Notice at the end The Majority Report crew plays a clip of all of tRump’s hateful rhetoric after the White House spokesperson blasts Democrats for hate speech inciting violence, which was the democrats telling the truth about tRump. Hugs
On a personal note I have allergy shots this morning. Hugs
Two pieces here:
As you know, by now, Todd, Blanche, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and current acting Attorney General, is a political hack.
If you had read that someone was going to prison in another country for posting an image of seashells that spelled out 8647, you would think that it was from an authoritarian state. If this were North Korea, would James Comey be put to death by anti-aircraft fire?
Pam Bondi, Blanche’s predecessor, was fired for what many believe was for being too slow to prosecute Donald Trump’s enemies. She had already indicted James Comey once before, which was basically laughed out of court, and never had even the slightest possibility of ever going to trial.
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Post-Megabill Drop in SNAP Participation Is Steepest in Decades
Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) fell by more than 3 million people (8 percent) nationwide between July 2025 and January 2026. The drop followed the enactment of H.R.1, the Republican megabill that made unprecedented cuts to the program. SNAP typically expands to meet need and then shrinks when economic conditions improve. It took over three years for the caseload to drop by over 3 million people (or 7 percent) between its peak in December 2012 and February 2016, during the recovery following the Great Recession.
But economic conditions haven’t been improving as the number of people receiving SNAP has plummeted in recent months, representing the sharpest decline in decades. The last time there was such a steep decrease in participation in such a short period of time (other than temporary spikes following natural disasters) was nearly three decades ago, after Congress enacted very deep cuts to SNAP (then the Food Stamp Program) in 1996. SNAP participation dropped by 9.4 percent (2.2 million people) in the six months between March and September 1997.
SNAP participation has fallen in every state and in some, the drop is particularly alarming. (snip-MORE)
On Monday, the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee passed HB26-1322, a bill that creates a private civil right of action allowing survivors of conversion therapy to sue the practitioners who subjected them to it. The bill, which has no statute of limitations for such claims, would likely make the practice of conversion therapy financially prohibitive in the state. It comes in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision last month in Chiles v. Salazar, which found that Colorado’s 2019 ban on conversion therapy unconstitutional—effectively legalizing the discredited practice nationwide. The new bill has one final legislative hurdle to clear—the full Colorado Senate—before heading to Governor Jared Polis’s desk, though the governor has so far offered only lukewarm signals about whether he will sign it, saying he is “hopeful there is still time to construct a framework he could support.”
The bill targets what it calls “sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts”—defined as “any practice by a licensed mental health professional that seeks to direct a patient toward a predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity outcome, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of a particular sex or gender, regardless of the sexual orientation or gender identity the patient is directed toward.” The inclusion of “eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions” is notable—conversion therapists have long used this framework to argue disingenuously that they are not trying to change a person’s sexual orientation, merely helping them manage unwanted feelings. The bill explicitly carves out any counseling or therapy that “provides acceptance, support, and understanding of a patient” or “facilitates a patient’s coping, social support, and identity exploration and development”—meaning therapists who support a patient’s own process of self-discovery, without steering them toward a predetermined outcome, would face no liability.
The bill uses a novel legal mechanism to target conversion therapy—a private right of action. Rather than the government banning conversion therapy outright, which is what the Supreme Court struck down in Chiles, the bill instead allows survivors to sue their practitioners directly, stating that “a person who suffered an injury as a result of sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts may bring a civil action for damages” against their conversion therapist. It also states that a lawsuit to recover damages can be commenced “at any time without limitation,” making its statute of limitations effectively endless. The mechanism may be insulated from the constitutional problem the Supreme Court identified in Chiles because the government is not restricting speech—instead, private citizens are seeking civil remedies for harm they suffered, the same way a patient can sue a doctor for malpractice. As Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School, told Erin in the Morning after the Chiles ruling, “While the Supreme Court decision limits the abilities of states to regulate conversion therapy through professional standards, they did not limit the ability for states to protect LGBTQ youth from these abusive practices through tort or malpractice law.”
