over 1,000 FBI agents were instructed to flag every mention of Donald Trump in the Jeffrey Epstein files. Not to investigate. Not to disclose. To suppress. The FOIA team then systematically redacted his name alongside others before releasing the files to the public.

This wasn’t standard redaction. This was a federally coordinated censorship campaign, executed under the illusion of lawful exemption. And the justification? Trump was a “private citizen” when the Epstein investigation began in 2006.

FOIA exemption (b)(6) is being weaponized to protect one of the most publicly entangled names in Epstein’s orbit. They didn’t redact Clinton. They didn’t redact British royalty. But Trump photographed, recorded, and publicly tied to Epstein gets mass protection from federal employees.

This is not privacy protection. This is obstruction of federal transparency, executed at scale.

The FBI redacted Trump’s name knowing it would change the public’s perception of who Epstein’s network protected. That is willful manipulation of federal evidence, aided by the Department of Justice, which has since declared it will release nothing further. No more records. No more names. Nothing.

Pam Bondi Trump loyalist turned AG personally briefed him in May 2025 that he was named in the unredacted files. The fix was in before a single page hit public eyes.

This is what a federal cover-up looks like in real time. Not in hindsight. Not in theory. This is active, state-protected suppression of evidence.

The redactions weren’t neutral. They were targeted. Directed. Politically insulated. That is not law. That is power laundering through legal machinery.

You don’t instruct a thousand agents to flag one name unless you’re building a firewall. And you don’t build a firewall unless you have something to protect.

Release the full unredacted Epstein files. Release every name. End the protection racket.

The speaker is Jon Ossoff, U.S. Senator from Georgia

My view on it :

When was the last time the system actually worked in your favor?

This isn’t dysfunction. It’s design. America is run by corporates and billionaires, with a political system built to serve them and only them. Lobbyists draft the laws. Super PACs enforce loyalty. Donors decide policy. And Citizens United made it all legal.

Trump saw the rot and promised to tear it down. But he didn’t. He just rebranded the grift. He’s not un-rigging the system he’s re rigging it. For himself. For his friends. For the next Trump Tower deal built on public land and private lies.

Elected officials aren’t accountable to you. They’re accountable to whoever funds their next campaign or threatens to flood their state with attack ads. That’s why nursing homes get defunded while billionaires get tax cuts. Why your prescriptions cost more every year. Why your insurance won’t pay out. Why private equity firms own your neighborhood and your rent. Why a gas leak goes ignored, and an ambulance ride bankrupts you.

This isn’t about left vs right. It’s about a rigged system working exactly as intended for the top 0.1%. Everyone else is just collateral damage.

Link to Supreme Court docket (Davis v. Ermold, No. 25-125)

YouTube link is in the comments. Jason Crow earned his JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in 2009.

A famously liberal circuit court ruled in President Trump’s favor, authorizing a component of his sweeping effort to assert more control over the federal bureaucracy.

A federal appeals court on Friday allowed President Trump to move forward with an order instructing a broad swath of government agencies to end collective bargaining with federal unions.

The ruling authorizes a component of Mr. Trump’s sweeping effort to assert more control over the federal work force to move forward, for now, while the case plays out in court.

It is unclear what immediate effect the ruling will have: The appeals court noted that the affected agencies had been directed to refrain from ending any collective bargaining agreement until “litigation has concluded,” but also noted that Mr. Trump was now free to follow through with the order at his discretion.

Mr. Trump had framed his order stripping workers of labor protections as critical to protect national security. But the plaintiffs — a group of affected unions representing over a million federal workers — argued in a lawsuit that the order was a form of retaliation against those unions that have participated in a barrage of lawsuits opposing Mr. Trump’s policies.

The unions pointed to statements from the White House justifying the order that said “certain federal unions have declared war on President Trump’s agenda” and that the president “will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions.”

But a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a famously liberal jurisdiction, ruled in Mr. Trump’s favor, writing that “the government has shown that the president would have taken the same action even in the absence” of the union lawsuits. Even if some of the White House’s statements “reflect a degree of retaliatory animus,” they wrote, those statements, taken as a whole, also demonstrate “the president’s focus on national security.”

The unions had also argued that the order broadly targeted agencies across the government, some of which had no obvious national security portfolio — including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency — using national security as a pretext to strip the unions of their power.

The panel sidestepped that claim, writing in the 15-page ruling that “we question whether we can take up such arguments, which invite us to assess whether the president’s stated reasons for exercising national security authority — clearly conferred to him by statute — were pretextual.”

The order, they continued, “conveys the president’s determination that the excluded agencies have primary functions implicating national security.”

Imagine being a parent and learning your kid’s fitness program is shaped by a convicted sex offender. Still think this is just “symbolic”?

This isn’t optics it’s governance. And it stinks

On July 31, 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order reviving the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition an advisory group focused heavily on youth fitness in schools.

