the story about brands trying to disalign themselves from the results of the politics they support a little heartier than they do the other side? Well, here are legislators working on the same thing, again, and if the companies do it, it could work. We’ve been saying we need this for a couple of years, at least.It would be a good time for we the people to increase our pressure on companies, as well.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts.
In a letter sent to more than 250 companies, members of the Black Caucus urge them to condemn the redistricting efforts, which the lawmakers describe as “coordinated efforts to silence Black voices at the ballot box.” Some of the companies had co-signed their own message to Congress five years ago urging lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a Democratic proposal to restore and update the Voting Rights Act.
That 2021 coalition, Business for Voting Rights, was backed by many of the country’s most valuable and influential companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Salesforce, Target, PayPal, Intel and Starbucks.
Tuesday’s letter is the latest effort by the Congressional Black Caucus and its allies to gather support for preventing more Republican-led states from redrawing their legislative maps in ways that would dilute Black political representation. Several states have moved to eliminate congressional districts represented by Black Democratic lawmakers after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that severely weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
“Corporations that have profited from Black consumers, relied on Black workers, and amassed wealth in part from Black communities cannot look away while Black political power is dismantled in plain sight,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Black Caucus, said in an interview.
Clarke described the letter as “putting corporate America on notice,” but she said the caucus was not seeking an adversarial relationship with corporations. Among those receiving Tuesday’s letter were companies based overseas that have a significant presence in the U.S.
The caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering their congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers. The 59-member Congressional Black Caucus consists entirely of Democrats, including more than a third from Southern states.
Some lawmakers have said mass protests and federal legislation might be necessary to undo the efforts underway in Republican-led states. Any new federal voting rights law would almost certainly require Democrats to secure majorities in both chambers of Congress and win the presidency.
It is unclear how companies will respond to the demands. The Associated Press reached out for comment to dozens of companies that were sent a letter by the caucus, but has not recieved a response.
“Many companies that previously issued statements after the murder of George Floyd, pledged billions toward racial equity initiatives, and spoke forcefully in defense of democracy following January 6 now face a defining test of whether those commitments were rooted in principle or convenience,” the caucus’ letter states.
It also represents the latest instance of the caucus expressing frustrations with corporate America. A 2024 Black Caucus report noted that lawmakers were “troubled that some corporations that made pledges in 2020 have taken several steps in the opposite direction,” such as rolling back or failing to follow through on pledges to diversify their workforces.
“We understand who the occupant in the White House is and the reality of Republicans being in charge,” Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada said of the caucus’ message. “But what corporate America also understands is that there will be a shift at some point.”
The letter calls on companies to publicly condemn the redistricting plans, meet with Black Caucus members to discuss corporate America’s role in protecting voting rights and disclose their political donations to Republican politicians in states that are redistricting their congressional maps.
President Donald Trump last year kicked off the unusual mid-decade round of congressional redistricting when he pushed Texas lawmakers to redraw their maps in a way that would add Republican seats. Democratic-led California responded, but it has been mostly Republican states redrawing their lines since as the party tries to maintain its majority in the U.S. House during this year’s midterm elections.
The effort was supercharged by the Supreme Court decision, which allowed even more Republican states to redraw congressional maps that previously had protected minority communities.
Horsford, who chaired the Black Caucus during President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, said the caucus is demanding that companies “stand on the side of democracy, fairness and equal representation.”
“This is about power, who holds it and what it’s used for,” he said. “And when you’re diluting Black economic and political power, we need to know where these companies stand in this moment, and what side of history they’re on.”
The seahorse cousin is named for its ‘uncanny’ resemblance to the Sesame Street character
Sheena Goodyear · CBC Radio · Posted: May 21, 2026 4:01 PM CDT | Last Updated: May 21
Solenostomus snuffleupagus, a newly described species of fish, is named after the beloved Sesame Street character, Mr. Snuffleupagus. (David Harasti)
Scientist David Harasti never had any doubt what he would name the tiny orange creature he first spotted on a diving expedition in Papua New Guinea in 2003.
But it would take another two decades for Harasti and his colleague Graham Short to find the elusive fish again, study it, and officially designate it a new species.
