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Good morning and Happy Friday! Thanks for starting your day with me.
I’d be lying if I said I planned to watch Donald Trump’s address to the nation last night, because you couldn’t pay me enough to watch that rotting Cheeto drool all over the Resolute Desk. And I’ve done too many “I watched so you didn’t have to”s in the last 18 months, and felt I deserve a break. Still, it was delightful to learn that ABC and NBC decided against carrying the speech live, and that CBS and CNN reportedly cut away midstream. How humiliating for Trump.
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich called Trump’s speech “absurd” and “riddled with so many lies that I’m reluctant to dignify them with rebuttals.”
And, while I never shy away from criticizing the NYT, I also give credit where credit is due. This is a great headline.
Not as big a fan of the sub-head, which makes it sound like there was something to back up Trump’s claims. There was not. I keep waiting for someone to ask Trump who was in office, and thus in charge of election security, in November of 2020. I’m still waiting.
The bigger story yesterday, though, was that acting AG Todd Blanche met with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims in a bid for Senate confirmation. It went about as well as you’d expect from a guy like Blanche, who has done everything in his power to obfuscate and protect the powerful men in the Epstein files, while carelessly disclosing the names of the victims. But before we get to what happened, you should know that Blanche met with the victims only because Sen. Thom Tillis said he would not vote to advance Blanche’s confirmation out of the Judiciary Committee unless Blanche did so.
I imagine Blanche heaved a heavy sigh and stomped off down the hall, so put upon was he for having to acknowledge that Epstein’s victims exist.
One victim who attended the meeting, however, decried the meeting as “insufficient.”
“Unfortunately, Todd Blanche treated the meeting as a mere ‘check-the-box’ exercise intended to secure votes for his confirmation,” Danielle Bensky, a survivor whose identity was exposed as part of a flawed redaction process during the Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files that Blanche oversaw as deputy attorney general, said in a statement Thursday.
“He danced around his wording, repeatedly interrupted us and could not commit to anything that would demonstrate good faith ro begin to restore trust,” she added.
Bensky, who was invited by Democrats to testify on a panel of outside witnesses earlier Thursday as part of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation proceedings for Blanche, also said that Blanche “did not adequately account for the release of the materials that exposed survivors’ identifying information and images.”
Bensky said she hoped Tillis will ultimately “recognize that this meeting was insufficient” and that Blanche ”is not qualified to serve as attorney general.”
I know what you’re thinking, “Surely, SURELY, the US Senate is not about to confirm the guy who has been the driving force behind the concealment of the Epstein files for Attorney General.” But this is where I remind you that a raw milk enthusiast who wears jeans to work out, carts around dead whales, and stopped testing our food for parasites that can cause explosive diarrhea (ahem) is in charge of Health and Human Services.
Bensky’s optimism that any of the Republicans in Congress would refuse to confirm a Trump nominee over something as trivial as …. checks notes… his cover-up of human trafficking is admirable. However, I’m pretty sure Tillis doesn’t actually care about any of this. He just wants to be seen as maybe caring about the victims of sexual abuse before he toddles out the door and into retirement.
Nice job trying to set yourself up to be the “maverick” of the Senate, Thom.
Alas, it seems that, even with Trump’s approval rating hovering around 30 percent, Republicans in Congress are still forcing his agenda on America, all while whining that he’s going to get them clobbered in the upcoming midterms, and failing to see the connection between the two.
In other news: The ICE agent who killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero had a history of violent behavior; White House teleprompter operator was making bank on Kalshi; We may have found the people ruining our lettuce, and also our summer; and The High Note.
Here we go.
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ICE agent who murdered Joan Sebastian Guerrero had a history of violence
The ICE agent who shot Joan Sebastian Guerrero during a traffic stop in Maine earlier this week, David Michael Brouillette, also asked his ex-wife to lie for him. ICE, as always, is out here recruiting America’s best.
Ashley Brouillette told the Portland Press Herald in a phone interview Thursday afternoon that her ex-husband called admitting to the shooting and defending his actions.
***
“He was asking me to lie for him and to cover for his character,” Ashley Brouillette said. “I told him that I was not going to lie for him. And then he tried to say that it was a justified shooting because the guy tried to hit him with his car.”
