For anyone who may have missed it, you can watch my conversation with the Texas investigative journalist Steven Monacelli from Friday’s live Doom broadcast. I also wanted to flag a few things that I wasn’t able to get to during this very busy week.
If you appreciate my work staying on top of all of the madness, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or throwing a few bucks my way. I’m still running the Fighting Season discount, which gets you a 20 percent discount to Doom subscriptions. Your support keeps my work free for everyone who can’t afford to chip in, and helps fund my investigations and reporting trips to places like Los Angeles, which is still reeling from the violence that the Trump administration is inflicting on the city through immigration raids, and what I think can be fairly considered straight-up attacks on Americans.
Now, some notes from the ongoing transition of American life into full-fledged authoritarianism…
Trump’s Justice Department and FTC are infiltrating the relationship between parents, doctors and trans Americans
From the Times: The Justice Department has issued subpoenas demanding confidential patient information from more than 20 doctors and hospitals that provide gender-related treatments to minors, according to officials with knowledge of the move.
The action marks a new turn in the Trump administration’s efforts to limit transgender medical care. Most of the subpoenas, issued through the consumer protection unit of the department’s civil division, attempt to pierce powerful federal confidentiality protections for patients and their medical providers.
The FTC is also involved in the ideological battle against trans Americans. Check this illuminating thread on a meeting held Wednesday in which officials alleged that gender-affirming care involves “deceptive trade practices.”
Meanwhile, a trans migrant from Mexico who was raped by cartel members there and fled the country to seek asylum remains in solitary confinement in a mens detention center thanks to a Trump executive order. I’ll have more on this very troubling story soon.
The migrant was arrested by ICE when she showed up to her immigration court hearing. A Trump executive order that has forced trans women to be transferred to mens prisons — which a judge had put a temporary restraining order on — has forced the migrant woman to stay in solitary confinement for her own safety. This week, her lawyers alleged that ICE forced the woman to sign documents that she didn’t understand and that could expedite her removal from the country.
Georgia’s Republican kingmaker accused of half-million Ponzi scheme — and the money went to big name GOP politicians
The AJC has the scoop on an SEC investigation of Brant Frost, who along with his family is one of the most powerful figures in Georgia Republican politics. Frost was at the top of a Ponzi scheme that saw more than $500,000 laundered to GOP politicians like Ted Cruz, Chip Roy, Matt Gaetz, and more, as well as the House Freedom Caucus. Remember what I said the other day? A small authoritarian government is an inherently corrupt one? Yeah, that.
Trump’s Justice Department lawyers purposefully lied about immigration flights
The lawyers were texting in court about how one of them had just lied to a judge that the flights were no longer taking place when they were. Now, a former Justice Department lawyer who dutifully worked on Trump’s immigration agenda during the first Trump administration is blowing the whistle, as Lawrence O’Donnell explained Thursday night.
Trump’s masked immigration agents vow to continue their occupation and attacks in Los Angeles
“Better get used to us now, because this is going to be normal very soon.” Those were the words of Border Patrol’s Greg Bovino, who was responding to LA Mayor Karen Bass’ demands that Trump’s masked and violent immigration agents stop terrorizing her city. The threat is well understood, Mr. Bovino.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is working with local law enforcement agencies to criminalize many protest practices, Wired reports. If this were happening in another country we’d call it what it clearly is: an attempt by the federal government to crush opposition and stifle dissent.
DHS is led, of course, by Secretary Kristi Noem. Noem dragged her feet when allocating resources to Kerr County, Texas for days as the missing and dead piled up. Meanwhile, Noem was busy posting to Instagram to ask her supporters which official portrait of her they liked the best. Maybe this one?
I know it’s summer and folks are trying to take some time off but the authoritarians in charge of our federal government are plowing ahead. Please consider throwing a few dollars to Doom to help us stay on top of the madness. Until next time. - jg
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