Rep. Khanna Accuses Trump of Protecting the โ€œEpstein Classโ€

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Appearing on MSNBCโ€™s All In with Chris Hayes, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) leveled a blistering charge at President Donald Trump โ€” accusing him of protecting what he called the โ€œEpstein classโ€ rather than standing up for working Americans struggling to make ends meet. The phrase quickly caught fire online, and itโ€™s now taking on new weight amid fresh controversy in Washington and inside the federal prison system.

Khannaโ€™s remarks came as pressure mounts on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) over his continued delay in swearing in Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. Grijalva, a progressive Democrat, has been open about her plan to become the decisive 218th vote to compel the Trump administration to release the long-withheld Epstein files. Johnsonโ€™s refusal to seat her โ€” even after certification of her election โ€” has drawn criticism from both Democrats and watchdog groups who see the move as an attempt to block her role in advancing the Epstein disclosure measure.

After weeks of backlash, Johnson has now committed to swearing Grijalva in on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, when the House reconvenes to deliberate on a Senate measure to reopen the government. The timing has only intensified speculation that the Speakerโ€™s delay was politically motivated.

Meanwhile, another development has reignited public scrutiny over how the powerful continue to benefit from special treatment. Ghislaine Maxwell โ€” Epsteinโ€™s longtime associate who is serving a 20-year sentence for her role in his sex-trafficking network โ€” was quietly transferred from a Florida federal facility to a much softer minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas. The transfer raised immediate red flags, as such privileges are rarely extended to those convicted of serious sex crimes.

Reports from inside the Texas prison suggest Maxwell is enjoying unusually favorable treatment, including lenient oversight and staff attention that other inmates say border on favoritism. Members of Congress are now demanding a formal investigation into possible corruption or political interference in the Bureau of Prisonsโ€™ decision-making.

For Khanna and others calling for transparency, the timing couldnโ€™t be more damning. A president who campaigned on exposing Epsteinโ€™s network has yet to release the files; his allies in Congress have stalled the one member most eager to force disclosure; and the central figure in Epsteinโ€™s trafficking ring appears to be enjoying preferential treatment behind bars.

Until those Epstein files are made public โ€” as Trump once promised โ€” the perception that his administration is shielding the powerful rather than serving the people will only deepen. As Khanna put it, Trump looks less like the champion of the โ€œforgotten man,โ€ and more like the guardian of the โ€œEpstein Class.โ€

MSNBCโ€™s Nicolle Wallace Brands Trump Team the โ€œMarie Antoinette Administrationโ€

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On a recent episode of Deadline: White House, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace didnโ€™t hold back in her criticism of former President Donald Trumpโ€™s administration. She called it the โ€œMarie Antoinette Administrationโ€ โ€” a cutting comparison to the infamous French queen remembered for her decadence, detachment, and the apocryphal phrase, โ€œLet them eat cake.โ€

Marie Antoinette became a symbol of a ruling class oblivious to the suffering of ordinary people โ€” a monarch who partied in Versailles while her citizens starved outside the palace gates. Wallaceโ€™s jab draws on that same image, suggesting the Trump administration has been indulging in luxury and self-congratulation while Americans face economic hardship.

The comparison lands especially hard when you look at Mar-a-Lago, Trumpโ€™s Palm Beach estate turned private club โ€” his modern-day Versailles. While millions of Americans struggle to put food on the table amid a grinding government shutdown that has halted SNAP payments, reports continue to surface of glittering soirรฉes, Champagne toasts, and high-society dinners taking place under Mar-a-Lagoโ€™s gilded chandeliers. Even some of Trumpโ€™s own allies have privately admitted the optics are terrible: the image of Washington elites sipping cocktails on the oceanfront while federal workers and low-income families line up at food banks is a PR nightmare.

Adding insult to injury, a federal judge recently ordered the administration to tap the USDAโ€™s contingency funds to keep SNAP benefits flowing. Instead of complying, the administration chose to fight the order in court โ€” literally arguing for the right to let poor Americans go hungry. Itโ€™s a move that only deepens the โ€œMarie Antoinetteโ€ parallel: power waging legal battles over crumbs while the public goes without bread.

