Politics

The Trump administration is doing an outstanding job of obliterating every last shred of affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. But they can’t do it alone.  Enter America First, the legal group founded by current White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, here to lend a helping hand. So, the group just filed a complaint with the Department of Justice demanding an “immediate investigation and enforcement action” into Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.  You can pretty much guess what the letter says, because it’s just the same ghoulish racist rhetoric that Miller has been engaging in since he was a teenager. Per America First, Johns Hopkins is discriminating on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, and “other impermissible immutable characteristics.” “Trump’s New Whip” by Tim Campbell. The complaint pretends that the real concern of the professional racists over at America First is the safety of Americans. Yes, they are just looking out for you, because if medical schools admit anyone but white dudes, basically, they are going to become subpar physicians, and that “endangers public trust in the medical system itself.” But the eroding of public trust is already happening. The administration is currently letting Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. trash public health efforts, instead pushing his anti-vaccine quackery. Cuts at the National Institutes of Health are endangering cancer research, because everyone knows that fighting cancer is woke, or something.  Normally, it wouldn’t be logical or fair to attribute those actions of the administration to a private legal group like America First. But America First is nothing but an extension of Miller’s work in the administration. So the private law firm founded by Miller can tee up complaints so that the administration can “investigate” those complaints. Indeed, the group’s complaint is essentially the same as the administration’s announcement back in March—that it was investigating Johns Hopkins over DEI.  Procedurally, it’s glaringly obvious that the complaint was filed as a fig leaf to give the DOJ another tool to attack Johns Hopkins. The administration has been targeting the school for months, sending the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism to Johns Hopkins and nine other schools.  America First could have filed a lawsuit against Johns Hopkins and made the same demands, but then they wouldn’t have had the option to tee up a sweetheart settlement of their complaint, allowing the DOJ to run roughshod over Johns Hopkins. America First would also have needed a plaintiff to file a lawsuit, but they don’t need one to file a complaint.  That’s not just cynical speculation. It’s basically what the administration already did by filing a sham lawsuit against the state of Texas over its law granting in-state tuition to undocumented students. The state settled with the DOJ the same day the suit was filed, with Texas declaring its own law unconstitutional.  Related | Texas throws immigrants under the bus as it caves to DOJ It isn’t clear if America First quite intended to say the quiet part out loud, but their racist screed takes a step that was inevitable, but is still disgusting. The argument is that if Johns Hopkins considers socioeconomic status in admissions, that’s actually still affirmative action because “wealth and income gaps vary significantly between racial groups, with Black and Hispanic households possessing a fraction of the wealth held by White and Asian households. By leveraging these disparities, Johns Hopkins masks racial preferences behind income thresholds.”  Yes, that’s an argument Johns Hopkins is doing forbidden DEI by admitting students with lower incomes, because the poors are all Black or Hispanic. To grant America First’s demands here, Johns Hopkins would have to stop admitting students from lower-income families. Well, unless they’re white, of course.  This is in keeping with the overall thrust of the Trump administration to make it harder for anyone except rich white people to obtain advanced degrees. The “One Big, Beautiful Bill” capped student loans at an amount that makes it impossible for a lower- or average-income student to go to medical school. Johns Hopkins, for example, costs about $72,000 per year, or $288,000 total, but graduate student loans are capped at $100,000 total. The administration is also functionally killing Public Service Loan Forgiveness, so anyone who chooses a lower-paying public service job will be absolutely hobbled by their loans forever.  Just like the administration, America First pretends that if you simply eradicate all efforts to attract anyone except white, straight, moneyed men, then you will get people chosen on pure merit. Except in this administration, “merit” means people like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, objectively unqualified people who got their jobs because Trump watches a lot of Fox News. A medical school filled with dudes like that is the real danger. 