If the mechanism sounds familiar, it is because Republicans pioneered it to get around Supreme Court rulings they didn’t like—most famously in Texas’s SB 8, the 2021 abortion “bounty hunter” law. That law banned abortion after six weeks not through government enforcement but by allowing any private citizen to sue anyone who performed or aided an abortion for $10,000 in damages. The legal trick was simple: when abortion providers tried to challenge SB 8 in court, they couldn’t get an injunction because there was no government official to enjoin. Courts found that you can’t sue “the state” to block a law that only private citizens enforce. The Supreme Court effectively let SB 8 stand, and the strategy worked—abortion access in Texas collapsed virtually overnight even while Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land. Kansas used the same model in SB 244, which allows anyone to sue a transgender person for using a restroom that doesn’t match their assigned sex at birth. Now, Colorado Democrats are exploiting the same constitutional loophole in the opposite direction—using private civil enforcement to deter a harmful practice that the Supreme Court says the government cannot directly ban.
It is important to note that some have raised concerns the bill could be weaponized against gender-affirming therapists—with anti-trans groups arguing that helping a trans youth transition constitutes its own form of “conversion therapy.” But the bill contains multiple layers of protection against such misuse. Its carveouts explicitly shield counseling that provides “acceptance, support, and understanding of a patient.” The bill also has protections in its causation standard. To establish that conversion therapy caused harm, a court must weigh “the nature, duration, and intensity” of the efforts, “the age and vulnerability of the plaintiff at the time,” “the relationship between the plaintiff and the mental health professional,” and “expert testimony regarding the general psychological effects of sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts.” It is unlikely that judges will consider anti-trans activists to be considered medical “experts” on this topic.
LGBTQ+ organizations, activists, and Democratic lawmakers in the state have supported the bill’s passage. “This decision only reinforces the urgent need for state-level protections,” said One Colorado, the state’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. “[HB 1322] provides a pathway for accountability, allowing survivors to seek justice against those who administer this harmful practice. We remain committed to ensuring that those responsible for such profound damage are held accountable.” Rep. Karen McCormick, a Democrat from Longmont, was blunt about the bill’s intent: “The purpose of this bill is seriously to send a chilling effect to any licensed professional therapist who may think about bringing that practice back.”
Conversion therapy is a discredited practice broadly decried by every major American medical organization. The APA concluded in a 2009 systematic review that the practice is “unlikely to be successful and involves risk of harm, including depression, suicidality, and anxiety,” and called for its total elimination. The United Nations has deemed conversion therapy a form of torture. A 2020 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that LGBTQ+ youth subjected to conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to report attempting suicide. For transgender people specifically, conversion therapy often takes the form of so-called “gender exploratory therapy,” a rebranded approach that seeks to convince trans youth they are not actually transgender, keeping transition just out of reach by tricking trans youth that it might be offered if they jump through endless hoops while intending to deny it the entire way.
The bill now heads to the full Colorado Senate for a floor vote, where Democrats hold a 23-12 majority and passage is expected. Coloradans who support the bill can contact their state senator through the Colorado General Assembly’s legislator lookup tool. If the Senate passes the bill, it will go to Governor Polis, whose signature remains the final and most uncertain step. Polis, the first openly gay governor elected in the United States, signed the original 2019 conversion therapy ban and has called the practice “a scam and a waste of people’s hard-earned money”—but his office has stopped short of committing to sign this bill, saying only that he is “hopeful there is still time to construct a framework he could support.” What changes, if any, the governor is seeking remain unclear. The bill includes a safety clause that would make it take effect on July 1, 2026, and would exempt it from voter referendum. If signed, Colorado would become the first state in the country to use a private right of action to combat conversion therapy in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
This guest is an immigration attorney with expertise in ICE tactics and in ICE detention. She dispels the misunderstanding and the myths created by the tRump administartion. These detentions are civil detentions not criminal and entering the country with out inspection is a class B misdemeanor. Another thing she mentions is the ever-increasing costs for detention which is currently $200 a day per detainee and there are over 70 thousand detainees. She gives a lot of other useful to know information including the brutality in the detention centers. For example they are taking detainees out in the Everglades and forcing them to stand with hands shackled in the hot sun being eaten by misketoes and bugs. They are putting people in “hot boxes” and leaving them there in the hot Florida sun with no water or medical treatment when they are let out. She describes many more examples. Hugs
Katie Blankenship, an immigration attorney from Sanctuary of the South, a grassroots legal services organization that provides critical, affordable legal defense to immigrant families affected by detention, deportation, and abuse, joins Sam to discuss abuses at the Alligator Alcatraz ICE detention center in Florida. To find resources or ways to help those targeted by ICE in your area you can visit Freedom for immigrants, American Immigration Council or visit the ACLU to find your local affiliate.
