Lo Williams

I love to read, write, and figure out why we are the way we are! (she/her)

[Lo Williams @lowms]

@davidaxelrod Someone posted this haiku on twitter yesterday:

"We isolate now
So when we gather again
No one is missing"

Pretty perfect, yes?

[Democratic Wins Media @DemocraticWins]

BREAKING: Glen Whitley, a longtime Republican Judge in one of the most conservative counties in Texas, just announced he will not support Ken Paxton. This is huge news for James Talarico. Let’s go!

[Jennifer Get In Good Trouble @TheJenniWren]

Trump used the Armed Forces Full Honor Cordon — soldiers who escort fallen heroes and heads of state — to usher UFC fighters past Abraham Lincoln’s statue like they’re celebrities on a red carpet. I am LIVID. And everyone else should be too.

[Democracy Docket @DemocracyDocket]

Trump wants to throw out lawful votes, disenfranchise U.S. citizens and subvert the outcomes of elections entirely.

Don’t let him get away with it.

“Stop trying to meet him halfway,” @marceelias says. “There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.”

[Gianl1974 @Gianl1974]

Notice how almost EVERYTHING inside Obama’s Presidential Center bears someone ELSE’S name:

The Eleanor Roosevelt Garden
The Nancy Pelosi Pavilion
The Nelson Mandela Skyroom
The Ann Dunham Water Terrace

The list goes on…

REAL leaders don’t feel diminished by sharing the spotlight 💙

[Rogue POTUS Staff @RoguePOTUSStaff]

ICE took a 31 y/o Haitian asylum-seeker into custody, drove her 30 miles away to a Pittsburgh office, put an ankle monitor on her, then sent her out the front door with no way to get anywhere or contact her family.

She froze to death at a bus stop. It's now ruled a homicide.

[J. Dale Shoemaker @JDale_Shoemaker]

It’s happened again:

A migrant was released from jail (charges dropped) and picked up by ICE.

ICE decides not to deport.

ICE drops migrant off far from home.

Migrant dies in the cold.

Manner of death: Homicide.

Nearly identical to Buffalo case.

https://t.co/hHCcIGQfIK

[Lauren Underwood @LaurenUnderwood]

RFK Jr. called Medicare and Medicaid "scams."

Tell that to the senior in Aurora rationing $800 insulin.
Tell that to the mom in Joliet whose kid gets lifesaving care because of Medicaid.

RFK Jr. is the HHS Secretary AND the biggest public health threat in our nation.

[Rep. John Larson @RepJohnLarson]

'DOGE' employees have been combing through your records for over a year. They even schemed to use confidential data to help overturn election results.

There should be a criminal investigation and real accountability for their abuses of power and reckless data breach.

[Christopher Webb @cwebbonline]

FOOTAGE OF THE LETTERS BEING REMOVED

The irony of the Trump administration claiming to be the most transparent in history is never lost on me. Kennedy Center Workers used a tarp so cameras couldn’t see the removal.

It’s like playing hide-and-seek with a toddler: if they can’t see you, they think you can’t see them.

A huge thank you to @RepBeatty. This would not have been possible without her persistence and hard work.

[Rep. Zoe Lofgren @RepZoeLofgren]

It’s heartbreaking to see little kids appearing all alone in immigration court, without a lawyer. This week, I led 15 of my colleagues to introduce the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act, to ensure that unaccompanied minors get legal representation during immigration proceedings.

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

Not enough people are talking about this.

Trump is trying to escape a $100 million dollar tax penalty, and Senate Republicans are helping him do it.

You know about the $1.8 billion slush fund he tried to create to reward his political allies. They got so much pushback that they’ve halted that, at least for now. But what you probably don’t know is that Trump gave himself, his family, and his businesses complete immunity from IRS audits, past and future.

Everyone focused on the slush fund, and almost nobody noticed the audit immunity. It’s still in place, and it cannot be allowed to stand.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Mike Johnson recently went on the radio and called for “desperate measures” on Social Security and Medicare, promising Republicans “have a plan” to “adjust and fix” them next year.

Don’t believe his equivocations that it’s just about waste, fraud and abuse.

We know exactly what Mike Johnson means when he says “adjust,” because he laid out the plan before he was Speaker.

Johnson ran the Republican Study Committee, the largest and most powerful conservative bloc in the House, where he advocated raising the Social Security retirement age to 69, pushing the early retirement age to 64, and shrinking the annual cost-of-living increases seniors depend on.

He also wanted to turn Medicare into a voucher program and raise the eligibility age, then tie it to life expectancy so it keeps climbing higher and higher.

When the Speaker of the House now says he has “a plan,” believe him.

Mike Johnson cannot be trusted with your earned benefits. He must be stopped. https://t.co/LoXKl0wdG3

[John Jackson @hissgoescobra]

I want to give you guys some facts about General Chappie James. He wasn’t a “DEI” hire—he was a complete badass that had to overcome MORE than any white pilot. Did 178 combat missions—that’s like 7 bomber tours on a B-17 in WWII.

