BREAKING: Historically corrupt Attorney General Pam Bondi abuses her Justice Department power to sue Los Angeles for supposedly discriminating against ICE agents. And it gets so much worse…The MAGA-tainted DOJ is alleging that the city’s sanctuary city policies result in unfair treatment of federal immigration officers compared to other law enforcement agents. One struggles to imagine a whinier lawsuit. These fascists have no problem tearing apart families and destroying families but they fall to pieces if they’re treated with even an ounce of the disdain they so richly deserve. “Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles. Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level – it ends under President Trump,” Bondi stated. In truth, the “chaos” in Los Angeles was caused by Trump violently and illegally cracking down on protestors by sending in the National Guard and Marines. He wanted violence because it allowed him to project the “law and order” strongman persona that his gullible followers love. The lawsuit, yet another shameless waste of taxpayer money from this administration, alleges that the “sanctuary city laws and policies are designed to deliberately impede federal immigration officers’ ability to carry out their responsibilities in those jurisdictions.”“The Los Angeles Ordinance and other policies intentionally discriminate against the Federal Government by treating federal immigration authorities differently than other law enforcement agents through access restrictions both to property and to individual detainees, by prohibiting contractors and sub-contractors from providing information, and by disfavoring federal criminal laws that the City of Los Angeles has decided not to comply with,” it goes on.“ The Supremacy Clause prohibits the City of Los Angeles and its officials from singling out the Federal Government for adverse treatment—as the challenged law and policies do—thereby discriminating against the Federal Government. Accordingly, the law and policies challenged here are invalid and should be enjoined,” the suit adds. As usual, we see that Republicans only really believe in states’ rights (or in this case cities’ rights) when the polities in question adhere to extreme right-wing policies. Los Angeles should be free to govern itself as it sees fit. If Angelenos correctly see migrants as law-abiding, contributing members of their communities then Trump has no right to enforce his racist worldview on them.
While politicians have traditionally been punished for lying, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis was punished for telling truths his party didn’t want to hear. The North Carolina senator was then effectively forced into retirement.
John Hanno – www.tarbabys.com
We’ve known for more than a decade that this is no longer your grandfather’s Republican Party. That touch-stone is dead and buried; trump just provided the final nails in it’s coffin. Every Republican with any governing competence, integrity, empathy and loyalty to our Constitutional Democracy or to their oath of office, has been drummed out, or fled for their very lives. Tom Tillis was just the latest casualty. This MAGANAZI cult of anger, cruelty, grievance, and retribution is not satisfied with the destruction of just one of our 2 main political parties, they’re set on tearing down our entire governmental infrastructure and every Democratic institution. Nothing is safe from their anti-government nuclear bomb dropping crusade. Generations of loyal, competent government employees, scientists and researchers – gone, almost a century of international alliances – gone, many decades of racial and gender equality progress – gone, an entire lifetime of social safety net struggles ripped apart and – gone, 250 years of academic freedom, independence and enlightenment – gone, 250 years of stare decisis case law – gone, America as the moral leader and guiding light of the Democratic free world – gone, America as the economic engine of the world – gone, America as the refuge of the worlds, tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to be free – gone, America as a nation where anyone can succeed, no matter who you are, your gender, the color of your skin, your religion, or even if you’re not politically aligned with the rich and connected who hold power – gone, 250 years of credible history, two centuries of enlightened arts and literature – gone, a century of proven science, studies and research wiped clean or debunked and gone, the very idea that no matter how hard you had to struggle and sacrifice to end up in the greatest nation on earth, you could be certain that your children and grandchildren would have a freer and better life than you did – gone, the principles our Founding Fathers set forth 250 years ago, in order to free us from another diabolical Mad King and tyrannical overlords – gone, the sacrifices made by the Greatest Generation and millions of Veteran patriots since then, to preserve ours and the world’s freedom’s from self-serving fascists and narcissistic megalomaniacs, who care only about themselves and their obsession with wealth and power – gone. No one or nothing is safe from the hoards pounding on the gates of ours and the worlds Constitutional Democracies, not even the corporate leaders who have kneeled at the feet of their demented leader; just ask the hundreds of businesses who had to flee putin’s warmongering oligharchy, handing over all their corporate wealth to putin and his henchmen. These are the times that try men’s souls, and apparently Tom Tillis’s soul had had enough trying. WTFU merica
June 28, 2025 – Bravo Taco! You are collapsing our economy one industry at a time. Racism has blinded most MAGAs to one universal truth: the backbone of our economy is immigrant labor.
