Glen
Hansard, the Irish musician who starred in the 2007 film "Once" and won
the best original song Oscar for "Falling Slowly," died on Wednesday in
a motorcycle crash. He was 56.
According to
the BBC, Hansard was killed in a single-vehicle crash in his home city
of Dublin on Wednesday. The accident was reported to emergency services
around 4:30 a.m.
I first came across Glen when he covered Joni Mitchell's "Coyote." He was very talented.
Irish
singer-songwriter Glen Hansard, who achieved international fame
starring in the 2007 drama Once, has died in a motorcycle crash at the
age of 56. His death was confirmed by ATC Management, who represented
Hansard.
"Glen's family is deeply shocked and
heartbroken by this tragic loss and respectfully requests privacy at
this extremely difficult time," their statement reads. "The family is
grateful for the support they have received and wishes to thank the
emergency services who attended the scene. As this matter remains the
subject of an active Garda investigation, no further comment will be
made at this time."
Hansard, who also fronted rock
band The Frames, died on Wednesday after an incident in Dublin. Gardaí
and emergency services were called to the scene shortly before 4.30 a.m.
after receiving reports of a single vehicle collision.
The
singer-songwriter won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for
"Falling Slowly," which he wrote and performed in Once alongside his
co-star and former partner Markéta Irglová.
Hansard
had been active in music up until his death and released the second
volume of his album Don+t Settle – Transmissions East & West last
month.
He was born in Ballymun, Dublin, in 1970
and began his career busking on the streets of the Irish capital as a
teenager. He formed The Frames in 1990 and first came to wider attention
when he starred in Alan Parker's The Commitments as guitarist Outspan
Foster.
Choosing
a favorite Beatles song may be an impossible task. Whether it's the
soft, melodic storytelling of tracks like "Yesterday" and "In My Life",
the experimental, rock-driven verses of "Tomorrow Never Knows" and
"Helter Skelter", or the simple romance of "She Loves You" and "I Want
to Hold Your Hand", there truly is something for everybody in their
catalog.
Perhaps their
most recognizable, well-known track was "Hey Jude", a heavy rock anthem
that climbed to No. 1 in the U.S. and U.K. and remains one of the
most-played songs of all time today.
Though
credited to the joint songwriting partnership of 'Lennon-McCartney', the
song was written almost exclusively by Paul McCartney during a period
of extreme tension between the four members of the band.
In
May 1968, John Lennon left his wife Cynthia Lennon for Yoko Ono, a
Japanese artist he'd met several years prior. This domestic strife
caused some trouble for the Beatles, who were already beginning to drift
apart following creative disputes and personal arguments during their
recording sessions.
Seeing the impact that John
and Cynthia's divorce was having on their son Julian Lennon, McCartney
wrote "Hey Jude" to comfort his best friend's son and assure him that
everything would work out in the end. It was originally going to be
called "Hey Jules", though McCartney changed the name to fit better with
the ryhthm.
Carly Simon's been in the news this week due to health issues. She's also got a new album coming out shortly. Bethany Gemmell (MEN'S JOURNAL) notes:
Mick
Jagger, frontman of The Rolling Stones and one of the most famous
philanderers in music history, was a natural fit for the subject of
"You're So Vain," in which Simon details a narcissistic ladies' man who
dazzles the fellow rich and famous. The claim even had some (kind of)
credible sources, with Angie Bowie, former wife of David Bowie, claiming
her relationship with Jagger was mentioned in the "wife of a close
friend" line of the song (via ABC).
However,
Simon said the song wasn't about Jagger at all, who provided backing
vocals and an extra texture on the chart-topper. Initially, the vocals
on the future pop hit were meant to be provided by fellow musician Harry
Nilsson, but Jagger was ultimately selected due to their musical
compatibility.
“He [Nilsson] knew the chemistry was between me and Mick; in terms of the singing,” Simon recalled in 1995 (per American Songwriter). “So he sort of bowed out and said, ‘The two of you have a real blend. You should do it yourselves.’”
When asked by the Washington Post in 1983
if the Rolling Stone influenced the storytelling of the song in any
way, Simon put it as simply as possible: “No,” she responded.
On
July 21, the entertainer, 67, announced the 2026 UNWRAPPED Holiday
Tour, which will see him performing at dates around the country
throughout the holiday season. Speaking with PEOPLE about his tour and
the new music he’ll debut on it, the former teen idol opened up about
his relationship with the road and how touring has changed for him since
his early career.
Cassidy explained that he toured big arenas all over the country growing up, until he made the decision to walk away at age 21.
“I
played the Houston Astrodome for 55,000 people. And I said, ‘Goodnight.
See you soon.’ And I didn’t do another concert until 2020, 40 years
later. And it wasn’t because I didn’t love doing concerts. It wasn’t
because I didn’t love playing music and being in front of an audience,
but I just found that writing and producing television, which has been
my main job for much of the last three, four decades, just allowed me to
have something closer to a normal life,” Cassidy tells PEOPLE.
“And
a normal life, a grounded life, a stable life was something I really
didn’t have as a kid. So I yearned for it as an adult and it took me a
while to find it, but I did, and I’m really grateful I did.”
Shawn's
had a strong career as a writer and producer since 1991. Over the
weekend, I saw Katy Perry was calling out Chump for using her song
"Firework" in one of his TikTok videos. Charisma Madarang (ROLLING STONE) reports on another artist calling out the White House for using their music:
Noah Kahan has made it clear that he would never support the use of his music to benefit the Trump administration.
On
Monday, the White House posted a series of Instagram photos depicting
President Donald Trump's visit to General Motors' flagship test site in
Michigan. During his stop, the president took the opportunity to boast
about his controversial tariffs across the auto industry and pumped his
fist while watching a drag race. The photo carousel was bizarrely
soundtracked to Kahan's "American Cars," a song the artist wrote for his
sister, Sasha, about how she's the family's problem solver.
After
a flurry of fans alerted Kahan by tagging him in the comments, the
singer replied on Tuesday and wrote: "Would never approve of my music
being used in support of you or this administration."
Wednesday, July 29, 2026. America's noticing that Chump's not at all
concerned with the issues that impact their lives, he continues his
policy to hide the wounded and the fallen, his ICE detention centers are
torture centers and that includes forced feeding of prisoners on hunger
strikes, and so much more.
American
and Saudi fighter jets attacked Iranian-backed militias in eastern Iraq
early Wednesday, embroiling more countries in the war, overshadowing
diplomatic efforts and sending oil prices higher.
Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps also said that it launched missiles
at U.S. military targets in Jordan as retaliation for American
aggression. The Jordanian military said Wednesday that it had shot down
five missiles launched from Iran.
[. . .]
Here’s what else we’re covering.
Oil prices jump:
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, was up 3.5 percent at
about $87 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, was
up by about the same amount on Wednesday following the attacks.Read more ›
Jordanian bases:
Iran has repeatedly targeted U.S. military sites in Jordan, which hosts
some 4,000 American soldiers. In a rare challenge to the government,
some Jordanians are calling for U.S. forces to leave the country. Read more ›
Iran-Ukraine diplomacy: Iran
considered attacking a seaport in Ukraine in response to a Ukrainian
strike on an Iranian ship last week, but a flurry of diplomatic efforts
has calmed the situation for now, Iranian and Western officials said. Read more ›
A controversial move by the Pentagon to reclassify casualties in the Iran war as being killed in “overseas 0perations” is being taken by US military veterans as a sign of disrespect for the dead.
