Tag: Voting
ICE Is Pure Evil…
Some Bernie Sanders clips from The Late Show. This is how democrats need to get air time
Whew-Breathe Again, For A Bit
Democrats Successfully Strip All Anti-Trans Riders From Final Appropriations Bills
The HHS and Education bills once contained the most sweeping anti-trans provisions in congressional history. Now they contain none.
Erin Reed Jan 20, 2026
Early Tuesday morning, final appropriations bills for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education—and related agencies—were released, marking the last major funding measures to be negotiated in the aftermath of the record-breaking government shutdown fight in 2025. That standoff featured multiple appropriations bills loaded with anti-transgender riders and poison pills for Democrats, ultimately ending in a short-term continuing resolution that punted many of those provisions to the end of January. While other “minibus” packages funding individual agencies moved forward, the Education and HHS bills were conspicuously absent, as they contained some of the most sweeping and consequential anti-trans riders ever proposed in Congress. Now, with the final bills released, it is clear that no anti-transgender riders were included—meaning transgender people will largely be spared new congressional attacks through most of 2026 should they pass as-is.
As the government shut down on Oct. 1, the state of appropriations bills needed to reopen the federal government for any extended period was extraordinarily dire for transgender people. Dozens of anti-transgender riders were embedded across House appropriations bills, even as those provisions were largely absent from the Senate’s versions. The riders appeared throughout nearly every funding measure, from Commerce, Justice, and Science to Financial Services and General Government. The most extreme provisions, however, were concentrated in the House HHS and Education bills, including language barring “any federal funds” from supporting gender-affirming care at any age and threatening funding for schools that support transgender students. Taken together, those measures would have posed a sweeping threat to transgender people’s access to education and health care nationwide.
Those fears eased somewhat when the government reopened under a short-term continuing resolution funding operations through the end of January. In the months that followed, Democrats notched a series of incremental victories for transgender people, advancing multiple appropriations “minibus” packages that stripped out anti-trans riders as the government was funded piece by piece. As amendment after amendment fell away, those wins grew more substantial, including the removal of a proposed ban on gender-affirming medical care from the NDAA—even after it had passed both the House and Senate. Still, the most consequential question remained unresolved: what would ultimately happen to the high-impact anti-trans provisions embedded in the HHS and Education bills.
Now, the package has been released—and for the moment, transgender people can breathe again. The final HHS and Education bills contain no anti-transgender provisions: no ban on hospitals providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, no threats to strip funding from schools that support transgender students or allow them to use the bathroom, and no mandate forcing colleges to exclude transgender students from sports or activities like chess or esports. The bills are strikingly clean. As such, they avert yet another protracted shutdown fight in which transgender people are once again turned into political bargaining chips—and, at least for now, remove Congress as the immediate vehicle for new federal attacks, should they pass as-is.
When asked about the successful stripping of anti-trans provisions, a staffer for Representative Sarah McBride tells Erin In The Morning, “Rep. McBride works closely with her colleagues every day to defend the rights of all her constituents, including LGBTQ people across Delaware. In the face of efforts by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress to roll back health care and civil rights, she was proud to work relentlessly with her colleagues in ensuring these funding bills did not include anti-LGBTQ provisions. It takes strong allies in leadership and on committees to rein in the worst excesses of this Republican trifecta, Rep. McBride remains grateful to Ranking Members DeLauro, Murray, and Democratic leadership for prioritizing the removal of these harmful riders.”
This does not mean that transgender people will not be targeted with policies and rules that affect them in all areas of life. The Trump administration has acted without regard to law in forcing bans on sports, pulling funding from schools and hospitals, and banning passport gender marker updates. The Supreme Court has been increasingly willing to let the office of the presidency under Trump do whatever it would like to transgender people. However, the lack of passage of bills targeting transgender people means that these attacks will only last for as long as we have Trump in the White House, and a future president should hopefully be easily able to reverse the attacks.
ICE Blinds Man After Shooting Him Point Blank In The Face
I have posted on this several times. Remember right now the man gets no help from the government for what an ICE thug illegally did to this young man. He won’t be able to charge the mask men who did this act against him under the tRump fanatic administration. After all ICE lied about what happened and there is video to show it. I hope he has a good lawyer who is collecting the evidence and the minute that democrats are back in power they sue. Hugs
Stopping ICE’s Terror Campaign Starts Here…
Watch the clip of pure violence against the observer who is 20 feet from the ICE thugs. The thug that assaults him has to run to get him. But the thug tactics are working, see how far the woman backs up while constantly saying she is not impeding. She is too far away to see the thugs beat the person they are detaining. ICE doesn’t want to be filmed breaking the laws. But the observer who was beaten up, he got it on his phone and may have had his phone destroyed as seems to be the new ICE tactic. In another clip a little girl was simply abandoned in the street by ICE thugs who took her parent. Hugs
Political cartoons / memes / and news I want to share. 1-21-2026
Look up Scott and healthcare. He was CEO of a HMO health denying company that defrauded Medicare / Medicaid for the greatest dollar amount ever defrauded from the programs. He is a very wealthy man because while his company paid a fine he was able to retire with a huge pay out golden parachute. He has no clue what the average person lives like and hates the lower incomes. When he was governor he did everything he could to transfer state wealth to the upper incomes / his business cronies while making the lives of the working people / lower incomes harder while removing social safety nets. Hugs
I’m not normally big on memes,
even though I get some good giggles from them, but so many mostly use them for opinion over fact. However I knew this one needs to be here.
