Former
“Superman” actor Dean Cain has been taking heat from his show business
peers for his decision to join U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE). Since telling Fox News he would be “sworn in as an ICE agent
asap” earlier this month, Cain has been slammed as a “loser” by John
Leguizamo, and a “pathetic loser” by former “Glee” star Kevin McHale.
Now
a famed San Francisco comedian is calling out the former “Lois and
Clark” lead on his decision to become an honorary ICE agent.
“Why
would you join ICE and encourage people to join ICE when your ancestors
were interned in World War II?” Cho asked in a video posted to her
Instagram account. “You’re Japanese. You’re not even white.”
“I
know you, and you are not white. You have never been white and no
matter how many of these white activities you participate in, is never
going to make that happen you are never going to be white,” continued
Cho, who is of Korean descent and was born and raised in SF. “No matter
how racist you are, no matter how wrong you act, you are always ‘Wong’
never white. Dumbass.”
Well
said, Margaret. Dean Cain is just an embarrassment. Some people see
their careers cool down and handle it. Some can't. They're so
desperate for attention that they'll do anything. When that happens,
their actions usually result in ridicule. That's what has happened for
Cain. He is now an object of ridicule. And there's no way for him to
now re-invent himself.
In
other news . . . I used to be a big Michael Franti fan. I loved the
YELL FIRE! album, for example. But then he sold out, dropped opposing the
Iraq War and became a generic piece of crap. So maybe this next story
shouldn't surprise me? Michael Bartiromo (KRON) reports:
Michael
Franti, a musician perhaps best known for fronting Michael Franti &
Spearhead for over three decades, has “vehemently” denied allegations
that he had an inappropriate relationship with a fellow musician several
years ago when they were touring together.
Franti
did not name the woman who made the allegations, but his statement came
after Victoria Canal, a musician who toured with Franti’s band when she
was 19, alleged that she was the victim of “grooming” by “a very powerful, decades-older man”
who touched her while she was sleeping on the tour bus, made her share
accommodations with him, and took pictures of her without her “awareness
or consent.”
Canal later received messages from
supporters with their own allegations of inappropriate behavior,
seemingly against the same man. Canal re-posted some of those allegations, a few of which appeared to contain more obvious hints at the man’s identity.
“Let this be a shedding of light on my own discovery — that I am not the only victim of this person,” Canal wrote.
As
I noted, he walked away from the Iraq War. He stopped talking about,
he stopped calling for it to end. He's a faux activist and I won't cry
if karma's finally biting him in the ass.
Wednesday, August 20, 2025. Chump continues his war on immigrants while
shedding protections for survivors of domestic abuse, hate monger Kim
Davis tries to lure the Supreme Court into her lair, Hillary Clinton
predicts the Supreme Court will overturn marriage equality, although
Zohran Mamdani has thousands of online supporters it appears none of
them can step up and defend him from attacks, the Epstein scandal is not
going away and one MSNBC video report on YOUTUBE has collected almost
half-a-million views in less than 12 hours, and much more.
I don't know how much more
the nation can take. I'm serious. There are stories I ignore here
because it's just too much. Usually, it's a column by someone insisting
we've passed the point of no return. Maybe we have. Don't know how
that observation helps us? I agree we're at the breaking point. And I
bring that up for a reason. Erin Keller (INDEPENDENT) reports:
A
Massachusetts bookstore is stepping in to help LGBTQ couples tie the
knot as the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to hear a case that
could impact same-sex marriage rights.
All She Wrote Books
in Somerville, Massachusetts, announced it will host an LGBTQ “wedding
marathon” on August 30 from 1 to 5 p.m., under the banner “Love Can’t
Wait Another Day.” The event will offer multiple couples the chance to
marry “without the cost or delay of a traditional wedding,” according to
the shop’s Instagram post.
We can’t believe it’s
come to this, but the clock could be ticking on LGBTQIA+ marriage
rights,” the bookshop wrote online. “We’re not interested in waiting to
see what happens, and neither is our community. That’s why we’re
creating space for folks to say ‘I do’ ASAP.”
Owner
Christina Pascucci-Ciampa is rolling out in-store packages for the
wedding marathon. The $500 package includes a private one-hour ceremony
with a Justice of the Peace, professional photos, cupcakes, an optional
toast with bubbly, a wedding gift from the store, and guidance on
replicating legal documents should the right to equal marriage be
overturned.
Couples can bring up to 12 guests to witness their vows, or opt for a more intimate ceremony for just the two of them.
“What matters is making it official while we still can,” Pascucci-Ciampa wrote.
Couples
interested in participating are encouraged to reserve their spot in
advance and must obtain a marriage license before the event. Information
on marriage licenses in Somerville is available through the city’s
official resources.
On July 24, former Kentucky
county clerk Kim Davis filed a petition with the SCOTUS, requesting it
to overturn the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized
same-sex marriage nationwide.
Kim
Davis is the noted trash who got butt hurt last week over Sally Field's
son Sam calling her exactly what she is. She's ugly, if you've never
seen her.
Looks like she needs a bath. Maybe even to be dipped for ticks and
fleas. Definitely needs to cut that ugly hair.
Looks like no one -- man or woman -- has touched -- or ever would touch
-- her.
She's like the freaky Esmeralda in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS.