As the shutdown drags on, the economic pain is becoming unbearable for working families. Most analysts expect the government to reopen soon, likely before the Thanksgiving holidays, if only to stem the political fallout. But even after the lights come back on, the damage โ€” both human and reputational โ€” will linger.

The โ€œMarie Antoinette Administrationโ€ label may stick as one of Trumpโ€™s most unflattering legacies. Itโ€™s a sharp irony for a president who rose to power promising to champion the โ€œforgotten manโ€ โ€” rural, blue-collar Americans who felt abandoned by Washington. The image of Mar-a-Lagoโ€™s ballrooms glittering while those same Americans tighten their belts is one that no amount of political spin can erase.

In the end, Wallaceโ€™s analogy hits its mark. For many watching from the outside, the Trump administration doesnโ€™t just look out of touch โ€” it looks like itโ€™s dancing while the country burns.

Sen Rand Paul Promises Vigorous Oversight Of DHS

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In his opening remarks at the Senate confirmation hearings for incoming DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, GOP Senator Rand Paul, Chairman of the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, laid out brilliantly, the case as to why the behemoth that is DHS, begs for some serious oversight.

Senator Paul characterized DHS as a very powerful agency that was created after the 9/11 attacks to secure the homeland, but has since veered from its intended course, and into attacks against Americans simply exercising their free speech rights.

Sen Paul: “Think about it, an agency [DHS] commanding over $110 billion annually, can’t account for its own activities. This is not just bureaucratic incompetence, it’s emblematic of a deeper issue. An agency unsure of its own boundaries and commitments.”

He went on to add that DHS is increasingly focusing on peopleโ€™s social media posts, and even placing people on terrorism watchlists based on such postsโ€”a total travesty.

Bottom line folks, the criticisms Senator Paul levels at DHS are well founded and longstanding. The only question now is whether he’ll follow through, and use his position as Senate Homeland Security Chair, to provide the much-needed oversight DHS cries for.

Sadly, if the past is anything to go by, Sen Paul’s oversight promises might devolve into his just using his lofty committee chair perch to score political points by digging into, idk, Hunter Biden files. Let’s hope that doesn’t end up being the case, but I’ll readily admit, I would not be surprised.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo:โ€Texas Is Being Run From Maralagoโ€

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Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo appeared on MSNBCโ€™s The Rachel Maddow Show (09/24/2021), where she blasted elected Republicans in Texas for giving in to former President Trumpโ€™s baseless demands for an audit into the stateโ€™s 2020 election results. The decision by the Texas Secretary of Stateโ€™s office to conduct an audit into the election results of Collin, Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties, came literally a few hours after Trumpโ€™s demand, which led a visibly upset Judge Hidalgo to tell host Maddow that Texas was โ€œbeing run from Maralago.โ€

Judge Hidalgo told Maddow:โ€œWe have to remember we had incredibly successful elections here in Harris County in 2020. We had innovations that led to record turnouts from both parties, the highest in 30 years, I mean it was beautiful, and since then, no evidence has come out that would in any way cause the need for this kind of audit. All weโ€™ve seen is [former]President Trump exhorting the state, or [Governor]Abbott, to have this auditโ€ฆThe reality of it is Texas is being run from Maralago, and that is dangerous, and itโ€™s not appropriateโ€ฆitโ€™s extremely concerning.โ€

Judge Hidalgo added that time had come for politicians in Washington to get off the sidelines, and actively join the fight against voter suppression in the states, telling host Maddow, โ€œWe need the federal government to act, I mean, this has gone too farโ€ฆ This should be another call to action. Weโ€™ve got the writing on the wall. Weโ€™ve got to get off our chairs and get moving on all this.โ€

Bottom line folks, as Judge Hidalgo correctly pointed out, time has come for some decisive action to be taken against these naked efforts by Republicans at the state level, to restrict the voting rights of minorities. Democrats in Washington cannot just sit on the sidelines, and watch their counterparts in Republican-led states like Texas, go to war against GOPโ€™s efforts to restrict minority voting rights. Simply put, time has come for Democrats in Washington to finally do away with the filibuster, and institute a national voting standard geared towards making it easier for people to vote, as opposed to GOPโ€™s scheme of limiting access to the ballot box. As Judge Hidalgo correctly put it, congressional Democrats need to โ€œget off their chairs and get movingโ€ on a comprehensive federal voting rights law.