This is an important clip that exposes the fallacies that Maher and the right push about trans people and the democrats supporting the LGBTQ+ and progressive causes such as equality of religions and government working for the people. Maher tried to push the idea that kids become trans only due to being pushed into it by adults, but when corrected with facts and examples he has no retort except to make more debunked claims. The idea that simply buying a child the clothing they want is somehow making them transition. Every study indicates that cultural issues that republicans try to use against democrats make no difference to how people vote. Only die hard haters who were already going to vote republican care about the woke cultural issues supported by progressives. Yet many Democratic candidates run from even tepid support for protecting minorities due to the made up idea of courting the center that doesn’t exist in any large size now. People leaning right are not going to vote democrat who is republican lite when they can have the real full republican but any votes that are gathered by turning on the LGBTQ+ / Trans / minority communities are countered by the loss in left / progessive votes. Maher talks about how girls who were tomboys in the past would be “forced” today to become trans. Emma talks about how she was a tomgirl who wanted to wear boys clothing and was allowed to do so but no one tried to suggest she needed to change her gender. He mistakes allowing a kid to express themselves is some how forcing them to be trans. I love how completely supportive of trans people / trans children and up on the facts / reality the people on the show are. Hugs
Personal note. I am doing better. I am eating two meals a day most days. Not much for supper but something most nights. I am still fatigued / tired but I am not spending so many hours in bed. I am still going to bed early and staying in bed 12 to 14 hours. I go to in the morning and in the afternoon but that is partly due to the intense pain in my right butt and leg along with my back not just being too tired to stay up. I will try to get enough caught up enough to do a video. Ron has caught on and is paying a lot of attention to me. He is worried. He is doing everything he can around the house including doing the dishes when I am in bed so I find them done the next morning. But as I tell him this will take time. I did not get so ill overnight; I won’t get back to full strength quickly either. Hugs
I almost went to bed at 3 pm, as I had not gone to bed or slept today. Ron begged me to please try to stay awake as he was at his sister’s and insisted when he got home he would make supper.
I struggled to stay awake and fell asleep many times at my desk until Ron got home. I helped him prepare supper while falling asleep. He did offer that if I couldn’t stay awake, he needed me to try to eat a quick sandwich. But I was able to help help by peeling the potatoes.
Ron made the four pork chops we bought today with shake and bake that I love, and he made brown gravy to go with the potatoes. And he made corn. I was so excited that I took one pork chop and a huge amount of potatoes and gravy. A big mistake but I was looking to what I most enjoy.
I cut up and ate about a total of about five pieces of the pork which was grand. But I wolfed into the potatos. I ate most of them but soon ran out of steam. I only had a couple of small spoons full of corn. Then I sat there trying to make myself eat more.
Ron walked by my office and noticed I was struggling and asked me how I was doing. I explained to him how happy I was for the meal and how good it tasted … but I was already full. He looked at what I ate and was thrilled. I was like why, I took too much and did not finish it all. A sin in my childhood that could get you beaten.
He picked up my stuff as I helped and told me “Scottie you ate and ate a lot for you at this time of night”. “I was very afraid you would just go to bed with out eating like you have done for weeks”. He was very happy I ate. But I am so tired I have to go to bed. He is taking care of everything because when I tried to help I almost fell down. I wanted to do comments today and to tell the story of Ron’s catheterization, but instead I got two days of the cartoons / memes roundup done. So if I fail tomorrow at least they will be there for everyone. Again much thanks to Ali who has been so wonderful not only with her posting, comment answering but also in sending me encouraging emails. I would have closed the blog if not for her efforts. Hugs
Stay with me tonight. This one runs a little long, but it’s all information you’ll need.
It’s likely that much of this week will be overshadowed by investigation into what happened Saturday night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where Cole Thomas Allen, a 31-year-old California man with a master’s degree from Cal Tech, approached the ballroom at the Washington Hilton armed with a shotgun, a handgun and knives, and attempted to sprint through the magnetometer security checkpoint. He was stopped there. A Secret Service agent was shot, but was fortunately protected by a bulletproof vest. It’s not clear who shot him.
The White House Press Corps, still dressed in tuxedos and ball gowns, trooped into the press briefing room at the White House to hear from the President, who appeared, flanked by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and others. They, too, were still in tuxedos from the event.
It’s not clear who the “designated survivor” for the event was. CBS’ Margaret Brennan pointed out Sunday morning that “Five of the top six officials in the presidential line of succession were in attendance: Vice President JD Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.”
Trump was in good spirits as he spoke, complimenting the press and laughing about the speech he had hoped to give after dinner. It was a much more affable Trump than we’ve seen in the course of the last year as he interacted with members of the media he has often been sharply critical, or dismissive of, during his first year in office. Trump went on the attack against the press even before his January 2025 inauguration, as we discussed at the time.