***
Ashley Brouillette also described to the Press Herald her ex-husband’s abusive behavior during and after their marriage. She said she does not live in Maine and that she avoids contact with him, but he still reaches out.
She provided a voicemail from a man with slurred speech, which she said Brouillette left in the fall of 2025. He disparages her several times, asserts he’s in a better financial position than her, and states “you should have your (expletive) throats cut, yup, you should.”
“Am I threatening that I’m going to do that?” the man said. “Nope. But do I think you should have your (expletive) throat cut or should have them cut? Yep.”
There is no reforming this kind of behavior. And we have no idea how many guys with similar backgrounds have been recruited by ICE. Probably a lot. And, as I’m always lecturing everyone, domestic violence is a dead giveaway for future violence outside the home. That’s especially troubling, given that a new ACLU report found that force has become a “default tool” for ICE agents.
We know who was getting rich off Kalshi in the White House
I still have my suspicions about Jared Kushner and all three Trump boys, but we now know that at least one person in the White House making bank on Kalshi was Trump’s teleprompter operator.
A White House teleprompter operator used his position to win around $100,000 by placing bets on the prediction market Kalshi about what President Trump would say in his speeches, the company said on Thursday.
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In this case, Kalshi said Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to Mr. Trump, had placed wagers on common words that would appear in the president’s speeches, such as country names and economic terms. In March, when Kalshi’s surveillance systems flagged some of Mr. Perez’s trades, the company froze the funds in his account and referred the case to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets.
Mr. Perez is in discussions with federal regulators to settle allegations that he used his inside knowledge of the president’s speeches to place the bets and has been cooperative, a person with knowledge of the talks said.
But wait until you hear what Karoline Leavitt had to say about all of this:
In a press briefing on Thursday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that she had talked to Mr. Trump about reports that his teleprompter operator had been making money off his speeches on prediction markets and that he had called it a “disgrace.”
“This individual will no longer be here,” she said. “That was a decision by the president.”
Ms. Leavitt was also asked if other members of the White House staff were suspected of using inside information to make money on prediction markets. “Not to my knowledge,” she said.
She added, “There are very strict ethical requirements by all staffers and officials here at the White House” against such conduct.
I’m sorry, did she say there are “very strict ethical requirements” in the White House? Is she kidding? I happen to know of several ethical requirements that have been wholly ignored by this administration. Should we start with the Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses, which prohibit a POTUS from enriching himself while in office? What about the President using the DOJ as a petty revenge squad? Or the POTUS selling access to the Oval Office? Can we get around to addressing any of those? Trump’s crypto scheme? Selling US citizenship?
I have a whole list whenever Leavitt is ready.
You jerks ruined our lettuce and our summer
After several weeks of warning Americans that any fruit or vegetable they consume could result in weeks of explosive diarrhea, and falsely blaming the nationally beloved Taco Bell, it looks like we may know who’s at fault for the cyclospora parasite that is quickly spreading across the country, leaving many Americans stuck within lunging range of their toilets. And they’ve done this kind of thing before.
The Food and Drug Administration is investigating iceberg lettuce supplied to Taco Bell by Taylor Farms as a possible source in an escalating outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a stomach bug that causes weeks of severe diarrhea, in five states, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
Nationwide, nearly 7,000 people may have been sickened, with 1,645 of those cases confirmed and more than 5,100 still under investigation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No deaths have been reported.
See? It’s not Taco Bell! It’s the people who sold Taco Bell lettuce! And this isn’t the first time Taylor Farms has been linked to food that makes people sick. In 2013, they were responsible for another cyclosporiasis outbreak that affected some who ate at Olive Garden and Red Lobster in Iowa and Nebraska. In 2024, Taylor Farms was behind the sliced onion/e coli outbreak at McDonald’s.
So good luck enjoying a salad this summer without worrying about the after-effects. And keep Taco Bell’s name out of the conversation. We’re all adults, and we know what we’re risking by making a run for the border. If you see me pulling up to the TB drive-through to get a bean burrito at 1 am, just know I’ve made peace with whatever comes next.
The High Note
Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.
Linda Ronstadt celebrated her 80th birthday earlier this week, which made me think of this fantastic cover of “Long, Long Time.” Enjoy.
Hey, survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