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NYTโ€™s Maggie Haberman Ensnared In Feud Over Trump Inaugural Funds

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Melania Trump with Stephanie Winston Wolkoff

In case you missed it, the Trump inaugural saga has taken a new, and very interesting twist lately, with now Twitter-active Stephanie Winston Wolkoff taking a direct shot at Maggie Haberman and Ken Vogel of the New York Times(NYT), as being part of the plot to throw her under the bus.

Youโ€™ll remember that after the bombshell revelation that a staggering $40 million of Trumpโ€™s inaugural funds had mysteriously disappeared, there was an effort by Trumpโ€™s allies to pin the blame on then First Lady Melania Trumpโ€™s Senior Advisor Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. Stephanie Wolkoff talked about this effort to throw her under the bus at an appearance on MSNBCโ€™s Rachel Maddow show on September 1, 2020.

In the interview, a visibly upset Stephanie Wolkoff told host Maddow, that then First Lady Melania Trump basically told her she had to be the fall person for the Trump inaugural scandal. Wolkoff specifically said, โ€œMelania and the [Trump]White House had accused me of criminal activity, then publicly shamed and fired me, and made me their scapegoat. At that moment in time, thatโ€™s when I pressed record. She was no longer my friend, and she was willing to let them take me down, and she told me herself, that this is the way it has to be. She was advised by the attorneys at the White House that there was no other choice because there was a possible investigation into the presidential inauguration committeeโ€ฆ.At first I really did think maybe she would come to my aid? Maybe she would tell the truth? She turned her back, she did. She folded like a deck of cards., and Iโ€™m shocked she did it.โ€

This 05/23/2021 tweet however, shows that Stephanie Wolkoff is not only going after Trump and his allies in her effort to set the record straight regarding Trumpโ€™s inaugural, sheโ€™s also calling out NYTโ€™s Maggie Haberman and Ken Vogel, as being part of the plot to destroy her. This, if proven, could turn out to be a huge scandal unto itself, given the fact that many liberals still blame the New York Times for Trumpโ€™s ascension to the White House. Specifically, many liberals believe NYTโ€™s excessive coverage of the โ€œemail scandalโ€, weakened Hillary Clintonโ€™s campaign during the final stretch of the 2016 campaign.

Thereโ€™s no other way any reasonable person can interpret Stephanie Wolkoffโ€™s tweet other than NYTโ€™s Haberman and Vogel were doing Trumpโ€™s bidding when they wrote the referenced piece. This is especially so considering Wolkoffโ€™s invocation of โ€œSETUP. COVERUP. TAKEDOWNโ€ in her tweet. For the record, accusations of โ€œaccess journalismโ€ against then White House reporter for the New York Times, Maggie Haberman, persisted throughout Trumpโ€™s presidency. Stephanie Wolkoff is not the first person drawing that inference.

Bottom line folks, Yours Truly is not accusing Maggie Haberman or Ken Vogel of any wrongdoing. By all accounts, these are serious journalists, who exhibit a high level of professionalism(my personal opinion). What Yours Truly is simply pointing out, is what any reasonable person presented with Stephanie Wolkoffโ€™s recent tweet would conclude, and that is, Haberman and Vogel were in on the plot by Trumpโ€™s allies to throw her under the bus. It would be in everybodyโ€™s interest, especially Wolkoff who suffered greatly as a result of the Trump inaugural saga, if Haberman, Vogel or even the New York Times management, addressed this issue.

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Kushner Nixed National Testing Strategy Because he Thought Covid-19 Would Only Ravage Dem States

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A troubling Vanity Fair report says that at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trumpโ€™s son-in-law Jared Kushner cobbled together a team which actually managed to come up with a decent national testing strategy for covid-19. Shockingly however, instead of the plan being rapidly deployed nationwide to curb the spread of the deadly virus, Kushner and some White House political operatives decided it would be politically advantageous for Trump, if they shelved the testing plan because the virus at that time was only ravaging blue/Democratic states like New York.