Michael
E Smith, a retired US rear admiral who completed combat tours in Iraq,
Bosnia and Kosovo, said: “It’s such a huge disrespect for the families.
To claim that they weren’t killed as a result of the war – oh, it was
just overseas operations – is just ludicrous.”
In 1969, Life magazine ran a feature that polarized America. They posted the pictures of 242 young men who had been killed in the span of a week in Vietnam.
The
pages showed young men, some of them teenagers, either in their
military uniforms or in yearbook photos. The story showed the human cost
of the war. It was a direct counter to the Pentagon’s reliance on
kill-counts and ratios.
Prior
to that, to show the war was being won, the military would harp on enemy
body-counts as proof of victory. The argument was sold to Americans who
wanted to remain convinced that the war was justifiable that even if we
were losing hundreds of men a week, we were killing thousands of the
enemy.
However, seeing faces of fallen soldiers
in such a massive quantity did affect how Americans viewed kill counts.
When you see past the number and see the faces of the dead you start to
care less about those that we are killing and care more about those of
ours that have been killed.
The same thing
happened during World War II. Newspapers around the country would print
the names of the dead along with the location of their deaths. The
impact of seeing thousands of names printed in papers instead of a
four-to-five-digit figure caused Americans to put immense pressure on
Franklin Roosevelt and later Harry Truman to end the war as fast as
possible.
This past week, Trump and his administration
decided that kill counts are back and that deaths that make the
president look bad don’t actually count. The Pentagon decided it needed
to reduce the number of killed in action
from 18 back down to 14. Because these four brave Americans died during
a cease-fire, they are not being counted as casualties of war. Even
though Iran killed three of them and another was killed trying to disarm
an Iranian drone, the Trump administration is now insisting they didn’t
die in the Iranian war.
This as Martha McHardy (DAILY BEAST) notes, "Donald Trump’s war in Iran is the most unpopular it has ever been, according to a scathing new poll. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll,
conducted between July 24-26 among 1,246 U.S. adults, shows that just
33 percent of Americans approve of the war, while 62 percent
disapprove. That is down from 37 percent in mid-March." The unpopular
war just grows more unpopular with each passing day. It's in the sixth
month and Chump was sure it would last a few days or a few weeks. Six
month. 151 days. No end in sight. It wrecks the economy. There was
no valid reason for the US to go to war with Iran. And Congress has
never approved this war. Chump looks like an idiot.
President Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to a new low since returning to the White House, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll released Tuesday, with just 34% of Americans approving of his job performance.
The survey found 62% of Americans disapprove of Trump's performance,
up two percentage points from the previous week, while 63% say the
country is headed in the wrong direction. Despite Trump's declining
numbers, Democrats have gained little ground politically, leading
Republicans by just four points on a generic congressional ballot.
The
Iran War and the economy? The two are joined. And Chump failed the
American people by starting the Iran War. There was no threat to the US
from Iran. Thanks to the war, however, our economy is trashed. IDAHO PUBLIC PRESS notes, "Reuters
reported, citing government data, that the labor force and employment
have declined since Trump returned to office. Bureau of Labor Statistics
data show the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers fell 0.4% in
June on a seasonally adjusted basis, while rising 3.5% over the
previous 12 months before seasonal adjustment."
The
deaths have not only now been reclassified in a more convenient and
politically expedient manner for the administration — namely, it makes
the total number of deaths due to Trump’s Iran war look lower and plays
into his claims about his war authority — but it also turns out the
deaths have actually been classified three separate ways on the
Pentagon’s website in the last week alone.
The four deaths had suddenly returned to the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System
over the weekend. But rather than being re-added under Operation Epic
Fury (the Iran war mission) — which one would expect if this were indeed
just a data glitch — they were instead added to a whole new category on the site: the broadly named “Overseas Operations.”
The Pentagon also recorded more than 140 additional wounded service members in the system as part of that update.
This
newly created category is described as accounting for “casualties
starting July 7th 2026,” which is the date the administration has
claimed it began a new conflict with Iran (more on that in a bit).
That’s not the only time the Pentagon’s website has changed how these deaths were classified.
Operation
Inherent Resolve is the mission started in 2014 to defeat ISIS in Iraq
and Syria, but the service members were killed by Iranian attacks. Soon,
the language was changed to say the fallen troops “were supporting overseas operations in Jordan.”
In
other words, these service members have now been linked on the Pentagon
website to three different operations — two of which, it bears
emphasizing, allow the administration to claim the casualties weren’t
part of Operation Epic Fury.
Veterans and their families are speaking out against Chump's hiding the fallen. Ashleigh Fields (THE HILL) notes a US senator is as well:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday said the Pentagon’s death toll revision for U.S. service members killed by Iran is an “act of cruelty.”
“It
just is an act of cruelty. Think what that means for those families.
But it is also the move of every autocrat in history, is to try to
control reality, to control history, to control the line of what’s
told,” Warren said during an appearance on MS Now’s “All In with Chris
Hayes.”
Warren has strongly condemned the military conflict with Iran, criticizing it as an illegal, reckless and unplanned.
Lawmakers are raising concerns with the Pentagon’s decision not to report three strikes on American bases in the Middle East and concealment of dozens of injuries in addition to deaths.
The Iran conflict has resulted in the deaths of 18 U.S. service members and 427 injuries.
However, in recent days, the Pentagon has moved to classify four deaths as “Overseas Operations” on the Defense Casualty Analysis System website.
Ten injuries were also removed from the tracking page, despite direct links to the war.
As
Chump continues his highly unpopular war, as the economy continues to
tank, Americans see him focused on golfing and on various conspiracies.
But they don't see him focused on the issues effecting this country
today. Ariel Edwards-Levy (CNN) explains this morning:
A
record-high 73% of US adults say that President Donald Trump hasn’t
paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds, with just 27% saying he’s had the right priorities.
That
comes amid increasingly bleak views of the Iran war, stagnating
economic unhappiness, and broad discontent about Trump’s approach to
these challenges.
Roughly
two-thirds of Americans think that Trump’s policies have worsened
economic conditions and that his military decisions in Iran have hurt
the US. Around three-quarters say the president is not in touch with the
problems ordinary Americans face in their daily lives.
Trump’s
overall approval rating, 34%, matches the career low he last saw at the
close of his first term, following the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
Half of Americans now strongly disapprove of him, a high across his
terms, with a record-low 15% strongly approving.
ELLIOTT: So what do you make of that whopping $37 1/2 billion number from Hegseth?
BILMES:
Well, when I think about the war costs, there are four categories.
There's the very up-front short-term operations, then the medium-term
costs, the long-term costs and the economic costs. And the 37 billion
that Secretary Hegseth cited is just the very tippy-tippy-tip of the
cusp - iceberg. So Mr. Hegseth is basing this figure primarily on the
historical cost of the ammunitions that have been used up. But in fact,
the replacement cost is at least 50% higher. For example,
the Patriot interceptors that we have used up cost about 2 to 3 million
each when we bought them, but the new ones, the replacements, cost 4 to 6
million. And the old Tomahawk missiles cost 1 million to 2 million, but
the replacements cost 3 to 4 million.
ELLIOTT: So that's
kind of like, let's say, you have to rebuild your house, and you don't
have enough insurance to rebuild it because you've insured your house
for what you paid 10 years ago to build it, right?
