Thursday, April 23, 2026

MICHAEL is garbage trash and it's the end for CLUELESS

MICHAEL is garbage.  It was always going to be garbage.  I've covered it in "MICHAEL, the reviews are out" and "No one needed MICHAEL" and one more time tonight.  I like Colman Domingo but I don't need to hear this crap from him:


Actor Colman Domingo has addressed criticism on Wednesday, April 22, surrounding 'Michael,' a biographical film on "The King of Pop," Michael Jackson which has generated significant attention ahead of its release.

The project has drawn scrutiny for its narrative choices, particularly for omitting key aspects of the singer’s later life. The debate centers on whether the film presents an incomplete portrayal of the pop icon, even as it is expect to achieve major commercial success.
In the lead-up to its scheduled premiere on Friday, April 24, Domingo and actress Nia Long, who portray Jackson’s parents Joe and Katherine, addressed the growing criticism during a morning interview on the show 'Today.' During the conversation, co-anchor Craig Melvin pointed out that the film concludes in 1988, five years Jackson got embroiled in a major controversy.
He asked, “What would you say to folks who see this” and believed the film “whitewashed that part” of Jackson’s legacy. Domingo began by reiterating that “the film takes place from the ’60s to 1988, so it does not go into the first allegations in, what, 2005? Basically, we center it on the makings of Michael. It’s an intimate portrait of who Michael is.”

The pop icon faced his first allegation from Jordan Chandler's father, Evan, including a $30 million lawsuit, which prompted an investigation that was closed a year later following a settlement with the grand jury subsequently declining to indict Jackson.
The investigation into Jackson was reopened in 2003 after the documentary 'Living With Michael Jackson' featured testimony from 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo. Jackson faced a trial in 2005, and was ultimately acquitted on all counts. 

Long suggested to Melvin that this aspect of Jackson’s life was not included in the film due to the decision to tell the pop star’s story “through his eyes.”
Domingo reinforced that perspective, stating, “That’s what this film is, and there’s the possibility of there being a part two that may deal with other things that may happen afterwards. This is about the making of Michael, how he was raised, and how he was trying to find his voice as an artist.” 


He's not an artist.  He didn't write from the heart and he didn't write to communicate.  He wrote to write hits.  That's all he knew and that's all he valued.  For awhile, he was able to write hits.  Then he got old and tired and vengeful ("Jew me"?) and his career was really over.  He was a joke.  If the film is to be believed, he had no life to speak of.  He hid out with animals and was a virgin.  He was not 16 when THRILLER came out. He was 24 in 1982.  He is 30 when the film ends.  And he has no life.  He's not an artist, he's a product.  

Thankfully, Diana Ross -- like Janet -- does not appear in the film as a character.  Colman Domingo needs to be asked if it was appropriate for Michael to take little boys into his bed to sleep with them.  

In other good news,  Denise Petski (DEADLINE) reports:

A Clueless TV series with Silverstone attached to star and executive produce is no longer in development at Peacock, Deadline has confirmed.

The streamer announced in April 2025 that the project was in the works with Silverstone attached to reprise her signature role as Cher. The Gossip Girl duo of Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage of Fake Empire and Dollface creator Jordan Weiss wrote and executive produced, with the 1995 movie’s writer-director Amy Heckerling and producer Robert Lawrence also executive producing.


Good news.  Alicia is MAGA.  She's a supporter of Junior.  And she can go to hell.  She knows better but she got in bed with these racists.  


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


Thursday, April 23, 2026.  Chump destroys the country and its economy and does so with the help of one of the most dishonest, crooked and unqualified cabinets the country has ever seen.



Over the span of four days earlier this month, President Donald Trump posted to his Truth Social account about his proposed triumphal arch, ballroom construction, the Iran war, a UFC fight at the White House and Bruce Springsteen’s alleged plastic surgery.

He also posted (and later deleted) an AI-generated photo of himself as Jesus, on the heels of a screed aimed at Pope Leo XIV, who Trump said “should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.”