As unbelievable as this sounds, Kushner and the White House operatives believed it would be politically advantageous for Trump if they let people die in blue/Democratic states because they could turn around and blame Democratic Governors for incompetence in the run up to the November elections. The author of the Vanity Fair piece, Katherine Eban, told CNNโ€™s Erin Burnett;โ€œThere was a shared feeling which turned out to be spectacularly wrong, that the virus was receding, it was going to be under control, and at the time it was just the blue states where the virus was surging. So the idea was, why go through all the effort to surge up a national plan? It wasnโ€™t going to have political resonance, and if there was a political response that was needed, the blue state Governors could just be blamed..โ€

Youโ€™ll remember a recent Washington Post piece which said Trump, who had previously downplayed the seriousness of covid-19, even calling it a hoax at one point, changed his attitude towards the deadly virus only after senior White House officials presented him with data and maps showing that the virus is beginning to ravage โ€œour peopleโ€โ€“Trumpโ€™s base of rural White voters in Republican states.ย This means Trumpโ€™s bungled covid-19 response, which has led to more than 150,000 deaths so far and counting, is not only the result of a callous political decision by his son-in -law Kushner, but also the administrationโ€™s deep seated racism towards communities of color who Trump considers not โ€œour peopleโ€, and who data has consistently shown to disproportionately bear the brunt of covid-19, both in infection rates and deaths.ย A sad state of affairs indeed.

Bottom line folks, as it currently stands, the coronavirus pandemic is arguably one of the biggest crisis ever to befall the United States, especially if you consider the fact that it has claimed more than 150,000 lives in the U.S. in less than six months, led to levels of unemployment most of us have never witnessed in our lifetimes, dealt a severe blow to the U.S. economy leaving economic giants such as the airline industry teetering on the brink of collapse, changed the manner and format of our beloved professional sports leagues, just to mention but a few. Reasonable people will agree that given the seriousness of covid-19, the American public is totally justified in expecting that the Trump administration, without regard to partisan politics or race, will spare no resources, and do everything in itโ€™s power to fight the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Sadly, the Vanity Fair piece saying Kushner shelved a covid-19 national testing strategy for political reasons, and the Washington Post piece saying Trump has not been serious about the pandemic because itโ€™s not ravaging โ€œour peopleโ€, prove beyond any reasonable doubt that partisan politics and racism are guiding Trump administrationโ€™s covid-19 response. All Americans of good conscience must loudly rebuke this immoral and callous disregard for peopleโ€™s lives. We owe that to the families of the 150,000-plus people who have needlessly succumbed to covid-19.

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Ivana Trump Recruited Schoolgirls For Epstein?

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Jeffrey Epstein with Ivana Trump

Whitney Webb,ย an independent journalist best known for her workย trying to exposeย Jeffrey Epsteinโ€™s child sex enterprise, recently made some very explosive allegations in a YouTube interview chief among them,ย that Trumpโ€™s ex wife Ivana trump (Ivankaโ€™s mother) worked with Ghislaine Maxwell to recruit underage school girls in the New York area into Epsteinโ€™s child sex operation.ย This and other explosive allegations in the YouTube interview are based on a phone call Whitney Webb recently had with Maria Farmer, one of Epsteinโ€™s victims in the 1990s.

Webb specifically said regarding Ivana Trump(video at 4:40);ย โ€œWhen she[Maria Farmer] told the FBI in 1996, she said the Clintons were part of it. She also said Donald Trump was part of it. One of the reasons she said that is because Ivana Trump, she said, was with Ghislaine Maxwell when she would go out to recruit girls for Epstein. It was her[Ghislaine] and Ivana Trump, Trumpโ€™s ex wife. They would go out together all the time and pick up these 12 year old girls in school uniforms and braces, exchange information with them and the next day they would be in Epsteinโ€™s office. She[Farmer] saw between 5 and 10 different girls every day go into Epsteinโ€™s office the whole two years she was there. Every day. This is in the 90s. So much of what we know from the other victims is after 2000. The FBI knew this then and they didnโ€™t act and thatโ€™s why all those other victims exist. Itโ€™s just disgusting.โ€

Some of the bombshell allegations Whitney Webb makes in this interview are already fairly well circulated among the general public so Yours Truly will just mention them in passing while focusing more on the โ€œnewโ€ and frankly more interesting bombshells (Ivana Trump being one of them). Whitney Webb for example says the Clintons were implicated and that the FBI covered up Epsteinโ€™s illicit conduct in the 1990s, claims that have been made repeatedly ever since the Epstein scandal broke.