Home Builder in Texas says ICE raids has ground construction to a halt, as the vast numbers of laborers are immigrants. Video:
John Hanno: Most Texan’s understand this, but they keep voting for the spineless republi-cons in congress, and for legislators in Texas who “ARE” the problem, and who couldn’t care less about a solution. Their elected leaders keep attacking and terrorizing the women and people of color who ARE part of the solution, and who are an asset to our nation. The question is, are their prejudices too ingrained for them to change their backwards ways? WTFU merica
The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell – June 28, 2025
The state is building a compound of heavy-duty tents, trailers and other temporary buildings in the Big Cypress National Preserve, which are ecologically sensitive wetlands.
John Hanno:
This is strictly MAGA political theater, and a gigantic boondoggle. The average cost to incarcerate a prisoner in the U.S. is probably about $75,000 per year. But these grifting morons in the trump nincompoop administration, will probably spend close to $200,000 to catch, detain and attempt to house each immigrant per year. The only ones that will benefit from rounding up hard working brown people, will be the connected trump billionaires who will get even richer, from the for profit, trump-prison-industrial-complex. And the spineless republi-con sycophants in congress, will take healthcare and food assistance away from the working poor and middle class, in order to fund this racist, fascist, ICE- Homeland Security Department nonsense. WTFU merica
The huge banner of a glaring Trump in front of the USDA is a literal sign the U.S. has lost its democracy
John Casey – May 16, 2025
Donald Trump official presidential portrait
A colossal, brooding image of Donald Trump now looms over the U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters in Washington, D.C. The banner is unmistakably authoritarian in both style and scale. It features a stone-faced Trump gazing down upon the capital like a watchful overlord.
This is not a campaign advertisement. It is a signal. A warning. A literal and metaphorical sign that democracy in America is no longer functioning as intended.
Historically, such displays of obnoxiousness have not heralded democratic renewal. Quite the opposite. They’ve marked the entrenchment of dictatorship. Authoritarian regimes the world over have relied on these massive visual monuments to instill fear, demand obedience, and project omnipresence.
For decades, and most especially during World War II, Stalin’s steel-eyed portraits towered over Soviet streets and public buildings, reminding citizens that the state saw everything. Mao Zedong’s image hung from Tiananmen Gate like a secular deity watching over the masses. It was massive, larger than life, eternal, aloof for a reason..
History books and other visions etched in my memory bring images of Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and of course Hitler, who all followed the same playbook. They saturate public space with the leader’s face and saturate your mind with the leader’s authority.
Imagine, for a moment, if Franklin Delano Roosevelt had plastered massive banners of his face across Washington during World War II. Hanging a 30-foot portrait from the Treasury Building or looming over war bond posters with cold, impassive eyes. The public would have been outraged. Congress would have rebelled. Even amid war, Roosevelt respected the distinction between democratic leadership and personal cult.
Trump has now joined this visual canon of despots with his banner brooding over a government institution. It is not just “deeply creepy,” as some observers have said. It is the textbook behavior of a man who believes the state belongs to him. It is fascist iconography, domesticated.
This chilling banner didn’t emerge in a vacuum. Since being sworn in for his second term on January 20, Trump has governed not as a president but as a ruler unbound by law, or at least he thinks he’s unbound by law.
His Department of Justice has been purged of independence, its prosecutors reassigned or fired if they resisted Trump’s will. And don’t even get me started about the “yes, yes, yes” attorney general, Pam Bondi, who is a perfect lackey for the wannabe dictator. No to Trump in not in her vocabulary.
Trump’s suggestion that he should be allowed a third term because one was supposedly “stolen,” is no longer a fringe fantasy. It’s a real and present threat, floated not only at rallies and interviews but by White House aides and conservative media outlets that now function more like state-run propaganda than independent journalism.
He has declared that federal workers must show “personal loyalty” to him. Inspectors general and career civil servants have been removed en masse and replaced with unqualified loyalists. Programs that support education, public health, and environmental protection have been gutted in favor of funding massive security forces that answer directly to the Executive Branch.
Meanwhile, efforts to erase and rewrite history are accelerating. Trump’s allies are systematically removing references to slavery and civil rights from textbooks, recasting the January 6 insurrectionists as “patriots,” and purging LGBTQ+ references from public libraries. This is not governing. It’s regime-building, complete with a giant portrait.
As Trump’s face stares down from the side of a federal agency building, it’s a 30-foot reminder of who is in charge, who is watching, and who cannot be questioned.