Meet Solenostomus snuffleupagus, namedafter the beloved Sesame Street character, Mr. Snuffleupagus.
“Snuffy for short,” Short, an ichthyologist at the California Academy of Sciences and the Australian Museum, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. “The resemblance was quite uncanny.”
Short and Harasti have now written a new paper, published in the journal Fish Biology, describing S. snuffleupagus as a new species of ghost pipefish that makes its home along coral reefs, and disguises itself as red algae.
‘The awesome power of natural selection’
The fish has quite a few things in common with its namesake — mainly its orange-brown colouring, the long filaments that look like shaggy hair, and its elephant-like snout.
Milton Love, a marine biologist at the University of California’s Marine Science Institute in Santa Barbara, Calif., says the fish’s muppet-like appearance demonstrates “the awesome power of natural selection.”
“Clearly, all of the morphological features that we find endearing are of some value to the animal,” Love, who was not involved in the research, said in email.
“Or, and here is another hypothesis, Gaia created this fish after having one too many of those rum drinks that come with those little umbrellas.”
But its similarity to Snuffleupagus goes deeper than meets the eye.
It’s also extremely elusive, much like Mr. Snuffleupagus, who, in his early appearances on Sesame Street, was only ever seen by Big Bird, leading the other characters to mistakenly suspect he was imaginary.
Harasti and Short tried for years to spot a snuffy fish again after that first 2003 sightingto no avail.
Their luck changed in 2021 when some scuba diver buddies started seeing the little creatures on the Great Barrier Reef and got in touch. The scientists headed to Australia to see for themselves, and on their second dive, they found the fish.
“It’s an understatement to say that we screamed under water,” Short said. “We high-fived, gave each other a hug, and we were just so excited.”
An itty-bitty carnivore
In order to describe the fish and confirm it as a previously undocumented species, the scientists looked at CT scans of specimens first collected in 1993 during exhibition to far north of Queensland, Australia, in the Torres Strait.
Short says they were collected alongside several hundred other fish specimens and tucked away until he and his colleague came looking. But even back then, he says ichthyologist Helen Larson, who was part of the expedition, suspected it was a new species.
S. snuffleupagus, like other ghost pipefish, is a cousin of the seahorse.
The newly described Snuffleupagus fish is smaller than a matchstick. (Darren Rice/Matafonua Lodge)
Using iNaturalist, the citizen science platform, the scientists confirmed sightings of it in Tonga, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia, suggesting distribution across the southwestern Pacific.
And while it may look like Big Bird’s beloved bestie, there are a few significant differences between S. snuffleupagus the fish and Snuffleupagus the muppet.
While Snuffleupagus is famously big — bigger even than Big Bird — S. snuffleupagus is roughly four to five centimetres long, about the size of an airpod.
And while Snuffleupagus would never harm a fly, S. snuffleupagus is a natural-born killer.
“They look adorable, very cute. They’re very delicate and slow moving in the water. And it’s been assumed that they only eat small crustaceans like small shrimp,” Short said.
Not so, he says. The CT scans found tiny fish skeletons in the specimens’ stomachs.
“Every fish has a role, and they are either eating or being eaten. It turns out, ghost pipe fish and in particular, snuffy … they’re just like other fish,” Short said. “They’re predators.”
Short says the widespread interest in S. snuffleupagus has been a delight, and he hopes it won’t be the last fish he brings attention to.
He and his colleague already have their eyes on another species of ghost pipe fish that is known to divers around the Pacific, but hasn’t been formally described.
If it works out, they plan to name it after another muppet, but Short wouldn’t say which one.
“Not yet, because I need approval,” he said.
Interview with Graham Short produced by Leslie Amminson
Immigration courts are using a new tactic to speed up deportations
The Justice Department is moving up the court hearings for hundreds of immigrants and scheduling them for mass hearings. If they don’t show up, they could be ordered deported.
Cesar Chavez, Eric Swalwell, Justin Fairfax, and the gender politics of keeping their dirty secrets.
News about powerful men committing violence against women has bombarded the United States in recent months.