Another interesting bombshell Whitney Webb dropped on the interview is thatย Victoriaโ€™s Secretโ€™s Leslie Wexner and his wife Abigail were the masterminds behind Epsteinโ€™s child sex trafficking operation(see video at 8:00). According to Webb, young school girls would be lured into Epsteinโ€™s operation under the guise that they were being groomed to be Victoriaโ€™s Secret Models. If true, the billionaire Wexners could face very serious criminal conspiracy charges.

As forย Vicky Ward, the journalist much celebrated for her Epstein pieces most notably her 2003ย Vanity Fair piece,ย Whitney Webb says not so fast(see video at 12:00). According to Webb, Maria Farmer gave Vicky Ward details about Epsteinโ€™s child sex trafficking operation but Ward left them out of her bombshell Vanity Fair piece.ย As if that was not enough, Ward who was apparently an acquaintance of Ghislaine Maxwell, told Ghislaine that Maria Farmer talked to the FBI about herโ€”essentially ratted out her source.ย Vicky Ward endangered Maria Farmerโ€™s life so much that she went into hiding. Farmer apparently referred to Vicky Ward as a โ€œmonsterโ€, according to Whitney Webb.

Farmer also told Whitney Webb that she fearsย some of the children involved in Epsteinโ€™s Florida operation may have been killedย because out of some 500 children only about 30 of them came forward and the rest cannot be found(video at 21:30). She added that some of these children were really young(pre-teen). Importantly, Farmer said that Epsteinโ€™s legal team which included Alan Dershowitz, knew all the names of the missing children .

Whitney Webb also talked about a January 2001 article on the Evening Standard (U.K) that has since been scrapped from the internet, which saidย Epsteinโ€™s money came from his business links to three peopleโ€“Leslie Wexner, Donald Trump and Bill Gates.ย Webb argues that nobody pushed back on this article(by one Nigel Russert) because back then(2001), Epstein was not a controversial figure(see video at 35:30).ย Webb also slammed as a total lie New York Timesโ€™ recent reporting that Bill Gates first met Epstein in 2011.

Farmer also told Webb that Epstein and people in his circle were extreme White Supremacists and she regularly overheard them speaking about other races, especially Blacks, in the most disgusting way(see video at 37:25).ย She said Epstein and his pals refused to go anywhere they thought there would be too many people of African descent.

Webb concluded by tying the entire Epstein scandal into a global intelligence operation involving Israel which Yours Truly will deliberately ignore because we will never get to the bottom of it(managing expectations). There are however some bombshell allegations that we could easily get answers to for example,ย whether Ivana Trump really helped Ghislaine Maxwell recruit young girls for Epstein, the missing 500 children who Dershowitz allegedly knows about, whether Vicky Ward(now at CNN) really ratted out Maria Farmer to Ghislaine Maxwell, whether Bill Gates knew Epstein in 2001 as opposed to 2011, whether Trump financed Epstein(another excuse for his tax returns), the Wexnersโ€™ involvement with Epstein, why the mainstream media refuses to act on stories by Maria Farmer and others,ย just to mention but a few.

