Paul A. Jesteadt

Progressive. Multicultural pluralism. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
- MLK Jr.

[Hal Singer @halsinger]

Thanks to @BernieSanders for getting this GAO report published. No huge surprise that gig workers are increasingly dependent on food stamps and Medicaid. What’s maddening, however, is how we consider gig jobs as being “employed” when measuring unemployment. Not all jobs are equal. If more Americans must receive food stamps to supplement their gig work, the labor market is not thriving, regardless of the seemingly low unemployment rate.

[The New Republic @newrepublic]

Between 2020 and 2025, Walmart increased its profits from nearly $15 billion to nearly $22 billion. Meanwhile, the number of Walmart employees relying on Medicaid in the 11 states sampled in the GAO report increased by 55 percent. https://t.co/XN9zxKxPph

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

As I said months ago, Trump's war strategy is straight out of the authoritarian's playbook.

[Hal Singer @halsinger]

A bill in Massachusetts, H.99, would ban grocers from using biometric data collected on their premises to personalize prices. In my latest with Gavin Sicard, we make the economic case in support of a such a ban. The only winners from personalized pricing are the companies engaged in the practice. Personalized pricing also creates new costs borne by consumers because its data requirements incentivize companies to invade our privacy wherever they can. (Link to follow)

[Democracy Docket @DemocracyDocket]

NEW: 25 states and D.C. are suing FEMA and DHS for allegedly withholding billions in disaster funds in an attempt to coerce states into implementing Trump's anti-voting policies.

The aid is meant to provide a vast range of disaster services, from mitigating earthquakes to managing wildfires.

[Mother Jones @MotherJones]

After Trump launched his war on immigration, millions of people sprang into action against ICE’s raids, killings, and mass detentions.

But what looked spontaneous was the product of years of organizing, adapting as ICE became more powerful, mobile, and difficult to track. https://t.co/sRYWjo6l6z

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

Republicans in Congress think you’re stupid.

They put a Congressional stock trading “ban” up for a vote in the House. Seems like a good thing right?

Except their “ban” lets lawmakers and their families keep every stock they already own.

They can continue voting on legislation and making decisions that affect those companies. Then, they can sell those stocks and cash out.

In other words, the conflict of interest stays. They’re betting they can slap the word “BAN” on a bill and count on you never reading the fine print.

And guess who would face no restrictions whatsoever? The biggest offender of them all: Donald Trump.

Trump’s accounts have made thousands of trades involving hundreds of millions of dollars since January, and this bill would let him keep doing exactly that.

We need a real ban on owning and trading individual stocks that applies to members of Congress, their families, the President, and the Vice President.

No loopholes. No special exceptions.

They think you’re stupid, but we know better. Do not fall for this complete sham of a “ban.”

[Acyn @Acyn]

Jessica: California prosecutors working for Gavin Newsom, busted a hospice fraud wearing, $267 million in fraud, they were doing that without the administration. California submitted a 60 page integrity action plan to the federal government and has gotten no response.

Watters: That’s not true.

Jessica: Yes it is true. Here are three facts that you cannot refute. Newsom signed a hospice licensing moratorium in 2021. The Trump administration replicated it in 2026. The Trump administration even praised Newsom's crackdown on EBT fraud. They had an 80% drop. And then there is the elephant in the room, which is that Donald Trump has either commuted the sentences of or pardoned people who have defrauded American people through the medicare and medicaid system to the tune of almost $2 billion. So they want us to take RFK JR or Donald Trump seriously when they talk about fraud and they are pardoning the fraudsters themselves. That reeks to me.

[The New Republic @newrepublic]

Trump Invents the Corporate Pardon https://t.co/qj0RiDp5K2

[More Perfect Union @MorePerfectUS]

In the year since Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill, over 5 million Americans have lost SNAP, and Southern and Midwestern states were hit the hardest:

- Arizona lost 54% of its SNAP enrollees. That’s over 437,000 residents, including 183,000 children, without SNAP benefits.

- Georgia's SNAP enrollment dropped 22%, or around 522,000 people.

- Louisiana and Florida both saw a 22% decline in enrollment, with 9,000 children in Louisiana losing coverage.

The average U.S. SNAP enrollment is -12%. The only territory with increased enrollment is Guam.

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

Trump's nominee to run the CFPB, Brian Johnson, is a former Capitol One executive who previously consulted for payday lenders and credit reporting agencies

Now he could lead the very agency meant to rein those predatory companies in.