On April 16, 2026, Virginia’s former Lieutenant Gov. Justin Fairfax killed his wife, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, and then himself inside their family home. The shocking news came days after Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, resigned from Congress following multiple sexual misconduct allegations.
A few weeks prior, in March 2026, an investigation about labor movement leader Cesar Chavez revealed a decades-long pattern of sexual abuse, including against another farmworker icon, Dolores Huerta.
All three of these powerful men had known patterns of alleged predatory sexual behavior. But their secret was protected—in some cases for decades—not only by other men, but also by some of the same women they’d hurt.
Somehow, no matter how much progress we think we’ve made, women keep being sacrificed—or sacrificing ourselves—for men’s accomplishments and legacy. Our lives and futures and mental health are even sacrificed on the altar of their potential political accomplishments and legacy.
The Al Franken effect
I’m a legal historian and commentator on sexism and gender-based violence. I’ve studied violence against women and the criminal trials that let male perpetrators off the hook. I’m also a woman who experiences sexual harassment so often that it has become a dull hum following me throughout my day.
This self-sacrifice seemingly stems from what seems to me to be a societal belief that the men who commit harm are more needed than the women who are harmed. Our ideas, organizing, and logistical labor—often dismissed as “secretarial” work—can’t compete with the fear of losing a single powerful man.
When the allegations against Swalwell first broke, some on the left rushed to defend him. Some on social media claimed it was a Republican smear job because he’s been opposed to Trump’s policies and was running to be the next governor of California.
Women often come forward with their stories when a man is running for political office because they feel that information is relevant to voters. Or, they may speak out because it’s difficult to see one’s abuser portrayed so incompletely in the news.
Yet some people cast doubt on the timing of the Swalwell accusations, suggesting people were out to get attention or take a “good man” down before he can further ascend in his career. On social media, posts compared the situation to Al Franken resigning from Congress in 2017 over sexual misconduct allegations.
Franken’s resignation is often treated as an example of #MeToo going “too far,” because some reporting suggests that the initial accusation against Franken may have been trumped up. But he was sexually inappropriate with women both before and after taking office. His resignation was important to live up to progressive values, and the left didn’t actually lose any political clout over it: Franken’s replacement, Tina Smith, has been a fantastic senator.
It’s relatively rare for members of Congress to resign after being accused of sexual misconduct. According to the National Women’s Defense League, 23 lawmakers with public accusations are running for reelection in 2026 in 16 states, including nine people running for Congress.
The group held a press conference on April 21, 2026, to discuss two new reports on sexual misconduct in Congress and state government. According to its research, 80 percent of candidates publicly accused get reelected.
Cesar Chavez’s legacy
The calculus for marginalized women to come forward about sexual assault is even tougher.
The first line of Dolores Huerta’s public statement about her abuse says she kept quiet for nearly 60 years because she “believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.”
I believe many women stay quiet when they think coming forward could hurt a movement—in this case, one Huerta helped to build. But they may tell their story if they’re worried not doing so could cause even more harm.
Her story details two incidents of sexual assault that resulted in two hidden pregnancies. She gave both children up for adoption.
Soon after the investigation broke, Chavez’s name was erased from monuments across the country. That’s not necessarily an indication of local leaders taking sexual violence seriously. In some places, it may just as well reflect a desire to erase Mexican American achievements and the progress of the United Farmworkers Union in securing rights for migrant laborers, some of the most marginalized workers in the country.
I say that because we have the perfect replacement for Chavez’s legacy in Huerta herself. It would be so easy to simply rename every street and monument after her, rather than simply erase commemorations of the movement.
Huerta was already forced to sacrifice so much by Chavez, must she now watch as her life’s work goes down with him, too?ire News Group is a reader-supported, independent nonprofit newsroom.
Jewish history
In my own Jewish community, there is a long history of pressuring victims of domestic violence and sexual assault to stay quiet—and not air their suffering outside the community.
Doing so would be an example of “lashon hara,” or evil speech or gossip. If we report our abuse to police, we are contributing to negative ideas about the Jewish men in our community. Some men in the Jewish community even claim that because of Jewish teachings and customs, Jewish men can’t ever actually abuse their wives, because domestic violence is a Christian affliction of gentile culture—that is, a non-Jewish problem.