What’s absent for long stretches in the president’s social media presence and from his discourse more generally of late is the economy — an issue Trump rode to the White House in 2016 and 2024.

“Trump’s original deal with the American people was ‘I’m a boorish lout and kind of embarrassing, but I know how to run the economy.’ And they believed that because they remember the economy being good in 2016,” said Mike Murphy, an anti-Trump former Republican strategist and co-host of the “Hacks on Tap” podcast with David Axelrod.

Critics and concerned Republicans say Trump isn’t making the economy enough of a priority with this year’s election just over six months away, though he has attempted to shift the focus back to cost-of-living issues in the last week.

But even when Trump does bring up the economy, his words often don’t reflect the reality many Americans are feeling. He recently said gas prices — which are 27% higher than a year earlier according to AAA — are “not very high,” and he has called affordability a “Democratic hoax.” 


Chump's run the American economy into the ditch and seems oblivious when it comes to that reality.  And voters are noticing this face.  Kathryn Palmer (USA TODAY) reports:

A new national poll found the country's youngest eligible voters are heading into the 2026 midterm elections burdened by deep economic anxiety and grappling with a growing belief that they are unable to effect change.

The Harvard Youth Poll, conducted among 18- to 29-year-olds by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, concluded that economic pressure is a defining concern for young Americans. It's a sentiment reflected in months of national polls that surveyed voters across age groups, who have similarly identified cost-of-living concerns, economic mobility and inflation as their North Star issues.

Roughly half of young Americans said that they are affected “a lot” by inflation, and 45% said they are struggling to make ends meet. And over the last five years, fewer young Americans believe they will be better off financially than their parents. In 2021, 38% said they expect to be better off than their parents. In the recent spring poll, 29% said that.


This morning, Gallup's Jeffrey M. Jones covers a new Gallup poll:


Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index dropped to -38 this month from -27 in March, as Americans grew more negative about both current economic conditions and the economy’s direction. This is the lowest index reading since November 2023 (-40), though still above the recent low of -58 in June 2022 during a period of high inflation and record gas prices.

The April 1-15 poll was conducted amid ongoing tensions between Iran and the U.S. and Israel, which have been at war since Feb. 28. The conflict has interrupted commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, driving global oil prices and U.S. fuel costs higher.

Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index has a theoretical range of -100, if all Americans rate current economic conditions as poor and thought the economy was getting worse, to +100, if all Americans rate current conditions as excellent or good and believed the economy was getting better. The all-time-high reading was +56 in January 2000, while the record low was -72 in October 2008.

Americans More Negative About Current Economy and Its Trajectory

Nearly half of U.S. adults, 47%, describe current economic conditions as “poor,” up from 40% in March. Meanwhile, 21% believe the economy is “excellent” or “good,” not meaningfully changed from 23% last month. The last time evaluations were worse was in November 2023, when half rated conditions as poor.


Chump has done this and he's done it with the help of his embarrassing and unqualified cabinet.


Friday, THE ATLANTIC published Sarah Fitzpatrick's "The FBI Director Is MIA: Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences."  Ka$h is suing over the article.  This is not the first time he's sued the press.  This week, news emerged on his previous lawsuit.  Dan Mangan (CNBC) reports:


A Houston federal court judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit by FBI Director Kash Patel alleging that former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi defamed him by saying Patel last year had “been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of” the bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“The Court finds that Figliuzzi’s statement is rhetorical hyperbole that cannot constitute defamation,” U.S. District Court Judge George Hanks Jr. wrote in his decision. “Accordingly, Dir. Patel has failed to state a claim against Figliuzzi, and his lawsuit must be dismissed.”

The dismissal came a day after Patel filed an unrelated $250 million defamation lawsuit in D.C. federal court against The Atlantic magazine over a new article that alleged he has abused alcohol.


Jordan Rubin (MS NOW) adds:

The case he lost was against ex-MSNBC analyst and columnist Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI. While appearing last year on MSNBC’s (now MS NOW’s) “Morning Joe,” Figliuzzi said Patel had “been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building.”

