Friday, February 27, 2026

Heated Rivalry

Heated Rivalry had a great first season.  Ava and C.I. tipped us off to it at the end of their "Media: Chump's administration doesn't even grasp the firing process:"


With that in mind, we're telling you to go over to HBO and watch HEATED RIVALRY.  Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie star as rival hockey players who begin an affair with one another.  It's a drama that holds your attention.  In fact, it's the finest drama HBO's had since THE UNDOING -- and that Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant mini-series was five years ago.


And it did end up being must watch TV.  Wesley Morris (New York Times) has an essay that's worth reading about his reaction. Here's the opening:


As a man who loves men, as a man in love with a man, I was surprised by how little I wanted to watch a man fall in love with a man on TV. I’ve been perplexed about why. You can probably imagine where this is going. So forgive me, because yes: the hockey show. For weeks, it — “Heated Rivalry” — took over a wing of the country.

You have to watch this thing, people told me. It’s beautiful, life-giving, hot. Yet something about all the drooling got on my nerves. It was embarrassing, like ’round-the-block-lines-for-$20-bread embarrassing. Grown women were ripping their own bodices over what I had been led to believe was porn. They were filming their boyfriends and husbands ugly-crying. (More than once, “fetish” crossed my mind.) Whatever this show was going to turn out to be, I was pretty sure I already had an app for it.

But then, mid-pandemonium, I watched it and understood. For my heart, too, soared. And then, just like that, it sort of sank: Why wouldn’t I have wanted this? Here was a six-episode show that’s exemplary as romance, as physical intimacy, as banter, as athlete psychology, as conversation, confession and comedy, as just good television that involves a few of my favorite things: sex, sports, men, training montages, the spiky post-punk of Wet Leg. So why? Let’s start with wariness.

So much of being a gay man in this country has entailed resistance — to neglect, to exploitation, to death. Yet how many times have I settled for stories about men wanting men that use tragedy as their primary romantic enterprise, pulley systems of shame and sadism and secrecy? If we didn’t suffer, we didn’t exist, not completely. “Heated Rivalry” banishes that kind of existential suffering.

If you haven't caught Heated Rivalry yet and have access to HBO, make a point to.  It really was one of the best things on TV in 2025. As Ava and C.I. noted in "Media: The best and the worst of TV showed up in December:"

The best moment of TV this month?  Episode five of HBO's HEATED RIVALRY.

As the episode comes to a conclusion, the New York Admirals win the Memorial Cup and the fans go wild.  As they scream and cheer, team captain Scott Hunter (Francois Arnaud) looks out and spots Kip (Robbie GK) in the crowd, Kip who he broke it off with despite loving because Scott couldn't handle coming out or even just a few of their friends knowing.  Scott gestures to Kip and it takes a moment but Kip begins heading towards Scott.  Once on the ice, Scott kisses Kip in front of everyone.  One of the best TV moments of the month and of the year.


Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Friday, February 27, 2026.  Yesterday, members of the House Oversight Committee went to Chappaqua to show how the Republican-controlled Committee will do anything in its power to avoid actually addressing Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes.  




Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told U.S. House lawmakers on Thursday that she had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's or Ghislaine Maxwell's crimes at the start of two days of depositions that will also include former President Clinton.

“I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein," Hillary Clinton said in an opening statement she shared on social media.
The closed-door depositions in the Clintons' hometown of Chappaqua, a typically quiet hamlet north of New York City, come after months of tense back-and-forth between the former high-powered Democratic couple and the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee. It will be the first time that a former president has been forced to testify before Congress.

Annie Karni (NEW YORK TIMES) notes that the deposition was paused when someone broke rules:

Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado shared a photograph of Mrs. Clinton answering questions, which was posted on social media by Benny Johnson, a right-wing podcaster. Mrs. Clinton’s attorneys immediately asked to pause the proceedings, noting that the former secretary of state had been denied her request for a public hearing. The deposition resumed about 30 minutes later.

