Wednesday, April 22, 2026

No one needed MICHAEL

Last time in "MICHAEL, the reviews are out," I noted how the reviews were out and the film was getting rightly trashed.  That continues today.  Grif Griffin (NEWSWEEK) reports:


The chair of Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group has pushed back on criticism of Michael Jackson biopic “Michael.”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Adam Fogelson addressed claims the film would gloss over the King of Pop’s more controversial elements.

“The credibility that Antoine [Fuqua] and Graham [King] bring to a project like this shouldn’t be undervalued,” Fogelson says of the director and producer of “Michael.”


Antoine has no credibility after he launched his Whitey-came-after-Michael nonsense this week. 

Some comments on this article:

Wannetta K 2 days ago
this biopic is so timely. while demanding the exposure of the alleged predators and justice for the victims in the epstein files, folks are simultaneously celebrating the release of a movie that ignores the same accusations of mj. it just shows the hypocrisy of humanity that only rides the wave of whatever the dominant culture decides is "truth" or "justice" at the time. at the end of the day, no one really cares about any of it. if aliens were real, like one of the theories on the table suggests, i'm sure they are quite entertained by it all.
Jethro Dull 2 days ago
There sure seemed to be a lot of damning information that came out back then concerning MJ's activities with young children. If you believe that info, how could you possibly support this project that sounds like it buries it. And if you believe that info and you still support MJ and this project, there is something wrong about that. That being said, he was probably the most talented entertainer in my lifetime. It's terrible that horrific stain is attached to that talent and it shouldn't be glossed over or forgotten.


user-6ft0v9j30p 2 days ago
He admitted to sleeping in the same bed with underage boys multiple times. If any other 40-year-old man did that, it would be a pretty big deal even if they had no concrete evidence that actual touching was involved.

True Being 2 days ago
No covering his sexual assault crimes makes this movie a puff piece rather than a true biopic. It should be soundly rejected by any fans of this genre of movie.


Steven McIntosh (BBC NEWS) reports:

In a two-star review the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw said the movie is "rammed with every music-movie cliche" and plays "like a 127-minute trailer montage".

"This is a frustratingly shallow, inert picture, a kind of cruise-ship entertainment, which can't quite bring itself to show that Michael was an abuse victim, brutalised by his father and robbed of his childhood," he wrote, also noting the allegations against Jackson himself.

[. . .]

Awarding only one star, the Independent's Clarisse Loughrey described the film as a "ghoulish, soulless cash grab".

She compared Michael to other recent music biopics, commenting that "the line between 'cinema' and 'merchandise' has come close to being obliterated".

"All Michael does is recreate, in mechanical style, the most famous visuals of Jackson's career," she said. "It's certainly easier that way. Why bother to depict a human being when you can simply turn them into a product?"

[. . .]

But in another one-star review, Kevin Maher of the Times said Michael would be seen as a "watershed moment" for the music biopic genre - and not in a good way.

"It will be known as that infamous film in which the subject became completely untethered from reality and the film delivered instead two hours of pure and unadulterated [rubbish]," he said in his strongly-worded review.

Adam White (INDEPENDENT) offers:

So it’s a funny twist to all of this that Antoine Fuqua’s Michael, the estate-backed biopic about the King of Pop that pointedly ends in 1988 and before any of those pesky allegations were made, does an absolutely terrible job of making its hero seem normal. For all its admirably expensive pomp, Michael can’t escape the inherent creepiness of Jackson, and I’m not sure it really tries. It just lays out the surreal madness of the man and hopes audiences will find it adorable.



Going out with C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Wednesday April 22, 2026.  Chump continues to be all over the map on Iran, Virginia votes for redistricting, Chump continues to wreck the economy (and destroy tax refunds), Senator Elizabeth Warren questions the Fed Chair nominee about Jeffrey Epstein, and much more. 