2016
Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton says she believes the Supreme Court is poised to overturn its
landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which effectively legalized
same-sex marriage nationwide, and that unmarried same-sex couples “ought
to consider” tying the knot.
“American
voters, and to some extent the American media, don’t understand how
many years the Republicans have been working in order to get us to this
point,” Clinton told Fox News host Jessica Tarlov on Friday in a
wide-ranging interview on “Raging Moderates,” the podcast Tarlov
co-hosts with Scott Galloway.
“It took 50
years to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Clinton said. “The Supreme Court will
hear a case about gay marriage; my prediction is they will do to gay
marriage what they did to abortion — they will send it back to the
states.”
“Anybody in a committed relationship
out there in the LGBTQ community, you ought to consider getting married
because I don’t think they’ll undo existing marriages, but I fear they
will undo the national right,” she said.
Even if the Supreme Court did take the case, [Chris] Geidner said he didn’t
think a case like Davis’ would provide sufficient legal reasoning to
overturn same-sex marriage entirely. Rather, he said that a successful
religious freedom or free speech challenge to Obergefell would
do other “bad things,” like hollow out civil protections or public
accommodations for same-sex couples, essentially inconveniencing or
endangering LGBTQ+ couples but not outright denying them the right to a
marriage license.
Gay legal journalist Joseph Mark Stern agrees somewhat with Geidner’s take. In recent Bluesky posts about Davis’ case, Stern wrote,
“Recent panic that the Supreme Court might soon overturn marriage
equality is unwarranted—the justices are highly unlikely to take up the
case that has people worried. And this freak-out risks diverting
attention away from the court’s subtler, ongoing attack on gay rights.”
“At this Supreme Court, the biggest realistic threat to gay rights
isn’t outright reversal of Obergefell, but the ongoing abridgment of gay
equality in the name of religious liberty and free speech,” Stern added.
“The Supreme Court has also weaponized the First Amendment to legalize
discrimination against same-sex couples in public accommodations, a
project that will expand in the coming years.”
Clinton was correct when she said that, if Obergefell were to be overturned, then the right to same-sex marriage would fall back to the states.
In 2022, then-President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA),
a law that repealed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and
required the federal and state governments to recognize same-sex
marriages that occur in states where they are legal.
Currently, 25 states have both laws and constitutional amendments
banning same-sex marriage, five have just statutes banning it, and five
others have just constitutional amendments banning it.
If this happened, a battle between pro- and anti-marriage states
could emerge. Republican attorneys general and legislatures in states
with same-sex marriage bans could argue that they should be exempt from
having to recognize same-sex marriages from states where such marriages
are legal.
John Roberts can rot in hell if the Court overturns
Obergefell. He will have destroyed the Supreme Court if that happens.
It is under his watch that the Court has fallen among the public. He
is the Chief Justice and he is directly responsible. Gallup:
At
48%, the proportion of Americans who have a great deal or fair amount
of trust in the federal government’s judicial branch is statistically
similar to the 2022 record low (47%) and 2023 (49%) ratings. Before
2022, trust in the judicial branch had never been below the majority
level and typically exceeded 60%.
The 13-point decline in trust that occurred between 2020 and 2021
followed Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court and its decision
to allow a strict Texas abortion law to stand. The seven-point drop from
2021 to 2022 came after the court handed down the Dobbs decision that
overturned Roe v. Wade’s finding of constitutional protections for
abortion rights.
This
is on John Roberts, Chief Justice. His leadership and his actions have
allowed this huge loss of confidence in the institution of the Court to
take place. There's no excuse for it. And it was his job, as Chief
Justice, to hector and lecture his peers about precedent and rule of
law. But he didn't. Like Jonathan Turley, Roberts has turned out to be
just another racist hate monger.
And he is responsible for where we are now. Instead of working to save the Court, he has destroyed it.
If
marriage equality is overturned, the Court's reputation will fall even
further and they will have made it clear that they do not stand for
equality and fairness but they are an idealogical nightmare that crafts a
decision based upon something other than the law.
Non
poli sci people may not understand the importance of this moment in
time. Poli sci-ers should get it. I predicted here the rise of ISIS in
Iraq before it happened. I warned over and over for months that it was
going to happen. Not because I'm a psychic but because the Iraqi
people had a prime minister who shouldn't have been prime minister (he
didn't win the election) and bit by bit a system exposed that could
nothing to help them.
Right now, Republican nut
jobs have control of the House and Senate and the White House. The
only institution possibly standing is the Supreme Court.
Roberts better protect the Court and its image or he's asking for a Civil War in this country.
Any political model will warn that this is where the complete fall of trust in the Supreme Court ends.
New
York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has faced heavy
criticism for his foreign policy views, which many see as beyond the
role of a mayor. He led the Democratic primary, gaining strong support
from younger progressive voters. However, Mamdani has encountered
opposition from the Indian American community, with critics claiming he
has acted as an opportunistic politician.
British
political commentator Douglas Murray believes Mamdani is aiming to get
into power by promising New Yorkers things that he cannot bring. He
argued that Mamdani has failed to address things that New Yorkers need.
Murray
stated, “His position as a so-called Democratic socialist, would make
sure that New York, which has been suffering for so many years now with a
brain drain, talent drain, money train, money drain would simply go
down even further.”
How about you leave the fairy tales to Mother Goose, Roger Anderson, you damn liar.