Was she drunk?  Boe-Boe?  She fell down after the State of the Union and some wondered if she was drunk then.  Was she drunk yesterday morning?  As well?   Her son got a misdemeanor citation for child abuse.  That was this month, by the way.  We're not talking about his 2025 issue for the same thing (he'll stand trial for that in April) or his 2024 arrest for property theft among other things.  Possibly Boe-Boe needs some time off to regroup? 



Representative Yassamin Ansari, Democrat of Arizona, also took a break to speak to reporters outside a performing arts center in Chappaqua, N.Y., where the House Oversight Committee investigating the Epstein matter has been taking a deposition from Hillary Clinton.  “We are sitting through an incredibly unserious clown show of a deposition,” she said, adding that Republicans in Congress were more concerned with getting photos of the closed proceeding out than “than holding anyone accountable.”


And it was pointless.  Hillary has no association with Jeffrey Epstein.  As she pointed out, the whole thing was a distraction from Donald Chump who does have a reason to be questioned -- under oath -- and his wife Melania who also has a reason to be questioned under oath.  Both Chumps are pictured repeatedly with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Melania has her e-mail to "G" that was released in the last document dump.  There are rumors that Epstein introduced Donald to Melania.  And that's before we get into the big news about the woman who complained to the FBI about Donald -- and how it was left out of the documents Pam Bondi released.  As Hillary noted in her opening statement -- which she posted in full on social media,  "Instead, you have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump's actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,"


Lawrence O'Donnell noted last night on MS NOW how Hillary called out this administration for covering up and for undercutting efforts to combat sex trafficking.  








House Democrats on Thursday demanded President Donald Trump follow the Clintons in testifying to congressional investigators on ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began a closed-door deposition Thursday by a House panel investigating Epstein in Chappaqua in upstate New York, where she has a home with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, according to a person familiar with the proceedings. Bill Clinton is set to face questioning on Friday.

The House committee’s subpoena to a former president “sets a precedent,” Representative Robert Garcia, the panel’s top-ranking Democrat, told reporters gathered outside the local performing arts center where the panel is questioning the Clintons. 
“The person who actually appears more times in the files than the former president, who we want to speak with, is President Donald Trump,” Garcia told reporters.


Comer-Pyle, head of the US House Oversight Committee, managed to show up for this deposition -- he and the other Republican members of the committee bailed last week on Les Wexner's deposition.  He corn-poned himself but managed to attend. Prior to attending, Tom Durante (MEDIAITE) reports: 

Rep. James Comer (R-KY) was pressed by reporters about a possible Jeffrey Epstein cover-up by the Trump administration as he prepared to quiz former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton on her ties to the notorious sex trafficker.

Speaking from Chappaqua, NY before the deposition was set to begin, Comer, the House Oversight Committee chair, was asked about a recent report that the Justice Department withheld dozens of pages from the Epstein document dump that mentioned President Donald Trump, including an allegation that he sexually abused a minor.
“We’re looking into the accusation by the NPR,” said Comer, who was flanked by fellow Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), and others. “We don’t know the answer to that. We know what the administration says. We’re still looking to to get a definitive answer on that.”

The NPR investigation, published on February 24, found over 50 pages that appear to have been catalogued, but were not a part of the massive trove of files related to Epstein.

The accusation by the NPR?  Comer-Pyle is an idiot.  



The Justice Department said Thursday that it is examining whether it wrongly withheld FBI files that contained allegations against President Donald Trump in its release of millions of pages from the investigatory files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Three summaries of interviews the FBI conducted in 2019 with a woman who had accused Trump of sexually assaulting her are missing from the files, multiple news outlets have reported. The woman had accused Trump of sexually assaulting her decades earlier while she was a minor. No evidence has emerged publicly to corroborate that accusation.
The existence of the summaries — known as 302s in law enforcement parlance — was noted in an index that the Justice Department included in the massive cache of files released over the past three months in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The index suggested that law enforcement agents interviewed the woman on four occasions, writing up a summary in each instance. Only one of the four summaries was included in the release.

The summaries were among the materials prosecutors gave to defense attorneys as part of the discovery process leading up to the trial of Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 on sex-trafficking charges.