This use of personal imagery as a weapon of psychological control is not just about ego, and it’s a key mechanism of authoritarian rule. During Stalin’s Great Purge, his image became synonymous with the state itself. To criticize Stalin, even in private, was to invite arrest, or worse.
Saddam Hussein commissioned thousands of portraits of himself, placing them in every school, airport, and office in Iraq. The size and frequency of his image sent a clear message that this country was his.
So too with Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong il, and his son Kim Jong Un. whose portraits are reportedly required in every home in North Korea, and most people clean them on a regular basis. Disrespecting the image is a punishable offense.
These leaders understood something simple but potent: Symbols shape reality. And control of the visual environment is control of the collective psyche.
The USDA banner is not just gaudy or excessive. It’s strategic. It’s authoritarian. It’s a message not just to the public but to the bureaucracy itself that loyalty flows up, power flows down, and both are enforced with fear.
Democracy depends on a humble, limited executive, and while we’ve had some egomaniacs as president here in the U.S. (think Richard Nixon), we’ve been fortunate not to have one who plasters banners of himself outside of government buildings.
Our presidents have been elected, not enthroned. They serve, not rule. The placement of a massive Trump banner on a government building reveals that this line has been crossed, and we are no longer a republic. We are living under the cult of one man.
When the government starts using public property to display the ruler’s image, when dissent is criminalized, when history is rewritten and power is centralized, we are not looking at the future. Instead, we are seeing the end of something. The end of accountability. The end of democratic pretense. The end of America as we knew it.
The banner may yet come down. But the damage it represents is already done.
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What Happens To Your Body When You Walk For Just 2 Minutes—Or As Much As 60 Minutes
Bridie Wilkins – May 16, 2025
How Walking Duration Affects Your Body Tatiana Maksimova – Getty Images
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Don’t underestimate the power of walking. Studies show that just two minutes a day is enough for considerable benefits. But between boosting your mood, regulating blood sugar levels, and reducing blood pressure (to name a few), the gains you get will depend on how long–or short–your walks are.
Here’s how a 2, 5, 10, 30, 40 and 60-minute walk will affect your body.
The effects of a 2-5-minute walk
Regulates blood sugar (and aids weight loss)
A meta-analysis published in Sports Medicine analyzed seven studies which compared the impact of sitting, standing and walking on blood sugar regulation. The participants in the studies included were asked either to stand or walk for two to five minutes every 20-30 minutes throughout the day. The results showed that a short walk after eating caused the participants’ blood sugar levels to rise and fall more gradually than standing or sitting. The participants’ insulin levels also remained more stable.
The study didn’t investigate how this might affect weight loss, but we caught up with sports and exercise medicine consultant Dr Rebecca Robinson to explain: “Walking straight after a meal appears to be more effective at reducing both blood sugar [glucose] and the level of glucose in your interstitial fluid [the thin layer of fluid surrounding your body’s cells]. If you don’t walk straight away, excess glucose in your bloodstream will be stored by insulin and may be stored as fat.”
Ready to make walking a habit? Join WH+ to get the exclusive 4-week walking plan that burns fat and builds muscle.
“The contractions of your muscles during walking increase glucose uptake as the glucose is metabolized by your muscles for energy. This reduces the amount of sugar in your bloodstream. Digestion also uses glucose for energy, but walking boosts the total metabolic cost on your body after eating.”
“Spikes in your blood sugar will naturally occur after eating. If a diet is high in refined sugar and high glycemic index carbohydrates, this can increase the amount of insulin needed to store the excess blood sugar, which you may not have. If you don’t have enough insulin and are then left with excess blood sugar levels, this may be stored as fat, and this type of fat is often stored in your abdominal area and around your organs, which can cause heightened inflammation and conditions like heart disease.”
“A blood sugar spike also often leads to a crash, whereby your sugar levels rise, and your insulin response rises to store glucose quickly. This can make you crave more high sugar food and an increased calorie intake, leading to weight gain.”
“Walking after a meal rich in sugars or refined carbohydrates can help reduce the amount of insulin needed and may reduce the amount of glucose that gets stored as fat.”
The effects of a 10-minute walk
Reduces blood pressure
According to a study published in The Journal of Human Hypertension, ten minutes of walking could be enough to reduce blood pressure. The study’s participants completed three 10-minute walking sessions at moderate intensity over a three-hour period, and the results showed a significant reduction in systolic blood pressure after the third session.
Improves mood
A study published in Psychology of Sport and Exercise analyzed the emotional responses of participants after 10-minute and 30-minute walks, including an analysis of their future intentions for walking. The authors found that all walking sessions improved the participants’ mood—including just 10 minutes—while those who walked for 10 minutes also reported higher self-efficacy and intentions for future exercise.