Patel argued Figliuzzi’s statement was defamatory, while Figliuzzi argued a reasonable viewer would have seen it as a “sarcastic, hyperbolic quip about the media narrative surrounding” Patel at the time. The FBI director countered that a reasonable viewer would have understood the remarks to be factual.

Rejecting Patel on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge George Hanks called Figliuzzi’s statement “rhetorical hyperbole that cannot constitute defamation.” In his opinion dismissing the FBI director’s suit, the Obama-appointed judge in Texas wrote that a person of reasonable intelligence and learning “would not have taken his statement literally: that Dir. Patel has actually spent more hours physically in a nightclub than he has spent physically in his office building.”


Ka$h remains disgraced publicly.  The video footage of him with the US men's hockey team clearly showed a frenzied Ka$h -- not a person applauding a victory but a crazed and drunken fool who confused himself with a member of the team itself.  He was out of control.  The reports of his drinking indicate that this is a normal phase for him.  He wasn't qualified to be the FBI Director.  At some point, in the near future, Republicans will have to answer for how they approved Chump's nominees, how they voted for this group of unhinged and unqualified losers and of how they then covered for them month after month.


Take Trashy Garbage aka Tulsi Gabbard.  The unqualified Tulsi was made Director of National Intelligence.  From that post, she does nothing with regards to the Iran War because Chump has shut her out there.  Instead, she wastes her time and out intelligence resources on 'investigations' into things that took place over ten years ago as she tries to prove Chump's crazed conspiracies for him.  David Corn (MOTHER JONES) reports:


Last summer, she did this by releasing highly classified intelligence documents that she claimed proved that President Barack Obama, his CIA chief John Brennan, and other Deep Staters had committed “treason”—a crime punishable by death. She accused them of falsifying intelligence to show that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had covertly intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Trump. The memos clearly did not show that. (Investigations by special counsel Robert Mueller, the Justice Department, and the bipartisan Senate intelligence committee have confirmed Putin attacked that election to boost Trump.)

Gabbard’s stunt was a despicable act of immense gaslighting. And she and Trump each called for Obama, Brennan, and others to be prosecuted. Trump went so far as to post an AI-generated video of FBI agents violently handcuffing and arresting Obama and tossing him into a prison cell. In the video, Obama is on his knees before Trump. Never has intelligence been so abused by an administration for purely political purposes. Gabbard’s move led the Justice Department to mount a criminal investigation of Brennan and others that is ongoing.

At the time, Gabbard also declassified and made public a secret report that cited Russian intelligence material from 2016 that claimed Hillary Clinton suffered from “intensified psycho-emotional problems,” was on a daily regimen of “heavy tranquilizers,” and had schemed to set up the Trump-Russia scandal to distract from her email controversy. But US intelligence analysts and FBI agents had previously judged this Russian material to be unreliable and possibly disinformation. So here was the top US intelligence official deploying unsubstantiated or phony Russian material—over the objections of CIA officials who worried its disclosure could compromise sources and methods—to smear an American politician. It was disgraceful.

[. . .]

Last week, she released a handful of documents that she asserted exposed “a coordinated effort by elements within the Intelligence Community (IC), including a former Inspector General (IG), to manufacture a conspiracy that was used as the basis to impeach President Trump in 2019.” She insisted these records show that Atkinson “did not follow standard IG procedures and relied upon politicized, manufactured narratives” and that he took “actions to weaponize the Whistleblower process and exceed his statutory jurisdiction.”

Once more, she insisted that Trump was the victim of a nefarious cabal: “Deep state actors within the Intelligence Community concocted a false narrative that was used by Congress to usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected President of the United States.”