Independent journalist Roger Sollenberger first reported on the apparent missing files.

The woman who accused Trump also said Epstein assaulted her when she was a minor in the 1980s. In an account that was included in the files, the woman said that Epstein introduced her to Trump and that Trump assaulted her.




Aaron Blake (CNN) observes the murky aspects of Chump and The Epstein Files:

Trump’s questionable denials

Speaking of Trump’s name being in the files, that’s one of several instances of him downplaying his proximity to Epstein using claims that were subsequently undermined or called into question:

  • Trump in July denied being told his name was in the files, shortly before we found out Attorney General Pam Bondi had indeed told him that back in May.
  • In 2019, he said that he “wasn’t a fan” of Epstein’s and added, “I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him.” In fact, lots of evidence has suggested they were friendly before their falling out, including archived video footage and photos of them together uncovered by CNN’s KFile. The New York Times even reported Epstein once called Trump his “best friend.”
  • Trump in 2024 said he was “never on Epstein’s Plane,” despite flight logs showing he had been seven times in the 1990s.

His opaqueness

When Trump hasn’t made demonstrably false claims, he’s often been opaque:

  • He and his allies offered a number of claims for why Trump hadn’t written Epstein a lewd birthday letter published by the Wall Street Journal. While we don’t have proof that Trump authored the letter, the claims they used to deny it seemed to fall apart.
  • Trump in July seemed to reluctantly acknowledge he had known that Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell recruited their victim, Virginia Giuffre, from Mar-a-Lago. Trump previously avoided discussing why he and Epstein had a falling out, including saying in 2019: “The reason doesn’t make any difference, frankly.”
  • We then learned recently that Trump told a local police chief when Epstein was first under investigation in the mid-2000s that “everyone has known he’s been doing this.”

There have been other data points at least gesturing in the direction that Trump knew Epstein liked young women. But what he told local Florida police is perhaps the most compelling evidence yet that Trump knew something about Epstein’s crimes way back when.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she couldn’t confirm whether that conversation happened. She added that if it did, it “corroborates” Trump having called Epstein a “creep” and broken ties with him. But Trump has never been forthcoming about why he decided Epstein was a creep.

The Maxwell prison transfer

Shortly after she interviewed with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last summer, Maxwell was moved to a minimum-security prison camp.

You begin to see how that might look bad. Maxwell, after all, is a convicted sex offender. She was also saying things that could help Trump — even as he dangled a potential pardon.

But the administration spent months not explaining why the transfer occurred.

Eventually Blanche told NBC News shortly before Christmas that the Bureau of Prisons recommended the transfer, and he suggested he had signed off on it. Blanche said that Maxwell had been facing “numerous threats against her life.”

But in testimony earlier this month, Bondi said she hadn’t known about the transfer (despite being Blanche’s boss) and claimed Maxwell was transferred to “the same-level facility,” which doesn’t appear to be true.


The apparent cover up flies in the face of what Pam Bondi told -- shouted, sneered, screeched -- at the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month.  She drew attention to herself as she insisted there were no accusations against Donald Chump.  She had a fit when US House Rep Ted Lieu attempted to explore that avenue.  She lied to the committee.  Which is why Ted's office issued the following this week:

WASHINGTON - Today, Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) and Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche calling for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Attorney General Pam Bondi for allegedly committing perjury during her February 11, 2026 testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary when she said, “there is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.” Following the hearing, NPR reported that the Justice Department has withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump from the public database.

In the letter, the Members write:

Dear Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche,

As former prosecutors, we watched – along with millions of Americans – Attorney General Pam Bondi lie under oathbefore Congress. Testifying before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on February 11, 2026, Attorney GeneralBondi emphatically stated, “There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.” Yet a number of thedocuments from the Epstein files released to date by the Department of Justice directly contradict her statement.When confronted with her lie, she did not retract her statement, she doubled down. She stated, “Don’t you ever accuse me of committing a crime.”

 Attorney General Bondi committed the crime of making false statements under oath, under 18 U.S.C. § 1001. We request that you immediately appoint a special counsel to investigate Attorney General Bondi for committing perjury. America cannot have a liar and a criminal as our top law enforcement officer.