Reduces illness risk
A meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine analyzed data of over 30 million people in 196 peer-reviewed studies and found that just 11 minutes a day of brisk walking was enough to reduce the risk of stroke, heart disease, and some cancers, while reducing inflammation.
The effects of a 30-minute walk
Reduces feelings of depression
Researchers for the journal, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, found that people suffering from depression who walked on a treadmill for 30 minutes reported feeling more vigorous and had a greater sense of psychological wellbeing for up to an hour after completing their walks. Those patients also reported reductions in negative feelings such as tension, depression, anger and fatigue.
Walking on a treadmill for 30 minutes is proven to help reduce feelings of depression EmirMemedovski – Getty Images
Boosts bone density
A 2022 study published in PLOS ONE found that long-term brisk walking is an efficient way to improve bone density. Specifically, taking brisk walks for 30 minutes per day three or more times per week is recommended to prevent bone loss in premenopausal women.
The effects of a 40-minute walk
Improves memory
Researchers at Colorado State University recruited 180 adults over 60 who were generally healthy but inactive. One group walked for 40 minutes three times a week, while the second group danced three times a week, and the third did stretching three times a week. The results analyzed the brain’s white matter, which acts as the wiring that connects and supports billions of neurons and enables memory. MRI scans after six months showed improvements in this white matter in the brains of the people who walked, while these people also scored higher on memory tests. Those who remained sedentary did not show such improvements.
Boosts heart health
According to a 2018 observational study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology analyzing over 90,000 participants, walking at least 40 minutes two or three times a week was associated with a reduced risk of developing heart failure in postmenopausal women.
The effects of a 60-minute walk
Improves sleep
A 2019 study from Sleep found that postmenopausal women who do 60 minutes of light- to moderate-intensity physical activity, like walking, per day have longer, more restful sleeps than those who are sedentary.
Reduces risk of depression
Walking for an hour a day can reduce your risk of depression, according to a 2019 JAMA Psychiatry study. Researchers saw a 26-percent decrease in odds of developing depression with increased physical activity, like walking. “Intentionally moving your body in more gentle ways throughout the day–like walking, stretching, taking the stairs, doing the dishes–can still add up in good ways for your mood,” study author Karmel Choi told Harvard Health.
Reduces stress
Any amount of walking reduces the stress hormone cortisol, which helps you feel less stressed and more relaxed, says Joyce Shulman, co-founder and CEO of 99 Walks and Jetti Fitness and author of Walk Your Way to Better. But a 2022 study published in Molecular Psychiatry found that a 60-minute walk in nature decreases activity in brain regions involved in stress processing. In contrast, brain activity in those regions remained stable after a 60-minute walk in an urban environment.
(NewsNation) — The Trump administration faced another loss this week after a federal judge blocked an executive order allowing mass firings of federal employees and delayed any current layoffs until May 23.
In March, a different judge ruled that probationary workers laid off by DOGE had to be rehired. While many of those workers are back on payroll, many are not working due to other cuts.
Overall, the numbers show DOGE has not been successful in its efforts to reduce spending. The department claims to have saved $170 billion, mostly by cutting government contracts, grants and leases.
The cuts have also not brought down the national deficit.
In fact, the government spent $20 billion more in President Donald Trump’s first three months than the Biden administration spent over that same time frame last year.
The deficit has grown from $840 billion in January to more than a trillion dollars today, according to the U.S. Treasury — a $290 billion increase in the past year, partly due to tax cuts that Trump wants to make permanent in his “big, beautiful” budget bill.
Some Republicans are raising the alarm about growing debt.
“We have to get back to weeding out the fraud, the waste, abuse. We are careening towards a sovereign debt crisis, and if we don’t get our spending under control, all of this doesn’t really matter because the dollar won’t mean anything anymore,” said Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C.
DOGE said 40% of the Social Security Agency’s calls were ‘fraudulent.’ Data suggests it was actually less than 1%
Irina Ivanova – May 16, 2025
Elon Musk, here seen on Capitol Hill on Dec. 5, 2024, has called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
An oft-repeated claim that 40% of Social Security calls are fraudulent is wildly overstated, according to a report, which found that less than 1% of calls have any possible link to fraud. However, changes the administration made to combat the alleged problem have led to payment delays and a “degradation” in service, the report found.
Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is moving to overhaul Social Security on the pretext that the government’s premier safety-net program is losing massive amounts of money to fraud. Musk has claimed his engineers have found $100 billion a week in fraudulent entitlement payments, a situation the Tesla CEO called “utterly insane.”