This was a different Trump who spoke in a very measured fashion, far more measured than usual, almost as if he saw this incident as providing the opportunity for a reset. He respectfully took questions from reporters like CNN’s Kaitlin Collins and NBC’s Garrett Haake. He was kindly toward the press; that’s the only way to characterize it. Whether that was a momentary blip or it suggests he will try to convince the media to rebuild its relationship with him remains to be seen. He did say that the Correspondents’ Dinner would be rescheduled within a month, without seeming to understand that the Correspondents’ Association puts on the dinner and controls the event.
At the press conference, Trump was asked why this keeps happening to him—this was the third attempt on his life since he announced his run for the presidency ahead of the 2024 election. He responded that he “has studied assassinations” and that it’s the “people who do the most” that assailants go after, using Abraham Lincoln as an example. Trump said that it “only happens to impactful people” and that he didn’t want to say he “was honored” by the repeated attempts on his life, but he let the implication hang in the room.
But he did not abandon politics. As he began his comments, Trump said the incident demonstrated why the ballroom he is building at the White House is needed.
Trump reiterated his comments in a Sunday morning post on Truth Social, claiming presidents have been demanding a ballroom like the one he’s building for 150 years.
His amen corner all took up the chant on Twitter, on cue.
But, as we noted above, the dinner is run by the Correspondents’ Association, not the White House. There is no reason to believe they would use a White House ballroom for a dinner designed to celebrate freedom of the press and its independence from government. Trump can make the argument he needs a safe space to entertain, but it’s a disconnect from the event last night.
Miles Taylor commented on Threads that “The WHCD shooter will be used to justify things that have nothing to do with the WHCD shooter. Mark this moment.” That seems likely.
The immediate investigation will focus on whether the shooter was a lone wolf, as it appears, or whether there is an ongoing threat. There is reporting today that Allen was a member of a group called The Wide Awakes, who appear, based on their web presence, to be committed to “radically” reimagining the future, but look to be a group of creative, peaceful people. Law enforcement will want to determine whether someone or something radicalized Allen and directed him toward violence.
There are sure to be, and there should be, questions about the Secret Service and how this happened. Asked about that during the press conference, Trump responded that he was “very impressed by the Secret Service.” But this is the third time a would-be assassin has gotten close to Trump, and one would have expected them to tighten ranks after the first attempt. Trump, however, does not seem to have viewed any of it as a failure by the Service and he was complimentary of the D.C. police, as well, in a phoner on Fox News.
It’s important to note that the Secret Service stopped Allen at the perimeter they had established. They succeeded in that sense. The real question will be whether the perimeter should have been set further back. I’ve attended the dinner multiple times and one observes layers of security that require guests to walk up the hill to the circular drive in front of the Washington Hilton before entering the hotel, but there are parties and receptions occurring in advance of the perimeter before entering the ballroom area, and, as we now know, Allen avoided scrutiny as a guest who checked into the hotel the day before the dinner. There are real questions that will have to be confronted here to ensure protection for future dinners, to say nothing of the scads of parties that happen in connection with this dinner, and other national events that are held at the Hilton.
Late Saturday evening, D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced that Allen would be arraigned on Monday. She said he will be charged with one count of assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon and two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence. That could be fluid as officials learn new information. But the charges she identifies are found at 18 USC 111, which carries a 20-year maximum penalty, and 18 USC 924(c), which carries a 7-year penalty if a firearm is brandished and a 10-year penalty if it’s fired.
The motive seemed to be coming into focus throughout the day as some of Allen’s anti-administration writings were released. On Meet the Press, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said authorities believed the suspect may have been targeting Trump administration officials, including Trump himself. The basis for that belief appears to have been examination of electronic devices and some writings. But Blanche told CNN’s Dana Bash they were still looking at the motive.
As I heard seasoned journalists, many of them friends, discuss how frightening the shooting was on air Saturday night and Sunday morning, I couldn’t help but reflect on how much worse it is for America’s children. How many of them still suffer a lingering sense of trauma from the moment a shooter crashed into their classroom or their place of worship? If there’s ever been a time to pass sensible gun control laws, it’s now. If we’re going to play politics, as Trump did with immediately pivoting to justifying his ballroom, let’s play that kind and make some good trouble.