Democrats’ success in pushing through one of the country’s most aggressively gerrymandered congressional maps on Tuesday in Virginia represented the latest example of the party’s willingness to take the gloves off as it seeks to win back control of Congress and thwart President Trump’s agenda.

It was a stark reversal for a party that has decried partisan gerrymandering for years. But Democrats said that the new map, which could flip as many as four Republican-held seats blue, was necessary to counter similar G.O.P. efforts in Texas and other states.

Their new mantra: It’s time to play hardball.

“While many expected Democrats to roll over and play dead, we did the opposite,” Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader from New York, said in a statement after The Associated Press called the race. “Democrats did not step back. We fought back. When they go low, we hit back hard.”

The redistricting was a success despite the GOP using false fliers and advertisements of former President Barack Obama decrying the effort.  Like most Democrats, Barack is opposed to gerrymandering.  But when the Republicans got Texas to redistrict last year and attempted to force Indiana to as well, most Democrats -- including Barack -- saw this as not a policy to embrace forever more but an effort to fight back when Republicans were not playing fair.


And that's what voters in California earlier and voters yesterday in Virginia supported and agreed with. 






Informally, the Virginia Democrats who control the state’s legislature have given themselves power to gerrymander the state’s districts as a short-term response to Republicans gerrymandering Texas and other states they control at the behest of President Trump.

The legislature has already created and adopted the new district maps. They go into effect with the passage of this amendment. But the Virginia Supreme Court could still decide that the process by which the amendment was passed or the gerrymandering itself violates the state’s constitution. Republicans have filed numerous suits to stop the redistricting, and those have not been fully resolved. They are expected to fail.

If this redistricting stands, it’s a huge boon for Democrats. The maps adopted by Virginia Democrats are projected to give the party up to a four-seat boost, potentially carrying 10 of the state’s 11 districts instead of the current six. Remember that the House is very narrowly divided today, with Republicans holding 217 seats and the Democrats 214. Every seat matters. 


Trump has threatened to “take over” the election system, and the mid-decade gerrymandering spree he started is part of a multi-faceted plan to interfere in the midterms. But while that has deeply destabilized American democracy, the president hasn’t succeeded in stopping Democrats from racking up a series of electoral victories over the past year. The passage of the redistricting referendum in Virginia is the latest sign of Democrats successfully fighting back. 


Turning to Iran, cease-fire talks to continue.  Why?  Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) explains:

President Trump announced an indefinite extension to his ceasefire with Iran Tuesday as it became evident that peace talks between the two countries were on the brink of collapse.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other.”

The announcement came shortly after Vice President JD Vance suspended his travel plans to Islamabad Tuesday to represent the United States at the table. One source told The Wall Street Journal that Vance pulled out because Iranian negotiators hadn’t committed to showing up to the meeting. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei confirmed as much, telling Iranian state broadcaster IRIB that the meeting was called off due to “contradictory messages, inconsistent behavior and unacceptable actions by the American side.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi added that the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is an “act of war” and a violation of the ceasefire.

Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) addresses it in this morning's video below.





From the start, Chump has repeatedly changed his story on Iran -- including why he started the war -- to liberate the Iranian people, that's what he started with -- and it was "liberate" and not "obliterate" as it became in April.   All of these changing details make it hard for Americans to follow his goals -- not that he's bothered to define any goals or, for that matter, an end game.  Daniel Dale (CNN) analyzes Chump's ever changing words and stories:


On Monday morning, President Donald Trump told The New York Post that Vice President JD Vance was already on his way to Pakistan for negotiations with Iran. “They’re heading over now,” the Post quoted Trump as saying. “They’ll be there tonight, [Islamabad] time.”

Except that wasn’t true. A bit later on Monday morning, people familiar with Vance’s plans told CNN’s Alayna Treene that the vice president was expected to depart for Pakistan on Tuesday for talks beginning Wednesday. Vance’s motorcade was soon spotted at the White House.
Trump’s inaccurate remark might be shrugged off, the kind of little thing a busy president could understandably get wrong. But it’s part of a pattern that has accelerated over the past week – of this president being incorrect about even the most basic of matters related to the Iran war.

