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[Acyn @Acyn]

Talarico: When I get tough questions, I answer them. When Ken Paxton gets tough questions, he runs away, literally runs away from reporters, from voters, from anyone asking hard questions. 

If you've given an Epstein style sweetheart deal to an admitted child predator, you should have to answer the public's questions. 

If you were reported to the FBI for bribery by your own staff, you should have to answer the public's questions. 

If you've become a multi-millionaire on a government salary and now own 15 homes on the public's dime, then you should have to answer the public's questions. 

I get it, if I had Ken Paxton's record of corruption, I wouldn't want to answer these questions either.

But he's asking for your vote. He is asking for your trust. And the people of Texas deserve answers.

So I've challenged Ken Paxton to these three televised debates. The networks have already set the dates and the times and the locations. We're just waiting on Ken Paxton. I'm not afraid of tough questions. We'll see if Ken Paxton can say the same.

[The Shallow State @OurShallowState]

Today is ALSO the deadline for Todd Blanche to hand over key unredacted Epstein files. He needs to do so without any black boxes - for Judge Emmet Sullivan's private review.
The fact that Todd Blanche has already refused to comply with the court order to release the Epstein files following Katie Phang's lawsuit, should have ended his bid to become AG, and be a more significant story.
The fact that the Epstein Estate ACTUALLY PAID a settlement to one of the women who alleged that Donald Trump raped her as a minor, and it was paid AFTER Epstein died, as told under oath by Epstein's longtime accountant, should be a more significant story.
The fact that Trump said he wasn't ever on Epstein's plane and then we found out he was, should be a more significant story.
The fact that senior officials gathered in the Situation Room to concoct and coordinate an Epstein coverup should be a most significant story, FFS.
And when you combine ALL these stories and add to it his hiring of Alex Acosta, the birthday card, the innuendo Trump wrote on the card, the movement of Maxwell to a more lenient facility, and then - especially - his persistently panicked behavior on all things Epstein, it really should be the end of his presidency.

[Jim Stewartson, Decelerationist 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇺🇸 @jimstewartson]

If you don’t want to read about Trump’s disorders just watch the last 6 hours of his Truth Social feed with the sound up.

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

Buried in a letter asking the Senate for money is a request to rename the busiest train station in the western hemisphere, and it's not buried by accident. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's Wednesday letter to Senate committee chairs asks lawmakers to direct Amtrak to rename Penn Station, sitting right alongside a request to let Amtrak override local land use rules and redirect New York property tax revenue toward the project, plus a request to raise a federal loan cap from 35 billion to 50 billion dollars.

Duffy hasn't been coy about where this goes. Last August, asked directly if this meant Trump Station, he said it had a nice ring to it. Renderings obtained by Gothamist months earlier already showed gold flourishes and a presidential seal etched into the redesign.

This is the same administration that tried to hold New York infrastructure funding hostage in February specifically to force Penn Station and Dulles Airport renamings, that got a Kennedy Center name change stripped back off after backlash, and that already landed a Trump name on Palm Beach International Airport this month. The pattern isn't subtle. What's actually notable is what's riding alongside the name change this time, a request letting a federal agency claim local tax revenue New York city and state currently control, tucked into the same page as the vanity ask everyone's talking about.

[Dittie @DittiePE]

Heritage Foundation’s government-relations director for defense and foreign policy — Matthew Christopher Wingate, who was previously the national security adviser to Ted Cruz and Joni Ernst — was arrested at the Russell Senate Office Building on July 14 after security found a loaded 9mm pistol magazine in his briefcase, plus pressed pills that tested presumptive positive for cocaine and fentanyl.

His explanation: He forgot the mag, and the drugs were “prescribed.”

The think tank that built its brand on law-and-order and family values had its top defense lobbyist walking into the Senate with fentanyl-laced pills and ammo.