Yet again, Gabbard is pulling a big con. The materials she released do not back up the charge that Atkinson mishandled this case, and they certainly don’t prove a narrative was manufactured. In fact, the whistleblower’s complaint was largely confirmed when the Trump White House, under pressure, released a summary of his call with Zelenskyy. And that summary played a more critical role in the impeachment proceedings than the whistleblower’s complaint. During the Trump-Ukraine controversy, Maguire testified that the whistleblower “did the right thing.” Maguire also testified that Atkinson’s handling of the whistleblower complaint was done “by the book” and consistent with the law.  


While Trashy Garbage wastes her time on these conspiracy threads, who is doing her job?  Who is going through the international information and protecting the country from perceived and from real threats?  

We are in the midst of a war, after all.  And then there's Pete Hegseth.  The Secretary of Defense keeps running through staff in the midst of a war.  Army Chief of Staff Randy George was only the most recent until yesterday.  Adam Mockler weighed in on yesterday's departure.




Greg Jaffe, Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper (NEW YORK TIMES) report:


Navy Secretary John Phelan was fired on Wednesday after months of infighting with senior Pentagon leaders and disagreements over how to revive the Navy’s struggling shipbuilding program.

Mr. Phelan is leaving the Pentagon and the Trump administration effective immediately, wrote Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, in a terse statement.

In his role leading the Navy, Mr. Phelan had championed the “Golden Fleet,” a major investment in new ships including a “Trump-class” battleship. But Mr. Phelan’s leadership was marred by feuds with senior leaders in the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, Pentagon and congressional officials said.

Mr. Phelan is the first service secretary to leave the administration, though he is the second one to clash with the defense secretary. Mr. Hegseth also has butted heads with Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll over promotions and a host of other issues. Mr. Hegseth fired the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, earlier this month.


Any of the firings are eye brow raising but to fire the Secretary of the Navy when the US is battling over the Strait of Hormuz is especially shocking. 


Hegseth is out of control.  Again, the Republicans who voted for these nominees -- which also include the now departed Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi and Lori Chavez-DeRemer  -- will have to answer for what they did.  They didn't confirm qualified nominees.  They confirmed unqualified people for posts that were beyond their abilities and experience and did so because these were MAGA wack jobs. These were people like Robert Kennedy Junior who should be nowhere near a Health and Human Services cabinet let alone the Secretary of it. 


At THE NEW REPUBLIC, Laura Weiss observes:


It’s hard to overstate the damage that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done to the public health infrastructure of the United States in his first year as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. An exhaustive list of these crimes could—and likely will—fill books. 

Though he promised otherwise in his confirmation hearings, Kennedy has decimated the country’s vaccine and public health infrastructure. Last June, amid a historic measles outbreak that he has consistently downplayed, Kennedy abruptly fired all 17 expert members from the Centers for Disease Control’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, days before the panel was set to meet, only to stack it with vaccine skeptics largely without expertise in the subject matter. He went on to restrict access to vaccines for Covid-19 and other diseases.

Under his leadership, HHS has cut millions of dollars from mRNA vaccine research. He has also defunded research into cancer, a bird flu vaccine, and future pandemic threats. He has spread misinformation and stigma about autism and reduced the number of childhood vaccine recommendations from 17 to 11. He tried to conduct a highly unethical study in Guinea-Bissau that would put the tiny country’s population—which has among the highest rates of hepatitis B in the world—at a much higher risk of contracting the disease.


At SALON, former Governor Howard Dean writes:


In the first three months of 2026, America logged roughly 1,600 measles cases — nearly as many as the total number for all of 2025, which was by far the worst year we’ve seen for the highly infectious virus in decades. In fact, because we’ve had more than 12 straight months of continuous measles spread, the nation should soon lose the measles elimination status we achieved back in 2000.

I say “should” because Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was granted a delay of the April 13 meeting of the Pan American Health Organization, where officials were expected to reach that embarrassing conclusion, until its annual meeting, which is scheduled for after the midterm elections. A coincidence, no doubt.

It’s disgraceful and dangerous that instead of acting to prevent the spread of preventable diseases like measles, the secretary and his cadre of mad scientists are playing politics and spreading misinformation — and putting American lives at risk.

