery of the curriculum.

But that’s the “anti-DEI meritocracy” for ya.

It’s also why the Pentagon doesn’t want its future lawyers to be the sort of people capable of a T14 education. Government jobs used to be the province of high achievement. Or nepotism. Now it’s about rewarding FedSoc’s weakest warriors. And nepotism.

And political alignment almost certainly trumps “willing to work hard,” because it’s not even clear what hard work would look like at this ironically named Department of Labor. Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is the subject of an inspector general investigation into travel fraud, alleged inappropriate relationships with subordinates, drinking on the job, and staff trips to strip clubs. Her chief of staff and deputy chief of staff have both been placed on leave during the probe, and investigators have now expanded their examination to whether grants were improperly directed to favored political operatives.

Oh, and her husband has been banned from the Department of Labor’s headquarters after multiple female staffers accused him of sexual assault.

Those selected for interviews will meet with a 2025 Liberty graduate currently working as a Policy Advisor at the Department of Labor as well as “a representative of the White House Liaison Office.” According to the email, this dynamic duo — a first-year graduate and some cross between the Red October political officer and ersatz Jonah Ryan — will conduct interviews that:

will be a combination of traditional interview questions and political questions (i.e., did you vote for President Trump? Do you disagree with the President on anything? What do you think about XYZ executive order?). If you get selected for an interview, Ms. Smith or I are happy to meet with you to help prepare.

I don’t know what’s more disturbing: probing candidates about their secret ballot as a condition of government employment or that anyone would need interview prep for this.

Q: Did you vote for President Trump?
A: No… oh, f***, can I try that one again?

That might be unfair though. For a school that bills itself as “Training Champions for Christ since 1971” it must take some work to tune out the hush money for sex with a porn star and the sexual assault adjudication and everything about the Epstein files when answering, “Do you disagree with the President on anything?” The email closes with an encouragement that Liberty Law would love to get “double digit” students into the program this summer. That’s going to take a level of denying that would make Peter blush!>

<....Now, the email does note that “this is a political position in which interns will serve the Trump Administration for the duration of their internships,” which means the administration will argue these are political appointee positions. But this is, in itself, bogus. The Department of Labor doesn’t need 1L summer political positions. Or, maybe they do, if they’re just looking for anyone over there able to make it through a day on the job without getting drunk at a strip club. But in the normal course of business, bottom rung interns aren’t political roles. They might have been expected to perform work for political appointees, but they were not expected to swear that they’re in the bag with every unrelated presidential directive.

And the email begins by noting that the Department seeks “students (1Ls & 2Ls) interested in all kinds of areas: litigation, appeals, regulations, policy, etc.” Right off the top, the email acknowledges that they’re looking at roles that are traditionally handled by apolitical career employees.

But this is consistent with the Trump OPM “merit hiring plan,” which replaces merit with essay questions about advancing Trump’s executive orders for positions GS-5 and above. It’s the human resources blueprint that landed a 22-year-old Trump campaign worker with no national security expertise who got promoted to lead terrorism prevention at the Department of Homeland Security.

Legal scholars have noted, this approach runs headlong into Elrod v. Burns, where the Supreme Court held that only policymaking positions could be assessed based on political loyalty, and explicitly rejected “efficiency” and “loyalty” as justifications strong enough to overcome First Amendment protections for government employees. But if you redefine a 1L summer job as “policymaking,” you can redirect work to give a career boost to political acolytes from TTT programs.

The LSAT is probably woke anyway, amirite?

This is the whole government hiring endgame. The conservative legal movement fought for years to reclassify career government positions as at-will political employees through Schedule F and various rebrands. Now they’re filling those positions with ideological loyalists — people screened not for competence but for their willingness to answer “did you vote for President Trump?” correctly. Don’t be surprised when a future Democratic administration tries to replace these hires and the very same conservatives howl about “politicization of the civil service” and “illegal purges.” It’s a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition designed to populate the government bureaucracy with a Fifth Column to frustrate future policy action.

A summer position isn’t embedding itself like a chigger into agency roots, but it’s representative of the staffing philosophy transforming tasks, no matter how mundane, into political positions.

Someone needs to train the future Red October political officers of tomorrow! And to stan for this administration, a good GPA is not only not a strong factor, it’s certainly a detriment.>

<Byron Donalds, a pro-Trump Florida congressman currently running for governor and one of a handful of Black Republicans in Congress, issued a statement on Thursday condemning the group of Florida College Republicans, Turning Point USA, and Miami GOP officials who were caught exchanging virulently racist and antisemitic messages in a group chat.

"Everyone has the First Amendment right to say what they want — even when it's vile and offensive. But free speech doesn’t entitle someone to hold a leadership position within the Republican Party or the conservative movement. The comments reported run counter to the values our party stands for. The Republican Party rejects racism, antisemitism, and bigotry," Donalds said in a statement to The Floridian, which first broke the story on Wednesday.

The group chat was led by Miami Secretary Abel Alexander Carvajal and created after the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk last year.

In the exchanges, local GOP student activists often used racial slurs to describe Black people, including Black people who were part of their group and had left as a result of it.

Some of the most vile invective came from William Bejerano, who previously attempted to organize an anti-abortion group at Miami Dade College. Bejerano flooded the chat with fantasies about killing and mutilating Black people, including "crucify filthy blacks," "curb stomp pregnant black n------," "exterminate n------ in the gas chamber," "feed n------ to alligators," "stomp n----- skulls with steel toed boots," and "drown n------ in fried chicken grease."