BILMES:
Yeah, that's right. But in this case, it's even more extreme because of
the fact that we also pay a significant surcharge to defense
manufacturers because we're asking them to vastly expedite the new
orders because we've used up our existing inventory at such a fast clip.
ELLIOTT: So what would you say a more accurate figure might be for the cost of this war?
BILMES:
According to my analysis, the very up-front, short-term costs are, to
date, about 120 billion. But that doesn't include another 250 billion
for rebuilding the hundreds of U.S. facilities across the Middle East
that have been destroyed or damaged. And then there are long-term costs
and economic costs, which are the sort of base of the iceberg, and they
are much larger.
ELLIOTT: Such as, like, caring for veterans? Is that what you're talking?
BILMES:
I mean, one of the significant costs is caring for veterans, and here
again, the administration has lowballed what we can expect in terms of
cost. It has mentioned the several hundred troops who have been wounded
in action, but it hasn't mentioned the 15-, 16-, 17,000 troops who have
been exposed to contaminants and toxins and will be receiving lifetime
disability benefits for breathing difficulties. It hasn't
mentioned the several hundred troops that have been exposed to fire and
inhaled smoke and were treated on the USS Gerald Ford when it had a huge
fire. I mean, there are a whole series of costs related to veterans
over their lifetimes. And remember that these veterans have an average
age of 28.
ELLIOTT: But wouldn't the Pentagon be taking some of these factors into consideration as it presents its estimates to Congress?
BILMES:
I mean, the Pentagon and, I think, countries throughout history tend
not to think about the long-term costs. What is really the kicker here? I
mean, countries throughout history tend to be optimistic. They think
the war will be over faster than it is. They think it's going to cost
less than it is. And what's very important to understand is that all of
this money - the 37 billion that Hegseth is talking about, the 67
billion that has been requested, the 150 billion that was emergency
money - all of this is being borrowed. And we also have to pay interest
on the debt. This whole approach of paying for wars
entirely through debt is entirely new in U.S. history after 2001. In all
previous U.S. wars - the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, World
War II, the Spanish-American War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War - we
raised taxes a lot to pay for wars. But since 2001, we have borrowed all
the money. But now what's different even than during Iraq and
Afghanistan is that, as everyone who has borrowed any money knows, we
are borrowing at much higher interest rates.
A top official at the Department of Homeland Security has torched President Donald Trump on his way out the door.
Marc
Rosenblum, the executive director of the Office of Homeland Security
Statistics, said that he was “thrilled” to announce his resignation in a
LinkedIn post on Monday after 10 years at the department.
“I’m
thrilled to end my relationship with the current administration,” he
wrote. “Between the war on immigrants, the war on feds, and the war on
facts (not to mention the crazy war in Iran and the brazen corruption), I
just need a change.”
Rosenblum spent years working to improve transparency at DHS, and spearheaded
efforts to publish information on immigration arrests and deportations
for the first time. But after the Trump administration launched its
sweeping deportation efforts, DHS stopped publishing data on ICE
detentions, Customs and Border Protection encounters, and
deportations—gutting the department’s transparency and undermining
accountability. Rosenblum told Wired that he and his co-workers had faced “a challenging and often hostile work environment.”
State
and federal officials said they are investigating after a group of
masked men impersonating Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents
pulled over and assaulted a migrant in Oregon.
The
incident, the latest in a string of crimes committed by alleged ICE
impersonators, took place between 3:30 and 5 p.m. on July 17 near
Woodburn in Clackamas County, south of Portland.
The
encounter began when the driver saw an SUV behind them turn on red and
blue emergency-style lights and pulled into a turnout.
“Two
men exited the suspect vehicle, one of whom was armed with a rifle,”
Oregon State Police said in a statement. “The suspects identified
themselves as ‘ICE’ and told the victim they were being detained. The
victim was forcibly removed from their vehicle, searched, and placed
into the back seat of the suspects' vehicle.”
Inside, a third individual assaulted the driver, police said. The victim was released about 20 minutes later.
The
suspects were described as wearing boots, baseball caps, face
coverings, and green long-sleeved shirts, as well as tactical vests
marked ‘POLICE.’
Chump's
rhetoric is responsible for this. It feeds and encourges hatred. He
is responsible for this. His big mouth has created an environment for
this to take place.
Two
married pastors in the U.S. on religious visas were arrested by U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last week at the McAllen
airport as they were trying to fly to a Billy Graham marriage
conference.
This follows the arrest last month
of a Catholic nun in her habit who was picked up by ICE agents while
walking to church on a Sunday in McAllen.
Nepthali
Zozaya Saucedo, 36, and his wife, Cinthia Sarai Cardona Otero, 34, both
assistant pastors at Comunidad Cristiana Emanuel Church, in Edinburg,
Texas, were arrested at the airport before their overnight flight to
North Carolina.
A Department of Homeland
Security spokesperson on Monday told Border Report that Cardona was
arrested Thursday, and Zozoya was arrested Friday. Both are from Mexico,
and the spokesperson said they both “entered the U.S. on visas on Feb.
27, 2022, and overstayed for four years after their visas expired on
July 7, 2022.”
With all of
is blasphemy in 2026 so far, this is just another signal to the faithful
that Chump is not one of them. He does not believe in God. That's why
he repeatedly speaks of how he doesn't think he's going to heaven. He
knows he's not because he knows he has no faith nor respect for those
people who do have faith -- something he made clear when he went after
Pope Leo earlier this year.
In January, ICE killed 2 US citizens -- Renee Good and Alex Pretti. There's still been no trial for these murders. Ingrid Vasquez (PEOPLE) reports:
McLaughlin claimed that
Alex “approached” U.S. Border Patrol officers while armed with a handgun
and “violently resisted” as they attempted to disarm him. Witnesses
later shared videos contradicting DHS’ claims, including that Pretti was
holding a phone, not a gun, in the moments before the killing.
Susan shared a heartbreaking statement on July 24
to mark six months since her son died, claiming that in that time, “No
one has been held accountable, no apologies, not a single phone call
from any governmental official, hospital personnel, or the Mpls police
dept.”
“Six-months of pain, a roller-coaster of
trauma over and over,” she continued. “Every time another death,
another mention, a picture, a tribute, a sorrow so deep. I wonder how to
move forward. Will I ever get over this loss and this pain? Will I ever
be able to enjoy life again? How does one live knowing that I have no
power to change what has happened?”
Susan said that people around the world have reached out to her, which “has been nothing less than spectacular.”
“Every
card, every gift, every heartfelt letter has been read, touched, held,
and cherished by us all,” she said. “The kindness you’ve all shown us is
beyond words. Please never forget Alex and what he believed in ~
equality and peace for all.”
She then spoke
directly to her son, writing, “I will remember the things that made you,
you. It will never take your memory. As long as I’m here, you will
never be forgotten.”
He
feels nothing for the immigrants who are dead because of his policies
and he feels nothing for the American citizens who have been murdered by
his gestapo. People killed at traffic stops and Mark Mullen puts a
hold on traffic stops? Chump doesn't even allow that hold to last 24
hours. He immediately tells Mullen to withdraw the hold.
There is no concern or respect for life to be found in Chump's empty mind.
The federal immigration agent who fatally shot a man in Maine is facing allegations that are raising questions about the hiring standards at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Two
former wives’ allegations against ICE agent David Brouillette are
fueling the public relations disaster surrounding yet another death in
the Trump regime’s racist anti-immigrant crackdown. (The Associated Press, which extensively detailed the domestic abuse allegations, said Brouillette did not respond to its requests for comment.)