(WP won’t load or paste; it’s a little blue box about the state of existence of the US Congress. It’s shorter than this sentence, and you simply must see it!)
Well, never mind; WordPress doesn’t like it, I guess. I’m reading a substack called The F—–g News, and it’s there. Here’s where to go to read today’s effing news, and see the meme that WordPress doesn’t like. There is lots of news there, as well, both regular (bad,) and good news.
Fascism Now More Expensive Than Eggs
Congressional Democrats have said their focus is on the cost of living, but now the cost of living under fascism is soaring
Jonathan Larsen Jan 20, 2026
https://thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/fascism-now-more-expensive-than-eggs
Political cartoons / memes / news I want to share. 1-20-2026
OK now be nice … who says I don’t have a life or people I talk to daily outside of the blog … I do have to care for Ron’s cat! 😂😋😝😜🤣😎😍 Hugs
As a white old man with a beard and a military veteran I dream of what I would say to an ICE thug that would demand I prove my where I was born. Sadly they simply wouldn’t ask me! I am too white! The fact is this is entirely a racist push to remove nonwhite people. But one thing I can do is put my whiteness in front of the brown / black people to defend them by legally demanding ICE be held accountable. I am not in an area where that is happening as I am in a red state in a mostly white area. But if you have the opportunity to use your white privilege please do. Yes I know Fox anger stations claim that doesn’t exist but then why are criminal ICE thugs not asking white people for their papers? Hugs from Scottie.
Under Bari Weiss leadership CBS twice reported that the murderer of Renee Good Jonathan Ross had internal bleeding based only on what the tRump admin told her to report for them. Despite other at the network disputing it and asking her not to report an unconfirmed fact. She got her job after a hard right white supremacist billionaire bought the network and put her there to support the tRump crime administration. Hugs
I think many of these ICE thugs would do this regardless because their dream is a white US ethnostate with their corrupt demented cult leader in charge even after his bloated body dies. Hugs
House Republicans are investigating Jan. 6. NPR fact-checked the first hearing
In order to please tRump and stave off the maga thugs republicans in elected office are trying desperately to change reality. Some are doing it to practice what tRump is able to do which is to make people accept his version of reality even when it is completely false and made up. No one but tRump can do that and he has been doing it since he was a kid. He has the ability to convince himself that what he wants to believe is true is true because he wants it. By the fact he was always wealthy or people thought he was it worked and twice he has had the power of the presidency along with the cult behind him. Other republicans don’t have that ability and can not command the maga cult. But that won’t stop them from trying. Hugs.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., is leading a congressional subcommittee reinvestigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Trump administration has promoted a distorted and whitewashed history of that day’s events.
Andrew Harnik/AP
A new Republican-led congressional subcommittee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol held its first public hearing this week. GOP lawmakers used the opportunity to criticize the Biden administration and, at times, promote conspiracy theories about the riot. An NPR fact check has identified multiple false and misleading claims from the hearing, which coincides with a broader effort by the Trump administration to rewrite the history of the attack.
The hearing unfolded against the backdrop of Trump’s mass pardons for the Jan. 6 defendants almost one year ago. Stewart Rhodes, the former leader of the Oath Keepers who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the attack and sentenced to 18 years in prison, appeared at the front of the audience. Rhodes is one of a small group of former defendants who did not receive a full pardon from Trump, and instead received a commutation. As a result, Rhodes was released from prison but his seditious conspiracy conviction remains on his record.
The official topic for Wednesday’s hearing was “Examining the Investigation into the DNC and RNC Pipe Bombs.” On Jan. 6, just as rioters began breaching the outer perimeter of the Capitol, two bombs were discovered outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committees, diverting law enforcement resources at a critical moment.
During the Biden administration, the investigation into who planted the bombs stalled, and the lack of an arrest fueled conspiracy theories. Dan Bongino, the conservative podcaster who would later become deputy director of the FBI, said on his show in November 2024 that he was certain the bombs were placed by “either a connected anti-Trump insider or this was an inside job.”
A year later, Bongino told a very different story.
Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino confirming the arrest of a suspect in the Jan. 6 pipe bomb case at the Department of Justice in 2025.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
While serving as a top FBI official, he appeared at a press conference announcing charges against Brian Cole Jr., a 30-year-old man from Virginia accused of planting the bombs. Cole, who has pleaded not guilty, twice voted for Trump, according to his lawyer. Federal prosecutors allege that Cole confessed and said he believed votes had been “tampered” with in the 2020 election.