There will be in court developments in other matters to track, as well, this week:
This Wednesday will be the last regularly scheduled day for the Supreme Court to hear oral argument this term. The Court will take up two consolidated cases, Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, and consider whether the Trump administration acted properly when it revoked protected status for Syrians and Haitians living in this country. The cases involve decisions from New York and Washington, D.C., barring the administration from stripping more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians of protected legal status that protects them from deportation.
The cases hit the court just last month, on March 16. The Court allowed the lower courts’ decisions to remain in place, preventing deportations, determining that it would hear the case promptly, allotting an hour for oral argument. This has all happened very quickly, with the final brief being filed just last week on Monday.
There is also news on the voting front. Friday evening, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced that he was calling a special session of the legislature so that new maps could be drawn.
This redraw would be limited to state Supreme Court districts. A federal court found Mississippi’s state Supreme Court districts violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and required the legislature to pass a remedial map. But it failed to do so during the regular session. A court hearing was scheduled for this week, and the court would have likely adopted its own map. So the Governor is calling this special session in hopes the court will hold off until the legislature has time to act.
In the election last November, voters ended the Republican supermajority in the legislature, but Republicans still hold a majority of the seats in both chambers and should be able to pass a map of their own devising. So the governor likely believes a map that comes out of the legislature will be superior to one created by the court.
And finally, the SAVE Act isn’t quite dead yet. We need to stay alert to any resurgence and be prepared to call our members of Congress to demand they resist its resuscitation. Trump is again demanding that his party end the filibuster and pass the Act, saying that not doing so will “lead to the worst results for a political party in the HISTORY of the United States Senate.” It reads as an acknowledgment that only voter suppression can save the Republican Party in the midterm elections.
Utah Senator Mike Lee followed up on Trump’s command with this tweet. Lee is not up for reelection until 2028. But he, too, seems to sense that this will be a dangerous election for Republicans. The SAVE Act is one of the last-ditch efforts Republicans have to suppress the vote and hold onto power this year and again in 2028. There is no mention of crafting policies designed to win the hearts and minds of American voters. It’s just about keeping eligible American citizens from voting. We must do everything we can to resist that.
If you’ve found this useful, it’s exactly the work I do every week—reading the filings, tracking the arguments, and explaining what it means before it becomes obvious. The headlines will keep coming, but understanding them takes more than a glance. That’s what this space is for. My goal is to give you clear, careful analysis you can rely on. If that’s the kind of work you value, I hope you’ll choose to subscribe.
We’re in this together,
Joyce
This is a very well researched and scholarly man. He knows far more than the dogma of the bible he knows how to read the Hebrew and the nuances of the time. Hugs
There is frank recital of the grooming and threats that happened to these women, in case you might need to skip reading this one. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888, or text INFO to 233733. See the website at https://humantraffickinghotline.org/en
They all survived Jeffrey Epstein. They have something to tell you
Saturday marks one year since Virginia Giuffre’s death – and other survivors are making a public reckoning possible
Saturday will mark one year since the death of Virginia Giuffre, one of the first women to surrender her anonymity, detail her experiences and publicly call for criminal charges against convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. For other Epstein survivors such as Liz Stein and Jess Michaels, Giuffre’s public reckoning made it possible to finally name what had happened to them.
“I saw myself in Virginia, in [Epstein survivor] Maria Farmer, in all of them,” said Danielle Bensky, who was pulled into Epstein’s orbit when she was 17. “And I thought: if they can be victimized, anyone can be. I was not alone. I finally understood that we were not going to be silent any more.
More than a dozen Epstein survivors will gather in Washington DC this weekend for a memorial vigil in Giuffre’s honor. But they will also be marking something larger: the emergence of a survivors’ movement Giuffre helped make possible – and that is only gaining momentum.
Epstein survivors have held press conferences and met with congressional lawmakers; in November, the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed, and the release of more than 3.5m pages of documents followed. However, in the more than two months since the justice department released its latest batch of files – more than 2m documents have yet to be released – prosecutors have not brought any new charges, despite federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continuing to demand accountability.
As for Ghislaine Maxwell – the only person convicted in connection with Epstein’s network – she was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 and has exhausted her appeals. Rather than facing harsher scrutiny, however, Maxwell was controversially transferred from a low-security prison in Florida to a minimum-security federal camp in Texas in August.
While the lack of action has left survivors with little faith that the full scope of Epstein’s network will ever face justice, they don’t intend to back down.
Stein, Bensky, Lisa Phillips and Michaels discuss, in their own words, what made them come forward, the power of survivors banding together and where they want the movement to go.
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Scottie's Playtime 