This comes as Donalds faces competition in his primary by hedge fund manager James Fishback, who has grabbed attention in the primary with a series of racist remarks, including comparing Donalds' campaign contributions to a slave auction, saying Donalds would turn Florida into a "section 8 ghetto," and fantasizing about former CNN reporter Don Lemon being lynched.>

You are a time-wasting troll, offering little value in your posts. Back to ignore for you, and no, I won't be taking you off of [sic] ignore next year, even if I clear everyone else>

<The Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped its probe into claims made by President Trump that former President Biden and his aides illegally used an autopen to sign (official) documents after failing to build a criminal case, multiple outlets reported.

U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro’s office led the inquiry but it was shelved in recent months, The New York Times reported, citing three people briefed on the probe.

The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.

Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House counsel to investigate “the circumstances surrounding Biden’s purported execution of the numerous executive actions during his final years in office, examining policy documents signed with an autopen, who authorized its use, and the validity of the resulting Presidential policy decisions.”

The order also requested Bondi to investigate “whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President.”

It cited several of Biden’s executive orders, including pardons and judicial appointments. Trump argued that Biden’s pardons should be made void due to his claims.

“And you know what, they ought to find out who was using that autopen,” Trump said last year. “Because whoever that person was, he or she was like the President of the United States … I think a President should sign it, not use an autopen. And we’re going to find out whether or not he knew what the hell he was doing.”

Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in October called on the DOJ to investigate Biden’s alleged use of an autopen. The released a 100-page report following their own investigation, though it failed to pinpoint a specific incident where an autopen was used without Biden’s sign-off. It claimed that Biden verbally authorized the autopen be used.

Biden signed several pardons and clemencies during his time in office, including for his son Hunter Biden and for indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, who supporters said was wrongfully imprisoned for almost 50 years.

He also pardoned members of the members of Congress who served on the Jan. 6 committee, but most of the last-minute clemencies were given to people the White House described as nonviolent drug offenders.

Biden dismissed Trump and House Republicans’ claims. He told The New York Times in July that his accusers were “liars. They know it.” He said that the autopen was used to sign warrants because there “were a lot of them.”

“They’ve lied so consistently about almost everything they’re doing,” the former president told the outlet. “The best thing they can do is try to change the focus and focus on something else. And this is a — I think that’s what this is about.”>

<The political dam that has protected President Donald Trump from the Epstein scandal for years may finally be starting to crack — and Attorney General Pam Bondi now finds herself standing directly in the flood zone.

For months, Bondi has been accused by critics of deploying every maneuver possible to shield Trump from the fallout — slow-walking document releases, defending sweeping redactions and, more recently, facing questions about whether records tied to the Epstein investigation quietly disappeared from public view. Now that simmering controversy is colliding with something far more dangerous: a growing rebellion inside Trump’s own party.

That pressure burst into the open Wednesday when the House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Bondi and compel her testimony about the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files after several Republicans broke ranks and sided with Democrats to force the move forward.

The vote — 24 to 19 — landed despite a last-minute effort from committee chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., to block the subpoena and shield the attorney general from direct questioning.

Five Republicans ultimately joined Democrats to demand Bondi testify under oath: Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Michael Cloud of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.

For a Congress that has largely marched in lockstep behind Trump since his return to power, the moment represented something far more dangerous than another routine oversight fight. It signaled that Trump’s own party may be losing patience with the administration’s handling of the Epstein scandal and that Bondi’s effort to keep the fallout contained is beginning to fray.

Before the vote, Comer made a final push to stop the subpoena. The Kentucky Republican told colleagues that Bondi’s chief of staff had assured him the attorney general would privately brief lawmakers about the Epstein investigation, arguing that a subpoena was unnecessary.

As the vote began to tilt toward approval, Comer made one last appeal to the committee, reminding members that the attorney general had offered to “come in and give briefings.” The warning fell flat.

Under committee rules, Comer must now issue the subpoena requiring Bondi to appear for a closed-door deposition under oath — a setting where officials cannot rely on the political theater of televised hearings or carefully rehearsed talking points.

The vote itself instantly ignited fierce reactions online, where critics framed the moment as long overdue accountability.

“Straight to jail. Put her in one of the ICE concentration camps,” one commenter wrote on Threads.

Others dismissed the development as political theater unless it leads to real consequences.

“Subpoena her to hear what?? More of her Burn Book?? They need to cut the crap and stop with the optics. They’re not getting anywhere with her, and they know it,” another post read. “Prosecute her for lying under oath, demand the REST of the files, and bring in the currently FREE, ALIVE AND WELL men named by the victims!!!”

Another reaction captured the skepticism surrounding Washington investigations.

“Theater. So sick of it. Call us when there are CONSEQUENCES,” one user wrote.

Others argued lawmakers should take a harder line when Bondi testifies.

“And cut her mic off if she won’t answer questions. W*f, people, it’s 2026. We have the power to do this.”

Another commenter declared more bluntly: “BREAKING: The dam is breaking for Trump in Washington.”

The pressure surrounding Bondi has been building for months, fueled by growing anger on Capitol Hill over the Justice Department’s handling of Epstein-related evidence and document releases.

The department has released millions of pages tied to the Epstein investigation in waves, but instead of calming the controversy, the disclosures have repeatedly fueled new questions. Lawmakers from both parties have accused Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche of slow-walking the process or withholding material despite legislation requiring transparency around the files.

The Justice Department also faced outrage earlier this year after inadvertently publishing dozens of unredacted nude images and identifying details connected to victims — a mistake lawyers for survivors described as “life threatening.”

But perhaps the most troubling revelation involves records that quietly vanished from public view....>