As Kennedy faces rounds of congressional hearings, including before two Senate committees that include four Republican doctors, measles cases are still rising across the country. During an appearance before a House committee on Tuesday, he declined to support the vaccine guidance of Dr. Erica Schwartz, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who is an advocate for immunizations. 

Kennedy also rebuffed Democrats’ claims that he bore responsibility for the country’s ongoing measles outbreak. There have already been 17 separate outbreaks in 2026. South Carolina has reported around 670 cases of the virus that have forced hundreds to quarantine or isolate. In Utah, nearly 600 people, most of whom are children, have been diagnosed since an outbreak began last summer.

Measles cases are spiking because the share of Americans who’ve received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — which protects 97% of people from getting the virus when exposed to it — has declined below the critical threshold recommended for community protection. Under the vaccine skeptic Kennedy’s leadership, vaccination rates for other diseases are also trending downward, and could soon fall below their own respective thresholds, opening the door for all sorts of previously eliminated diseases to make a dangerous comeback.

Our public health system isn’t ready for these infectious diseases. Experts are already sounding alarms about underreporting, inconsistent data collection and delayed responses due to a lack of coordination between government centers and agencies, and weakened surveillance systems. 


Junior's not qualified to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services and his time in the office has harmed the country -- and will continue to harm it for many years to come. 


These are Chump's nominees, his picks, and they are a disaster for this country.  That's before you get to the Howard Lutnicks who hung out with Jeffrey Epstein and before you get to the Linda McMahons accused of their own sexual impropriety (see the Ring Boy Scandal for which is still moving through the courts and for which she is accused of participation).  We've had Kristi Noem and her  boy toy Corey, all of this scandal, non-stop.  And then there's racist Pete Hegseth. 


Jen Psaki addressed him last night on MS NOW. 


The video shows Senator Cory Booker speaking on the floor of the Senate.

Senator Cory Booker:  And what is this body doing?  Nothing.  Republican leadership?  It's called no open hearings, no sufficient accountability, no substantive oversight.  They are kowtowing to a president and allowing him into a reckless war with grave consequences and a shredding of our Constitutional attention by our founders.  


Cory then joins her to speak of the firing of the Navy commander with Cory saying of Hegseth,  "Today is just another testament to his incompetence."


Brad Reed (RAW STORY) notes:

A top United Nations official on Tuesday warned that there is a real risk of a global food crisis if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to shipments of fertilizer.

Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), said in an interview with UN News that roughly one-third of global fertilizer shipments flow through the Strait of Hormuz, and its closure has caused “a massive disruption in the supply chain of fertilizers,” and “clearly we are seeing a crisis emerging” in the agricultural industry.

The UN official also emphasized the need for a fast resolution to the crisis to prevent catastrophic food shortages as tensions continued to escalate in the strait in recent days, with both the US and Iran seizing vessels in the area.


Chump has spent more time in office trying to bury The Epstein Scandal than he has pondering the needs of the American people.  Chump and Epstein go back to the 80s when they first hooked up.  Epstein of course died in jail awaiting trial for his predatory actions -- this followed his 2008 conviction.  He was Chump's buddy and Chump boasted of him to the press.  Chump also hung around with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's right hand who procured women and girls for him and who engaged in sex with them.  As The Epstein Scandal heated up throughout last year, Chump sent Deputy AG Todd Blanche to speak with Ghislaine Maxwell and, shortly afterwards, she was transferred to a lower level security prison -- a Club Fed of prisons -- in Bryan, Texas.   Chump takes cares of his friends. 


Maxwell thinks her conviction can be overturned and keeps appealing it in the courts.  Farrah Tomazin (DAILY BEAST) reports:

Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell sent a mystery USB drive to the Justice Department days after Melania Trump sought to distance herself from the pair’s heinous sex crimes.

The disgraced former socialite sent the USB on April 16 in a fresh attempt to quash her criminal conviction and 20-year jail sentence for helping Epstein recruit and abuse women and girls.