So
we know that Zohran is a Democratic Socialist. That is how you spell
it by the way. Roger couldn't even figure that out. Who is Douglas
Murray? Roger thinks he's worth listening to. But he doesn't tell you
who he is because Roger knows if he did that . . . no one would listen.
Because no one really cares what a British neoconservative thinks about
a politician in NYC.
This
is how they work to defeat Zohran. They lie. They lie and if caught
might offer an apology. Jonathan Turley, the fat f**k with the cod
liver oil face, decided to lie about Zohran this month. Called out on his lie, he
immediately wanted the world to then know, oops! I confused him with
another Muslim! Mahmoud Khalil! No one in their right mind would confuse NY Assembly Person Zohran
Mamdani with the grad student activist Chump targeted named Mahmoud
Khalil. The names are very different, their backgrounds are very
different, their heritage is very different. Turley tried a cheap shot,
got called on it and rushed to pretend it was an error.
Roger
Anderson, big fat liar, writes a 452 word piece on Zohran's campaign
that relies on one source -- a British neoconservative. None of the 452
words bothers to note that Zohran is currently riding high in the
polls.
Assembly
Member Zohran Mamdani leads the field in the race for New
York City mayor, according to a new poll of registered voters conducted
by AARP New York and Gotham Polling& Analytics. In the initial
ballot test, Mamdani received 41.8% support, followed by former Governor
Andrew Cuomo (23.4%), Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa (16.5%),
Mayor Eric Adams (8.8%), and other candidates (1.6%), with 7.9%
undecided.
According
to the poll, Mamdani secures just over half of Democrats (51.6%), while
Cuomo captures nearly a quarter (24%). The rest of the field remains in
single digits. Among Republicans, Sliwa gets over half the vote, with
Cuomo and Adams splitting much of the remainder.
The poll also
explored a unique set of “drop-out” scenarios to assess how the race
would shift if one or more candidates were to exit. In every scenario
tested, Mamdani maintains a commanding lead over the remaining
contenders. Notable shifts included:
If Cuomo drops: Mamdani rises to 48.4%, leading Sliwa by 27.6 points.
If Adams drops: Mamdani leads Cuomo by 14.0 points (42.6% to 28.6%).
If Sliwa drops: Mamdani leads Cuomo by 16.8 points (45.1% to 28.3%).
Head-to-head with Sliwa (Cuomo, Adams, Walden drop): Mamdani leads by 22.9 points (44.3% to 21.4%).
Head-to-head with Adams (Cuomo, Sliwa, Walden drop): Mamdani leads by 24.4 points (44.4% to 20.0%).
Head-to-head with Cuomo (Adams, Sliwa, Walden drop): Mamdani leads by 11.0 points (42.0% to 31.0%).
Undecided Voters In
a head-to-head matchup between Mamdani and Cuomo, 27% of voters remain
undecided. This bloc is mainly made up of older New Yorkers split
between Democrats and Republicans, making it a pivotal group that could
tip the balance of the race.
That's
only one poll but all the polling puts Zohran in the lead. Lies?
That's the tool to destroy him. Jonathan Turley got a pass on his lie.
I may be the first one to note it on the left. He got away with it.
He should have gotten the online equivalent of having his face smashed
through glass for lying like he did. Now he's emboldened and thinks he
can get away with it again and, if caught, just do another 'woopsie!'
Roger Anderson needs to be called out universally. Brit boy the
neoconservative is not a trusted or objective source. To pretend you're
'reporting' on Zohran's campaign and only serve up that idiot is to
demonstrate that you're not a reporter but you are someone trying to
work out a grudge.
These sort of things need
to be called out and called out immediately. I'm not talking about by
the campaign, I'm talking about by the media -- especially by so-called
left media.
Otherwise, just sit back and watch Zohran go down in the polls as these attacks on him multiply.
Former
Attorney General Bill Barr gave a deposition to the House Oversight
Committee and he did not clear Donald Chump on any Epstein connections
and/or entanglements. Lawrence O'Donnell noted that in the opening of
his program last night. (This video has over 391,000 streams, FYI.)
And then he discussed it and other Epstein details with US House Rep Robert Garcia.
Garcia states the GOP spin is false and states that the Committee needs to release the deposition to the public.
However,
when it comes to Chump's friends Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,
nothing is open to the public -- not Epstein's client list, not how
Maxwell got moved to Camp Fed in Texas this month, nothing is open to
the public. Everything is done behind closed doors -- like Bob Barr's
deposition.
MSNBC’s Ari Melber
addressed the ongoing scandal with Nancy Erika Smith and John Flannery
yesterday, reviewing basics and putting together a timeline.
Released a little over 12 hours ago, the video already has over 488,000 streams.
A
federal judge in Manhattan has ordered the immediate release of a gay
asylum seeker from Jamaica, finding that ICE violated his right to due
process.
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ordered the agency to release Rickardo Anthony Kelly, 40, more than two weeks after he was detained while waiting for his asylum hearing
at a courthouse accompanied by his attorney. Agents reportedly offered
him $1,000 to self-deport, and apprehended him when he refused.
"In
light of the undisputed facts, there is no doubt that [ICE's] ongoing
detention of [Kelly] with no process at all, much less prior notice, no
showing of changed circumstances, or an opportunity to respond, violates
his due process rights," Torres wrote in her ruling, issued Friday.
