TRB Jones

reporter • editor • veteran

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

Hegseth removed Chappie James's portrait from the Air Force Art Gallery and left the wall empty.

James flew 179 combat missions across two wars. First Black four-star general in US military history.

Curry passed that portrait every day for a decade. When it came down, he retired.
The wall is still empty.

[peter hurst @phurstclass]

@Kasparov63 #CNN used to be my American News Channel of choice but it is fast disappearing down the pan.
The cancer of Trump's corruption is spreading right across the American media.

[scary lawyerguy @scarylawyerguy]

Instead of just asking "is Pulte qualified to be DNI?" Can I suggest reporters just READ THE FUCKING STATUTE TO REPUBLICANS, WHICH EXPLICITLY REQUIRES (SHALL, NOT MAY!) THE PERSON TO HAVE "EXTENSIVE NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERTISE."

[Lucas Sanders 👊🏽🔥🇺🇸 @LucasSa56947288]

RETWEET if you support Scott Pelley after CBS News has just fired him.

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

🚨 BREAKING: ProPublica reporter Robert Faturechi confirms the White House directly intervened to force the Pentagon to give a record-breaking loan to a startup just 3 months after Don Jr. invested in it.

The Trump administration is looting the country!

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

🚨 BOMBSHELL! Former Judge Shira Scheindlin exposes Donald Trump's massive $1.8B scam. She confirms he sued his own agency to orchestrate a fake, collusive lawsuit.

He intentionally committed a fraud on the court to secretly fund his projects and secure his own immunity!

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

🚨 WOW.

Sen. Blumenthal says he was “shocked” after Republicans quietly inserted a provision giving ONLY U.S. senators the right to sue the federal government for constitutional violations.

Not ordinary Americans.

Just senators.

Think about how insane that is.

Lawmakers looked at government overreach and basically said:

“You know who really needs extra protection here?
Us.”

Meanwhile everyday Americans can allegedly be detained, surveilled, have records accessed, or rights violated…

and they get told:
“Good luck.”

The provision got killed after backlash.
But the fact it was inserted at all tells you everything.

[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

[Emoluments Clause @Emolclause]

#BREAKING: Psaki: “…I have to start tonight with a story that in any other administration, would be grounds for opening an impeachment inquiry, because today ProPublica reported that the White House intervened to get a $620 million deal for a company tied to President Trump’s adult son @DonaldJTrumpJr…the deal in question involved a startup focused on rare earth magnet production called Vulcan Elements and last Summer, Don Jr’s venture capital firm took an undisclosed stake in that company, and wouldn’t you know…three months later, the Pentagon announced that it was giving Vulcan Elements a $620 million loan.”🙄🤦‍♀️

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

There is no world in which this is okay.  

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito did not recuse himself from cases involving Trump’s Treasury Department while his own son was secretly working there as a political appointee and attorney. 

His son's employment was hidden so thoroughly that his name appears nowhere on the Treasury Department website, he has no public resume, and his bar listings are outdated. 

If Alito had recused himself, the secret would have come out. He didn’t recuse himself. 

This is a clear conflict of interest, and the American people deserved to know about it. 

The federal recusal standard is clear: a justice must step aside in any case where there is a reasonable basis to question whether he or she can be impartial. A justice ruling on cases involving the department where his son works fails that test. The Treasury Department sits at the center of some of the biggest legal fights of this administration, and challenges to Trump’s $1.776 billion January 6 slush fund could be headed to the Court next. 

The Supreme Court is the only court in America with no binding code of conduct. That is completely unacceptable, and it has to change NOW. 

Congress controls the Power of the Purse, and therefore the Court’s funding. If the Court will not adopt a binding code of conduct with real recusal review on their own, I support withholding their funding until they do. 
 https://t.co/FV2Tkpz7Dk

[InfoGram @_InfoGram_]

Epic moment 🔥

🇺🇸Trump at 5:00 PM — “No President has done this. We got Iran to talk nukes. Maybe even give them up. This is First time ever.”

🇺🇸Obama at 6:00 PM — “Did it already. No missiles fired. Moved 97% of their enriched uranium out. We didn't have to kill a whole bunch of people or shut down the Strait of Hormuz like you.”🔥👏

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

Reminder that the Trump regime is still blowing up suspected “drug boats” — killing 197 people since September.

But no judge or jury has found these boats were trafficking drugs. We're taking Trump's word for it.

This is murder. We must not lose sight of this lawlessness.

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

BREAKING: A federal judge is now signaling the Trump administration’s so-called “weaponization fund” may have emerged from collusive litigation and could potentially amount to fraud on the court.

That is nuclear-level language from a judge.

“Fraud on the court” is not normal criticism.
It is reserved for situations where a court believes it may have been manipulated, misled, or used as part of a coordinated scheme.

And the judge reportedly pointed to two giant red flags:
- the massive $1.8 billion settlement amount
- and concerns the opposing sides may not have actually been acting as true adversaries

Translation?

The court is openly questioning whether this lawsuit was partially engineered to create a taxpayer-funded political compensation machine.

That is an absolutely extraordinary development.

[Daniel Goldman @danielsgoldman]

I spent two hours yesterday at Delaney Hall in Newark where 700 detainees are being held by ICE. What I saw and heard was horrific: worm-infested food, no access to medical care, no way to connect with their families.

Many of the detainees were lawful visa holders, including one 18-year-old who is missing her graduation and prom because she is being held in a cell.

This is not America. This is unacceptable, and it has to stop now.

[Turnbull @cturnbull1968]

Allow me to be the first to congratulate the MAGA morons, who spent years howling about the $1.7B that Obama returned to Iran.

Your 4D chess master is handing Iran $300B, to open the Strait of Hormuz, that Obama kept open for free.

Brilliant!

[Strummer @Strummer2323]

For fuck sake - I wish y'all would learn real history.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

This week, I prepared a special letter addressed to the President of the United States and to Congress. And yesterday, the letter was officially delivered to the institutions in Washington. It is quite rare for the leader of another state to address both the President and Congress of the United States simultaneously with a letter. But the situation now requires action, swift and effective action.

It is important that America hear Ukraine. We understand that much of the world’s attention is currently focused on the war in Iran. But the war here in Europe must also be brought to an end – a very bloody war that is already in its fifth year at full scale.

The sooner we are able to provide greater protection against ballistic threats, the sooner we will be able to make diplomacy work. As long as Russia continues to rely on missiles, its interest in diplomacy is not real. We must correct this. And we can do so only together with America.

Ukraine is grateful to America for all its support. And Ukraine will be even more grateful for a dignified peace and guaranteed security. All of this is possible – if there is sufficient determination.

[Ariana Jasmine @arianajasmine__]

“Why are there so many chemical leaks in the US right now?”

Well, Trump cut the EPA, FDA, and deregulated everything, so this is just the start

[Turnbull @cturnbull1968]

Trump: “I have a contractor that built my pools, did an Olympic pool at my clubs. He can do the reflecting pool for $1.3M in less than 2 weeks.”

*A no bid contract and 6 weeks later, the budget is now $13.4M

Trump: “I don’t know the contractor. Never used them before.”

[Rep. Dan Goldman @RepDanGoldman]

The treatment of detainees inside Delaney Hall is appalling.

Lack of medical care. Insufficient and sometimes infested food. Overflowing sewage, overcrowding, no outdoor time, and blatant retaliation.

Nearly all of them have no criminal record and many are in this country lawfully, yet they are being held in conditions worse than criminal jail.

This is just un-American. They must be released now.