While the details of the electronic files are not known, the timing of it—seven days after the first lady delivered a surprise statement about Epstein and Maxwell—raised eyebrows across Washington.

In her April 9 statement, Melania Trump denied any ties to Epstein’s crimes and demanded that “lies” being spread about her must end.

Reading from prepared remarks at the White House, she told reporters that she went to the same parties as Epstein “from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common.” 



Melania's spech.  The one she gave apparently to pre-empt revelations from a former friend.  Alexandra Miller (SCRIPPS NEWS) notes:

Just before that news conference earlier this month, former model Amanda Ongaro came forward about her former partner, ID Models owner Paolo Zampoli, who she said she met while underage. Ongaro has since been deported and is accusing Zampoli, who is now a member of the Trump administration, of orchestrating her arrest over custody issues.

Ongaro also alluded in various now-deleted social media posts that she has information on President Donald Trump and Melania Trump relating to Epstein. Both the president and first lady have denied any nefarious involvement with Epstein.

Meanwhile, Epstein's interest in fashion was not in the business itself, but in leveraging the industry to gain access to young women who were hoping to grow their modeling careers.

Lisa Phillips was introduced to Epstein at age 21 while on a modeling shoot near his island. She endured years of abuse that she says she did not fully recognize until she was introduced to other survivors.

"The modeling industry was like, it was like a foundation of Epstein's orbit," Phillips told Scripps News.

 

The press has followed The Epstein Scandal and has unearthed many details that the Dept of Justice has attempted to hide.  Henry Giardina (QUEERTY) notes the work of Bekah Day:


Since the second Epstein files release in January, we’ve discovered so many bombshells that have exposed sinister networks, powerful figures, and deep corruption across the worlds of finance, politics, modeling, and even retail.

For most citizens, the continuing fallout is exhausting. But for poster Bekah Day, who has been tirelessly sifting through every last file to make sure no details go unnoticed, it’s all in a day’s work.

Day’s peerless detective work around the Epstein files has beaten several major publications to the punch lately, including the story about Brazilian model (and ex-Melania bestie) Amanda Ungaro, whose Paolo Zampoli connection has put Tr*mp in hot water in recent weeks.

But as usual, the mad king has managed to find enough distractions to keep him busy… until now. Day just discovered a set of photos that put Tr*mp at the scene of a very scandalous gathering devoted to celebrating Epstein’s 50th birthday party… which allegedly took place at Mar-a-Lago.

That’s right! Remember last year when the Wall Street Journal discovered a Tr*mp doodle solicited by Ghislaine Maxwell as part of a tribute book for Epstein’s 50th? And remember how Tr*mp denied the whole thing and said that he never draws things and then everyone started sharing Tr*mp’s many, many doodles online? Yeah, well that was apparently just the tip of the iceberg, according to Day’s findings. 

Pulling up a file set labeled “JE 50 Bday” Day shows us a series of photos featuring Epstein surrounded by the usual cadre of young girls, as well as Ghislaine Maxwell and some other big players. As usual, of course, the photos are heavily redacted, in some cases to protect Epstein survivors, in other cases… definitely not for that reason. But we can see plenty of victims on display in these photos, and we can also very clearly see Mar-a-Lago’s gilded interiors in the background.

“If we are to believe that all of the redacted figures are victims,” Day says, “the number of known survivors of [Epstein] that went through Mar-a-Lago…keeps growing.”

Curiouser and curiouser, especially considering that all the photos labeled “JE 50th bday” show Mar-a-Lago’s very recognizable interior. 

 

Harry Sisson covered Maxwell and the House Oversight Committee last night. 



Maxwell's planning a pardon from Chump.  Hailey Fuchs (POLITICO) notes:


Members on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are divided over whether President Donald Trump should pardon Jeffrey Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for her cooperation in the panel’s Epstein investigation, Chair James Comer said in an interview Wednesday.