“One of the big differences between the current round of US-Iran diplomacy and prior rounds is that this administration and the President in particular are unreliable narrators,” Eric Brewer, a former National Security Council counterproliferation official, posted on social media on Friday. “Iran watchers have gotten pretty good at parsing statements from both sides over the years, but we’ve never had to contend with a US president that is so outspoken and prone to exaggeration, fabrication, and outright lies.”

Trump’s Monday claim about Vance’s travel was only the latest in a series of false, dubious or unproven comments about the war. Many of them were more substantive.
On Friday, after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared that the Strait of Hormuz would be “completely open” to commercial vessels during the ongoing ceasefire, Trump posted that “the Hormuz Strait situation is over” and that “Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again.”

But the situation very clearly wasn’t over: Trump himself had posted the same morning that the US would continue its blockade on ships heading to or from Iranian ports; Araghchi had said its opening of the strait only applied to a specific Iran-approved path near its coastline rather than the lanes ships had generally used before; and an Iranian official posted later in the day that ships had to get approval from the navy of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and pay tolls.

As for Iran’s supposed agreement to never close the strait again? Iran announced the very next day that it was closing the strait again.
On Thursday, Trump claimed to reporters: “The pope made a statement. He says, Iran can have a nuclear weapon.” Pope Leo XIV, an unequivocal opponent of nuclear weapons, had not said that. In a Fox Business interview that aired Wednesday, Trump claimed that Persian Gulf countries “were not expected to be hit” by Iran. In reality, retaliatory Iranian strikes on these countries was widely expected. In a Fox News interview the Sunday before last, Trump claimed of Iran: “Their military is gone, everything’s gone.” But Iran very obviously still had a military with destructive capabilities, though the US and Israel had degraded them.

Trump’s Monday claim about Vance was at least his second bit of misinformation about his own vice president in two days. On Sunday, Trump told MS NOW that Vance wouldn’t be part of the delegation to Pakistan for security reasons. But after the president said that, “two senior US officials told MS NOW that Vance would, in fact, lead the delegation to Islamabad,” the outlet reported.


This is bad and confusing to the American people.  It also speaks poorly of Chump at a time when questions about his health and dementia are being asked more and more.  Harry Thompson (DAILY BEAST) notes:


President Donald Trump’s mental sharpness is fading, according to a majority of Americans.

New poll results from Reuters/Ipsos on Tuesday revealed Americans are questioning their leader’s temperament, while his approval rating held at its lowest point since his return to the White House.

The Daily Beast has long raised fears that Trump’s health could be failing, even while other media outlets have chosen to overlook them. Now, it seems the public is becoming increasingly concerned about something alarming: his mind.
In all, 51 percent of respondents to the six-day opinion poll said his mental sharpness was “worse” than before.

Among them,14 percent of Republicans felt as such, as did 54 percent of independents and 85 percent of Democrats.


His erratic behavior and conflicting statements are all over the place but Chump's behavior also impact non-Americans.  Cameron Adams (THE DAILY BEAST) notes:

Donald Trump’s erratic and contradictory statements on his war with Iran have alarmed the president’s own inner sanctum, as well as annoying Iranian leaders.

Trump, 79, has repeatedly sent mixed messages on the state of the conflict with Iran, which is entering its eighth week.
His comments to reporters and on social media are becoming so problematic that it’s impacting the state of his war, according to a CNN report, which claims that as negotiators appeared close to a deal, Trump launched a media spree.

The president posted on his Truth Social account on Sunday morning about negotiations with Iran, threatening to “knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge in Iran” if they didn’t accept a deal on offer from the U.S.
But just days earlier, on Friday afternoon, Trump had told CBS that Iran had “agreed to everything,” including working with the U.S. to remove their enriched uranium. Trump spoke to numerous outlets on Friday about his war, including Bloomberg and Axios.