Bongino addressed his shifting stance on the pipe bomber case on Fox News in December 2025. “I was paid in the past for my opinions,” Bongino said, “but that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director.” Bongino left the FBI at the beginning of January 2026 and is set to return to podcasting.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., who chairs the subcommittee, has made the pipe bomb case a central focus of his inquiry. He repeatedly criticized the FBI for failing to crack the case for nearly five years and said internal documents “paint a dismal picture” of the investigation during the Biden administration.
In one of the few moments of bipartisan agreement, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., praised the FBI under Director Kash Patel for making an arrest, calling it “a rare bright spot for federal law enforcement over the last year.”
But with the pipe bombing case now moving through the courts — rather than the political arena — lawmakers sometimes veered into claims that did not match the facts.
Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
The claim:
“The Biden FBI did have undercover agents and confidential informants embedded within the rally crowds,” said Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La. “And the Biden FBI did conspire to entrap MAGA Americans prior to J6 and then successfully entrapped several hundred Americans on J6.”
The facts:
Joe Biden was not president on Jan. 6 — Donald Trump was.
At the time of the attack, the FBI was led by Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee.
Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20, 2021, two weeks after the riot, and Wray remained FBI director for the duration of his presidency.
A Department of Justice inspector general report examined the presence of confidential FBI sources in the crowds on Jan. 6 and found that “none of these FBI [Confidential Human Sources] was authorized by the FBI to enter the Capitol or a restricted area or to otherwise break the law on January 6, nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6.” The report also found no evidence “showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6.”
Higgins’ office did not respond to a request for comment.
The claim:
Raskin said Trump failed to act decisively to stop the riot and “did nothing to send out the National Guard under his unilateral direct control in the District of Columbia.”
In response, Loudermilk countered that Trump “cannot just send the National Guard unless the National Guard is requested by the legislative branch.”
Referring to former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, Loudermilk said, “There were multiple requests made by the former chief of police for National Guard before the request to call them was given. And that was only after shots were fired in the Capitol. That request was made to the Department of Defense in the one o’clock hour on Jan. 6.”
The facts:
The president has direct control of the D.C. National Guard, and the Capitol Police requested assistance from the guard prior to the breach of the building. Still, troops did not arrive until hours later.
Loudermilk appears to have jumbled the timeline of the National Guard’s response, which is laid out in reports from both the Capitol Police and Department of Defense Office of Inspector General.
- At 1:09 p.m. and again at 1:22 p.m., former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund asked the House and Senate sergeants at arms to declare an emergency and formally request help from the National Guard. By that point, rioters had breached the outer perimeter of the Capitol grounds and were assaulting police, but had not yet broken into the building.
- At 1:49 p.m., Sund called the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard directly to request the assistance of guard troops at the Capitol.
- At 2:10 p.m., Sund relayed that he received formal authorization from the Capitol Police Board.
- At 2:13 p.m., rioters broke a Capitol window and began flooding into the building.
- At 2:44 p.m., Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd fired a single shot, striking rioter Ashli Babbitt as she attempted to breach a door to the Speaker’s Lobby, where members of Congress were trying to evacuate. Babbitt subsequently died. National Guard troops did not arrive at the Capitol until 5:55 p.m.
In an email to NPR, Loudermilk’s Deputy Chief of Staff Brandon Cockerham said that the congressman’s reference to a request made “only after shots were fired” was an allusion to a later moment in the timeline, when acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller authorized the mobilization of the National Guard.
“I believe the Chairman meant to use the word ‘authorization’ instead of ‘request’ as he was alluding to the authorized mobilization of the D.C. National Guard which came at approximately 3:04 PM,” Cockerham wrote.
The claim:
Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, criticized police officers who testified before the previous Jan. 6 select committee, which was led by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.
“They set out to have a highly pre-scripted hearing, designated to play on the emotions of Americans,” said Nehls. “For example, the hearing with Capitol Police officers Dunn, Gonell, Fanone, Hodges — four Trump haters who gave highly scripted and pre-planned testimonies.”
The facts:
Nehls was referring to testimony by Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell, who served with the Capitol Police, and Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges, who served with D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department.
All four officers have publicly criticized Trump, in large part because of the injuries and trauma they suffered defending the Capitol on Jan. 6.
But their politics are not as simple as Nehls suggested.
Fanone, who was dragged into the crowd and repeatedly beaten and shocked in the neck by a rioter with a Taser-style device, voted for Trump in 2016.
“I was looking for a candidate that supported law enforcement,” Fanone told NPR in an interview last year. “I regret the decision. It was clearly the wrong decision in hindsight.”
Fanone suffered a traumatic brain injury and a minor heart attack due to the assaults on Jan. 6.
Nehls’ office did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.
Scottie's Playtime 