His medal count? Impeccable. 3 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Air Medals, Two Legions of Merit, and a Defense Distinguished Service Medal. One of the original Tuskegee Airmen, the first four-star African American General.

Hegseth couldn’t sniff the level of soldiering and warrior that was in Chappie’s DNA. God bless him. And Hegseth took down his picture from a hallway like a racist little child, which is what he is.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

69 people baked to death when Portland hit 116 degrees.

Scientists concluded that heat wave would have been extraordinarily unlikely without human-caused climate change.

Before the National Academies of Sciences could even publish its report on that science, the campaign to discredit it was already underway.

Opposition researchers digging through scientists’ emails. One panel member resigning out of fear she’d be targeted. Another removed the same day an oil-industry website attacked her.

A member of congress heavily funded by oil and gas demanding records from the National Academies.

All before a single page was released.

If you think the science is wrong, argue with the science.

Going after the scientists before the report even exists is something else entirely.
https://t.co/B4IW9MW7is

[Morgan J. Freeman @mjfree]

🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️ And just like that, Epstein / Trump completely VANISHED from the media.

But a sitting congressman, Ted Lieu, said on the record the Epstein files are being blocked because they show Trump RAPED and threatened to KILL children.

Lets make this viral again & again 👇👇👇

[Gianl1974 @Gianl1974]

BREAKING🚨 Trump tried to shut down a 24/7 protest flying an “86 47” flag a mile from the White House — and a federal judge just told his National Park Service to back off and read the Constitution.

The protest is run by a group called Accountability Now USA, camped on land controlled by the National Park Service near the National Mall. Their flag reads “86 47,” a slang way of saying “throw out the 47th president” — in other words, impeach and remove Trump using legal, constitutional means.

Park Police ordered them to take the flag down, claiming it might be a coded threat on Trump’s life. When the group refused, the government threatened to yank their permit for the entire around‑the‑clock protest.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss wasn’t having it. In a blistering temporary restraining order, he wrote that “the government seeks to squelch core political speech without any articulable — much less evidentiary — basis for concluding that the speech actually threatens the life or safety of the President.” He noted that “86” has a long, well‑documented meaning in American slang: to get rid of, or throw out — not to kill.

Merriam‑Webster’s definition, which Moss actually cited in his opinion, backs that up. Moss found “compelling evidence” that the protesters were simply advocating impeachment and removal, and “no evidence” that any reasonable person would see the flag as a true threat.

The context made the government’s argument even weaker. The flag is red, white, and blue, covered in stars, with no images of weapons, skulls, or violence. It’s part of a continuous political demonstration featuring signs, speeches, and conversations with passersby — one sign even reads, “Kids, if your parents are MAGA, they love child rapists,” a brutal but clearly rhetorical attack on Trump’s support for figures like Matt Gaetz and the party’s QAnon obsession.

Moss pointed out that political speech is at the core of the First Amendment, and that the government can’t label it “unprotected obscenity” just because it’s crude or offensive to those in power.

The practical result: for at least the next two weeks, the National Park Service is barred from revoking the permit, forcing removal of the flag, or seizing it. The protest stays up, 24/7, right under Trump’s nose and right outside the federal courthouse where Moss sits.

In a twist of irony, the administration’s attempt to silence four numbers on a flag just turned that flag into a national story and locked in a court ruling that “86 47” is protected speech — the exact opposite of what Trump’s Justice Department argued when it indicted James Comey for posting seashells arranged in those same numbers on a beach.

This is what the fight over “weaponization” actually looks like on the ground. While Trump rants about being censored, his agencies are literally trying to shut down peaceful protesters whose worst crime is flying a legally permitted banner saying “throw this president out of office.”

The judge’s message could not be clearer: in America, the president doesn’t get to decide which slogans are allowed in front of his house. And as long as the First Amendment still means something, four numbers on a flag are more powerful than all of Trump’s tantrums about being mocked.

[Rep. Jamie Raskin @RepRaskin]

After the 2020 election, banks and credit card issuers estimated that fraud cases involving WinRed were as much as 3% of their total national fraud workload—more than 800 cases.

MAGA's legislative harassment of, and attempts to prosecute, ActBlue are a confession and self-indictment of WinRed's continuing serious fraud against small Republican donors. If they treat their own donors like that—confiscating their credit cards and signing them up for monthly contributions without their consent—what would they do to the rest of us? Perhaps pick our pockets for a $1.776 billion political slush fund.

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

"This Sunday night’s UFC spectacle on the South Lawn...captures something about this moment in our history.

It's vulgar, violent, commercial, grandiose, tacky, and it dishonors a place once thought worthy of care and respect. In other words, it’s Donald Trump."

https://t.co/YSuFldfj70

[Fifty Shades of Whey @davenewworld_2]

California, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin are suing the US Department of Education for cutting special-education grants that train educators and support students with disabilities.

California alone says over 880,000 students are eligible for special ed, and its grant was worth $10.5 million over 5 years.

This is a direct attack on public infrastructure that children with disabilities rely on every day.

Linda McMahon has no qualification to defund these programs. This administration is making life harder for millions of vulnerable Americans who lack the political lobbying to defend themselves. It's pure evil.