Brouillette
fatally shot Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national,
during a traffic stop in Maine two weeks ago. The Department of Homeland
Security’s official explanation for the shooting was that Guerrero
tried to flee in his vehicle and that Brouillette shot him while
“fearing for public safety.”
Amid public outcry — and recent polling
showing that most Americans have little or no confidence in ICE — the
Trump administration said it will investigate the matter. White House
border czar Tom Homan told CNN on Sunday that the vetting process may
have failed in this case and that the process is under review.
But
the fact that people with disturbing backgrounds have been hired to
work for ICE has been no secret whatsoever — and there have been heaps
of evidence showing that the administration lowered ICE’s agency
standards to aid Trump’s mass deportation push.
Last fall, NBC News reported
that ICE’s hiring push led to some recruits being allowed to
participate in training despite criminal backgrounds and having failed
drug tests. In April, The Associated Press raised fresh concerns about
ICE’s vetting practices, spotlighting various problematic hires. In
response to the AP’s report, DHS told the outlet that vetting “is an
ongoing process, not a one-time occurrence.”
BASH:
Court documents reveal one of the ICE officers connected to the fatal
shooting in Maine was accused of abuse by two ex-wives. One of
his ex-wives told my colleague Erin Burnett that she experienced severe
domestic violence in her marriage and that he always displayed violent
behavior, and even that, if anything ever happened to her, he'd be the
one to look at. I should say he denied the allegations. But, at
one point, a judge ordered him to temporarily relinquish any firearms.
Should someone with those issues be an ICE agent?
HOMAN: No, if those of those are facts, he -- I don't think he should ever have cleared vetting. When
they hire somebody, they put them through a vetting process and look at
all that stuff. So I know, based on that information -- that's part of
the ongoing investigation. How -- did the vetting process fail? Was that
information not available? Did they not know? So there's a
separate administrative investigation on what happened here. Did you --
did we have that information? Did we not have that information? But the
vetting process, I -- if that was factual, he would have an almost
impossible time to pass vetting.
BASH: So does that raise
questions about ICE's vetting procedures, especially as it has in the
past several months ramped up its law enforcement officers, who are
around the country looking for undocumented immigrants?
HOMAN: Well, look, ICE has about 30,000 employees. They all go through vetting. This is a kind of a rare instance. But,
again, it's under review. There's several things under review, right?
The training is under review. And I know that the acting ICE director
now, David Venturella, has added additional training, because I'm one
that supports you can't -- you can't ever have too much training.
The
Trump administration subjected at least one person undertaking a hunger
strike in immigrant detention to forcible medical treatment – engaging
in medical practice that healthcare associations and international human
rights groups have described as torture.
A
document from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) health
service agency, reviewed by the Guardian, confirms for the first time
that the administration has used forced treatment on a hunger striker
since Donald Trump began his second term. The document, published online
in February by the ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC), discloses that an
unnamed patient who began hunger strikes between October and December of
last year and “was subject to force feeding, hydration, or forced
urinary catheterization, or involuntary blood draws”.
It
also notes that at least seven detained people were on hunger strike
this February, and that IHSC has forecasted a total budget of $4,504.75
for “external medical care” of hunger strike patients and a total budget
of $168,928.01 for the fiscal year of 2026 based on costs from last
year.
A court-appointed doctor
charged with investigating the standard of medical care at California's
largest ICE detention center issued a searing indictment of the
facility's health care system in a report released Monday, opening the
way for litigation to continue.
The review,
ordered by a federal judge as an impartial and systemic analysis of
whether California City Detention Facility met eight basic criteria of a
functional health care system, concluded that "the facility lacks a
reliable system to consistently provide adequate health care, placing
individuals at serious risk of both immediate and long-term harm."
The detention facility was found to be non-compliant on all eight criteria, which included:
Adequate staffing
Timely approval and access to medical specialists
Timely and responsive emergency services
Timely access to prescribed medications
A responsive "sick call" system
The
court-appointed medical review is the first-of-its-kind for an ICE
detention center. It resulted from a November class action lawsuit filed
by seven people detained at the Mojave Desert facility, who alleged
inhumane conditions and medical neglect.
As
Chump continues to destroy lives not every one is silent. Even some
members of the government have called out Chump's policies and actions.
Even the Republican governor of Ohio. Camilo Montoya-Galvez (CBS NEWS) reports:
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told CBS News the Trump administration's plan to ramp up arrests and deportations of Haitian migrants is a "mistake," arguing the move could bruise the state's economy and risk putting Haitians in danger in their home country.
More
than 300,000 people from Haiti are set this week to lose Temporary
Protected Status, a humanitarian immigration program that protects them
from deportation and allows them to work, after the Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration's plan to end the policy for Haitians. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has drawn up plans to launch a deportation blitz focused on Haitian migrants as early as this week, CBS News reported Sunday.
The
operations could focus in part on the thousands of Haitians who live in
Ohio, many of whom have settled in the city of Springfield in recent
years. During the 2024 campaign, President Trump claimed, without evidence, that Haitian immigrants in the city were eating cats and dogs.
In
an interview on Monday in Columbus, DeWine said the planned deportation
operations would be "a blow to Springfield" and "a blow to the state of
Ohio."
"These are people who have helped
Springfield really come back," DeWine said, pointing to Haitians who
have filled jobs and opened businesses in an economically challenged
city. "The Haitians who are living there and employed there, they came
there to work, and they came there because there were jobs that were not
being filled by other people."
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
***VIDEO OF EDUARDO’S DETAINMENT ALONG WITH OTHER PHOTO AND VIDEO OF EDUARDO AND HIS WIFE ARE AVAILABLE TO THE PRESS HERE***
Seattle, WA – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the
following statement upon hearing news that Eduardo Aguirre Esparza, the
husband of an American citizen, was forcefully detained and in the
process of being deported before courts can consider emergency relief:
“On Thursday, ICE needlessly detained Eduardo Aguirre
Esparza, a local Seattle small business owner with no criminal history.
This is a man who is married to an American citizen and with deep ties
to our local community who was working hard to pursue a legal pathway to
lawful permanent residence. For the federal government to waste its
resources to forcefully detain and deport Eduardo and tear apart an
American family is plain sick. Our immigration enforcement should be
focused on violent criminals and keeping Americans safe—deporting
hardworking people like Eduardo makes no one safer, it’s just cruel and
wrong.
“I am demanding that DHS return Eduardo to Washington state
so that he may receive due process and have access to counsel—flying
Eduardo to Texas away from his lawyers to try and deport him is
fundamentally wrong and un-American. I hope others in Washington state
will join me in calling for Eduardo’s immediate return home so that the
courts can fairly consider his case.”
Eduardo Aguirre Esparza is an undocumented immigrant, married to an
American citizen. He’s a hardworking small business owner who owns a
remodeling company in Seattle. He’s lived in Seattle for 23 years.
Following his detainment to the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWIPC)
on Thursday, Eduardo was flown out of Washington state on ICE Air at 2
AM on Saturday morning without notice to anyone, including his attorney
and family. After several stops along the way, Eduardo is now being held
in Texas where his family suspects ICE intends to conduct an expedited
deportation hearing to remove Eduardo from his home as quickly as
possible and without representation of counsel. Senator Murray is
joining Eduardo’s family in demanding that he be returned to Western
Washington to receive his due process protections.