That absolutely tracks.

https://t.co/jNwKbitZtN

[Ryan Shead @RyanShead]

Gulf War Navy Veteran, Arturo Quiñonez Solis, was deported this morning. He is in a fragile medical condition due to open-heart surgery on June 22.

He hasn’t had his meds since he was detained on July 18. ICE only gave him Tylenol and aspirin, despite having his meds in their possession.

They knew the deportation flight could kill him, but they don’t care. There is no reforming this organization. You can’t out train white supremacy and this kind of hatred.

Impeach, convict, and remove everyone complicit in these crimes against humanity.

#veteran #politics #texas #immigration

[Donald Trump Portfolio Tracker @TrumpsPortfolio]

Trump just erased $80 million owed to one of the poorest Native American tribes in the country. Here’s the story nobody’s telling.

Jason Galanis was a financier, the son of a man who’d already done federal time for fraud. In 2014 he ran one of the most cynical schemes imaginable. He targeted the Wakpamni Lake Community Corporation, the economic development arm of a community within the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, one of the poorest places in the United States. The bonds he engineered were supposed to fund what a place like that desperately needs: jobs, development, a future.

Instead, prosecutors said, Galanis and his co-conspirators issued more than $60 million in worthless tribal bonds through lies, sold them to investors, and pocketed the proceeds, spending the money on personal luxuries including jewelry instead of reinvesting it as promised. They looted a development fund meant for a tribe that could least afford to lose it. Galanis himself testified his companies were “entrusted with $11 billion of union members’ pension fund money whose trust I betrayed.”

Galanis pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nearly 16 years in federal prison, and ordered to pay more than $80 million in forfeiture and restitution to his victims, including the tribe

Now the twist.

One of his co-conspirators was Devon Archer. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Archer was Hunter Biden’s former business partner, who became a star witness for House Republicans investigating the Biden family.

In March 2025, Trump fully pardoned Archer, wiping out his conviction. His own staff secretary admitted the “tone and tenor” of the case “changed dramatically” after Archer began cooperating against the Bidens.

Days later, quietly, with no announcement, Trump commuted Galanis’s sentence too, to time served, with “no further fines, restitution, probation, or other conditions.”

Read that last part again.

Trump didn’t just let Galanis out early. He erased the roughly $80 million in restitution owed to the Oglala Sioux and the other victims he defrauded. The tribe was supposed to be made whole for the rest of his life. That debt simply vanished.

And it fits a pattern. A commutation used to just end a sentence. Trump uses clemency to wipe out debts owed to victims and taxpayers. California’s governor’s office tallied that his clemency grants have erased close to $2 billion in victim and taxpayer recovery across Medicare fraud, tax fraud, and cases like this.

A man stole $60 million meant for one of the poorest Native communities in America, spent it on jewelry, got 16 years and $80 million in restitution. His co-conspirator became a witness against the Bidens. Both walked free within days of each other.

The Oglala Sioux don’t get their money back. Galanis keeps what’s left of it.

[@sneemac @sneemac]

@TheJFreakinC @goff_jerry68345 No we ARE NOT supposed to just let them take women without ID. Per their OWN MEMO there are rampant ICE impersonators grabbing women and sexually assaulting them!!!!

251112_letter_to_noem_and_patel_re_fbi_memo_urging_ice_id.pdf https://t.co/ESmMKFD5dm

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

🚨BREAKING: Men posed as ICE agents and detained and assaulted a woman… and Tom Homan is telling everyone that they just have to comply with this.

A woman was driving on Highway 211, in Oregon, when a vehicle with flashing red and blue lights pulled behind her.

Believing she was being stopped by law enforcement, she pulled over.

Two men approached her vehicle, one was carrying a rifle, and they claimed to be ICE agents and told her she was being detained.

They pulled her out of her car, searched her, and put her in the back of their vehicle.

Then, a third man… who remained inside the vehicle… assaulted her.

He told her he was the “guard.”