The fox is in the henhouse. https://t.co/2UqBh2oBvg

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

BitMEX was fined 100 million dollars for running what prosecutors called a money laundering platform. Trump pardoned the company and its executives the same week that fine came due, a use of the pardon power that never existed before this presidency, since a pardon has always cleared a record, not erased a debt already scheduled for payment. Nine corporate pardons total now, wiping out roughly 200 million dollars in fines, some of it money meant for actual victims.

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

65% of Americans support Medicare for All that would “replace most private insurance plans” and corporate Dems’ new think tank @SearchlightInst is announcing their faction’s opposition ahead of the midterm elections

it is impossible to overstate how much the DC elite who run the Democratic Party truly hate you

[The Daily Beast @thedailybeast]

Stephen Miller went on a bizarre rant about “communist” Democrats that curiously referenced a number of Donald Trump’s own actions since returning to office last year. https://t.co/bscZLlaU3M

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

Stephen Miller went on Hannity last night and accused Democrats of wanting to seize private industry and hand it to the government. The Trump administration currently holds equity stakes or governance rights in at least ten companies, Intel, IBM, US Steel, MP Materials, and others, at a scale researchers at CSIS and the Cato Institute both describe as unprecedented outside of wartime or economic crisis. Not a hypothetical. Not a scary campaign ad. An actual, ongoing federal ownership stake in the chipmaker that makes your phone's processor.

He said Democrats want to abolish the Constitution. This is the same administration that tried to end birthright citizenship, a right written into the 14th Amendment, through executive order, and got struck down by the Supreme Court for it. The same administration whose Department of Homeland Security has instructed agents to enter homes without warrants, a direct Fourth Amendment violation. The same administration that has tried to suspend the constitutional right to habeas corpus for people it wants to deport without a hearing.

He said Democrats want to abolish the jury system. His own Justice Department just had criminal charges thrown out because of grand jury misconduct so severe a judge couldn't let it stand.

And he said all this after bypassing Congress two hundred seventy separate times through executive order since Trump took office, according to Ballotpedia's own count, while accusing the other party of wanting to abolish the Senate.

This is a man who has never held a job outside government payroll accusing the opposition of wanting to nationalize industry, days after his own boss nationalized part of Intel. Hannity laughed and called it priceless. That's the tell. Nobody on that set actually believed a word of it. They just liked how it sounded.

[Mother Jones @MotherJones]

Meet the man working to make the defense secretary richer—and has helped lay the groundwork for Israeli influence on top Trump officials.

In March 2022, Pete Hegseth, then a Fox News analyst and host, spoke at a dinner put on by the Israel Heritage Foundation, a conservative Jewish group that has worked to boost US support for the Israeli far right.

The mostly unmemorable event was held at a midtown Manhattan restaurant to honor former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then a potential presidential candidate yet to fall from Donald Trump’s graces. But one notable aside came when Hegseth singled out the IHF’s honorary chairman, Jonathan Burkan, saying they had become friends.

“Jon has a force of personality that you will never underestimate,” Hegseth said, before adding. “He manages my money now. It’s true.”

Burkan, who works at Morgan Stanley, remained Hegseth’s wealth manager after the TV personality became defense secretary last year. A person with knowledge of the arrangement said Burkan works most closely with Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer Rauchet, who manages the couple’s finances and also functions as a Pentagon adviser.

At the same time he’s working to make Hegseth richer, Burkan acts as a high-level advocate for Israeli interests.

Don't miss Dan Friedman's report: https://t.co/teQS73R49l

[Democracy Docket @DemocracyDocket]

Republicans can’t win the midterms on merit. So they’re resorting to voter suppression.

“If you’re the Republican Party, what matters most right now is how do you decrease the number of people who can vote for Democrats.”

Don’t let them get away with it. Help us fight back: https://t.co/auxKGg1rl7

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

On his first day back in office, Trump rescinded Biden's ethics pledge banning executive branch appointees from lobbying their former agencies for 2 years.

Now multiple ex-Trump officials are lobbying their former offices on behalf of Big Oil, crypto, and private equity.

"Drain the swamp." https://t.co/1bVrIZLCwB

[Mother Jones @MotherJones]

Ashley Brouillette said one of her last interactions with her ex-husband was a three-minute voicemail in which David told her that someone should slit her and her daughters’ throats.

Last week, she was asked if she recognized her David among the ICE agents after a fatal shooting in Maine. She did. https://t.co/13PHBaJYa4

[Acyn @Acyn]

Dexter: It is despicable that the American people are being kept in the dark. What we are doing to the Cuban people is immoral. It is strangling an entire country because of Marco Rubio’s personal vendetta. People don’t have gas or electricity, they can’t go to school, and they have no health care because everything is shut down.