Bottom line folks, as Yours Truly has repeatedly stated regarding Epsteinโ€™s stories,ย sunlight is the best disinfectant.ย It appears the more efforts are made to cover up Epsteinโ€™s child sex trafficking operation, the more bombshell revelations come up, the latest clearly being Ivana Trump. It will be interesting to hear what Ivana Trump says regarding these troubling allegations, assuming the mainstream media will be courageous enough to ask her. What will CNN do with Vicky Ward given the troubling revelations about her? Hmmโ€“as Trump famously says,ย โ€œWeโ€™ll see what happens.โ€

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Little Known FBIโ€™s Race-Based Surveillance

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There have been numerous media reports about a very troubling practice by the FBI to designate Black activists as โ€œBlack Identity Extremistsโ€, an often bogus designation which is then used to justify subjecting the said activists to all levels of surveillanceโ€“private, local, state, federal and even military surveillance in major cities like Houston, LA, Chicago, New York and others. The rationale, a bogus one, is that a โ€œBlack Identity Extremistโ€ or BIE is more likely to attack law enforcement officers and thus needs to be placed under 24-hour surveillance.

The controversy surrounding this program, beyond its prima facie racism, centers around the ease with which a Black activist could end up in this designation. Several media reports have said that even mundane activities like organizing or attending a Black Lives Matter rally could in the eyes of the FBI qualify a Black activist as a BIE subjecting them to unjustified long-term government surveillance, the fruits of which could be used in their criminal prosecution. Needless to say, Black activists who support/sympathize with Black Lives Matter on social media (Twitter, Facebook) can also very easily be designated as BIEs. Simply put, this is a very serious problem that is yet to garner the mainstream media attention it deserves.

Yours Truly has ranted and raved about the lack of mainstream media attention surrounding this seeminglyโ€“letโ€™s face itโ€“racist surveillance by the FBI for quite a while now, wondering when House Democrats would take up this serious issue with the justice department.

Well, it turns out Rep Sheila Jackson-Lee (R-TX) did indeed raise this issue with then U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a House hearing on November 14, 2017. Rep Jackson-Lee asked Sessions; โ€œMy question is, as I hold up the poster dealing with the report under your jurisdictionโ€“Black Identity Extremists. It is interesting to me that you are opposing [meant targeting] individuals who are opposing lethal force, similar to the attack on Reverend Dr Martin Luther King on Cointelpro, but there seems to be no report dealing with the tiki torch parade in Charlottesville chanting โ€˜Jews will not replace usโ€™. Why is there an attack on Black activists versus any report dealing with the Alt Right and the White Nationalists?โ€ AG Sessions responded that he was not aware of the report.

Cointelpro which Rep Jackson-Lee referenced in her questioning was a controversial and secret surveillance program the FBI deployed on Black civil rights activists in the 60s, most notably, on the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Historians agree that the primary reason the FBI ran Cointelpro on Black civil rights activists was to scare them into silence. This is precisely why when Black activists hear about โ€œBlack Identity Extremistsโ€ they are immediately reminded of stories theyโ€™ve read about Cointelpro and are justified in questioning whether the FBI has indeed reverted back to its 1960s tactic of stifling Black dissent.

Bottom line the โ€œBlack Identity Extremistโ€ debate is one that begs for serious mainstream media attention. The mainstream media and indeed members of Congress must not remain silent as a section of the population is unjustly subjected to heightened levels of government surveillance all in an effort to stifle their first amendment compliant political speech. At moments like these, Martin Niemollerโ€™s famous words come to mind; โ€œFirst they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist, then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist, then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for meโ€”and there was no one left to speak for me.โ€

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Prosecutors Subpoena Epsteinโ€™s Pilots

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CNN reports that prosecutors have subpoenaed the personal pilots of accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in a move clearly aimed at corroborating victimsโ€™ accounts and possibly charging other actors.

It has been known for decades that Epstein befriended a lot of very powerful people and it was just a matter of time before prosecutors started digging into who among them accompanied Epstein on his illicit missions. The flight logs maintained by Epsteinโ€™s personal pilots are of course the perfect place for prosecutors to be digging for such information.

According to CNN reporter Kara Scannell, the relationship between Epstein and billionaire Leslie Wexner (the CEO of L Brandsโ€“the parent company of Victoriaโ€™s Secret), has attracted the attention of prosecutors.

