ModerateVoters.org - Gary A. Butts, Founder

The #1 source of moderate / centrist news, thoughts, and commentaries.
"'Moderate' is not a 4-letter word." Gary A. Butts, Founder.

[ModerateVoters.org - Gary A. Butts, Founder @ModerateVoters]

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[Marlene Robertson🇨🇦 @marlene4719]

Hilary Clinton, who didn’t even know Jeffrey Epstein, had to testify before Congress.

Yet Melania Trump, who was Jeffrey Epstein’s sloppy seconds, and who knows EVERYTHING gets a pass.

[Ted Lieu @tedlieu]

Dear @SecretaryWright: Some deep questions for your deep thoughts:

-Did you know the sun still shines during winter?

-Did you know that solar panels rely on sunlight rather than warmth?

In fact, solar panels can operate even more efficiently during the winter.

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

Trump promised not to “touch” Medicaid.

Now he is cutting it by $1 trillion and taking health care away from patients with cancer, AIDS and other life-threatening diseases to pay for tax breaks to the top 1% and his wealthy campaign contributors.

Unimaginable cruelty.

[Molly Ploofkins @Mollyploofkins]

Rep. Angie Craig admonishes Brooke Rollins: "Joe Biden is no longer the president. Mr. Trump is. Your party controls Congress. You own these numbers at this point. I'm sick of hearing you blame an administration from a year and half ago. You own every single bit of this."

[FactPost @factpostnews]

At least 97 January 6th insurrectionists have been charged with or convicted of crimes after being pardoned by Trump.

[VoteVets @votevets]

BREAKING: Rep. Pat Ryan just got the House Armed Services Committee UNANIMOUSLY to force Pete Hegseth to explain every senior military firing within the next 5 days. Hegseth has fired 24+ officers without cause or explanation. Even Republicans want answers.

[Annie @AnnieForTruth]

Ryan Fournier, 30 yr old co-founder of ‘Students for Trump’ was arrested for domestic violence. After being drunk & passed out, he punched his girlfriend 2-3 times with a closed fist when awakened and made threats including “I will kill everyone here.” https://t.co/eBUH1dRSn3

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

The most darkly funny aspect of this video is that Ivanka Trump speaks as if she went on some profound, prolonged spiritual and philosophical journey to ascertain the meaning of life, and concluded that the most elevated human state is to live on a gigantic private island in the Mediterranean, in a sprawling mansion paid for with the billions of dollars given to her husband by the Saudis and Emiratis to ensure favorable treatment by him and by her dad in their exercise of the powers of the American Presidency. Real uplifting stuff. 🙏

[Ted Lieu @tedlieu]

cc: @SecRubio

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Hunter Biden SHREDS the media's double standard toward the Trump family in one devastating post — and EVERY word is documented.

Hunter Biden just posted something on X that cuts right to the heart of America's broken media landscape — and it's IMPOSSIBLE to argue with.

"So let me get this straight," he wrote. "Jake Tapper is focused on attacking my Mom," referring to the comments the CNN anchor has made about disbelieving some of the claims in Jill Biden’s latest memoir.

"Meanwhile, Jared and Ivanka are building a private island paradise on Albanian protected land." TRUE. Over 100,000 Albanians are in the streets. Anti-corruption prosecutors have opened an investigation. Flamingo habitats are being bulldozed. It BARELY registers on mainstream media.

"Don Jr. married the daughter of Epstein's banker." Also TRUE. While Epstein survivors read their FBI abuse reports aloud outside the Justice Department, Pam Bondi refused to answer a even a SINGLE question about Trump and the Epstein files, and DOJ lawyers intervened to make sure she didn't.

"A startup that Donald Jr. fund backs just got a record $620 million Pentagon loan." FACTCHECK: ALSO TRUE. While Trump's own financial disclosures show him trading stock in companies his administration then hands billion-dollar contracts to, Don Jr.'s SHADY investment connections to Pentagon contractors receive almost NO scrutiny from mainstream media.

"Eric is taking an Israeli drone company public for $1.5 billion in the middle of a war with Iran that nobody wanted." Also TRUE, but that story got almost NO coverage.

And then Hunter Biden delivered the punchline that lands like a sledgehammer: "And I know: 'But what about your paintings, Hunter?'"

HUNTER IS 100% RIGHT: His art sales, laptop, and legal troubles consumed years of breathless media coverage. The Trump children's CORRUPT overseas business deals, foreign investments, Pentagon contracts, and connections to Jeffrey Epstein's associates a free pass.