Thanks
to her vocal and songwriting prowess, Stevie Nicks became a rock and
roll superstar as a member of Fleetwood Mac in the latter half of the
1970s. By 1981, she had completed her first solo album, which further
cemented her as a music legend.
Released 45 years ago today on July 27, 1981, Nicks' Bella Donna went platinum within three months. The album peaked at No. 1 in America and spent nearly three full years on the Billboard 200 from July 1981 to June 1984.
[. . .]
"Stop
Draggin' My Heart Around," Nicks' duet with Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers, and "Leather and Lace," her collaboration with Don
Henley, peaked at No. 3 and No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 respectively.
"Edge of Seventeen" reached No. 11 on the charts, with "After the Glitter Fades" also cracking the top 40 at No. 32.
"Bella
Donna proves that Fleetwood Mac's blond priestess of the occult can
stand on her own as a solo act," Rolling Stonewrote in 1981. "With the
masterful aid of producer Jimmy Iovine, Stevie Nicks emerges as a
tougher, more emotionally direct singer than in her work with Fleetwood
Mac. Even though Bella Donna is awash with impenetrable poeticizing,
Nicks' musical approach has shifted from folk music toward rock &
roll, and this hardier balance – along with the star's hot, growling
vocals–helps carry the burden of her rather strange lyrics."
The legendary singer, recently named the "Greatest Rock Frontwoman” of all time by BBC Music,
spread her wings beyond Fleetwood Mac on July 27, 1981, releasing her
first solo album. More than four decades later, the album remains a
timeless piece of rock history.
[. . .]
Nicks once explained why she released Bella Donna amid the height of her fame in Fleetwood Mac.
“I think the music industry is very male oriented,” she told High Times
in 1982. ”Although there are a lot of wonderful girl singers around,
still I think it’s their world. I fought through six years to make this
LP. In Fleetwood Mac, they would have done it. I wouldn’t have. And I
would’ve let them make me as dependent as I have always been on them,
because when somebody is dependent, they’re under your thumb. And they
knew that I had to go and do this by myself because I had to prove to
myself that I could exist on my own.”
“This was the freest thing I’ve ever done,” she added.
Immensely
talented, unbelievably cool, and incredibly sexy, Debbie Harry remains
the pin-up poster girl for the late 70’s and early 80’s punk scene. Her
voice, sultry-yet-aloof, propelled her band, Blondie, to megastardom
with hits like “Heart of Glass,” “Call Me,” and “Rapture.” As a solo
artist, her eclectic taste and enthusiasm for collaboration has seen her
work with everyone from Iggy Pop to Sia.
With
her 50-year music career still in full swing, Harry is finally ready to
tell all with her new memoir, Face It. Before we dig in, let’s review
what we already know about the punk rock icon: Here are 42 rapturous
facts about the iconic Debbie Harry.
Nothing beats a
good rags to riches story. Deborah Ann Harry was born on July 1, 1945 in
Miami, Florida. Once upon a time, her parents were high school
sweethearts, but by the time their daughter entered the world, their
affair had reached a heartbreaking end. It didn't last much longer than
Harry's conception. In the end, the iconic singer was adopted and raised
by Richard and Catherine Harry of Hawthorne, New Jersey.
We
know very little about Harry's biological mother (other than the fact
that she was a concert pianist whose musical gene definitely came
through in her daughter). But we know a bit more about the singer's
father and his own dark reasons for putting his daughter up for
adoption. Harry's father was already married with a family of his own.
Yikes. Harry was four when she discovered she had been adopted. Her
birth name was Angela Trimble.
Ever
a fashion icon, Debbie Harry made headlines around the world for
wearing a dress made entirely of razor blades. Lady Gaga, eat your heart
out.
With her music career
stronger than it’s been in years, Harry has turned her attention to
writing. Her memoir, Face It, was released in October 2019 by Dey Street
Books. The book reveals some of the darkest moments in Harry's life.
For example, when Stein was in the pits of his illness, Harry found
comfort in a dark place: H addiction. Over time, she defeated her
dependence on the drug.
As
a child, Harry used to wonder about her biological parents. In her
wildest dreams, the budding songstress would dream that Marilyn Monroe
was her real mother. Once she achieved success, Harry made these dreams a
reality, even if in a small way. She bought one of the dresses Monroe
wore in The Seven-Year Itch.
On
Monday, July 27, the Grammy-winning South African pop star, 24,
unveiled dates for her first-ever string of global headline concerts,
billed as The A*Pop World Tour, in support of her new album, A*Pop.
The
world tour kicks off with its European leg in October before the North
American run launches on Thursday, Nov. 12 at Hard Rock Live in
Wheatland, Calif.
She’ll
play shows in cities including San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Toronto,
New York City, Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles and more before
wrapping on Saturday, Dec. 19 at Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.
Tyla will wrap The A*Pop World Tour with three shows in Africa throughout December 2026 and January 2027.
John Mellencamp has never flinched from speaking his mind.
Now
in the midst of his Dancing Words Tour – The Greatest Hits, which is
hitting amphitheaters around the country through August, Mellencamp is
continuing his legacy as a blue collar champion who never ducks from
criticism.
During his shows, the whiskey-voiced rocker is adding some commentary to his 1983 hit, “Pink Houses.”
At
his July 26 tour stop in Wantagh, New York, after singing part of the
song’s third verse – “Well, there’s people and more people/what do they
know, know, know? Go to work in some high rise/and vacation down at the
Gulf of Mexico” – Mellencamp put his hand up and said, "Wait a minute.
Is it really still the Gulf of Mexico? They changed the name of it, but
I'm not buying it."
Cheers erupted from the
crowd as Mellencamp, 74, continued, "It's the Gulf of Mexico.
(Expletive) the Gulf of America. That's just not right."
The "Gulf of America" comment was a jab at President Donald Trump's controversial executive order in 2025
to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The title of the
ocean basin bounded by Mexico and the U.S. Gulf Coast has been used since the 1550s.
Tuesday, July 28, 2026. We are now in the sixth month of war with
Iran and still no end in sight, Chump and Hegseth continue to try to
juggle the numbers of service members injured and service members
fallen, Epstein haunts Chump at a rally yesterday, the Tate brothers are
predators linked to Chump and his son Barron, and much more.
"There's no deal," Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes in the video above, "that's going to resolve Iran's threshold issues." John Ismay (NEW YORK TIMES) observes:
Soon after the war began on Feb. 28, President Trump declared that Iran was “totally defeated and wants a deal.”
Then in March, Mr. Trump said the U.S. military would wrap up its campaign against Iran in two to three weeks. “We will be leaving very soon,” he said.
Now
the conflict is entering its sixth month and a period of deep
uncertainty. After nearly two weeks of attacks and counterattacks, Mr.
Trump has held off a major escalation. But major issues between the two
sides remain unsettled.
The cycles of fighting have resulted in staggering losses.
An
estimated 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed in airstrikes, which
have devastated Iran’s infrastructure and deepened the country’s
economic crisis.
Eighteen U.S. service members have died in the war, which the Pentagon estimates has cost $37.5 billion.
President
Donald Trump has arrived at yet another fork in the road on Iran. But
each time he reaches such a point, his options only become more narrow
and the costs of any course of action grow.