Appearing on the Saturday morning edition of CNNโ€™s NewDay, Kara Scannell said, โ€œThere are new details emerging about the relationship between L Brandโ€™s CEO Leslie Wexner and Epstein. The New York Times is reporting how Epstein leveraged his relationship with the billionaire behind Victoriaโ€™s Secret for money and access to young aspiring models. According to The Times, Wexner gave Epstein power of attorney over his finances allowing Epstein to sign Wexnerโ€™s tax returns, borrow money in his name, and buy and sell properties. The financial ties between the men were also intertwined. According to The Times, Epstein bought at least two properties from Wexner including the New York mansion. Epstein also allegedly leveraged that friendship to gain access to women. According to a Santa Monica police report obtained by CNN, one woman said she met with Epstein in a California hotel room believing she was interviewing for a job as a Victoriaโ€™s Secret catalogue model but once inside, the woman alleges Epstein groped herโ€ฆโ€

There is absolutely no question that Epsteinโ€™s very close personal and business relationship with Wexner raises a lot of eyebrows and prosecutors are justifiably curious about it. Is Wexner so ensnared by Epsteinโ€™s illicit conduct that he felt compelled to bow to his demands? Has Epstein been blackmailing Wexner using potentially compromising behavior the two have engaged in together over the years? These are the kind of questions beginning to pop up regarding the relationship between Epstein and Wexner and undoubtedly, there will be similar stories about other rich people Epstein dealt with, the most anticipated one being his relationship with Trump. CNN pointed out that Wexnerโ€™s camp has denied any involvement with Epstein regarding the child sex trafficking allegations.

Bottom line, as troubling as the allegations involved in Epsteinโ€™s child sex trafficking case are, his case presents a major test for the U.S. criminal justice system. For decades the charge has been levelled against the U.S. criminal justice systemโ€“that it is a two tier system that holds poor suspects to a very harsh standard while extending a lot of leniency to rich and powerful suspectsoften times for more egregious crimes. Epsteinโ€™s case is clearly one where very rich and powerful people have committed horrific crimes against the most vulnerable victimsโ€“children. Will the U.S. criminal justice system rise up to the occasion and โ€œthrow the booksโ€ at the rich suspects or will it be the usual โ€œslap on the wristโ€ treatment the public has become accustomed to? Only time will tell or as Trump famously says, โ€œWeโ€™ll see what happens.โ€

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Trump Admin Set To Cut Food Stamps For 3 Million Families

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UNITED STATES – MAY 7: Supporters listen as Rep. Donald McEachin, D-Va., holds a news conference with faith leaders to “urge lawmakers to reject proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the Farm Bill” on Monday, May 7, 2018. (Photo By Sarah Silbiger /CQ Roll Call)

A troubling Bloomberg piece (shared by Yahoo) says the Trump administration is set to do away with a provision that allowed most states to automatically enroll welfare recipients for food stamps, a move that will lead to more than 3 million poor households losing their food stamps. This is especially troubling given the fact that the Trump administration not only enjoys record Evangelical support but also recently gave extremely generous tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans, some of whom have recently confessed to some sections of the media that they donโ€™t even know what to do with the extra moneyโ€“the quintessential war on poverty. As expected, several 2020 presidential candidates have already jumped on this issue.

As it currently stands most states automatically enroll people who qualify for other federally funded welfare programs into food stamps, and rightfully so. In most states for example, people who qualify for federal housing are also automatically enrolled for food stamps. It is this โ€œautomatic enrollmentโ€ by states that is at issue, with the Trump administration moving to put an end to it. The argument by the Trump administration is that automatic enrollment is leading to a lot of people getting food stamps even though they donโ€™t meet the federal qualification standards. This they argue, is wasteful and you guessed itโ€“a strain on the national debt. Yeah, the same Trump administration which vigorously pushed for deficit-busting tax cuts for the rich is now worried about food stamps for the poor.

Bottom line folks, valid policy differences arise between fiscal conservatives and economic liberals all the time and a forceful argument can be made that the Trump administration is perfectly within its rights to move in and streamline the criteria for determining who qualifies for food stamps. The problem for the Trump administration however and the record number of Evangelical Christians who support it is that it is very hard to defend a policy that strips millions of poor families of food stamps because of worries about the national debt when just recently you supported a trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthiest Americans knowing full well it would put a huge dent on the national debt. This is the epitome of either cruelty, greed, or both.

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