Conservative

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/30354639

A Democratic congresswoman has given a scathing review of the Trump administration’s so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, describing it as an “internment camp” that needs to be “shut the hell down.”

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents Florida's 25th congressional district, said that pictures of the facility “don’t do it justice” and that detainees were being “packed into cages.”

On Saturday Florida lawmakers from both parties took a state-arranged tour of the new 3,000-bed detention center that the state rapidly built on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland in the Everglades.

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/30380510

The European Union has warned that its trade with the United States could be effectively wiped out if Washington makes good on its threat to slap a 30% tariff on goods imported from the bloc.

A tariff of “30%, or anything above 30%… has more or less the same effect. So, practically it prohibits the trade,” Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade commissioner, said as he arrived ahead of an EU ministerial meeting in Brussels on Monday.

Šefčovič said it will “be almost impossible” for the bloc to continue its current level of trade with America if that new tariff rate is implemented on August 1 – the date stipulated by US President Donald Trump in his letter to the EU on Saturday.

cross-posted from: https://endlesstalk.org/post/91679669

• A joint DOJ–FBI memo reaffirmed that no “client list” of high-profile individuals existed and found no evidence Epstein blackmailed anyone.
• MAGA hardliners (e.g., Alex Jones) and some Trump allies lash out at AG Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, demanding disclosures.
• President Trump urged supporters to stop attacking his team over “Epstein Files,” calling Epstein “somebody nobody cares about” and insisting his administration is “PERFECT.”
• Internal friction reportedly flared between Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino (who threatened to quit) and Bondi, though Trump insists DOJ/FBI are united.
• Trump wants the FBI to refocus on his unproven 2020 election–fraud claims rather than “the same old…documents on Jeffrey Epstein.”

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/30329104

A prominent Georgia Republican was running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded 300 investors of at least $140 million, federal officials alleged in a complaint filed Thursday.

The civil lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said First Liberty Building and Loan, controlled by Brant Frost IV, lied to investors about its business of making high-interest loans to companies. Instead, investigators said, it raised more money to repay earlier investors.

Frost is alleged to have taken more than $19 million of investor funds for himself, his family and affiliated companies even as the business was going broke, spending $160,000 on jewelry and $335,000 with a rare coin dealer. Frost is also said to have spent $320,000 to rent a vacation home over multiple years in Kennebunkport, Maine, the town where the family of late president George H. W. Bush famously spent summers.

cross-posted from: https://endlesstalk.org/post/91679574

FBI Director Kash Patel denies rumors of his resignation over frustration with the DOJ’s decision to close the Epstein investigation. The DOJ and FBI concluded there was no incriminating client list, no blackmail evidence, and no basis to reopen the case, despite pressure from MAGA hardliners like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Steve Bannon.

Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino is reportedly furious over the decision and may resign after a clash with AG Pam Bondi, though DOJ leadership insists there’s full agreement on the memo. Trump, frustrated with Epstein-related questions, dismissed ongoing interest in the case as absurd.

The FBI-DOJ memo confirmed possession of vast evidence, including child abuse material, but no proof of high-profile blackmail schemes. Conspiracy theories persist among MAGA figures despite lack of evidence.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24612863

Archived copy of the article

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/30300190

At the brand new Everglades immigration detention center that officials have dubbed “ Alligator Alcatraz,” people held there say worms turn up in the food. Toilets don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.

Inside the compound’s large white tents, rows of bunkbeds are surrounded by chain-link cages. Detainees are said to go days without showering or getting prescription medicine, and they are only able to speak by phone to lawyers and loved ones. At times the air conditioners abruptly shut off in the sweltering heat.

Days after Donald Trump toured it, attorneys, advocates, detainees and their relatives are speaking out about the makeshift facility, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration raced to build on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland. Detainees began arriving July 2.

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/30298880

White House appears to be backing away from pledge to ‘phase out’ disaster-relief agency, even as key leaders have left

As the cleanup continues from this month’s torrential rain storms and flooding in Texas that left more than 120 dead, recently departed officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) say the organization is dangerously underresourced and overstretched in the event of further natural catastrophes.

A mass staff exodus, plunging morale and a loss of key leaders has left the main US disaster-relief organization ill-equipped to cope with an anticipated deadly spate of storms in the current hurricane season, former agency insiders say.

Fema’s weakness, exacerbated by grant cuts imposed by the Trump administration and the loss of institutional knowledge in strategic leadership positions, will be exposed if the nation is faced with more than one disaster simultaneously, according to Michael Coen, the agency’s former chief of staff.

cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/27953033

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32829663

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/11/politics/bongino-consider-resigning-epstein-files

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/48718837

Not only was Trump intimately close to Jeffrey Epstein, but there is a wealth of reporting tying the billionaire pedophile to intelligence circles. Trump is once again protecting the elites he claimed he would fight on the campaign trail.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32685898

Can we please stop talking about how my best friend Jeffrey and I used to tag team under aged girls?!? God!

cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/27740085

https://archive.is/20250706194846/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/world/americas/mexico-city-protest-gentrification.html

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/41656937

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/29989649

Lawmakers in Florida are raising alarm over documents suggesting immigrant children and pregnant women could be detained at 'Alligator Alcatraz.'

A draft operational plan obtained by the Miami Herald suggests minors could indeed be transported to the controversial site in the Everglades. The 35-page undated document details protocols to "separate minors from unrelated adults" and to provide "snacks and water" to minors, pregnant women and detainees with medical conditions during transport.

"The State of Florida is planning to send pregnant women and children to the 'Alligator Alcatraz' detention camp," wrote State Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith on social media. "This is totally un-American. We cannot be silent."

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/41480247

The unpopular legislation that set to clear the House Thursday is substantially more expensive than the version the chamber's Republicans approved in May, and it includes roughly $300 billion more in cuts to Medicaid. The bill now heads to the desk of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly pledged not to cut Medicaid.

Analysts estimate that over the next 10 years, roughly 17 million Americans will lose health coverage under the GOP package, both due to the measure's Medicaid cuts and its failure to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/41342277

Speaking on Tuesday on a panel of central bankers organised by the European Central Bank (ECB) in Portugal, Powell said the Fed was waiting to assess the inflationary impact of the president’s trade policies.

“In effect we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs,” Powell told the event in Sintra. “Essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs. We didn’t overreact, in fact we didn’t react at all, We’re simply taking some time.”

Asked if the Fed would have cut its key Fed funds rate further, from the current target range of 4.25-4.5%, if it wasn’t for tariffs, Powell said: “I think that’s right.”