Donald Trump is all over the Epstein files released to date – which is only half of the total number of documents in your possession – referenced over 38,000 times. Below are just a few examples of the evidence released by the Department of Justice alleging that Trump committed crimes:

  • The DOJ released a 21-page internal slideshow presentation about investigations into Epstein. In it, there aretwo accusations against Donald Trump provided by two witnesses:

                        o  “[REDACTED] stated Epstein introduced her to Trump who subsequently forced her head down to hisexposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked herout. (Date range 1983-1985, [REDACTED] would have been 13-15).”

                             o  “[REDACTED] remember Epstein introduced her to Trump saying “this is a good one, huh” and Trumpresponded “Yes”. (Date range roughly 1984, [REDACTED] would have been 14).”

  • A separate FBI record reflects that an individual contacted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Centerreporting that, as a limo driver, he overheard Trump “continuously stated the name ‘Jeffrey’ while on the phone, and made references to “abusing some girl.” The individual also said he met a girl who said she was raped by Trump and Epstein.

  •  In July 2019, FBI interview transcripts released by the DOJ indicate that a witness expressed fear of retaliation when discussing individuals who were “well known” including “current United States President Donald Trump.”

These examples contradict her claim that there is “no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.” Whenconfronted with one of these pieces of evidence, Attorney General Bondi doubled down instead of retracting her false statement. She also inappropriately and creepily spied on Members of Congress who were searching through the Epstein Files, so we know that she would have seen the documents that incriminated Trump. 

Further, it appears that the DOJ removed a document indicating that the underage accuser referenced above in the21-page internal slideshow was interviewed not once, but “at least four times” by the FBI.6 The removal of that document is not only suspicious, it raises obvious concerns about a coverup.

Moreover, both you and AG Bondi have stated that all of the survivors who have reached out to the Department have been able to provide testimony and evidence. As the country saw during

last week’s hearing, that is demonstrably false. Every survivor who attended that hearing indicated that they hadtried to meet with the Department and were rebuffed but would still be willing to provide evidence and testimony. Unless the Department is overtly covering up for President Trump or other child predators, we expect that theDepartment will meet with those survivors immediately.

Attorney General Bondi’s conduct meets all the elements of the crime of making false statements under oath. Sinceshe obviously isn’t going to prosecute herself, a clear conflict of interest exists.

Therefore, under 28 C.F.R. § 600.1, we request that you immediately appoint a special counsel to investigate Attorney General Pam Bondi for making false statements under oath during her February 11, 2026, testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this important matter. We look forward to receiving your response.

Sincerely,

READ THE FULL TEXT OF THE LETTER HERE




Now that everyone knows she lied, Democrats want answers. TAG24 NEWS notes:


Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused the Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, of unlawfully withholding documents that could implicate or embarrass Trump, and pledged accountability for those responsible.

"Let me be blunt, there is a massive cover-up going on in the Justice Department to protect Donald Trump and people associated with Jeffrey Epstein," Schumer told reporters.
"As we expected, Trump, Bondi, and their minions have played games with the release of these files, released some documents they wanted to release, and continue to hide others...President Trump – what are you trying to hide?"


Multiple outlets and Democratic lawmakers have reported that the Department of Justice failed to release materials in Epstein files that documented FBI interviews with a female witness who alleged that Trump and disgraced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein sexually assaulted her when she was a minor.

The substance of the allegation against the president and its cover-up have broken through, as they should. It is absolutely surreal to say the president of the United States is an accused pedophile - and that our country's law enforcement apparatus, together with the Republican Party, seems intent on killing that story. Yet that is where we are.

The omitted FBI interviews with Trump's accuser are part of the tranche of Epstein files - documents in the federal government's possession related to its investigations of disgraced financier Epstein. Last year, Congress passed a bipartisan law requiring Department of Justice to release the files (subject to what are supposed to be narrow redactions, including of victims' names or material used in an ongoing federal investigation).
Of course, in any investigation, law enforcement receives junk tips that don't go anywhere. But there are several indications that the material the department is attempting to bury was viewed as serious.