Maxwell, who was deposed by the Oversight Committee as the sole convicted accomplice in the Epstein sex trafficking scheme, previously invoked her Fifth Amendment right in declining to answer the panel’s questions. Her lawyer has said that she would only speak if granted clemency — a power available solely to Trump, who has not ruled out the prospect of a pardon.

When asked whether he believed it was a favorable deal to issue a pardon in return for Maxwell’s testimony, Comer said, “A lot of people do.”

“My committee’s split on that,” he added, declining to name who on the panel supported granting a pardon. “I don’t speak for my committee.”

[. . .]

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the Oversight panel’s top Democrat, emphasized that committee Democrats unanimously opposed a pardon for Maxwell.

“That would be a huge step backwards, and, quite frankly, so disrespectful to the survivors,” he said in an interview. “She is a known abuser. She is a known liar.”

“If the DOJ or Oversight Republicans are out there trying to negotiate some sort of pardon that is … not only a huge slap in the face to this investigation, to anyone, to the American public,” he added. “It’s a part of a massive cover up.”


Congress can't pardon a convicted felon.  A president can.  Comer Pyle insists he himself isn't for the pardon but he's a known liar and does Chump's bidding.  


Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

Murray: “The budget that was sent to us is not MAGA budget. It is not a MAHA budget. It is a war budget—no one can call it anything other than that.”

ICYMI: Senator Murray on President Trump’s FY27 Budget Request

***WATCH: Senator Murray’s remarks***

Washington, D.C. — Today, at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing on the FY27 budget request for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the HELP Committee, grilled HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on cuts to important HHS functions, and broken promises and lies to Congress.

[MURRAY SLAMS RFK Jr. FOR GUTTING CDC AND BREAKING PROMISES]

MURRAY: Yesterday when we talked, you went on a very long tangent about how you were just cancelling woke grants. But I want to for the record put the numbers here: you cancelled 17, at least 17 maternal health grants, $4 million—because apparently any research involving women is woke. You cancelled 58 grants for vaccine research, $94 million. 59 for Alzheimer’s research, that was $33 million dollars. And a whopping 108 cancer research grants—$29 million dollars’ worth! 

I just have to say cancer is not woke. Neither is Alzheimer’s, or women who die in childbirth. These are deadly issues, they deserve serious research. I am appalled that it was tossed in the shredder. And meanwhile as I said, we are shoveling money on war spending.

So, I just want to be clear: that the budget that was sent to us is not MAGA budget. It is not a MAHA budget. It is a war budget—no one can call it anything other than that


Why on earth would we take from researchers, and rural health care, and maternal health care. You justified these cuts because of a need to reduce the debt yesterday, this budget actually proposes to increase the debt for more war.

So, we’re shoveling more money at Defense contractors, but we’re slashing NIH by more than five billion dollars, fewer patients getting life-saving treatment. Cutting CDC by a third so we can’t respond to dangerous outbreaks. Slashing investments in mental health and addiction treatment, people will fall through the cracks. And not investing in child care, families will have to decide between child care, and health care, and putting food on the table.

So, I know my time is almost up. And Mr. Chairman, for the record, I am concerned about the promises that have been broken. And I have some items that I do want to submit for the record, and I ask unanimous consent to include these articles:

“RFK Jr. breaks promise to senators, guts CDC vaccine panel of independent experts.”

“RFK Jr. Breaks His Promises About the CDC on Vaccines and Autism.”

“Firing of CDC’s vaccine advisers puts spotlight on RFK Jr.’s promises to Cassidy.”

I have one that is titled: “RFK Jr. Made Promises in Order to Become Health Secretary. He’s Broken Many of Them.”

“Bill Cassidy extracted a promise from RFK Jr. Now he sees what that promise is worth.”

Two more: “A Republican Senator Who Voted for RFK is Airing His Concerns. It’s Too Late Now.”

And an article that is entitled: “GOP Senator Refuses to Face Reality About RFK Jr. After Being ‘Lied’ To.”

I yield back.

###


The following sites updated:





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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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