This myth persists outside the Jewish community, and it can impact how Jewish women are treated in secular American courts.
My doctoral dissertation research covered a case of a Jewish woman in New York City murdered in 1875. Both suspects in her killing were Jewish men protected by the community. During the trial, the victim was used as a cudgel against her own people to prove that Jews were dangerous.
If she had survived and was given the choice to report the violence she faced would she have feared exposing a man from her community to the criminal justice system?
This concern is even more heightened for Black women. If their abusers are Black, they know that reporting them means increasing exposure to a racist criminal justice system.
Research also suggests Black women are less likely to be seen as victims by the dominant society and more likely to be blamed for harming men of their own community, or accused of trying to “take down a good man.” (Think back to how accusations against R. Kelly, Mike Tyson, Bill Cosby, and Clarence Thomas were greeted.)
As Aishah Simmons, Black feminist and activist, explains, many people “think that exposing and addressing intra-racial sexual violence against Black women divides the community … and we should only focus … on racism since that is the ‘real problem.’”
This community protection can feel even more important when the abuse comes from a so-called “good Black man,” as author Kaitlyn Greenidge wrote on April 19, 2026, of Cerina Fairfax’s killing. The promise of a Black middle class life with a politician husband like Justin Fairfax is supposed to guarantee a safe and protected life.
Cerina Fairfax stood by her husband even after two women accused him of sexually assaulting them; one alleged incident occurred back when he and his accuser were undergraduates at Duke University.
The accusations against Fairfax came to light during a crisis in Virginia politics when he was poised to possibly take over the governorship from the scandal-plagued Ralph Northam. Fairfax denied any misconduct and refused to resign. No criminal charges were filed. He ran for governor in 2021, and lost.
In this case, Democrats did lose leadership of the state. Before the sexual assault allegations, Fairfax was seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party. Had his accusers not gone public, he might have become the state’s next governor.
But it’s equally true that had he resigned in 2019, after they did, a new Lt. governor could have stepped in and potentially run successfully in 2021.
Sacrificing for the cause
It irks me that Fairfax ran for governor after being accused of sexual misconduct. It irks me that Swalwell did, too.
Swalwell’s name remains on the primary ballots in the California governor race, and that will hurt the Democrats’ chances to hold onto that post. It was Swalwell’s hubris and entitlement hurt his party—not the women who came forward to prevent him from accruing more power.
I wonder: How many young staffers left politics because Swalwell was allowed to prey on his subordinates? What progress could have been made in the labor movement if the women abused by Chavez had instead been in leadership roles? Would Cerina Fairfax still be alive if her husband had been prosecuted in 2019?
We’ll never know how the world would look if the well-being of the women in these cases had been prioritized over the careers of their abusers. What I know is that the harm done to us as women is more important than the potential of the men who hurt us. And I know that the goals of movements or political gains can no longer rest on our silence and our labor.
As Rhode Island Hospital begins turning over documents to a far-right judge in Texas, a number of grand jury subpoenas have been issued and DOJ settled with one hospital.
Three weeks ago, on April 29, lawyers for Rhode Island Hospital responded to an email from a Justice Department lawyer in Washington, D.C., sent the day before, asking for a conference on next steps in addressing an outstanding administrative subpoena issued by DOJ to the hospital nearly a year earlier about its provision of gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
The next day, DOJ shifted tactics without even initially telling the hospital — going to court across the country to try and get an order enforcing the subpoena.
At least seven challenges to the invasive subpoenas had previously resulted in federal court rulings quashing the subpoenas or, at least, the parts of the subpoenas seeking identifiable patient information. In the wake of those losses — and as Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche took over the Justice Department — the strategy, as Law Dork has covered, began to shift to more aggressive tactics on multiple fronts.
The change has had at least one tangible effect already with regards to Rhode Island Hospital.
Beginning Tuesday night, at least some records responsive to the administrative subpoena were sent to a far-right federal judge in Texas who on Monday ordered the hospital to provide the records to him — although, for now, not to DOJ — while the hospital appeals his earlier ruling that the records need to be turned over to DOJ.