The Trump administration explained Sunday that a pause in air strikes — now up to three nights, after 13 straight nights of attacks — was meant to create space for diplomacy. But it also warned it was “locked and loaded” for another possible escalation.
There
are some signs of diplomatic activity. Iran said it hosted talks with
Oman at deputy foreign minister level in recent days. But there’s so far
no sign the Islamic Republic will shift on its core demand, which
caused the latest flare-up with the US: its insistence on controlling
shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian
foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in a televised press
conference that no talks were currently taking place with the US and
that Tehran “will never allow the United States to determine the timing
of war and peace.”
Trump
finds himself back in a familiar spot. He’s tried to coerce Iranian
concessions with intensified attacks. But this plan is not working any
better now than it did after the initial round of fighting. He could
increase the pressure by deploying ground troops, a move that might take
advantage of the US military edge. But this would risk significant US casualties in an already deeply unpopular war.
Nearly five months into a war he’d said would take a few weeks, Trump
keeps trying to create maneuvering space against Tehran. But all the
strategy seems to do is leave him with less room and worse choices.
The Pentagon updated its official war casualty
database over the weekend, adding more than 140 wounded service members.
The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) also introduced a new
casualty category labeled “Overseas Operations” for personnel killed and wounded “starting July 7”.
According to the updated database, the official toll for the earlier phase of the US-Iran war, known as Operation Epic Fury, now stands at 14 service members killed and more than 400 wounded in action.
These figures have been a point of contention after the Pentagon previously reduced the totals from 18 deaths and 482 wounded that had been recorded just days earlier.
The
dispute comes after the collapse of the ceasefire with Iran and the
resumption of near-daily airstrikes beginning on 6 July. Analysts and
officials have questioned whether casualties from the renewed fighting
should be counted separately from Operation Epic Fury, a move that would
be unprecedented.
The Trump administration
is seeking to classify the renewed military campaign as separate from
Operation Epic Fury, the US military’s official name for the Iran
conflict.
Chump
cannot tell the truth. His default position is always one of
dishonesty. He lies and then lies again. And the American people are
catching on to it and they are not happy with the never ending lies. Martha McHardy (THE DAILY BEAST) notes:
A brutal new poll suggests Americans are losing patience with Donald Trump’s handling of his war on Iran.
According to a CBS News/YouGov survey of 2,193 adults, conducted
July 22-24, 57 percent of Americans say they are frustrated by the war,
which Trump launched without congressional authorization and has
already cost the U.S. at least $37.5 billion.
Overall, 61 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict, compared with just 39 percent who approve.
The findings also point to growing pessimism about the war’s direction.
Nearly
two-thirds, 63 percent, believe the conflict is going badly for the
United States, while 76 percent say it has been harder than Trump
expected. Sixty percent think the president makes the situation in Iran
sound better than it really is.
60% think Chump is making "the situation in Iran sound better than it really is." The American people have caught on to him.
DOGE
made no sense. Lying that he's staying at war with Iran because
they're going to make a nuclear bomb while at the same time giving the
go-ahead to Saudi Arabia to go nuclear? You look like an idiot and a
liar and a corrupt piece of garbage.
At the heart of the conflict with Iran, Chump insists, is the
nuclear capabilities of Iran. Yet at the same time, he's announced the
go-ahead for Saudi Arabia on nuclear.
How may Iranians were among the hijackers on 9/11?
Oh, that's right: Zero.
How many were from Saudi Arabia?
15.
Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
President
Trump went to war with Iran in part to force compliance with two
longstanding American demands: Tehran must stop enriching nuclear fuel
for at least two decades, and it must allow international inspectors to
go anywhere and see anything to verify the country is not producing a
bomb.
On
Wednesday, Mr. Trump took the reverse approach to Saudi Arabia, its
close ally in the region. To seal a deal for Westinghouse and other
American companies to seize a big piece of the business in building two
nuclear reactors on Saudi territory — and more to come — it opened the
door to allowing the kingdom to begin enriching its own nuclear fuel
after two years.
And
it gave in to the kingdom’s demand that it not have to abide by an
inspection agreement that applies to more than 140 other countries.
Those rules, the Saudis said, are just too intrusive.
Now
Mr. Trump will have to make the case to Congress, and to allies
throughout the Middle East, that in loosening the nuclear standards for
one close ally, he is not ushering in a new age of proliferation,
especially in a region of the world already on fire. If the daily
missile exchanges with Iran finally give way to resumed negotiations,
there is no question Iran will seize on the concessions made to Riyadh
and insist on the same.
Even as he threatened to escalate an unlawful war
sold in part as preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, Donald
Trump opened the door to proliferation in the region on Wednesday. The
US announced that it had signed a deal
with Saudi Arabia which would potentially allow the kingdom to enrich
uranium in future and to avoid the fullest inspection rights for the
international watchdog.
Experts have long
warned that a civilian nuclear programme could create a path towards a
nuclear-armed Riyadh. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and de
facto leader, has said
that if Tehran gets a nuclear weapon, “we will have to get one”.
Concerns are magnified by the agreement’s terms. Washington previously
argued that the “gold standard” was the United Arab Emirates’ agreement
to permanently forgo enrichment and accept full monitoring by the UN’s
International Atomic Energy Agency. Weakening it sets a precedent that
Russia or China could also cite in nuclear deals in future.
At some point, people are going to force Chump to answer about this move.
President Donald Trump lashed out at a protester screaming "pedophile protector!" while he was speaking in Michigan on Monday.
Trump
was in the Great Lakes State to speak about the economy at the GM
Proving Grounds in Milford when a demonstrator started heckling him from
the crowd over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
MEIDASTOUCH NEWS offered video of the booing and heckling.
In January, a worker in a Ford Motor Company factory in Dearborn, Michigan, yelled
“pedophile protector” at Trump as he was touring the facility,
prompting the president to mouth an expletive and give the worker the
middle finger. Last month, a protester repeatedly shouted “pedophile” at Trump and gave him two middle fingers while he toured a Mack truck factory in Macungie, Pennsylvania.
It’s
highly doubtful that all the hecklers were Communists, and considering
how unpopular Trump’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files has been
with his supporters,
they could have even been disgruntled MAGA devotees. Trump is only
going to hear more protesters and hecklers calling him a pedophile for
the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, Howard Lutnick,
Secretary of Commerce, has apparently been exposed in another lie about
his relationship with Epstein. Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) reports:
Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with a firm once run by Commerce
Secretary Howard Lutnick may date back 11 years further than previously
known, according to a newly unearthed document flagged by independent
journalist Kaitlyn Pierce, who writes under the name Kait Justice.
Lutnick told
The New York Post last year that he had cut off all ties with Epstein
in 2005, but the Justice Department's release of Epstein-related files
quickly contradicted that claim. The files showed Lutnick visited Epstein's private island in 2012 and that the two maintained contact through at least 2018.
Lutnick and Epstein were also discovered to have been “in business together as recently as 2014,” per CBS News, with the two of them both signing onto a deal to acquire stakes in a now-defunct technology company called Adfin.
Lutnick was explicitly asked
by the House Oversight Committee in May whether he was aware of any
other business dealings between Epstein and Cantor Fitzgerald, the
financial services firm he once ran before handing off control to his
sons after joining the Trump
administration. Lutnick said, “to the best of my recollection,” there
were no other business dealings between Epstein and Cantor.
Justice, while searching through millions of Epstein-related files, stumbled upon a telling FedEx invoice that she suggested may undercut that claim.