And while Jake Tapper attacks Jill Biden is being attacked for a book, Jared Kushner is bulldozing protected wetlands for a $4 billion resort while his father-in-law runs foreign policy, while raising BILLIONS from shady deals with foreign governments.

There is simply NO comparison!

Please like and share!

[Xavier Becerra @XavierBecerra]

Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. He lost California by millions of votes in the 2024 election, and now he's trying to undermine confidence in our elections because he’s a repeat loser here.

Sorry Donald, the voters decide who leads California. Not you.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

The Kennedy Center ordered employees to remove President Trump’s name from the performing arts venue, strip all references from signs, brochures, the website and other materials — and to update email signatures and letterhead immediately. https://t.co/1J2FEPH33q

[Acyn @Acyn]

Boyle: 71% of the American people disapprove on the president's handling of inflation.

Bessent: The American people were torched under the Biden administration.

Boyle: I wish I had a dollar for every time you or on someone on the Republican side brought up Biden's name. If I did, I might have as much money as you have

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

🚨WHERE IS THE MEDIA??

Trump just said the number 25,000 is bigger than a MILLION. The decline of his brain is now catastrophic.

“Where Martin Luther King made his great speech…he had a million people and I had 25,000 people. I had more people.” Wow.

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

The Trump administration has been telling you they had screwworm under control for months. Now, it's here.

What happened? Trump and DOGE slashed funding for screwworm monitoring programs.

And the entire GOP let them. Thank them for today's new hell they unleashed on you.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

More than half of the publicly identified donors to President Trump’s White House ballroom project have won new or expanded federal contracts worth more than $50 billion, according to a report from a government watchdog group. https://t.co/wEAqxMA7AG

[Miles Taylor @MilesTaylorUSA]

Yesterday Donald Trump tripled the size of his personal political army inside the government. Illegally. And almost no one noticed.

Here's what happened:

He signed an order converting ~8,000 of the most senior career officials in government into employees he can fire for any reason, or no reason at all.

These aren't rando's. They're the directors, chiefs of staff, and the people who write the rules or decide who gets federal money, i.e. the lieutenants right below his political appointees.

Until yesterday, they answered to the law. Now they answer to him.

A president normally gets ~4,000 political appointees. People he can bring into government and fire at will. I was one of them at DHS. You serve at his pleasure, full stop -- so if you're gonna speak truth to power, you're prepared to quit (or get fired if he doesn't like it).

The rest of the federal government is PROTECTED from firing if they tell the truth.

But Trump just stripped those protections. Adding 8,000 more people to his personal army. Overnight. Without asking Congress.

With the stroke of a pen, those people now serve at the pleasure of the president. They're "his" people, whether they like it or not.

And the chilling effect is real. An official who can be fired this afternoon for "subversion of presidential directives" (the order's own words) doesn't need to be hand-picked to know what's expected of him or her.

The threat does all the work.

By the way, this order is illegal. The law only lets Trump reclassify jobs when "necessary" in exceptional circumstances. And this blows an 8,000-person hole in the merit hiring / firing system created by Congress.

Without permission, Trump has created a whole new category of stormtroopers inside the Executive Branch.

If this doesn't get challenged in court, you're going to see the U.S. government become a very different place.

Here's the full story: https://t.co/mJzrvzhxGR

[Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof]

Trump, Musk and Rubio slashed aid and scoffed that it was woke nonsense. Now they're seeing that it not only saved one life every 10 seconds but also protected us from diseases like Ebola. Their actions constituted a security failure as well as a moral one.
More broadly, their fecklessness contrasts with the courage and humanity of doctors and aid workers in Congo and Uganda, lacking adequate PPE but still risking the virus to care for fellow humans.
Trump, Musk and Rubio might learn something from them. https://t.co/kPKj7fqJFZ

[Liz Landers @ElizLanders]

PBS News has obtained a memo that was sent today to Kennedy Center staff that says that President Trump’s name has to be removed from Kennedy Center signage, promo materials, website, etc. It must happen by June 12, according to the center’s office of general counsel.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

Texas barbecue joints are closing due to skyrocketing beef prices, particularly brisket, which is a staple on the menus. Inflation, tariffs and labor shortages all play a role.

Even the state's most celebrated restaurants are struggling to remain open. https://t.co/l2lYkI1tg2