Any action on that earlier ruling, however, would appear to conflict with a later ruling from a federal judge in Rhode Island quashing the subpoena in full and barring DOJ from receiving any such records from the hospital — although the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit late Tuesday denied a request to take further action immediately to enforce that order.
This latest dispute, which has now involved four courts across the country, as well as related discussions in court filings and before a federal judge in Rhode Island, serve as a warning for transgender people, their allies, and the parents of trans kids about how aggressively the Trump administration is acting to advance President Donald Trump’s anti-trans policies and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi’s implementation of them — and where the administration could be going next in this attack.
That April 28 DOJ email to Rhode Island Hospital’s lawyers — in which David Gunn, a DOJ lawyer, referenced having been out of office for the past few weeks before asking for a conference to discuss the subpoena production — was a DOJ response to a February 4 email from lawyers from the hospital.
The hospital’s lawyer responded simply the next day: “We are happy to connect. Would Monday of next week work?”
The conference never happened because, on April 30, DOJ went to a friendly forum for them in the Northern District of Texas seeking to enforce the administrative subpoena, which, to be clear, was issued in D.C. to a Rhode Island entity. Going there meant the case had a good chance of and was, in fact, assigned to U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a far-right judge with a history of anti-LGBTQ rulings.
Within hours, and before the hospital even had a chance to file any response, O’Connor granted the request — ordering the hospital to turn over the records within two weeks.
Over the past three weeks, there have been daily developments — and often multiple developments — shining an alarming light on what is happening.
Grand jury subpoenas
In addition to the order to enforce the subpoena in the Northern District of Texas, one of the two other most significant other development was the news — acknowledged by NYU Langone Health in accordance with New York law on May 11 — that it had received a grand jury subpoena for similar records that was issued in the Northern District of Texas.
Ethan Womble is listed as the person who sought the grand jury subpoena. He is, as of last month, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Texas. (He was previously listed — as recently as February — as a trial attorney in the DOJ Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, although that health care fraud work does appear to have been based out of Texas.)
Womble and Ryan Raybould, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, were the only two lawyers on the DOJ petition to enforce the Rhode Island Hospital subpoena. They are both former O’Connor clerks.
The grand jury subpoena — which does not require judicial approval — was received by NYU Langone on May 7 (although dated May 6), and the date for compliance is June 10.
There is also evidence that other grand jury subpoenas were issued. In addition to NYU Langone stating that it was “one of several institutions that received a grand jury subpoena,” Law Dork previously reported that DOJ’s decision to withdraw its appeal of one of its administrative subpoena losses — as to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) — came the same date that the NYU Langone grand jury subpoena was issued.
In a filing later on May 6 before the district court that had heard and granted the Philadelphia hospital’s initial request, the lawyers for CHOP were direct:
Just this morning, DOJ attorneys reached out to counsel for CHOP indicating that DOJ intended to dismiss its appeal, which has been proceeding in the Third Circuit since January and in which DOJ’s brief was due today. That development, along with DOJ’s unexplained effort to compel compliance by a Rhode Island hospital in the Northern District of Texas, suggest that DOJ may seek to end-run this Court’s jurisdiction over additional issues that arise involving the Subpoena.
Unlike the administrative subpoenas, which were challenged in the locations where the hospitals were located, challenges to the grand jury subpoena(s) would generally be in the Northern District of Texas — although lawyers will be looking for other paths.
It also should be noted that it is not yet clear what, if any, action beyond the issuance of the grand jury subpoenas has actually happened in the Northern District of Texas.
The Texas Children’s Hospital settlments
The grand jury subpoenas aren’t the only new development.
On May 15, DOJ announced it had reached a “resolution” with Texas Children’s Hospital in conjunction with a long-running investigation against the hospital by the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
Although DOJ presented the development as “the first resolution secured under the Department’s ongoing national investigation into violations of federal law in connection with” provision of gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, Texas Attorney General Paxton only mentioned DOJ in one sentence and instead stated, “After a years-long investigation by the Healthcare Program Enforcement Division, Attorney General Paxton has negotiated a historic settlement that will help protect Texans.“ DOJ does cite agreements reached by the hospital with both federal and Texas governments.