Kelly said in his initial writ of habeas corpus petition that
he came to the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2021 shortly after he was the
victim of a violent attack motivated by his sexual orientation, during
which he was shot ten times. He warned that deporting him to Jamaica
would put him at risk, and that keeping him in custody could cause him
to experience “severe and quite possibly fatal” medical complications as
a diabetic.
Kelly described the conditions of the ICE facility he
was detained at as “unconscionable,” “inhumane,” and “horrific.” He
claimed he was kept in a room with nearly 100 other detainees that had
only three toilets, no doors, and no showers, and that he was not
provided with “clean clothes, toiletries, or any other way to maintain
basic hygiene.”
It's one horror story after another. We've noted the six year old girl in New York already this week.
Immigration
agents reportedly detained a 6-year-old girl, her teenage brother and
her mother at a Manhattan immigration court last week.
The
family, originally from Ecuador, had appeared for a routine check-in at
26 Federal Plaza when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents
took them into custody on August 12, according to CBS News.
[. . .]
The
mother, identified as Martha, arrived in the U.S. with her daughter
Dayra and 19-year-old son Manuel after fleeing violence in their home
country, according to immigration advocates who spoke with CBS News.
Dayra attends PS 89, the Jose Peralta School of Dreamers in Queens, according to NBC 4 New York.
Mariposa
Benitez, founder of the advocacy group Mi Tlalli, said families like
Martha's seek safety after fleeing dangerous situations abroad but face
further trauma when detained in this manner.
Shortly
after the detention, the family was separated and transferred to
different facilities, according to CBS News. Martha and her young
daughter were transported to a detention center in Dilley, Texas, while
Manuel was taken to Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, the outlet
reported.
More than 20 state attorneys
general have filed suit against the Department of Justice (DOJ),
alleging the Trump administration is unlawfully seeking to withhold
critical funds for crime victims from states and nonprofits deemed
noncompliant with its draconian immigration enforcement efforts.
The lawsuit, filed
in federal district court in Rhode Island on Monday, centers on three
notices that DOJ posted last month for funding allocated by a
decades-old law called the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA). As I previously reported for Mother Jones, those funds have long been a critical source of support for organizations including domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, and child advocacy centers,
which use the money to run emergency shelters and hotlines and provide
therapy services, legal advocacy, and court accompaniment to abused
people, particularly women and children. Another bucket of VOCA funding
also goes directly to crime victims, who can use the funds for pay for
services including mental health counseling, funeral expenses, and
clean-ups of crime scenes.
But under the Trump administration, this year’s round of $1.9 billion in funding comes with strings attached: It stipulates that grantees may not
use the funds for any program or activity that, in DOJ’s opinion,
“violates (or promotes or facilitates the violation of) federal
immigration law…or impedes or hinders” enforcement.
While the funding announcements do not clarify what, exactly, would
constitute such violations, the intent seems clear: Trump’s DOJ wants to
essentially force states and the programs they fund to grant the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), unfettered access to the victims they
serve—conditions that the lawsuit calls “unprecedented.”
"Playing politics with the lives of people who have suffered so greatly
is reckless, it is cruel, and in this case—it is illegal,” said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, the lead plaintiff, in a statement.
Advocates for crime victims say that, if enacted, these conditions
could have a chilling effect on immigrant survivors of violence, who may
avoid seeking help for fear of being deported. “One huge barrier for
victims to leave an abusive situation is fear of their abusers reporting
them to immigration, which is a real threat, even when the survivor has
a path to lawful status,” Carmen McDonald, executive director of
Survivor Justice Center, a Los Angeles organization that supports
immigrant survivors of domestic violence, told me. “This will continue
to cause victims to be unsafe at home and have devastating impacts for
survivors.”
He is a failure. He has destroyed this
country in every way you can imagine. And, yes, that includes the
economy. His attack on DC is destroying the DC economy as we speak. Peter Wade (ROLLING STONE) explains:
Donald
Trump's deployment of National Guard troops to the nation's capital and
forcing a federal law enforcement takeover of the Metropolitan Police
Department is not only terrorizing residents and workers, it's also
harming local businesses. Washington, D.C., restaurants are experiencing
significant drops in reservations, and bars are seeing fewer customers.
Online
reservations for D.C. restaurants plunged more than 25 percent in the
days immediately after Trump announced the takeover of D.C. police for
the first time in the country's history, according to OpenTable data, WUSA 9's Jordan Fischer reported.
Trump
announced the authoritarian occupation on Monday, and OpenTable
reservations decreased by 16 percent compared to the same day last year.
By Tuesday, reservations were down 27 percent. By Wednesday, that
number rose to 31 percent.
Before
the president federalized D.C. law enforcement, the area had enjoyed 11
consecutive months of improvements in reservations.
The Advocate described the crackdown as "an economic and cultural crisis" after speaking to LGBTQ+ bar owners.
Bar owner Dave Perruzza said that Friday night felt "like a desert."
"Thursdays
are all local, but Fridays and Saturdays we get people from out of
town, and we just had none of them. It was awful," he explained.
Perruzza said he had lost $7,000 in a single night.
"That's not sustainable," he insisted.
None of Chump's actions are sustainable. The country needs a reboot nd we have got to deliver that in the 2026 mid-terms. Tara Suter (THE HILL) notes:
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Sunday dismissed Trump’s recent crackdown on the nation’s capitol as a “stunt.”