Trump officials told CNN that the president’s running commentary on the war has been detrimental and has inflamed Iran’s mistrust of the U.S.

Hafiz Rashid (THE NEW REPUBLIC) adds, "Trump’s remarks in the press didn’t help either. To Bloomberg, he claimed that Iran had agreed to an 'unlimited' suspension of its nuclear program, and he told CBS News that Iran had 'agreed to everything' and would remove its enriched uranium with help from the U.S. In an interview with Axios, he said 'I think we will get a deal in the next day or two,' with another meeting 'probably' coming on the weekend."

In the meantime, the economy is trashed daily as Chump's war drags on.   Lee Moran (HUFFINGTON POST) notes:

Economist Henrietta Treyz warned Monday that soaring gas prices thanks to President Donald Trump’s Iran war may soon be followed by another hit: higher food costs.

“Food inflation is the next shoe to drop,” Treyz, the Veda Partners co-founder and director of economic policy, told MS NOW’s Katy Tur.
Treyz drew a stark contrast between the economy during Trump’s second term compared to when former President Joe Biden was leaving office.

“It’s pretty amazing when you think about what the president inherited,” she said. “We were coming off of continuous prosperity, lowering inflation, prices coming down, growth in the manufacturing sector.”

There was “literally nothing you could do to stop the economy under the A.I. boom and all the rest,” she added, lamenting: “And now here we are.”


And for regular folks hoping that the meager tax refunds might help them through this period?  They can give up on that.  Nick Lichtenberg (FORTUNE) reports: 


The promise was simple and seductive: Pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, flood American wallets with historic tax refunds, and watch the consumer economy roar. For a few weeks this winter, it looked like it might actually work. Then the bombs started falling on Iran.

Now Wall Street has delivered its verdict. Two of the most closely watched economic research teams on the Street—Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley—reviewed the numbers and reached the same sobering conclusion: The Iran war’s knock-on effect on oil prices has almost entirely canceled out the biggest consumer tax windfall in years. For lower-income Americans, the ledger may be in the red.
[. . .]

On Feb. 28, U.S. and Israeli forces struck Iran. Within days, Brent crude surged past $120 a barrel as Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz—through which flows roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply—triggering what the International Energy Agency called “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.” American gas prices, which stood at roughly $3.54 a gallon in early March, climbed to $4.11 by mid-April.

Goldman Sachs put a dollar figure on the damage: Higher gasoline prices now represent a roughly $140 billion annualized headwind to household incomes. Morgan Stanley’s math is even blunter at the individual level—a sustained 15% rise in gas prices is all it takes to fully offset the average bump in tax refunds. Prices have risen nearly 40%.

“Rising gasoline prices on the heels of the conflict in the Middle East are likely to neutralize most, if not all, of the anticipated fiscal impulse to household spending,” was the verdict from the Morgan Stanley U.S. economics team, led by Michael Gapen, something reiterated by Heather Berger, another economist on the Morgan Stanley U.S. team.




Turning to Chump's long term pal Jeffrey Epstein.  The now deceased Epstein is always on Chump's mind. Will Neal (THE DAILY BEAST) reports:

Donald Trump has torn into the British prime minister over a former top U.K. official’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, even though Trump himself was a longtime friend of the late pedophile.

“Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom acknowledged that he ‘exercised wrong judgement’ when he chose his Ambassador to Washington,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late Monday night.

“I agree, he was a really bad pick,” the president added, before somewhat confusingly signing off: “Plenty of time to recover, however!”
[. . .]
Trump, like Mandelson, enjoyed a longstanding relationship with Epstein, beginning in the late 1980s and lasting until the men are believed to have had a falling-out over a real estate dispute in 2005.