The men were wearing tactical vests labeled “POLICE,” carrying fake badges, and wore face coverings.

They held her for nearly 20 minutes before telling her she was free to go… and then she drove herself to the hospital.

And while she was there, she reported that she started receiving text messages from someone claiming to be a law firm offering legal representation for her detention.

Federal authorities later confirmed this was NOT an official ICE operation… These were people pretending to be federal agents.

And this is exactly why Tom Homan telling people to “comply” with anyone claiming to be ICE is so incredibly dangerous.

Because what is a person supposed to do when someone in a tactical vest, carrying a gun, pulls them over with flashing lights and says they are federal agents?

Just trust them?

This is not about telling people to resist legitimate law enforcement.

This is about the government normalizing a system where anyone can look like an armed federal agent, claim to have authority over you, and expect you to obey without being able to verify who they are.

That doesn’t make people safer.

It makes everyone more vulnerable to being kidnapped, assaulted, or killed by criminals who know they can pretend to be ICE.

[J @JTobib]

@ExpressNews Shame on Texas for taking away the water and rest breaks in extreme heat rule.

Texas GOP are a bunch of assholes. @TexasGOP

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

We are supposedly at war to stop Iran from enriching the uranium we “obliterated” over a year ago.

Yesterday we signed a deal to help Saudi Arabia enrich uranium.

The first time the United States has ever helped another country enrich uranium on foreign soil.

The Saudis refused the inspection protocol 140 other countries accept. Too intrusive, they said.

Trump agreed. He signed a national security waiver to get around the rule.

The Saudis paid Kushner $100 million. They put $2 billion into his firm. They put another $6 billion into LIV Golf, which pays Trump properties to host its tournaments. They signed ten billion dollars in Trump-branded real estate deals in Jeddah and Riyadh. All in just the last few years.

But sure. My paintings.

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

Imagine the sheer, historic insanity of an American president handing nuclear capabilities to the very kingdom that produced 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers and the mastermind himself, Osama bin Laden.

That is the surreal reality we are watching unfold. Mohammed bin Salman — the bone-saw butcher of Jamal Khashoggi — has clearly sized up the current occupant of the White House and concluded, correctly, that for the first time in modern history Saudi Arabia is dealing with an American leader whose personal enrichment outweighs every strategic, moral, and national-security consideration.

The result has been a pure bonanza for Riyadh: access, protection, technology, and leverage that no previous president would have dreamed of granting.

What used to be a carefully managed, eyes-wide-open relationship with a problematic ally has been reduced to a transactional free-for-all in which American blood, American graves, and American principles are just more chips on the table.

[Tommasina Says Democracy Matters 🦅💙🐈‍⬛ @TommasinaResist]

Cool move: Trump’s sons team up with banned foreign partners, sneak in fine print exempting the family from taxes, & Treasury just shrugs when asked. Scot-free has a new ring to it now. Corrupt Republicans keep protecting their guy. #RepublicanCostOfCorruption
#USDemocracy

[InteractivePolls @IAPolls2022]

🇺🇸 PEW RESEARCH NATIONAL POLL

Pres. Trump
🟢 Approve: 34%
🟤 Disapprove: 64%
——
Generic Ballot
🟦 Democrats: 43%
🟥 Republicans: 37%
—
Crosstabs
🔴 White: R+10
🔵 Black: D+60
🔵 Hispanic: D+23
🔵 Asian: D+35
—
Age
🔵 18-29: D+23
🔵 30-49: D+7
🔴 50-64: R+5
🔵 65+: D+3
—
Party
🔴 GOP: R+88
🔵 Dem: D+92
🔵 Indie: D+15
—
Education
🔵 Postgrad: D+30
🔵 College Grad: D+13
🔴 No College: R+10
—
7/6-12 | 3,554 A (GCB=2,779 RV)
https://t.co/19CE8fRM9P

[InteractivePolls @IAPolls2022]