“What’s
happening here in Washington, D.C., is just a stunt. Donald Trump
didn’t like the fact that the walls were closing in on him, that his own
base was questioning why he wouldn’t release the Epstein files, why he
was protecting very powerful people,” Murphy told NBC News’s Kristen
Welker on “Meet the Press.”
It
is a stunt and was meant to stop people talking about the Epstein
scandal. The stunt is harming the economy and the Epstein scandal
remaings in the news. Adam Gabbatt (GUARDIAN) notes:
The
Democratic US congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland issued a statement
saying Trump’s decision to send the military into the nation’s capital
was meant to distract the public from the president’s “close friendship”
with the late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey
Epstein.
Raskin’s statement
also alluded to broken promises from the Trump administration to fully
divulge all files pertaining to the prosecutions of Epstein and his
associate, the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
“The
only emergency here is a lawless president experiencing a growing
public relations emergency because of his … stubborn refusal to release
the Epstein file despite his promise to do so,” Raskin’s statement said.
Other
Democrats echoed the sentiment that Trump’s move was an attempt to
distract from criticism over Epstein and an economy that was struggling
amid the passage of his congressional agenda bill, which included a
historic $1tn cut to Medicaid.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Murray demands all apportionment data be published online as court order requires
Murray: “It’s clear now why Vought and Trump have
fought so hard to prevent this information from being public: they have
used this process to secretly and illegally exert even more control
over funding approved by Congress, freezing key investments from going
out the door for agencies to conduct critical work and help the American
people.”
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the
following statement after the Trump administration was forced to put a key spending transparency website
back online after breaking the law to take it down so that it could
hide how it’s executing spending laws from the American people.
In March, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), headed by Director Russ Vought, illegally took down the apportionments website that it is required by law to maintain. Earlier this month, a federal circuit court unanimously ruled
that the administration must restore the website and publicly post all
apportionment data that has been hidden from public view over the last
few months. Late Friday, OMB finally relented in its months-long fight
to continue breaking the law to hide this information—restoring the
website and beginning to post some of the apportionments it’s hidden
from public view for months.
“Every time any member of this administration tries to claim
they are being transparent, remember that they spent months illegally
hiding how they were spending your taxpayer dollars. Unfortunately for
Russ Vought and President Trump, the law is very clear—and now that a
federal appeals court has unanimously ruled they must restore the
spending transparency website, the site is back online.
“It should never have required months in court for this
administration to begin complying with a truly basic and straightforward
transparency requirement. OMB must now ensure every last bit of this
important budget data that has been hidden is promptly made public, as
the court has ordered, and that the data is posted within days, as the
law requires, going forward.
“It’s clear now why Vought and Trump have fought so hard to
prevent this information from being public: they have used this process
to secretly and illegally exert even more control over funding approved
by Congress, freezing key investments from going out the door for
agencies to conduct critical work and help the American people.”
Background on Apportionments
Apportionments are legally binding budget decisions issued by OMB
under title 31 of the U.S. Code. These documents are final, decisional,
and legally binding on agencies, and officials found responsible for
violating an apportionment from OMB may be subject to administrative
discipline, including suspension without pay and termination. What’s
more, the knowing and willful violation of an apportionment carries with
it criminal penalties under the Antideficiency Act.
The bipartisan fiscal year 2022 appropriations spending law
established a requirement for OMB to publicly post in an accessible
format all approved apportionments within two business days, along with
any footnotes and an explanation for those footnotes. In the following
fiscal year spending law, Congress made those requirements permanent.
Those bipartisan requirements were carried out over the last three years
without incident—which allowed lawmakers and the public to track OMB’s
legal-binding budget decisions.
Background on Russ Vought’s Weaponization of the Apportionment Process
In late March, however, Vought illegally pulled the website down without any explanation—and adamantly refused
to restore it, despite bipartisan calls for Vought and OMB to simply
follow the law and adhere to this common sense requirement.
Vought’s decision to yank the website offline immediately raised
questions about what exactly he and the president were seeking to hide
in preventing the American people—and lawmakers responsible for
conducting oversight—from accessing this information about how OMB is
spending taxpayer dollars. Notably, Vought—a key architect of Project
2025—has long contended that political appointees like himself should
have more say in how OMB operates and should exercise significantly more
control over federal funding. Over the last many months, Vought has
taken sweeping steps to exercise more control—and notably, in President
Trump’s first term, OMB illegally used the apportionment process to cut
off security assistance for Ukraine, which, of course, was the basis for
Trump’s first impeachment.
Earlier this month, public reporting began to shed light on why Trump and Vought have obscured this data from public view. Reportsshowed OMB had used the apportionment process to block the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from accessing roughly $15 billion
in funding provided for lifesaving research into treatments and
cures—and then quickly reversed course after the blockage was made
public. Just days later, reports
also showed that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has
prevented the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from
spending large chunks of funding for mission critical work that it is
required to conduct. Senator Murray slammedboth actions—and
called for the Trump administration to stop improperly choking off
funding approved by Congress and to finally restore the website so the
American people have visibility into OMB’s actions.
The apportionments that have so far been made public now that the
website has been put back online make clear that Vought and OMB have
been using the apportionment process to exert even more control over
federal spending and to choke off key funds provided by Congress on a
bipartisan basis for all kinds of essential programs that working people
and communities nationwide count on every day.