President Donald Trump filed a $10 million lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch Friday, a day after the newspaper published a story reporting on his ties to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein The move came shortly after the Justice Department asked a federal court on Friday to unseal grand jury transcripts in Epstein’s sex trafficking case, as the administration tries to contain a firestorm that erupted after it previously announced it would not be releasing additional government files from the case. Trump had promised the lawsuit after thet Journal put the spotlight on his relationship with Epstein, publishing an article that described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Trump denies writing the letter, calling the story “false, malicious, and defamatory.” Related | Justice Department asks court to unseal Jeffrey Epstein grand jury records In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump cast the lawsuit as part of his efforts to punish news outlets, including ABC and CBS, which both reached multimillion-dollar settlement deals with the president after he took them to court. “This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite President, ME, but also in order to continue standing up for ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media,” he wrote. A representative of Dow Jones, the Journal’s publisher, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. The letter revealed by The Wall Street Journal was reportedly collected by disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell as part of a birthday album for Epstein years before the wealthy financier was first arrested in 2006 and subsequently had a falling-out with Trump. The letter bearing Trump’s name includes text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ends with, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,” according to the newspaper. Trump denied writing the letter and promised to sue. He said he spoke to both to the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its top editor, Emma Tucker, before the story was published and told them the letter was “fake.” “These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures,” the president wrote on social media. The outlet described the contents of the letter but did not publish a photo showing it entirely or provide details on how it came to learn about it. The suit was filed in federal court in Miami. Related | Trump melts down after lewd letter to Jeffrey Epstein is made public Earlier Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche filed motions in a separate federal court urging them to unseal the Epstein transcripts as well as those in the case against Maxwell, who was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Epstein killed himself in 2019 shortly after his arrest while awaiting trial. The Justice Department’s announcement that it would not be making public any more Epstein files enraged parts of Trump’s base in part because members of his own administration had hyped the expected release and stoked conspiracies around the well-connected financier. The Justice Department said in the court filings that it will work with with prosecutors in New York to make appropriate redactions of victim-related information and other personally identifying information before transcripts are released. Todd Blanche “Transparency in this process will not be at the expense of our obligation under the law to protect victims,” Blanche wrote. But despite the new push to release the grand jury transcripts, the administration has not announced plans to reverse course and release other evidence in its possession. Attorney General Pam Bondi had hyped the release of more materials after the first Epstein files disclosure in February sparked outrage because it contained no new revelations. A judge would have to approve the release of the grand jury transcripts, and it’s likely to be a lengthy process to decide what can become public and to make redactions to protect sensitive witness and victim information. The records would show testimony of witnesses and other evidence that was presented by prosecutions during the secret grand jury proceedings, when a panel decides whether there is enough evidence to bring an indictment, or a formal criminal charge.

A cartoon by Brian McFadden. Follow me on Mastodon, Bluesky, Patreon, or at my website. Related | Trump melts down after lewd letter to Jeffrey Epstein is made public

 Russ Vought, the Project 2025 architect/ghoul who now runs the Office of Management and Budget, is pretty sure that when Americans voted for Donald Trump, they were enthusiastically endorsing the idea that Trump can single-handedly decide how taxpayer money is spent. This tramples on the separation of powers, but it’s also just a comical reach to say that people who pulled the lever for Trump gave him infinite power.  On Thursday, during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting, Vought explained his vision of how the government should work to reporters. First, bipartisanship has got to go, because “literally no one” ran and won “on an agenda of a bipartisan appropriations process.” Buddy, no one ran on that because everyone else understands that the budget process is, of necessity, bipartisan. It’s that whole thing where Congress sets spending, and spending bills need 60 votes to pass. But per Vought, he doesn’t even have to talk to congressional Democrats because he is going to “change the paradigm” of budgeting.  “King Trump” by Clay Jones Somehow, cutting Democrats out of the budgeting process will make things better, according to Vought: “I actually think that over time, if we have a more partisan appropriations process—for a time—it will lead to more bipartisanship.” Yep, that is definitely how things work.  Vought grudgingly acknowledged that Congress has the power of the purse, but he has a very … unique … understanding of that: “It is one of the most constitutional foundational principles, but that power of the purse does not mean—It’s a ceiling. It is not a floor.”  Wait, what? That word salad sounds a lot like Vought thinks that Congress can pass a budget, but then Trump can cut whatever he wants. Actually, yes, that’s precisely what Vought means: “It is not the notion that you have to spend every last dollar.” If Trump can unilaterally refuse to spend money Congress has appropriated, then Congress no longer controls spending power, period.  Vought’s actions are in keeping with Trump’s view that Americans elected him to be a king, and by electing him, affirmatively agreed to anything he wants to do. It’s also in keeping with Trump’s February executive order, which essentially said that OMB gets to tell agencies what to do, and they just have to do it.  Letting Trump unilaterally cut spending is actually restoring the constitutional balance, per Vought, because it means that the executive branch is “not cowing to a legislative branch’s understanding of its own authorities and powers.”  Sure, except the plain language of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution could not be clearer about where spending power lies: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.”  Vought doesn’t care for your pesky thoughts about the Constitution, though. He’s a Christian nationalist who espouses a theory of “radical constitutionalism.” That theory is indeed radical, as it essentially requires you to throw out the whole Constitution and just say that the president is a king and Congress cannot place limits on him. The administration’s belief that all power rests with Trump has been, unfortunately, backed by both the Supreme Court and Congress. Since both of those branches have abdicated their duties to act as a check and balance on the executive branch, there is no one to stop Vought from implementing his vision, a world where Congress doesn’t matter and Trump controls everything.  Related | GOP passes bill to steal from the poor and give to the rich In case you are wondering, Vought’s vision also means even more cuts. The administration is planning on sending additional rescission packages to Congress, continuing to cut spending even though Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” already cut the whole of government to the bone to fund tax cuts for the rich and shower money on Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s hilarious to watch Vought pretend to be rooting out fraud and finding savings when his boss just added at least $2.4 trillion to the national debt to fund those tax cuts. It’s hilarious to pretend that Trump should be the arbiter of spending when he’s really terrible with money. It’s hilarious to pretend that the administration’s actions have saved Americans money when Elon Musk’s antics with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have cost the government $135 billion, which far outstrips the ostensible savings achieved by DOGE.  None of these people should be in charge of a children’s checkbook, much less the federal government.  