In addition to ending the provision of such care, Paxton’s news release stated that Texas Children’s Hospital has agreed to “the creation of the country’s first-ever Detransition Clinic” and “pay $10 million for billing Texas Medicaid for unallowable and illegal ‘gender-transition’ interventions, including by using false diagnosis codes.“
In the DOJ news release, which only quotes Main Justice senior officials from D.C., it noted, “These matters and the investigations into sex-rejecting procedures (sic) on minors are being led by the Justice Department’s Civil Division Enforcement and Affirmative Litigation Branch and Commercial Litigation Branch, Fraud Section.”
There was no mention of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas — or any district in Texas, for that matter — but the fact that the news releases are about a Texas hospital, DOJ’s release referenced what appears to be the same investigation at issue in both the administrative and grand jury subpoenas, and Texas’s release referenced one of the topics raised by DOJ in defending its subpoenas as allegedly supporting its investigation (improper billing codes) should not be glossed over.
For its part, Texas Children’s Hospital, in a statement to Law Dork, sounded a significantly different note than DOJ and Paxton’s office:
Over the last three years, we have cooperated fully with the Texas Attorney General and Department of Justice, navigating an unconscionable campaign of mistruths and mischaracterizations related to gender affirming care. We produced over 5 million documents and conducted multiple internal and external investigations. These efforts have required significant staff time and financial resources to defend ourselves. All reviews and investigations continue to support the facts – we have been compliant with all laws.
Today, we made the difficult decision to settle with the Texas Attorney General and the Department of Justice, closing a chapter that has been wrought with falsehoods and distractions. To be clear – we are settling to protect our resources from endless and costly litigation. This settlement will allow us to redirect those precious resources to focus on the life-saving care and groundbreaking discoveries of our exceptional clinicians and scientists.
Nonetheless, if DOJ proceeds with a grand jury investigation in the Northern District of Texas, these settlements could quickly become very relevant to DOJ’s claims.
What happened with Rhode Island Hospital
All of which brings us back to Rhode Island Hospital.
After O’Connor issued his initial order three weeks ago Thursday, the Rhode Island Child Advocate — responsible for oversight of children under the care of Rhode Island’s youth services — sought to quash the subpoena in Rhode Island.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, a Trump appointee who had initially been nominated during the Obama administration, was assigned the matter. She denied DOJ’s initial request to move the matter to O’Connor and set a quick timeline for consideration of the request.
The hospital, meanwhile, sought to stay O’Connor’s order — first before O’Connor and then at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. (Both were denied.) The hospital also joined the Rhode Island Child Advocate’s request, intervening and filing its own motion to quash the subpoena.
On May 12, McElroy held an explosive hearing — accusing DOJ of having misled the hospital; the court in Texas; as well as, potentially, the court in Rhode Island.
Highlighting the incredibly invasive plans potentially involved in DOJ’s effort, McElroy told the relatively new DOJ lawyer before her, Brantley Mayers, counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, “[I]t is ridiculous to say that you’re going to find 14- and 15-year-olds who are undergoing gender reassignment or gender treatment and question them about what was told to them by their doctor. How invasive is that?”
An amicus brief submitted by Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund addressed the improper ways DOJ is employing the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and other “healthcare offenses” to attempt to justify this investigation, but every judge has, again, found the effort to be an “improper purpose” under the laws at issue — or, at the least, the patient-specific documents requested not to have been appropriately sought.
Regarding the timing of the filing in Texas to enforce the Rhode Island Hospital administrative subpoena in conjunction with the emails earlier that week, McElroy told Mayers:
I take a very negative view to playing fast and loose by telling people one thing and filing other things with the court, and then taking the position like, oh, well, we didn’t tell you, but we did tell you afterwards. That is dirty pool, in my opinion, and the Department of Justice have willfully done that in this case.
Mayers had joined DOJ in November 2025 after three clerkships and with virtually no prior practice experience, a fact highlighted by McElroy, who repeatedly suggested that she believed the new lawyer was set up to defend the actions without having hardly any actual knowledge of the underlying investigation.