So
far, Oasis have let the music do the talking. Liam and Noel Gallagher
have just wound up the first round of UK and Irish dates on their
sold-out Live ’25 tour and in a testament to the breathless enthusiasm
that’s greeted their first round of shows in more than 16 years they’ve
hardly had to talk up the dates at all.
In
fact, until Tuesday (Aug. 19) neither brother had sat down for a proper
interview about the shows at all. But Noel, who like his younger sibling
singer Liam, is simply mad about football, called in to his favorite
drive-time sports chat show, talkSPORT with Andy Goldstein and Darren
Bent, to chat about Man City, and, of course, how things are going with
the formerly battling brothers.
Saying
he was feeling “a bit shaky” after the band’s two-night run at Croke
Park in Dublin, Ireland on Saturday (Aug. 16) and Sunday (Aug. 17),
Gallagher summed up the weekend by saying, “there was a lot of singing, a
lot of drinking and a lot of talking nonsense… it was quite a night.”
Noel
said he’s on “top of the world” at the moment, professing to be
“completely blown away” by how the gigs the reunited band have played so
far have been received. “It’s difficult to put into words, actually,”
said the band’s lyricist. “Every night is the crowd’s first night, so
every night’s got that same kind of energy. It’s been truly amazing… I’m
not usually short for words, but I can’t really articulate it at the
minute.”
It
would be great if this was Oasis back together for good. But I have a
feeling when the concert ends in November, the brothers will once again
go their separate ways. Oasis broke out in the 90s. Let me move over
to a big star of the 80s, Rick Springfield. Lauren Gordon (PARADE) reports:
More
than four decades after “Jessie’s Girl” first hit the airwaves and
became an '80s anthem, Rick Springfield, 75, recently shared the real
story behind the smash hit. In a candid new interview, the rocker opened
up about the unrequited crush that inspired the song and how it changed
his life for good.
"I hadn't had much success,
and I'd been recording and writing and recording and touring a little
bit, and I started looking elsewhere to make some money," Springfield
recently told Hard Rock's "The Song" show.
"I always
liked working with my hands, so I started going to a stained glass class
in Pasadena with the honest thought of supporting my future family with
my stained glass mastery," he continued with a chuckle. "There was this
girl there that really caught my attention, and she had a boyfriend."
Evidently his name was Gary, not Jessie, but never-the-less it prompted him to go home and write about his "sexual angst."
"[I] just picked up my guitar and and the song just the story just came from that of wanting her," he admitted.
Rick
hit in this country back in the 70s with "Speak To The Sky." But he
didn't really notch up a string of hits. In the 80s, "Jesse's Girl"
kicked off a huge string of hits for him. When the song came out, he
was also popular for playing Dr. Noah Drake on GENERAL HOSPITAL. It
was his first number one in the US and also in Australia (he was born
and raised in Australia). He would follow that in the US with 15 more
top forty pop hits. I love "Jesse's Girl" -- everything about it, the
lyrics, the way Rick sings it and the guitar. It's just one of those
songs that hooks you immediately and forever.
I noted NETFLIX had a documentary on the band Devo last week -- noted it twice last week. It starts streaming today. Greta Cross (USA TODAY) notes:
The newest Netflix documentary will surely make viewers want to whip it good.
On
Aug. 19, Netflix released its new original documentary, "Devo." The
90-minute documentary provides an inside look at the new wave band known
for hits like "Whip It" and "(I Can’t Get Me No) Satisfaction," with
interviews from founding members Mark and Robert "Bob" Mothersbaugh and
Gerald Casale.
In the documentary's trailer,
Mark tells the story of how the band asked their record company for
money to fund the music video for "(I Can’t Get Me No) Satisfaction."
When it debuted in 1978, music videos weren't common industry practice
and really wouldn't be until MTV's launch in 1981. A throughline in
Devo's career, they proved to be ahead of the trends.
Devo
was New Wave. So was Blondie. Blondie had four number one hits on the
pop chart -- "Heart of Glass," "Call Me," "The Tide Is High" and the
first rap song to go to number one "Rapture." They had five other hits
that made the top forty for a total of nine top forty hits. Matt Mitchell (PASTE) reports:
Right
now, Debbie Harry, who recently celebrated her 80th birthday, is
dressed down, puttering around her home and “searching through a massive
pile of stuff from every tour.” Since the ‘70s? Perhaps. During her
spring cleaning in July, she pulls out a photograph of a man she
believes to be guitarist Dave Edmunds. But after putting her glasses on,
she realizes it’s Nick Lowe. A nearby Chris Stein calls her bandmate,
old flame, and dear friend “a luddite” before sharing a laugh with her
about it.
But before Debbie Harry
was Debbie Harry, she was born Angela Trimble in Miami at the dawn of
July in 1945. Three years later, gift shop owners Catherine and Richard
Harry adopted her, renamed her Deborah Ann, and raised her in Jersey.
She was a tomboy before her classmates at Hawthorne High School voted
her “best looking” in 1963. Doo-wop music spilled into high school
dances at the local firehouse, she remembers. One of the first songs she
discovered on her own was Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “Locomotion”;
she bought 45s of Fats Domino and Little Richard; Percy Sledge’s “Thief
in the Night” was her first favorite song. The radio taught Harry how to
move, how to act. “My parents might have been on the edge of thinking,
‘This is never going to last,’” she chuckles.