A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know. Trump melts down after lewd letter to Jeffrey Epstein is made public He definitely felt Thursday night’s bombshell news story. CBS cancels Trump critic Colbert’s ‘Late Show’—and faces sharp blowback CBS says it was a purely financial decision to cancel the No. 1 show in late night. Sure, buddy. Virginia Republican admits Trump is an albatross around her neck The comments are from leaked audio, and you can bet she won’t repeat it publicly. Wait, Trump’s idiotic plan to reopen Alcatraz could cost how much? Trump can’t handle his own finances, so why would he be able to handle America’s? Democrats are using Trump’s playbook and going after Fox News Another move by Fox to try and protect Dear Leader. Cartoon: He’s different … Why doesn’t ICE deport Superman? Click here to see more cartoons.

As the questions surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s life and death—questions that Donald Trump once helped whip up—tornadoed into their bajillionth news cycle, the president’s team began to privately debate ways to calm the furor: appoint a special counsel to investigate. Call on the courts to unseal documents related to the case. Have Attorney General Pam Bondi hold a news conference. Hold daily news conferences on the topic, à la Trump’s regular prime-time pandemic appearances. It dismissed every option. Any decision would ultimately come from Bondi and Trump together—or from Trump alone—and for days, the president was adamant about doing nothing. Trump was annoyed by the constant questions from reporters—had Bondi told him that his name, in fact, was in the Epstein files? (“No,” came his response)—and frustrated by his inability to redirect the nation’s attention to what he views as his successes, four White House officials and a close outside adviser told us. But more than that, Trump felt deeply betrayed by his MAGA supporters, who had believed him when he’d intimated that something was nefarious about how the Epstein case has been handled, and who now refused to believe him when he said their suspicions were actually baseless. [Jonathan Chait: Why Trump can’t make the Epstein story go away] He—the president, their leader, the martyr who had endured scandals and prosecution and an assassin’s bullet on their behalf—had repeatedly told them it was time to move on, and that alone should suffice. Why, he groused, would the White House add fuel to the fire, would it play into the media’s narrative? In particular, Trump has raged against MAGA influencers who, in his estimation, have profited and grown famous off their association with him and his political movement, according to one of the officials and the outside adviser, who is in regular touch with the West Wing. They and others we spoke with did so on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to anger Trump by talking about a subject that has become especially sensitive. Trump told the outside adviser that the “disloyal” influencers “have forgotten whose name is above the door.” “These people cash their paychecks and get their clicks all thanks to him,” the adviser told us. “The president has bigger fish to fry, and he’s said what he wants: Move on. People need to open their ears and listen to him.” But Trump’s haphazard efforts at containment—specifically, his effort to simply bulldoze through this very real scandal—came to an end last night, when The Wall Street Journal published an explosive story about a bawdy 50th-birthday letter that Trump allegedly sent to Epstein, which alluded to a shared “secret” and was framed by a drawing of a naked woman’s outline. (Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture, and has threatened to sue the paper.) Shortly after the article posted online, Trump wrote on Truth Social that because of “the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein,” he has asked Bondi to produce all relevant grand-jury testimony related to the Epstein case. Bondi immediately responded, writing, “President Trump—we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.” The Journal story underscored, yet again, the part of the Epstein saga that Trump and his allies most wish would go away: that Trump was one of Epstein’s many famous pals and had a long—and public—friendship with the hard-partying, sex-obsessed financier who pleaded guilty in 2008 to two prostitution-related crimes and became a registered sex offender. Chummy photos of the two men, including at Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago Club, abound; from 1993 to 1997, Trump flew on Epstein’s private jets seven times, according to flight logs that emerged at an Epstein-related trial; in a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein, Trump said he’d known Epstein for 15 years and praised him as a “terrific guy.” “He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Trump enthused to the magazine. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” The two reportedly had a falling-out in 2004 when Epstein bought an oceanfront Palm Beach mansion that Trump wanted. On Wednesday—after the White House had been alerted that the Journal was working on a big story, but at a moment when it still thought it might be able to kill it—Trump took to social media to blast as “past supporters” Republicans still discussing the Epstein matter. He also tore into them during an Oval Office appearance with the crown prince of Bahrain. The president declared that “some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans” had fallen for a hoax that he said had been created by the Democrats. The president also privately fumed at House Speaker Mike Johnson’s call for “transparency”—and for Trump’s Justice Department to release more files related to the Epstein case—while White House aides wondered if the apparent split could lead to further Republican defiance on other issues. [Helen Lewis: ‘Just asking questions’ got no answers about Epstein] Still, before the Journal story changed the stakes yet again, Trump did not have plans to make additional calls to MAGA media allies or Republican lawmakers, one of the officials told us; instead, the president believed that his public comments and Truth Social posts were sufficient. (Despite his ire, he did not, for instance, reach out to Johnson or his team.) “He’s being tested and doesn’t like it,” the official told us. “He doesn’t want to talk about it.” Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo once observed, “You campaign in poetry; you govern in prose.” And although the country does sometimes accept politicians who campaign in poetry and govern in prose, it is less willing to countenance those who campaign in conspiracy theory and then govern in a nothing-to-see-here-folks reality. Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida state court in 2008 and was convicted of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute. He received a generous (and controversial) plea deal and