For one thing, the witness who alleged Trump sexually assaulted her was interviewed by the FBI four times. If the witness wasn't credible, a second, third and fourth FBI interview probably wouldn't have been warranted. The witness interview was also memorialized in a 302, a form the FBI uses for documenting interviews with witnesses. Those documents, 302s, are significant investigative material - so much so that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche specifically instructed the Justice Department to flag 302s as they were reviewing the Epstein files.

Then there is the fact that the witness made a similar allegation (that she was sexually assaulted by Epstein and another prominent man) in litigation she filed in 2019. This witness - and their allegation against Trump - was also included in an internal department presentation that listed claims made against prominent individuals. So, again, this isn't someone who was being dismissed by people involved in the investigation.
The Justice Department has yet to release all of the Epstein files, even though the deadline to do so has already passed. But it's hard to imagine that, under Attorney General Pam Bondi's leadership, the department is investigating this allegation against Trump in light of all of the preferential treatment the president has received so far.


As Hillary said in her opening remarks to the Commitee:

A committee run by elected officials with a commitment to transparency would ensure the full release of all the files. It would ensure that the lawful redactions of those files protected the victims and survivors, not powerful men and political allies. It would get to the bottom of reports that DOJ withheld FBI interviews in which a survivor accuses President Trump of heinous crimes.



Howard Lutnick is one of the many people in the administration who had relationships with Jeffrey Epstein.   Lutnick, Robert Kennedy Jr., Doctor Oz, Stephen Feinberg, John Phelan, Kevin Warsh, Tom Barrack, Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, Melania Chump and Donald Chump all had ties to Epstein. 


None has been asked to testify before the committee.  And none has announced that they're stepping down.



Sarah K. Burris notes Lutnick may be wearing out his welcome:


So far, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has been able to score deals that make President Donald Trump happy. However, he's now alienated the rest of the powers that be.

According to Politico, politicians on both sides of the aisle are angry over Lutnick's name popping up in the investigation files around Jeffrey Epstein. Lutnick lived next to Epstein for a time, went to his home and to his private island with his family. He never engaged in anything untoward, he told reporters.
“He is thumbing a middle finger to anyone who thinks he’s on the outs because the president has really given a lot of his Cabinet the assurance that they’re not going anywhere until he wants them to go somewhere,” said one person close to the White House.

Other Cabinet-level officials don't like Lutnick's "style," the report said. And there are larger questions about how much Lutnick's children were profiting from his position in the Cabinet. Over the holidays, Trump confronted the secretary over the matter while at Mar-a-Lago.


House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer appears to be changing his tune on Howard Lutnick, now suggesting that it is "very possible" he might subpoena him after the Trump Commerce Secretary allegedly lied before Congress about the extent of his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Just two weeks ago, MS NOW reported that Chairman Comer had dodged questions about subpoenaing Lutnick.

Asked at the time if his committee had any plans to subpoena the Commerce Secretary, Comer instead replied, "Well, we're going to try to get these five [witnesses] nailed down. We've got a lot of very important people we're trying to bring in to answer questions."

On Thursday, the question came up again, and Comer offered reporters a different perspective.

Asked if "in the spirit of bipartisanship" he would request Lutnick testify, Comer replied it was "very possible, and I think it's a good possibility his name will arise on some questioning today" as the Committee deposes former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.


The chairman’s suggestion that Lutnick could soon be facing a congressional subpoena comes after weeks of increased scrutiny of his relationship with Epstein, his onetime next-door neighbor in New York, after documents released by the Justice Department showed that he’d lied during an interview with the New York Post in October when he’d claimed to have cut off contact with Epstein after a 2005 encounter that he claimed had left him so unsettled that he’d vowed to “never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”


As Ben notes this morning on MEDIASNEWS NETWORK, photos emerged yesterday of Lutnick on Epstein's island, having the time of his life.  Years after he insisted he'd  broken with Epstein, years after the 'grossed out' moment he and his wife supposedly had when they visited their neighbor Epstein and saw things that turned their stomachs, things that made them both agree to never again have anything to do with Epstein. 