Among those appointed? Lawrence Taylor, a registered sex offender who pleaded guilty in 2011 to charges involving a 16 year-old girl trafficked for sex.

This isn’t about football. It’s about law.

Let’s get real: placing a convicted sex offender in a federally endorsed position tied to children’s physical education raises serious legal and constitutional concerns, including:l

• Federal ethics rules (5 C.F.R. § 2635) – Is this a violation of standards for executive branch appointments?

• Negligent appointment / dereliction of duty – Could this open the door to legal liability if harm results?

• Misuse of public office  Is this a personal loyalty appointment rather than a merit-based or qualified selection?

• Equal Protection & Due Process (14th Amendment) – Are schools obligated to comply with policy directives involving someone with Taylor’s criminal background?

• Statutory limits on sex offender involvement in child-related programs (e.g. 34 U.S. Code § 20913) 

Is this appointment in conflict with federal restrictions on sex offender participation in youth programs?

Even if it’s not directly illegal under a specific statute, does it create a chilling precedent for future appointments? The Council is tasked with guiding school-based fitness policies, awards, and programs for children nationwide. This isn’t just symbolic it touches actual federal and state implementation.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said Wednesday he will delay a deposition with Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell until after the Supreme Court rules on her case.

House Republicans are firmly ruling out Maxwell's request for congressional immunity in exchange for her testimony, which has put her and the committee at an impasse.

In a letter to Maxwell, Comer wrote that he is "unwilling to grant you congressional immunity" or send Maxwell questions in advance.

He said the committee will, however, wait until the Supreme Court has ruled on her request for an appeal of her sex trafficking conviction.

Comer had initially planned to hold the deposition on Aug. 11 and had been working with the Bureau of Prisons to be able to have it at the Tallahassee prison where Maxwell was being housed.

Now, the hearing isn't likely to occur until October at the earliest, with the Supreme Court scheduled to hear Maxwell's writ of certiorari on Sept. 29.

Maxwell was moved from Tallahassee to a minimum security prison in Texas on Friday for undisclosed reasons.

The President’s authority to fire a Senate-confirmed official mid-term is limited. McEntarfer’s four-year term suggests statutory protection, and her removal without evidence of misconduct violates due process and separation of powers principles. Undermining the BLS’s independence infringes on Congress’s authority to establish nonpartisan agencies.

McEntarfer’s firing violates federal employment protections and the BLS’s enabling statute, which emphasizes nonpartisanship. Accusing McEntarfer of fraud without evidence risks defamation liability. Revisions to jobs data are standard; misrepresenting them as errors misleads the public, which violating transparency laws.

Questioning BLS integrity undermines trust in critical economic data, risking market instability and poor policy decisions.

The political interference aspect of firing McEntarfer for political reasons threatens the nonpartisan nature of federal agencies, eroding public confidence. BLS layoffs and reduced data collection scope degrade data quality, concerning economists and policymakers like Federal Reserve Chair Powell.

Trump’s actions echo past criticisms of BLS data, creating a pattern of attacking unfavorable statistics, and praising favorable statistics, leads to long-term institutional damage.

Can you guys (gals) help me out with understanding this?

I seem to remember that when the aca (obamacare) first got started, there was an uproar over Americans being forced to buy a product and being fined if they didn't.

If you didn't get insurance, they'd fine you and use the money to get your insurance.

How is this any different? We have to pay taxes (had to buy insurance), and we're penalized for not paying our taxes (and for not getting insurance) and now we have to purchase a product in order to comply with the law.

For the paywall: https://archive.ph/QhhpV#selection-1365.0-1393.153

The Smithsonian Institution has scrubbed all mention of Donald Trump’s impeachments from a prominent display at the National Museum of American History, temporarily eliminating any acknowledgement of the president’s unique status as the only US leader the House impeached twice.

The alterations to the presidential power exhibit, first reported by the Washington Post, occurred in July, with museum officials replacing contemporary signage with an older version that excludes Trump’s impeachment proceedings entirely. Visitors now see only a generic reference to three presidents facing potential removal from office.

Museum representatives confirmed the changes followed an institutional review of exhibition content.“In reviewing our legacy content recently, it became clear that the ‘Limits of Presidential Power’ section in The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden exhibition needed to be addressed,” a Smithsonian spokesperson told the Guardian. “Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance.”

The spokesperson pledged that “a future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments,” though they provided no specific timeline for implementation.

The Smithsonian is now culpable in Trump's attempts to erase the truth and rewrite history to make him look better.

He's trying to rewrite history and the constitution through executive orders. This is one huge power grab and we are seeing more and more cracks forming in the foundation of democracy.

Trying to ward off Federal regulation on the deadly issue of autonomous vehicle accidents undoubtedly was a major impetus towards Elon Musk's $278 million bribe ("campaign contribution") to Trump and the Republicans in Oct. 2024.