Jeet Heer Partisan politics is making a travesty of justice. The post Jeffrey Epstein’s Victims Are Again Being Wronged by Donald Trump’s Circus appeared first on The Nation.

Steve Brodner Unitaryman. The post What Was the Joke? appeared first on The Nation.

John Nichols Progressive Caucus chair Greg Casar warns that a move to redraw Texas congressional districts will undermine democracy in the Lone Star State and beyond. The post “This Is the Biggest Threat to Our Democracy That Nobody’s Talking About” appeared first on The Nation.

President Donald Trump is in the midst of a temper tantrum after the Wall Street Journal on Thursday night published the contents of a lewd birthday note he sent to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. The note included a doodle of a naked woman and concluded, “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump has so far written four unhinged Truth Social posts trying to deny that he ever wrote the note to Epstein, who was charged with child sex trafficking in 2019 but allegedly committed suicide in prison before he faced trial. Before that, Epstein was convicted in 2008 for soliciting prostitution of a minor. Epstein counted as his friends a number of powerful men, including Trump. In 2002, Trump raved about their friends to New York magazine. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump said. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” President Donald Trump speaks to the media after arriving at Joint Base Andrews on July 15. After the Wall Street Journal’s report went live, Trump claimed online that the birthday note is “FAKE” and threatened to sue the news outlet for publishing the note’s contents. Then he claimed the note could not be real, writing in another batshit-crazy Truth Social post that the note is “not the way I talk.” “Also, I don’t draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper,” Trump wrote. However, Trump does draw pictures. A number of his doodles of the New York City skyline have been auctioned off for charity—including one that sold for $29,000 and another that sold for $16,000 in 2017. Trump also posted about the Epstein files, which his administration says don’t exist, despite the fact that many who now serve in his administration had said they should be released. To try to appease his base, which is tearing itself apart as it reckons with the fact that Trump may be part of a cover-up of the Epstein scandal, Trump said late on Thursday that he ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to release “all pertinent Grand Jury testimony” about Epstein. Legal experts say, however, that this would likely not include lists of the powerful people purported to be in the files. Then Trump tried a new line of defense about why the Epstein files—which he long said he would release—don’t exist. “If there was a ‘smoking gun’ on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the ‘files’ for four years, and had [former Attorney General Merrick] Garland and [former FBI Director James] Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!” Trump wrote. Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers are working overtime to protect and defend their Dear Leader. House Republican leadership is blocking the House from voting on a bill that would order the release of the Epstein files. Instead, Republican leaders put a toothless, nonbinding resolution on the floor that says the administration should release the files. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky speaks to reporters at the Capitol in May 2019. “Republicans spent all day writing a glorified press release to cover for a child sex abuser. What they ended up writing is a phony, non-binding resolution that does nothing,” Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts said. “I moved to make it real and release the Epstein files. Every Republican voted no. Again.” “Congress thinks you’re stupid. The rules committee passed a NON-BINDING Epstein resolution, hoping folks will accept it as real. It forces the release of NOTHING,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky—who is trying to force a vote on a bill that would legally obligate the Trump administration to release the files—wrote in a post on X. Meanwhile, other Republicans are playing cover for Trump.  Rep. Randy Fine, Republican of Florida, is irate about the WSJ report, saying he is introducing legislation to end House subscriptions to the newspaper. And Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida posted a joke doodle of a naked woman to try to claim the WSJ story was fake news.  And House Speaker Mike Johnson went on CNBC to claim that everything is fine and that Trump’s approval rating has never been higher, even though that’s patently false and his approval rating has been tanking. “His approval ratings are skyrocketing. CNN had a story a day or two ago—he was at a 90% approval rating! There’s never been a president that high,” Johnson said in a comment so absurdly false it rivals the kind of propaganda the lady in the pink dress spews about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.