US House Rep James Comer Pyle chairs the House Oversight Committee and runs interference for Donald Chump.  Arthur Delaney (HUFFINGTON POST) reports:

At multiple hearings since last year, members of the House Oversight Committee have forced committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) to send out subpoenas related to the late Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious sexual predator and former friend of President Donald Trump. 
Democrats got the ball rolling last summer with a subpoena for the Justice Department’s files on Epstein, and in March, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) forced a vote on subpoenaing then-Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

The subpoenas have been damaging for Trump and awkward for Comer, who seems to have found a novel solution: stop holding hearings or, at the very least, stop calling them hearings. Six times since last year, the committee has instead held “roundtables” on issues such as AI, agriculture and military fitness standards.
The roundtables look a lot like hearings, with experts testifying to members about the topic at hand. But there’s a key difference: Committee members can only call for votes during official hearings, making it impossible for Democrats or rogue Republicans to try to issue further subpoenas.  

Yesterday, the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued the following:

Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, released the following statement on Oversight Republicans’ decision to abandon official hearings in favor of informal roundtables, designed to look like hearings, but with no formal rules, procedure, or power, specifically to block bipartisan subpoena motions. A memo detailing this issue was distributed to Democratic Committee Members, which can be found here.

“Chairman Comer and Republican leaders are now canceling hearings and are running scared from Oversight Democrats. They want to eliminate our ability to make motions, call witnesses, and subpoena Administration officials. After seven bipartisan motions resulting in 18 successful subpoenas, it seems that the White House and the Speaker are now trying to stop our progress. But we won’t stop fighting until we get justice for the Epstein survivors and stop the Trump corruption,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.

Since Ranking Member Garcia began leading the Minority in July 2025, Oversight Democrats have successfully supported seven bipartisan subpoena motions, resulting in 18 subpoenas, including subpoenas advancing the Epstein investigation. Unlike formal hearings, roundtables carry no rules, require no witnesses to testify under oath, and provide no opportunity for Members to offer motions or subpoenas. They also strip minority Members of basic protections guaranteed under House rules, including the right to invite witnesses and have their questioning time respected. Republican Subcommittee Chair Rep. Glenn Grothman (WI-06) acknowledged the roundtable strategy openly at a March 26, 2026 roundtable, stating that the shift away from formal hearings was driven by concern over Members making motions mid-hearing.

###

Comer Pyle, please note, had insisted Hillary Clinton -- who had no significant interaction with Jeffrey Epstein -- be deposed by the Committee.  But he has gone out of his way to prevent Donald and Melania Chump from being deposed and to prevent Pam Bondi from being deposed.  Comer Pyle is a hack.  






The "can of worms" that first lady Melania Trump opened up when she held a seemingly unprompted press conference about her ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein may be too much for President Donald Trump to survive, according to two analysts.

Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz discussed Melania Trump's recent press conference on a new episode of the podcast, "The Court of History." They speculated that Melania Trump must know something is about to be revealed about her ties to Epstein, otherwise she wouldn't have felt compelled to make some of the statements that she did.

Blumenthal described the address as a "can of worms" that the Trump administration has tried to avoid.
"Why is she so scared? That's the only question I have," Wilentz said. "Why would she do such a thing? The Epstein files have been off. He's blown up the Middle East in order to avoid the Epstein files. And here is Melania Trump coming out in the middle of nowhere saying, 'I had nothing to do with it in the way that you described.' Something's bugging her. She knows that something's coming. Obviously, something must be coming, or she wouldn't have done this." 

Moving over to Kevin Warsh, Chump's nominee for Federal Reserve Chair. 





Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren grilled Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as the next Federal Reserve chair over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, but Kevin Warsh refused to answer her directly.

The top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee accused Warsh of having more than $100 million in investments, for which he has not disclosed specific details to ethics officials or the public, as he seeks to become the next head of the U.S. central bank.