“I did not expect to find Epstein in Cantor’s records,” Justice wrote in a report published Monday on her Substack.
The invoice is dated July 27, 2001, and reveals that Darren Indyke – once Epstein’s personal lawyer – had sent an overnight envelope from Epstein’s office in New York City, New York, to a Robert F. Mace
at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, located on the 104th floor of the One
World Trade Center. Mace was Cantor’s employment lawyer, and would be
killed in the 9/11 attacks just 53 days after being sent the envelope
from Epstein.
“The invoice clearly doesn’t tell us what the
envelope contained, but it does place Epstein’s office in direct contact
with Lutnick’s firm 11 years before the relationship Lutnick described
to Congress supposedly began,” Justice wrote.
“Cantor’s customer
and trading records could show whether Epstein or any of his companies
had an account there, what they bought or sold through the firm and when
the relationship actually began.”
Months ago, former
Attorney General Bill Barr went on Tara Palmeri's YOUTUBE program. And
as he spoke, it was obvious -- at least to me -- that Barr was lying and
covering something up.
So
Barr's father hired Epstein decades ago (1974). Hmm. And an e-mail
accuses Bill Barr of being present while Epstein raped a woman.
Bill Barr has not been honest about Epstein.
Barr is from Chump's first administration. Pete Hegseth is from Chump's current administration. Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) notes:
Republican
senators are increasingly voicing doubts about Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth's leadership as the war with Iran stretches into its fifth month
with no resolution in sight.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) delivered the sharpest public rebuke, telling The Hill he no longer has confidence in President Donald Trump's Pentagon chief, describing him as erratic, insecure and inexperienced.
“I
don’t have any confidence in him anymore," said Tillis, who is
retiring. "I think he’s all over the place — he’s accelerating the
retirement or forcing out some of the most distinguished leaders in the DOD that we have."
“I
think he’s got a massive insecurity complex, he has a lack of
experience in large organizations, he micromanages too much," Tillis
added. "He’s lost my confidence."
A
crisis of confidence is building within the Senate GOP conference,
according to Tillis, with other senators likely just one incident away
from speaking out themselves.
That sentiment was echoed privately by other Republicans.
It’s not exactly strange that elements of the Magaverse have embraced Andrew Tate. What’s strange is that the Democrats do not seem interested in holding the Trump movement to account for it.
Andrew Tate, the misogynist influencer who is accused by numerous women around the world and now by British prosecutors of rape and strangulation, as well as assault, sex trafficking, possession of
child abuse images and extreme pornography, and various other forms of
gender violence and exploitation, was arrested in Miami last week, along
with Tristan, his brother and sidekick. Or I should say, they were
rearrested: the men were previously charged in Romania, where they were
under house arrest until, following some conveniently timed diplomatic
moves from the Trump administration, they were allowed to leave the
country and resettled in the US. When asked if the Trump administration had secured their release from Romania back then, the Tates’ lawyer said:
“Do the math. These guys are on the plane.” Now, finally, they are
awaiting extradition to the UK, where they are dual citizens.
The Tate brothers have long made their living by
making provocative, contemptuous statements about women online. But in
June, the New Yorker’s Heidi Blake published a long investigation
that centered not on what the Tates have said, but on what they’re said
to have done – detailing a long and documented history of alleged sex
trafficking, violence and sexual assault along with a disturbing pattern
of police mismanagement, incompetence and indifference that allowed the
men to go free. The Tates denied wrongdoing in that piece; their lawyer
called the new British charges against them “garbage”.
But if anyone thought the Tates’ misogynistic influencer career was
mere bluster, the Blake investigation offered a formidable bit of
counterevidence: she painted a picture of the men acting exactly the way
that they talked.
In a world where people
take misogyny as seriously as they claim to, the Tates would long ago
have been ostracized, and condemned, for their hatefully sexist rhetoric
and alleged violence against women. In this world, they got rich, and
ingratiated themselves to powerful figures in the Republican party.
Tate
is a natural fit on a Maga right that has served to unite its many
different factions – from Christian conservatives to Silicon Valley
eugenicists, to beer-chugging barstool denizens, conspiracy mongers, and
the male hosts of multi-hour podcasts – around a foundation of male
supremacy. Contempt for women is the uniting force on the American
right, more uniform across the competing styles within the movement even
than the hatred of immigration or devotion to the prerogatives of
capital. Donald Trump cemented the presidency, after all, when he was
revealed to have bragged about “grab[bing]” women “by the pussy” and
still maintained his base of support. In the decade that followed, his
domineering, narcissistic, vulgar style of masculinity, and the
alternately belittling and hateful treatment of women that accompanies
it, have come to be seen on the right as a feature, not a bug. Other men
within the Maga movement now imitate Trump’s style of misogyny with a
gleeful competitiveness; the coalition welcomes men who collect harems
of women to breed their children, those who have been multiply accused
of sexual abuse and those who decry our right to vote. Andrew Tate, in this milieu, is not an exception. He is the rule.
But
just because Tate’s style of masculinity is popular on the right – in
which sex is seen to elevate men’s status at women’s expense, in which
women’s aspirations to education, skilled work, dignity, public
participation, or even mere decency are mocked; and in which men’s
mistreatment of women is the key way for them to gain the esteem of
other men – does not mean that it is popular with the public. Tate’s
version of vulgar, avowed, preening misogyny has a constituency of
Republican politicians and unlikable teenage boys; it does not have a
constituency among the majority of the American public.
Why are Democrats
not making the Tates into symbols of Maga’s hateful and bizarre
cultural project, of Trump’s personal alleged affinity for sexual
misconduct, or of the antisocial, anti-democratic and anti-equality
stances of the Maga movement?
The
Tates were allowed into this country for some strange reason. And
Chump's protected them ever since until the weekend before last.
They're wanted for so many charges and Great Britain is asking that they
be handed over to them. Alex Woodward (INDEPENDENT) notes:
Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari is urging the House Oversight Committee to investigate the Tatebrothers' connections to individuals in the administration's orbit, including Barron Trump.
Ansari
specifically requested Barron Trump testify about his knowledge or
involvement with Andrew and Tristan Tate, who are accused of sexual
abuse and trafficking.
The manosphere influencers were arrested
in Miami following a U.K. extradition request for serious trafficking
and sexual abuse allegations, with the White House not expected to block
their extradition.
But Barron Trump was reportedly a fan of Andrew Tate and spoke to him over Zoom in 2024, according to The New York Times.
Donald Trump Jr. also reportedly met Tate at Trump Tower in 2017, and
Alina Habba, a former attorney to the president who briefly served as
the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, described herself as a “big
fan” during a January 2025 podcast appearance.
Ansari is also
seeking records from the Department of Justice and State Department
regarding communications between U.S., British, and Romanian authorities
concerning the Tate brothers' investigation and extradition.
Donald
Trump Jr., who once called Andrew Tate a friend and publicly defended
him against previous criminal allegations, has said nothing about the
arrests. Neither has his younger brother Barron Trump, who had also been
friendly with Andrew. Candace Owens, a conservative commentator who
backed both brothers on her popular show, has also stayed silent.
Privately,
people close to Donald Jr. have played down his relationship with the
Tates; one person said he had not spoken with anyone in the
administration about their arrests.