After
a move across the Hudson, Harry worked a number of odd jobs: BBC Radio
office secretary, Union City go-go dancer, Max’s Kansas City hostess,
Playboy Bunny. “That was quite an education and a real eyeful for me,”
she says, referring to her time waitressing at Max’s before becoming a
regular performer there. “There was a very illicit, sort of sexy vibe,”
Stein notes. “That wasn’t at CBGB.” Harry adds that it’s what she had
“always wanted to know about and be a part of,” that she “glorified in
it” being a primary hang for New York’s art cohort. She remembers
waiting on Andy Warhol (who would later become one of her greatest
friends), Jefferson Airplane, and Mark Rothko. “All the artists went
there because Mickey [Ruskin] would give them an open tab. At the end,
when he would want to collect, he would settle for artwork, which, over
time, became extremely valuable.”
For
Blondie, 1982 was the year when everything changed. And it wasn’t just
about losing steam or figuring out that the unstoppable force of their
music had since lost its spark. No, it all came crashing down following a
series of tour dates that pushed them past the point of no return. It
was so harrowing, in fact, that Debbie Harry once said drugs “were the
only way we could handle the stress”.
The
Tracks Across America Tour wasn’t just a nightmare waiting to happen
because of the band’s recent lack of hits; it was an inevitable disaster
from the off, with half-empty venues and dates left unfulfilled because
of a lack of ticket sales. As well as using drugs to self-medicate or
to hide from embarrassment, Chris Stein’s health took a turn for the
worse, and he lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time because of
some mysterious disease the doctors had no answers to (this would later
be revealed as a rare autoimmune disease that made it hard for him the
swallow).
“Chris was wasting away,” Harry later
recalled, his deterioration a stone-cold fact that there would be no
chance of ever giving their European leg a shot when this was clearly
more than just a band in commercial turmoil. The harsh reality was that
this was also a group no longer with the means to actually pull off
their high-energy shows to the crowds that were slowly but surely
filtering out, leaving nothing but a shadow in the place of a success
story that once defined the entire new wave scene.
Tuesday, August 19, 2025. Chump plans to steal the 2026 mid-terms while
Bernie Sanders attacks Kamala Harris with lies for the second time this
month. That's not how we pull together and big tent.
Let's start with Reese Waters from yesterday.
And TABITHA SPEAKS from last week.
We are tired of it. White progressives,' we are tired of it.
We're
tired of you lying about Kamal and we're real tired of you refusing to
get that Bernie has a Black problem. We don't worship him like you do,
we don't cut him slack for his racism.
A lot of
us are trying to do what I am which is big tent, big tent, big tent.
Avoid trashing other Dems as much as possible, work on pulling the party
together, stand up to the enemy that is Chump.
But then you get crusty lipped Bernie attacking Kamala Harris.
And let's be clear, though I know some of you White 'progressives' nodded a long with Bernie's attacks, he's lying.
He is distorting Kamala and her campaign.
We
saw that go down last fall and we have not forgotten. You need to your
old man to stop trying to stir up s**t because this doesn't end well.
Some
of you White 'progressives' nodding along with Bernie due so because of
the crap-fest that passes for 'independent' media on the left.
It
was something to see in the fall, to watch Kamala be attacked for not
doing this or that by White media like COMMON DREAMS when, in fact,
Kamala was doing what they were saying she wasn't. COMMON DREAMS ran an
article attacking her for not talking about women's health when she'd
just done that -- talked about women's health -- to ESSENCE magazine.
But White 'progressives' apparently can't read a publication if the
target audience is Black women.
We could go though this with multiple examples, but I'm just going to note two.
Starting with the US presidential elections, I believe the whine goes something like this: "Kamala hasn't done any interviews!"
That's
what the mail brought me yesterday. Page 48 kicks off Caroline Wanga's
six page interview with the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.
The two discuss a number of issues including the economy. I'll note
this from the interview
Kamala Harris: I
have been working on that issue for years -- with my colleagues from the
CBC [Congressional Black Caucus] when I was in the Senate and now as
Vice President. Why? Because Black women in the United States of
America are three to four times more likely to die in connection with
childbirth than other women. And we know that there are a variety of
reasons for that. But we also know that this is a health care crisis of
the highest order, and it has received very little attention
proportionate to the seriousness of the matter. So, I worked with my
colleagues when I was in the Senate. We passed a number of ills. When I
came in as Vice President, I continue to work on it. And one of the
things I found is this: For women on Medicaid, which states can provide
for postpartum care for two months up to 12 months -- and I realized
when I came in as Vice President, only three states would extend
Medicaid coverage for postpartum care from two months to 12 months. I
don't have a problem shaming people sometimes, so I challenged the
states to extend it. And now 46 states have extended Medicaid coverage
for postpartum care. There is a direct connection between this and
Black maternal mortality. But back to the other point about freedom of
choice. The majority of Black women in America live in the South You
know that in the South, we have some of the highest rates of Black
maternal mortality. In the South, except for the state of Virginia,
every state has an abortion ban. And what I find hypocrisy upon
hypocrisy, by some of these extremists, is that the same ones saying
they're passing these abortion bans because they care about women and
children have been completely silent on the issue of Black maternal
mortality. Don't come to us, gaslighting us about where you've been and
where you haven't been, on important issues that relate to what we know
every day affects our sisters, our mothers, our aunties, our
grandmothers -- and could affect our daughters.