“Do the Juggernaut Fund or the THSDFS LLC invest in any companies affiliated with President Trump or his family, companies that have facilitated money laundering, Chinese-controlled companies, or financing vehicles established by Jeffrey Epstein?” Warren asked at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

Warsh did not answer her question directly but instead started to talk about the role of the Fed and broader ethics scandals Warren had previously referenced.

 “Will you answer my question, please?” Warren cut him off.

“I asked, you have $100 million in undisclosed assets, and what I’m asking is, are any of those with this outfit that invests in companies affiliated with President Trump or his family, companies that have facilitated money laundering, Chinese-controlled companies, or financing vehicles set up by Jeffrey Epstein? It’s a yes or no question,” Warren repeated.

[. . .]

But Warsh avoided sharing any investments tied to Epstein as he was grilled on Tuesday. Warren pointed out again that he was not directly answering her.

“Mr. Warsh, are you refusing to tell us if you have investments in, for example, vehicles set up to advance Jeffrey Epstein? Is that what you’re telling us?” Warren repeated, focusing on the late convicted sex offender. “You just won’t tell us?”

“Senator, what I’m telling you is that those assets that you represent as Juggernaut will be sold if I’m confirmed before I take office and sign the oath of office,” Warsh said about the hedge fund. 


 





Turning to immigration,  Suzanne Gamboa (NBC NEWS) reports:

A federal judge on Monday ordered the release of a mother and five children who have been detained longer than any other family in a Texas immigration detention center. They have been held since the arrest of the children’s father nearly a year ago after an anti-semitic firebombing attack in Colorado.
Hours after the judge's decision, the family had yet to be released.

Hayman El Gamal and her five children, who have been in detention more than 10 months, were detained in June after the arrest of El Gamal’s ex-husband Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45. He has been charged in connection with the attack in Boulder on a group calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

El Gamal, who has divorced Soliman, has said that she and the children knew nothing about his alleged plans. The couple divorced after his arrest and his family's detention.

"We are hopeful and vindicated by this decision, however the government has not yet released this family and we are insisting it do so immediately,” said Eric Lee, the mother and children’s attorney.

He said El Gamal and her children had a mixed reaction to the news.

“The family feels vindicated, as well, by this decision and also they have gone through enough in the last 10 and a half months of detention to know it’s not over yet because of how brazenly and sadistic the White House has been to this family and five innocent children,” Lee said.


Let's wind down with this from Senator Adam Schiff's office:


Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) led 16 Senators in urging the Trump administration to immediately reverse course on their illegal and dangerous decision to seek unprecedented access to the personal medical records of millions of federal workers, retirees, and their families. 

According to a notice by the White House Office of Personnel Management, this effort would involve the widespread aggregation of individuals’ health data, including medical visits, prescriptions, and treatment histories. The Senators express deep concern regarding such sweeping access of private medical data, which violates core principles of the law and places the personal information of Americans at serious risk of potential cyberattacks, unauthorized access and political exploitation.   

“This proposal is another step in the stated goal of traumatizing the federal workforce, this time by requiring the most sensitive health information about federal employees and their families to be shared with OPM. We are deeply concerned this information will be used in employment actions, including actions related to hiring, suitability determinations, appeals, reductions in force, disability accommodation requests, labor-management relations, and performance reviews,” the Senators wrote.  

“We strongly urge you to cease any further consideration of this proposal. Our federal employees work every day to serve the American people and deserve to have their health data protected,” the Senators continued. 

In addition to Schiff, Warner, and Leader Schumer this letter is also signed by Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Angus King Jr. (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.). Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.),  Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).

The full text of the letter can be found here and below. 

Dear Director Kupor, 

We are writing with grave concern regarding the Information Collection Request (ICR) noticed in the Federal Register on December 12, 2025, by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). If implemented, this proposal would require health insurance carriers that participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) and Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) programs to report broad medical record data of federal workers, retirees, and their families to OPM on a monthly basis. According to the notice, this effort would involve the widespread aggregation of these individuals’ health data, including medical visits, prescriptions, and treatment histories. This proposal raises profound statutory, constitutional, and public health concerns. We demand that OPM immediately reverse this action and abstain from any future efforts to illegally collect federal workers’ sensitive health data. 

