Jacob Brown

You can never have too much candy corn... or Peeps...

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

OMFG!

Trump literally just celebrated a massive increase in our trade deficit.

He doesn’t even know what a “widening of our trade deficit” means. He thinks it means that we are exporting more than we’re importing, which would be good, but it means the exact opposite.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Scientists at Trump’s EPA say they are being told to make chemical risks “disappear on paper.” Not to study or manage them, but to make them vanish.

When a safety test on a household chemical shows danger, supervisors reportedly ask to keep shrinking the scenario until the poison looks safe.

They have reassigned senior scientists to paperwork and handed life-and-death risk assessments to staff with less experience. They have installed former chemical industry lobbyists to run the very offices that are supposed to regulate the chemical industry.

A gift to industry, paid for with your family’s health.

They are even throwing out research on how certain chemicals hit certain communities harder, calling decades of established science “DEI.”

You can make risk disappear on paper.

The cancer does not disappear.

The birth defects do not disappear.

The infertility does not disappear.

The kids drinking the water and getting sick do not disappear.

The EPA exists to protect people, not to protect the profit margins of the people poisoning them.

Every American deserves to know what is happening. #TrumpMakesUsSick

https://t.co/5DwXgxBybt

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

What if I told you that conspiring to steal a presidential election is now a pardonable offense — as long as you were doing it for Donald Trump?

Rudy Giuliani was ordered by a jury to pay nearly $150 million to Georgia election workers he lied about on national television. Mark Meadows was indicted in Arizona as part of an 18-person plot to overturn that state's results. Trump pardoned both of them, then called their prosecutions “a grave national injustice.”

The message is clear: to Trump, personal loyalty is worth more than the Constitution.

Welcome to Episode 7 of the Pardon Papers.

[Ignatius van Zyl @naasvzyl]

@MikeLevin The Congress you're appealing to doesn't exist anymore, it's been replaced by a Congress owned by AIPAC. The President has free reign do loot as much as he can, AIPAC's Congress won't impeach him, as long as he obeys AIPAC command.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Trump’s budget director Russ Vought is the most dangerous person you’ve never heard of.

And he just proposed turning every federal grant into a loyalty test.

His plan would make funding for cancer research, housing, transportation, and public health depend on one thing: whether it “advances the President’s policy priorities.”

Not whether it works.

Not whether Congress authorized it.

Whether it pleases Trump.

This is the appropriations power. It belongs to Congress and to the people.
To my Republican colleagues: where are you?

Congress passed this funding. You voted for it.

Vought is telling you to your faces that your votes do not matter, that he and his enablers will override the law whenever it suits them. Every day you stay silent, you give away the institution you were elected to defend.

Grow a spine.

This is not about left or right.

It is about whether Congress still exists as a coequal branch, or whether we have quietly surrendered the purse to an unelected hack who holds the Constitution in contempt.

History will remember who stood up and who looked away.
https://t.co/2yHKBTNLbj

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

As President, I would read 10 letters a day sent to me by ordinary Americans. At the Obama Presidential Center, we’ll have some of the letters I read — and responded to — every night. I still get emotional reading them, and it’s one of my favorite exhibits.

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

Trump wants to hand out 250 pardons this summer to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. 

And guess who’s lining up for a pardon? Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted of helping sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein recruit and groom underage girls. Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto fraudster convicted of one of the biggest financial frauds in American history, who wiped out the life savings of thousands of ordinary people. Jho Low, accused of stealing $4.5 billion from his own country’s government. 

Welcome to the latest episode of the Pardon Papers. 

A presidential pardon is one of the most serious decisions a president can make. It exists for when the justice system genuinely gets something wrong, not to be handed out by the hundreds. 

The President of the United States is not a king. What Trump is doing is an abuse of power, plain and simple. I’m fighting for a constitutional amendment to put limits on it, because no president should be able to do this. Not now. Not ever.

[DevilDog Diaries🇺🇲 @cjdelgross]

So what does a $3,000,000 payoff buy you?

Just weeks before the 2023 impeachment trial, a pro-Ken Paxton PAC handed Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick $3M in campaign cash and loans.

Coincidentally, Patrick and the Senate rewrote the rules to ensure Paxton walked free.

Here is how the trial was engineered from day one:

The "Wife Math" Trick

* Senator Angela Paxton (Ken’s wife) was banned from voting due to conflict of interest.
* Yet, Patrick's rules forced her to sit in the chamber during the vote anyway.
* By counting her as "present," the 2/3 conviction threshold stayed at 21 votes.
* Her silent seat mathematically functioned as an automatic "No" vote.

The 6-Month Jail Threat

* Patrick slapped an aggressive, unprecedented gag order on the entire Capitol.
* Any senator or witness who spoke out faced up to 6 months in a county jail.
* He even banned live floor debate—senators voted in total, mandated silence.

The Fifth Amendment Shield

* Impeachment is a political process, meaning defendants usually must take the stand.
* Patrick broke precedent and ruled that Paxton could skip testifying entirely.
* This completely shielded the Attorney General from hostile cross-examination.

The Hidden Charges

* The Texas House sent over 20 serious articles of impeachment.
* Senate rules immediately sliced off 4 of the most damaging felony securities fraud charges.
* The moment the rigged trial ended, those 4 remaining charges were quietly erased.

The Bottom Line
When the umpire rewrites the rulebook and banks a multimillion-dollar check from your biggest fans, the game is over before it even starts. The 2023 trial wasn't an execution of justice—it was a masterclass in institutional corruption that paved the exact runway Paxton is using to run for the U.S. Senate today.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Follow the money on this one. It is rotten to the core.

The Pentagon just lent $620,000,000 to a tiny North Carolina startup called Vulcan Elements. The company is two years old.