A few comments. The interview is not online. I have no idea if it will be posted or not. Currently at ESSENCE, Jasmine Browley has an article about Kamala and the opportunity economy that went up this week and Robyn Mowatt looks at political style.
Second, the cover notes "COLLECTOR'S EDITION." If you're a subscriber
like me, you may grimace. But they used a real sticker that peels off
-- not a paper label that's basically glued to the cover -- and it's
very easy and doesn't tear the cover when you remove it. After I
removed it, I scanned for the image above (notice no tear in the lower
corner) and took the cover off the magazine. It's now framed and up in
my home office.
The Kamala Harris' campaign is
making its most direct appeal yet to Black men, rolling out new
policies, boosting programming and a targeted media blitz to win over a
crucial part of the electorate. With Republicans eyeing Black male
voters in a big way this election, the vice president's team is on the
move and not leaving anything to chance.
On Monday, Harris introduced her "Opportunity Agenda for Black Men." The
plan centers on providing up to 1 million fully forgivable loans of up
to $20,000 for Black entrepreneurs and investing in training,
mentorship, and apprenticeships for Black men in high-demand industries.
Harris is also pushing for the legalization of recreational
marijuana—paired with a focus on ensuring Black men access wealth and
jobs in that market.
"This agenda is a further realization of Vice President Harris' Opportunity Economy.
An economy where people don't just get by, but get ahead. Where Black
men are equipped with the tools to thrive: to buy a home, provide for
our families, start a business and build wealth," said Congressman and
Harris-Walz Campaign Co-Chair Cedric Richmond in astatement shared with
ESSENCE.
"Donald
Trump could care less about equipping hardworking Americans with the
tools needed to get ahead. From being investigated by the Department of
Justice for refusing to rent to Black tenants to falsely accusing the
Central Park 5 and calling for their execution to spreading the racist
birther conspiracy theory against President Obama, at every step of his
life, Donald Trump put Black men down for his own personal brand. If he
wins in November, he is telling us exactly what he'll do to Black men,
Richmond added.
I'm glad
ESSENCE exists. I'm a longterm subscriber to the print edition. But
it's an amazing, less than a month away from an election, ESSENCE can
report on this very important proposal but COMMON DREAMS can't and
won't. Nor IN THESE TIMES. Nor THE PROGRESSIVE -- an outlet with a
token or two but the tokens know what they're allowed to cover, they
know who's running the plantation. That's a very important proposal and
it's one that deserves serious exploration. But so-called news outlets
in 'independent' media can't be bothered.
Search
in vain for any amplification of that coverage from ESSENCE at COMMON
DREAMS, THE NATION, IN THESE TIMES, THE PROGRESSIVE, etc etc.
The most minor story in THE NEW YORK TIMES will get amplified but say "ESSENCE" and watch the White flight take place.
Bernie doesn't know what he's talking about.
And how does he help anyone by attacking Kamala to begin with?
She's not in the White House. Donald Chump is.
That's supposed to be our focus but along comes Bernie to try to beat up the Black woman with lies.
We're sick of it. Black people have had enough of this s**t.
I
know Black women who plan to site out 2026 because of the way Kamala
and we were disrespected by the left or 'left.' I know Black women who
are slowing leaving a staycation and trying to get back involved -- and
that group is going to bolt if you don't stop the attacks on Kamala.
White
'progressives' like Sam Seder had 801 topics they cover every week but
they refused to cover the very real topic of the attacks on Kamala
during the election and the attacks on Black women supporting Kamala
during the election. I'm not referring to the right-wingers attacking,
I'm referring to people who claimed to be of the left.
You
think you can ignore the topic. But when you do, you just make clear
to Black people how little you truly care about us and our issues.
Bernie
is nothing to praise and I could take him down every day -- his faux
support for immigrants, for example, is a very easy stance to expose
(he's anti-immigrant and has long been that and we can look at how
little support he has given to immigrants seized by ICE in Vermont).
I'm trying to focus on defeating Chump and saving the country.
But
if Bernie keeps attacking Kamala, you're going to find out just how
angry Black people are -- still are -- over the stunts so many of you
White progressives played last fall.
You want
us to pull together as a big tent? Stop the attacks on Kamala. Stop
lying. We've had enough and we're not going to take much more of this.
We're
supposed to have a common enemy. If you think that's Kamala Harris,
you are part of the effort working to ensure that MAGA remains in power
for decades.
On Monday morning, President Trump returned to a longtime fixation, posting on
Truth Social that he was “going to lead a movement to get rid of
MAIL-IN BALLOTS” by “signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to
the 2026 Midterm Elections.”
The post came just after Trump’s Friday summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin—not known for
his love of free and fair elections—who allegedly counseled Trump that
“your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting,” a message
Trump promptly relayed to Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
Trump already led a movement to get rid of mail-in ballots, helping to push for a spate of anti-voter state laws both in the run-up to the 2020 election and after his loss.
But each successive crackdown strips voting rights from disabled and
aging voters, who disproportionately rely on absentee ballots and voter
assistance laws to participate in democracy.
Some experts question whether the White House even has the power to
take further steps to ban voting by mail; a plethora of lawsuits would
likely follow any executive order against it.