Since January 2025, federal employees have been pushed into early retirement, illegally fired, demonized, seen their civil service protections weakened, and more. This proposal is another step in the stated goal of traumatizing the federal workforce, this time by requiring the most sensitive health information about federal employees and their families to be shared with OPM. We are deeply concerned this information will be used in employment actions, including actions related to hiring, suitability determinations, appeals, reductions in force, disability accommodation requests, labor-management relations, and performance reviews. 

Such sweeping access to personal health information would violate the core principles of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which was enacted to strictly regulate how protected health information (PHI) can be disclosed to ensure that patient data is shared only for limited, clearly defined purposes. Mass, centralized access to identifiable medical records absent individualized consent, clear necessity, or narrowly tailored legal authority undermines those protections and lacks a valid statutory basis. Both HIPAA regulations that apply to all covered entities as well as the Privacy Act statute that governs the federal government’s use of data about individuals require only the minimum amount of information necessary to be shared;[1] the data collection contemplated in this proposal to collect individualized medical claims data from all federal employees, retirees, and their families every month would far exceed those legal limits and violate OPM’s statutory authority. 

Furthermore, this proposal threatens the foundational principle of confidentiality between a patient and their health care provider. Patients must be able to trust that sensitive disclosures regarding mental health, chronic illness, or other deeply personal conditions will remain private. If individuals with health care coverage through FEHB and PSHB fear their medical records will be accessed by government agencies for unclear or non-clinical purposes, millions of Americans may withhold critical information from their providers or forego health care services altogether. This erosion of trust directly harms medical care and public health outcomes. 

The risks of misuse of the data to be shared in OPM’s proposal and subsequent data breaches cannot be overstated, as large, centralized databases of health records are prime targets for cyberattacks and unauthorized access. Past incidents across industries demonstrate that even “secure” systems are vulnerable, and breaches involving health data have historically exposed millions of individuals to identity theft, discrimination, and long-term privacy harms. Expanding access to PHI increases the number of potential failure points and amplifies these risks. 

Additionally, the potential for secondary use or mission creep is deeply concerning. This administration has demonstrated a cavalier approach toward utilizing sensitive data, breaking down firewalls that work to protect individuals’ privacy and security, and an incompetence in protecting that data. In January 2026, the Department of Justice admitted in a legal filing that employees of President Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) stole individuals’ Social Security data and stored it improperly. And as a data point that DOGE was never truly about efficiency, the legal filing also noted that one employee was working with an advocacy group to try and connect Social Security data with voter rolls in order to “find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain States.” Additionally, the effort by the Department of Health and Human Services to share Medicaid enrollee data with the Department of Homeland Security for immigration enforcement purposes raises serious concerns that this data collection would serve a far more nefarious purpose than those stated in the Federal Register.  

Finally, we have substantial constitutional concerns regarding OPM’s proposal. The Supreme Court has recognized a protected privacy interest in avoiding disclosure of highly personal information, including medical data.  While not absolute, this interest requires that government intrusions be justified, narrowly tailored, and accompanied by clear safeguards. Broad policies without individualized justifications raise Fourth Amendment concerns and encroach on Americans’ reasonable expectations of privacy. We do not believe any employee, including federal employees, should be forced to give up basic rights to privacy as a condition of their employment, especially regarding their health information. 

For these reasons, we strongly urge you to cease any further consideration of this proposal. Our federal employees work every day to serve the American people and deserve to have their health data protected. Protecting patient privacy is not a bureaucratic obstacle, but a cornerstone of ethical medicine, legal compliance, and public trust. Any effort to modernize or improve data systems must prioritize strict privacy protections, transparency, and respect for individual rights. 

###



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