PEW RESEARCH: Trump's net approval crosstabs (57 subgroups)

🟢 Approve: 34% (-30)
🔴 Disapprove: 64%
——
🟤 White: (-16)
🔴 Black: (-70)
🔴 Hispanic: (-49)
🔴 Asian: (-48)
——
Party
🔴 Dem/Lean Dem: (-87)
🟢 GOP/Lean GOP: (+40)
🔴 Pure indie: (-43)
——
Age
🔴 18-29: (-39)
🔴 30-49: (-37)
🟤 50-64: (-19)
🟤 65+: (-23)
——
Gender
🟤 Male: (-22)
🔴 Female: (-38)
——
Education
🟤 HS or less: (-21)
🔴 College grad: (-39)
🔴 Postgrad: (-42)
——
Community type
🔴 Urban: (-51)
🔴 Suburban: (-33)
🟤 Rural: 46-52 (-6)
——
Religion
🟤 PROTESTANT: (-11)
🟢 White Evangelicals: (+30)
🟤 White non Evangelical: (-16)
🔴 Black Protestant: (-75)
—
🔴 CATHOLIC: (-30)
🟤 White Catholic: (-10)
🔴 Hispanic Catholic: (-32)
—
🔴 UNAFFILIATED: (-57)
🔴 Atheist: (-75)
🔴 Agnostic: (-46)
—
Age (four way) and gender
🔴 Men 18-29: (-36)
🔴 Women 18-29: (-43)
🔴 Men 30-49: (-44)
🔴 Women 30-49: (-44)
🟤 Men 50-64: (-7)
🔴 Women 50-64: (-30)
🟤 Men 65+: (-9)
🔴 Women 65+: (-34)
——
Race and Age
🔴 White 18-49: (-26)
🟤 White 50+: (-6)
🔴 Hispanic 18-49: (-51)
🔴 Hispanic 50+: (-46)
🔴 Black 18-49: (-62)
🔴 Black 50+: (-80)
🔴 Asian 18-49: (-49)
🔴 Asian 50+: (-46)
——
Gender and Education
🔴 Men college grad: (-33)
🟤 Men no college: (-15)
🔴 Women college grad: (-47)
🔴 Women no college: (-34)
——
Race and Gender
🟤 White men: (-8)
🟤 White women: (-22)
🔴 Black men: (-60)
🔴 Black women: (-82)
🔴 Hispanic men: (-35)
🔴 Hispanic women: (-63)
🔴 Asian men: (-43)
🔴 Asian women: (-52)
——
n=3,554 A | July 6-12
https://t.co/QTN70Ui4bh

[Cat in the Hat 🐈‍⬛ 🎩 🇬🇧 @_CatintheHat]

🔥So far this year, wildfires in the US have burned more than 3 MILLION acres - that’s 157% above the 10-yr average.

…so it’s extremely surprising to hear that 20 separate Forest Service offices dedicated to wildfire prevention may soon be closed down.

https://t.co/U0mUz8sDlT

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

If we really wanted to ban stock trading for members of Congress,

we would offer stand alone legislation and could get a large bipartisan majority,

and the bill would have a chance of passing on the Senate.

But today we have political theater cooked up by 25 yr old staffers.

[Katherine Clark @TeamKClark]

They're using your money to cover the Oval Office in gold while you struggle to afford gas and groceries.

[Anthony Scaramucci @Scaramucci]

There’s a scheme hiding in plain sight, and almost no one’s talking about it.

“Truth Social is going to sell hedge fund managers millisecond advantages on Trump’s tweets so that they can front-run other people’s trades.”

It’s not a loophole, it’s a business model, and we’ve got 30 months left to live with it.

[Morgan J. Freeman @mjfree]

Not only was Trump golfing while these two Americans made the ultimate sacrifice for his illegal war of choice, he’s now going to a soccer game instead of consoling the families who lost their loved ones.

That is who Donald Trump is.