Let's note this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and the former chair on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, issued the following statement on the Trump administration’s moves to roll back worker protections. Today, the Trump nominee-packed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced its decision to formalize the return of the first Trump administration’s joint employer rule. This coincides with this morning’s announcement from the Department of Labor of its intent to rescind the Biden Administration’s employee and independent contractor classification rule.

“Every day, little by little, the Trump administration is rigging the system to benefit giant corporations and shortchange workers—it’s an outright grift and working people should be furious. The joint employer rule is nothing more than a return to Trump’s anti-worker policies that let giant corporations skirt their basic obligations to employees—Trump is giving the biggest corporations cover to deny workers their ability to band together for better wages and working conditions and leaving millions of workers in the lurch, vulnerable to egregious violations of their rights.

“At the same time, today, the Trump administration announced they’re working to rescind the independent contractor rule. Trump wants to let giant corporations classify workers as contractors so that they don’t have to pay them minimum wage and overtime—these workers deserve fair pay.

“Under the Trump administration, giant corporations get giant tax breaks paid for by cutting Medicaid—the health care that the poorest workers are forced to rely on. Now, Trump wants those same corporations off the hook for every benefit, protection, and dollar they’d otherwise owe to millions of workers—it’s a shakedown. Republicans are proving time and again, they don’t care about workers—they don’t want to even let workers have crumbs, but billionaires can get trillions in tax breaks that will blow up our national debt. I am going to keep fighting for laws on the books that protect workers and build an economy that grows the middle-class, not just profit margins for the largest corporations on earth.”

Senator Murray has long led efforts in Congress to shield against employee misclassification and protect workers’ rights. In January of last year, Senator Murray forcefully condemned President Trump’s illegal firing of NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox and the firing of Jennifer Abruzzo—Murray has consistently called for the immediate reinstatement of Wilcox and condemned Trump’s move as a breach of the NLRB’s independence. Senator Murray is fighting to pass—and is the original Senate author of—the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which, among other things, would close loopholes that allow employers to misclassify their employees and deny them protections under the law. Among many other pieces of pro-worker legislation, Murray also leads the Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act, to fight wage theft and protect workers hard earned wages, and the Paycheck Fairness Act to combat wage discrimination and help close the pay gap, and has helped lead the fight for paid family and medical leave since she first joined Congress. Most recently, Senator Murray reintroduced her Bringing an End to Harassment by Enhancing Accountability and Rejecting Discrimination (BE HEARD) in the Workplace Act, in response to Trump and Andrea Lucas, Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), eliminating workplace anti-harassment guidance and attacking transgender workers for using the locker rooms, bathrooms, and private spaces. BE HEARD takes critical steps to address workplace harassment, protects against discrimination based on gender identity and sexuality, and ensures workers can seek accountability and justice.

In December 2023, Senator Murray led 21 of her colleagues in a letter in support of the Biden Administration’s proposed rule to reinstate the joint-employer standard and she fought efforts to weaken the historic joint-employer standard under the previous administration at every step of the way. She continuously opposed the first Trump administration’s attempt to overturn the historic standard and led her colleagues in opposing its rule eroding the standard, which was finalized in 2020.

###


And we'll note this from THE BLACK COMMENTATOR:

Cover Story
The Rotunda Is Too Small for the Reverend Jesse Jackson
By Dr. Julianne Malveaux, PhD
BC Editorial Board

Click below to read issue 1076


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Thursday, February 26, 2026

The bad and the good

Kristi Noem is a psychopath.  She's Norman Bates for the 21st century.  And yet she remains in the administration.  Tom Latchem (Daily Beast) reports: 

White House insiders say they have “always” wanted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem fired—but Donald Trump keeps protecting her, according to a new report.