Sitting at his side, however, was Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jordan Campbell, a more senior Texas lawyer who joined DOJ in June 2025 after having co-founded a law firm that states it is “proudly seeking justice for the detransitioner community nationwide.“
Specifically as to the grand jury subpoena, which was discussed because NYU Langone’s statement had come out the day before, McElroy warned:
[T]he problem I’m having here is that it’s pretty clear to me that this was shopped to Texas, that’s fine, you have the right to investigate wherever you want, but these indictments that come out of Texas, if they ever come, because every person has signed an affidavit in this court and is going to be before me to explain it if they don’t.
Mayers insisted there were reasons for the investigation being in the Northern District of Texas — and acknowledged part of the content of a secret declaration that was filed ex parte (meaning just with the judge) in DOJ’s opposition to Rhode Island Hospital’s request that O’Connor stay his order enforcing the subpoena.
This secret declaration from Lisa Hsiao, the acting director of the Enforcement & Affirmative Litigation Branch — who has filed declarations in most if not all of DOJ’s efforts defending the administrative subpoenas and which have drawn questions previously — was later provided to McElroy as well. Of that, Mayers acknowledged:
[H]ere were many reasons why the investigation is being carried on in the Northern District of Texas. As the affidavit that you received yesterday ex parte indicates, there are potential targets, potential witnesses there.
The reference to “potential targets” of the investigation being in the Northern District of Texas appears to be a significant piece of information as that proceeds.
In any event, the next evening, on May 13, McElroy issued her ruling, quashing the administrative subpoena in full and blocking DOJ from receiving the requested documents. She also repeatedly questioned DOJ’s actions in the opinion, writing at one point that “the discrepancy between the honorable conduct expected of federal prosecutors and DOJ’s tactics in this case is unsettling.”
DOJ, however, did not let it go — appealing the order the next day and informing O’Connor of the ruling. O’Connor, on May 15, ordered an in-person hearing in Texas on May 18.
Following that hearing came the May 18 order from O’Connor, concluding that “RIH has also sought to circumvent the authority of this Court and the Fifth Circuit and attempted to collaterally attack the Enforcement Order“ and ordering the hospital to turn over to the court “all materials that it would have turned over to the Government in compliance with this Court’s Enforcement Order“ on the condition that the materials would be “secured and held in camera, inaccessible to the Government for the pendency of the appeals.“
Additionally, O’Connor — responding to his conclusion about the alleged circumvention — purported to bar Rhode Island Hospital from seeking relief from his order in any court aside from his court, the Fifth Circuit, or the U.S. Supreme Court and from “cooperat[ing] with others in seeking relief“ from his order.
The First Circuit
That led to one last effort to hold things off, with the Rhode Island Child Advocate filing a motion in the First Circuit — where DOJ had appealed McElroy’s order — on May 19 seeking an injunction ordering Rhode Island Hospital “not to produce patient-identifying information or protected health information” in response to the administrative subpoena “to any person or entity pending resolution of this appeal or until further order of this Court.”
DOJ opposed the request, and later highlighted the fact that, in Rhode Island Hospital’s notice about its production, “RIH represents that, ‘[t]o the extent that records RIH intends to produce contain any patient information, RIH will anonymize and de-identify this information.’“ DOJ stated that “RIH’s stated plan to anonymize any documents filed in the Northern District of Texas today further undercuts the Child Advocate’s claim of imminent irreparable harm.“
In a short order issued a few hours later, the First Circuit essentially agreed, denying Rhode Island Child Advocate’s request because, the court stated, “We detect no such irreparable injury.“
The panel consisted of Judges Gustavo Gelpí and Lara Montecalvo, both Biden appointees, and Judge Joshua Dunlap, a Trump appointee who took the bench in 2025.
Notably, Dunlap issued a concurring opinion, highlighting “additional concerns regarding the request for an injunction pending appeal“ — including, he wrote, “serious questions about the merits of the district court’s decision.” This is contrary to the seven other federal judges to have ruled on the question and was an aside, but it is nonetheless notable coming from the one Republican appointee on the First Circuit.