Asked
by The Times about his retweeting of Tristan Tate on Saturday, Roger
Stone, a prominent Republican operative, said he did so before the news
of their arrests. And Paolo Zampolli, a special envoy for Mr. Trump who
had hosted the Tates at a party in Washington two days before the
arrests, said he hadn’t realized the extent of the allegations against
them.
“I didn’t know they were arrest material,” Mr. Zampolli said in an interview.
The shift was as swift as it was cold. Standing before reporters in the
briefing room on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt
was asked a direct question: Would President Donald Trump
or his administration intervene to stop the extradition of Andrew and
Tristan Tate to the United Kingdom on 59 charges of rape, sex
trafficking, assault and extreme pornography? Her single-word response
— “No” — denied the brothers, who have been championed by many MAGA media figures as examples of white male persecution, a lifeline.
On Thursday, federal marshals in Miami took the Tates into custody. In addition to the charges they face in the U.K., the brothers remain embroiled in grave human-trafficking and minor-exploitation proceedings in Romania and investigations in Florida about new allegations.
In
the days since their arrest, their attorney Joseph McBride — who has
also represented Jan. 6 defendants — has insisted the arrest is
political persecution, and he has been amplifying supportive commentary
online from media figures with close ties to the Trump
administration. MAGA influencer and white nationalist Nick Fuentes wrote
that it would be a “national humiliation” if Trump agreed to extradite
the brothers to Britain over what he called “trumped up ‘Me Too’
charges.” Other far-right influencers reportedly joined in, but to no avail.
Trump’s
refusal to intervene in the Tates’ extradition fight is a much-delayed
correction. For years, the brothers were treated by the MAGA ecosystem
not as alleged traffickers facing serious criminal scrutiny, but as
useful avatars of male grievance and anti-feminist rebellion. That
bargain is now boomeranging in the direction of a different Trump:
Barron.
The
key to understanding how the Tate brothers rose to such political
heights — and why their collapse now threatens to drag the president’s
youngest son into a potentially damaging congressional spotlight — can
be found in the conservative media ecosystem that laundered Andrew Tate
into a right-wing icon.
When
mainstream platforms like YouTube, Meta and TikTok finally moved to
deplatform the Tate brothers in 2022, the right-wing media apparatus
stepped in to grant Tate a second — and far more dangerous — life.
Tucker Carlson first gave Tate a platform on Fox News back in 2022 and
later hosted a long, sympathetic interview. Elon Musk reinstated Tate’s X
account, restoring his reach to over 11 million followers while
repeatedly tweeting defenses that hand-waved sex trafficking allegations
as political distractions. The late Charlie Kirk chimed in
on behalf of Tate: “What he says is so powerful. Our society is
configured towards collapsing the American man.” MAGA podcaster Candace
Owens dedicated hours of airtime to declaring the Tates’ innocence while
launching vicious smear campaigns against their victims.
Why is it that whenever a story of a predator emerges, they somehow have an established relationship with Donald Chump?
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Feinberg was former head of private
equity firm Cerberus; conflicts could be impacting military contracting
decisions related to secretive $185 billion missile program
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), wrote to
Department of Defense (DoD) Deputy Secretary Stephen Feinberg pressing
him on his conflicts of interest related to major DoD contracts. Senator
Warren urged Feinberg to cut all ties with his former firm, Cerberus,
recuse himself from any Cerberus-related matters for his entire time at
DoD, and increase transparency of contracting decisions for the Golden
Dome missile defense program at DoD.
Senator Warren has raised concerns with Secretary Feinberg continuing
financial relationship with Cerberus, and that of his immediate family,
and the fact that he had hired multiple key DoD staff with Cerberus
ties. Mr. Feinberg has not yet provided a response.
New reporting reveals
Feinberg has “unprecedented control over the Pentagon’s vast
procurement network, and a remarkable new ability to invest in defense
companies with taxpayer dollars.” At least three companies reportedly
linked to Cerberus have received Golden Dome contracts during Feinberg’s
tenure.
“These new reports make it even more important that you make the
commitments that I asked of you in my April letter, and that you provide
answers to my questions,” said Senator Warren.
In addition to her requests for ethics commitments, Senator Warren
asked Feinberg to share a list of Cerberus-backed or Cerberus-affiliated
companies that have bid on the Golden Dome contract, explain DoD’s
criteria for awarding Golden Dome contracts, and explain his role in
awarding Golden Dome contracts.
Senator Warren has led the fight to root out corruption and close the
revolving door between government officials and the private sector:
In May 2026, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Scott (R-Fla.) introduced the Banning Lobbying And Safeguarding Trust (BLAST) Act, a bipartisan bill to impose a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress.
In April 2026, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) pressed Secretary Hegseth
on allegations that Trump administration officials are engaging in
possible insider trading by placing bets on the Iran War through
prediction markets.
In February 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Andy Kim
(D-N.J.), along with Representatives Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and Deborah Ross
(D-N.C.) pressed the Inspectors General (IGs) of 16 key agencies
to open investigations into senior Trump officials who were recently
lobbyists or “shadow lobbyists” and may be using their roles to benefit
their former employers and clients.
In January 2026, Senators Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Andy Kim (D-N.J.), pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth
on potential conflicts of interest surrounding the awarding of multiple
lucrative Department of Defense (DoD) contracts and loans to companies
associated with President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
In December 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) pressed the Trump administration
to follow through on promises to limit defense companies stock buybacks
and incentivize them to increase research and development spending.
In December 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called for then-Attorney General Pam Bondi
to recuse herself from the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s review of any
Warner Bros. merger due to potential conflicts of interest related to
her former employer, lobbying firm Ballard Partners.
In November 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Dr. Robert
Kadlec, nominee to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear,
Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs at the Department of Defense
(DoD) with concerns over his past management failures
and conflicts of interest during his time at the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS), where he served as Assistant Secretary of
Health and Human Services for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). Those
allegations include exercising improper political pressure on career
officials to financially benefit his former clients.
Senator Warren’s Department of Defense (DoD) Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act,
with now-Senator Andy Kim (D-N.J.), would limit the influence of
contractors on the military, constrain foreign influence on retired
senior military officers, and assert greater transparency over
contractors and their interaction with DoD.
In July 2025, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), wrote to former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin seeking an explanation and further information
on his recent decision to start a strategic advisory firm. Austin had
publicly promised Senator Warren during his 2021 confirmation process
that he would not become a lobbyist after his government service ended.
In May 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Mr. Michael Obadal, nominee for Under Secretary of the Army, with concerns about his refusal to divest
from major defense contractors. Obadal previously held between $250,000
and $500,000 in Anduril stock, and had refused to divest from ahead of
his confirmation.
In March 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate
Armed Services Committee, wrote to Mr. John Phelan, nominee to be
Secretary of the Navy, with concerns regarding his “serious conflicts of
interest,” given his financial investments in defense contractors.
Senator Warren asked Mr. Phelan to make a number of commitments related to his conflicts of interest ahead of the committee vote on his nomination.
In March 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Deputy Defense Secretary Nominee Stephen Feinberg, urging him to recuse himself
from all matters related to Ligado Networks. Mr. Feinberg’s private
equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, is heavily invested in Ligado,
which has a pending $39 billion lawsuit against the Department of
Defense (DoD) over highly sought-after telecommunications spectrum space
that the military has said is “essential for its various satellite
communications, radars and navigation systems” usage.
In December 2020, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) reintroduced the Anti-Corruption & Public Integrity Act, to strengthen ethics laws and crack down on government officials’ conflicts of interest across the government.