DOGE made similar claims in an April interview with Fox News. DOGE engineer and Musk employee Aram Moghaddassi told Bret Baier that 40% of calls to Social Security trying to change direct-deposit information are from fraudsters.
“So when you want to change your bank account, you can call Social Security. We learned 40% of the calls that they get are from fraudsters,” Moghaddassi told Fox.
Even Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested in a podcast appearance that the only people complaining about missing payments are fraudsters.
“The easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, cause whoever screams is the one stealing,” he told All-In, using his 94-year-old mother-in-law as an example of someone who wouldn’t call in.
‘No significant fraud‘
But the true rate of phone fraud, according to a news outlet that covers government technology, is just a fraction of 1%.
Nextgov/FCW, which obtained an internal SSA document, reported that just two Social Security claims out of 110,000 had a high probability of being fraudulent. Fewer than 1% of claims had any potential for fraud at all, according to Nextgov.
“No significant fraud has been detected from the flagged cases,” the internal document said, according to the site.
The SSA’s own justification for changing the benefits process in March said that roughly “40 percent of Social Security direct deposit fraud is associated with someone calling SSA to change direct deposit bank information,” not that 40% of all calls are fraudulent.
DOGE did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
A Social Security spokesperson told Fortune that, between March 29 and April 26, SSA’s new fraud detection tools flagged 20,000 distinct social security numbers where “a direct deposit change was requested over the phone and failed a security measure,” and said its fraud measures helped the office avoid $19.9 million in losses.
The office “continues to refine the anti-fraud algorithm to flag only the claims with the highest probability of fraud,” the spokesperson said in an email.
‘Delays’ and ‘degradation‘
However, the changes have also created a “degradation of public service,” according to Nextgov. In addition to requiring ID checks, the SSA put an automatic delay on new benefit claims so it could run fraud checks, Nextgov reported. The move “delays payments and benefits to customers, despite an extremely low risk of fraud,” the document noted, according to Nextgov.
An Inspector General report from February found that, in fiscal year 2023, 0.6% of all payments made across Social Security’s old-age and disability programs were “overpayments.” That term includes payments made in the wrong amounts when people don’t update their earnings information or other information that would change their eligibility, such as living in a nursing home.
In March, Social Security announced that no benefits claims could be made by phone, before reversing the policy amid outrage. It has added more requirements for people changing their bank information, requiring beneficiaries to either visit a Social Security office in person or use two-factor authentication to confirm their identity.
DOGE’s Fraud Tracker at Social Security Turns Into a Massive Self-Own
Josh Fiallo – May 15, 2025
Brian Snyder / Reuters
How’s that for efficiency?
Procedures implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency suggested that just two out of 110,000 calls to the Social Security Administration this spring had a “high probability” of being fraudulent, Federal Computer Week reported.
That is a far cry from the 40 percent figure that was parroted by MAGA in recent months, including by DOGE’s recently departed leader, Elon Musk, and Vice President JD Vance. The real figure is about .0018 percent.
The anti-fraud procedures were put in place by DOGE last month and have seemingly done more harm than good, according to an internal memo viewed by Federal Computer Week. The new procedures reassured DOGE staff that fraudsters are not phoning the SSA every second, but reportedly slowed processing times at the administration by 25 percent and may soon be removed from protocol.
DOGE’s anti-fraud procedures have seemingly done more harm than good. / Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Such delays were described in a memo as a “degradation of public service,” which is the antithesis of DOGE’s supposed goal.
“No significant fraud has been detected from the flagged cases,” the internal document said, according to the magazine.
DOGE’s anti-fraud protocol required a three-day hold to be placed on phone claims in order to check for fraud. This procedure “delays payments and benefits to customers, despite an extremely low risk of fraud,” the memo said.
The 40 percent figure circulating in MAGA circles stems from a Fox News segment on March 27, where the DOGE engineer Aram Moghaddassi wrongly claimed that 40 percent of calls made to the SSA to change direct deposit information are from fraudsters.
In reality, Federal Computer Week reports that 40 percent of direct deposit fraud at the agency is associated with phone calls—not that four out of every 10 calls to the agency are from fraudsters.
Likely based on the exaggerated fraud figures, the SSA announced in March that it would phase out allowing people to make account changes or claims over the phone. That policy was scrapped a short time later, following a public backlash.
Musk has been notably quieter the last month. / JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
Musk, who has been notably quieter the last month, did not immediately address his department’s face-palm on Thursday.