The bigger problem, however, with the First Circuit’s ruling is what was missing.
The paragraph highlighted above seems to run counter to and with an almost blind ignorance to all that McElroy got on the record in her May 12 hearing.
This is a situation where DOJ has questionably, and without providing public evidence, claimed that it has moved an investigation to the Northern District of Texas, justifying invoking the court’s jurisdiction there to enforce an administrative subpoena issued many months before the investigation had a connection to the district and against an entity across the nation that had been in discussion with DOJ the day before the enforcement action was filed. Then, a far-right judge there granted the request sought by his former clerks and now has ordered the hospital to provide him with the information that every other judge has decided medical providers should not need to provide.
No awareness of that reality comes through in the First Circuit’s order. Although the caveats in the order do mean that renewed requests could follow and it certainly means nothing as to the hospital or Rhode Island Child Advocate’s chances on appeal in quashing the subpoena (Dunlap’s concurrence aside), the First Circuit’s presumption of regularity is particularly ill-suited here.
As McElroy wrote specifically in her order, quoting an Oregon colleague:
The Court cannot help but share the sentiment that “[t]he presumption of regularity that has previously been extended to [DOJ] that it could be taken at its word—with little doubt about its intentions and stated purposes—no longer holds.” United States v. Oregon, No. 6:25-CV-01666-MTK, 2026 WL 318402, at *11 (D. Or. Feb. 5, 2026). It is regrettable that this is now the case.
As DOJ continues with these escalations of its attacks on trans people — and the provision of medical care specifically — courts need to keep their eyes opened to the reality as McElroy saw and detailed it, not to the image of courts as they would wish things to be.
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I really enjoy this creator and how he has done this entire series on the Christian god and the inconsistancies of the bible and the figures in it. In this series the god is a self centered older teenager who only thinks of themselves and their needs/ wants. The full series starts out with a future highly technological civilization having graduates from school take a psychological test as them an omnipotent being and their assistant is actually their teacher in real life. But in this case “god” is so narcissistic it causes problems in the simulator they are all connected with. But the series does show how narcissistic and only thinking of their feelings, wants, and needs this Christian god is. Sadly the creator has moved on from making the series and the spin-offs from them as his main YouTube product but he still produces these videos which I am grateful for. But try to remember that God is a student and Jefferies is in reality his teacher still trying to teach him how to be a good person. Reverse the roles of the characters and you get the joke. Hugs.
For those worried about my health and my not eating, here is what I am going to try to eat for supper. Beer bean burritos and carrots with some soy sauce as I salt waste and some taco sauce because i love the taste. This is the second meal I ate today, at breakfast i couldn’t eat so had a supplement shake and for lunch a ham and baloney sandwich. So yes I am very tired and did not get the cartoons / memes / news post anywhere near done I am eating and getting better / stronger every day or three. Love to everyone, sorry i am such a sad sack pain in your butt, but i love you all. Hugs.
One good thing about trolling comedians, they always know exactly how to respond.
New York City Pride recently announced the Grand Marshals for its annual Pride parade, scheduled for June 28.
It’s quite a roster, featuring trans actress Dominique Jackson, drag star Peppermint, trans journalist and radio personality Bernie Wagenblast, activist group Gays Against Guns and SNL alum Bowen Yang.
Of course someone was gonna have an opinion on this lineup, and one of them tried to come for Yang in the comments of the announcement on Instagram.
And Yang, ever the seasoned comedian, had the perfect response. The troll demanded to know “why bowen,” and Yang didn’t miss a beat, quipping:
“showed hole to the board.”
(snip-embedded social post)
Perfect.
It’s a strange question in the first place: Yang made history when he joined the SNL cast in 2019.
In a statement, NYC Pride wrote:
“Bowen Yang became a household name as the first Chinese-American cast member on Saturday Night Live in 2019.”
“With that platform, he helped usher in an era of authentic queer humor in mainstream media, earning an Emmy® for writing and becoming the most-nominated Asian male performer in Emmy® history in the process.”
The better question is “why not Bowen?”
(🤣 🤣 🤣 snip-MORE ; lots of embedded social media posts; enjoy!)
Scottie's Playtime 