It had fewer than 50 employees.

And three months before the deal was announced, Donald Trump Jr.’s venture firm quietly took a stake in it.

Here is the part the administration tried to bury.

Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was weighing, Vulcan was the only deal initiated by a top White House aide. That aide was Peter Navarro, a close friend of Trump Jr. The order came down to move fast.

One official put it plainly: The call came from the White House. We have to get this done.

Staff worked late nights to push it through in weeks. Deals like this normally take many months of vetting. And when it closed, Vulcan’s valuation jumped from about 200 million dollars to roughly 2 billion.

A windfall for the investors, including the president’s son.

This is public money. Your money.

Routed through the Pentagon to enrich the president’s family and their friends. The Bush administration’s own chief ethics lawyer called it corruption we pay for.

And there is more coming.

A drone parts company Trump Jr. holds a stake in is also under Pentagon review.

This is not a one-off. It is a pattern. The president’s family is treating the federal Treasury like a private bank, and the bill lands on every taxpayer.

https://t.co/4kB1cZNmlE

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Samuel Alito’s son has worked as a lawyer inside Trump’s Treasury Department since early last year. The administration hid it.

No public resume, no LinkedIn, no mention on the Treasury website, outdated bar listings. Four former officials confirmed it.

The public was never told.

Here is why that matters.

Philip Alito served as an attorney-adviser in Treasury’s general counsel office, briefed on department matters across the board, while the Supreme Court took up a case in which the Treasury Department was a named defendant.

The department never disclosed the connection in court.

Justice Alito did not recuse.

The federal recusal law is plain. A justice must step aside in any case where his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

That is the test.

Not whether anyone can prove influence but whether a reasonable person looking at this would doubt it. A justice ruling on cases involving the very agency that employs his son fails that test on its face.

And Treasury sits at the center of many upcoming issues, including the fight over Trump’s $1.776 billion dollar fund to reward the January 6th rioters he pardoned. That fight could be headed to the Court too.

This is exactly why the honor system has failed.

The Supreme Court is the only court in America with no enforceable code of conduct. I support withholding funding from the Court until the justices adopt a binding code with real recusal review.

Congress holds the power of the purse.

We should use it.

https://t.co/t2aZrXpaoU

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

🚨BREAKING: Rep. Ansari stepped out of Pam Bondi's Epstein files interview to tell the American people what's happening behind closed doors.

"The DOJ has been weaponized by Donald Trump to ensure that the most massive cover-up in American history is carried out."

She didn't stop there.

Ansari also accused James Comer, Mike Johnson, and Republican leadership of helping enable it.

They’re not even trying to hide it anymore. A total sham.

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

🚨BREAKING: Right-wing streamer Cam Higby was caught on video walking up to a group of protesters and pepper spraying multiple people, outside the Newark ICE Facility.

Then, as people reacted to being sprayed, an armed man pulled him away, telling him, “It’s not worth it… it’s time to go.”

Last time I checked… walking up to a group of people and spraying them with a chemical irritant is commonly charged as assault or battery.

And then, after spraying the crowd, the video show Higby, and the armed man, running into the ICE facility while agents allowed them inside.

Imagine the outrage if a left-wing activist walked up to a group of conservatives, pepper sprayed them, and then disappeared behind federal gates.

The headlines would never stop.

The law is supposed to apply equally to everyone.

[Team Talarico @TeamTalaricoHQ]

This is Nate Paul.

He was under FBI investigation for fraud. His real estate empire was collapsing after 18 properties filed for bankruptcy in a single year.

He wrote Ken Paxton a $25,000 check.

Then Paxton directed his AG’s office to hand Paul confidential investigative files.

They blocked foreclosure sales on his properties.

And they sided with Paul against the charity he was accused of defrauding.

Nate Paul even employed Paxton's mistress at Paxton’s recommendation.

Paxton's own senior staff reported his corruption to the FBI. They were fired.

This is what Ken Paxton does when he’s in a position of power — and it’s why he should be nowhere near the U.S. Senate.

[Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom]

This week alone:

DOJ opens an investigation into the woman Trump raped.

The White House is caught steering a $620 million contract to Don Jr.’s firm.

The Pentagon hands out a $10 billion contract after Trump buys stock in the company.

Foreign governments are caught funneling hundreds of millions into a random JPMorgan account tied to Trump’s “Board of Peace” with no oversight.

It’s just Thursday.

The corruption isn’t hidden anymore. It’s happening out in the open.

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

The Republican Party quietly deleted their own ad attacking Ken Paxton's record on crime... because Paxton is now the Republican Party's nominee to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate.

Figured if the ad is important enough to delete, it's important enough to see...

[Senator Dick Durbin @SenatorDurbin]

Just one week after tobacco giant Reynolds donated $5 million to MAGA Inc. and dined with Trump at his golf club, President Trump directed FDA to authorize the sale of flavored vapes.

This corruption is poisoning our kids and unleashing a new wave of addiction on America.

[Team Talarico @TeamTalaricoHQ]

This is Ken Paxton's mugshot.

He was indicted on 3 felony counts for investment fraud.

He was reported to the FBI by his own staff for bribery.

He was impeached by his own party for corruption.

Now he’s the Republican nominee for US Senate in Texas.

Together we will stop him.

[Qasim Rashid, Esq. @QasimRashid]

BREAKING: Adam Hoffman has been released from jail for "good behavior."

Hoffman is the 49-year-old Waco, TX attorney who faced life without parole for repeatedly raping a young boy, until Texas AG Ken Paxton offered him 1 day in jail and no need to register as a sex offender. A judge increased his sentence to a whopping 60 days. He got out in 30 days.

This is MAGA's vision for the USA. Full story: https://t.co/cU1WnZKAfr