Noem, 54, has become unpopular with colleagues and been given the nickname “ICE Barbie” for her habit of strapping on body armor to join immigration agents on raids—a photo-op instinct that critics say prioritizes optics over competence.
The South Dakota Republican’s 13-month tenure at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has lurched from one controversy to the next. They began even before she was nominated for the role, with her admission that she shot dead her own puppy, and culminated in widespread scandal after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, which prompted Republican senators to demand her resignation and Trump to ignore her in a January Cabinet meeting.
The soap opera around Noem’s rumored affair with senior aide Corey Lewandowski, 52, which Trump is believed to view unfavorably, is the latest pressure point amid calls for her to go.


She has done real harm to our country which is true of everyone serving in Chump's cabinet.  

They're evil and they take their cue on that from Donald Chump.  Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld (LGBTQ Nation) notes:

We find many parallels between the death cults of The Peoples Temple and the MAGA movements: Both were led by a charismatic leader who offered unfounded promises and downright lies for people to “drink the Kool-Aid,” which left many people literally dead in MAGA’s wake, or members figuratively dead in soul by the promises and their expectations of high rewards.

Placing deaths on ICE

Reviewing a sampling of the literal death incidents show that during Donald Trump’s first term as president (2017-2021), the American Civil Liberties Union  (ACLU) reported 52 deaths of people interned under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with 95% as “preventable or possibly preventable.” This far exceeds the total number of deaths under ICE detention during the Biden administration’s full four years in office.

Early into Trump’s second term, 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, with another six deaths so far in 2026.

Most ICE incarcerated deaths are due to harsh treatment of people who suffered from heart attack, stroke, respiratory failure, or from flu viruses.

By early 2026, ICE officers had shot at 13 people and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 7. She was a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three. Federal immigration agents also killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, who was also 37 years old and a U.S. citizen. Alex was an ICU nurse for the Minnesota Veterans Administration. Federal officers shot and killed him on January 24.

Killing the poorest

President Donald Trump’s closure of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2025 has been linked to an estimated 1,400,000 to 1,600,000 lives needlessly lost, with projections as high as 14 million additional deaths by 2030. Roughly two-thirds of the fatalities in the first year alone are estimated to be children, with more than 500,000 children under five dying from HIV infection, malaria, pneumonia, dysentery, or starvation.

These deaths are due to the suspension of funding for critical programs for health, nutrition, and development assistance to some of the poorest countries on the planet.

Deaths by the snorter of cocaine on toilet seats  

“I’m not scared of a germ. I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats,” admitted the United States Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under the second Trump administration, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a recorded February 12 interview.

Well, don’t you all feel really safe and secure with this man serving as our country’s leading health advisor? If you do, though, you need to think again.

Under his tenure and with his background of health conspiracies and anti-vaccine stands, we are not seeing what he claims will Make America Healthy Again (MAHA). Instead, Kennedy has succeeded in Making Childhood Diseases Infecting Again. We are now seeing outbreaks of measles and other childhood infections throughout the country that we thought we had virtually eliminated not so long ago.

Kennedy has cancelled $500 million in mRNA vaccine research, rolled back $11 billion in COVID-era grants to local health departments even despite previous assurances to Congress that he wouldn’t do so. He has fired the CDC chief and replaced members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) with individuals skeptical of some vaccines. Basically, he has dismantled the public health system of the United States, placing all of us at risk for developing preventable diseases and unnecessary deaths.

Killing the environment (and us along with it)

Donald Trump’s campaign slogan of “drill baby drill” has resulted in his 007-style license to kill people by carelessly and needlessly murdering our planet with toxic pollutants.

In addition to the over 70 environmental regulatory rollbacks under Trump’s first administration according to New York Times research, the Polluter-In-Chief gave a stunning announcement February 12, 2026 that he has further loosened the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from protecting the environment leaving the country now with a government-mandated new agency that can be titled the Pollution Rollbacks Of Fossil Fuels Increasing Toxicity Substantially (PROFFITS).

This agency has revoked “both the Obama-era 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding and all subsequent federal GHG emission standards for all vehicles and engines of model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond,” states the official government announcement.

Specific items of the administration’s agenda include loosening standards for vehicle tailpipe emissions, weakening rules regulating power plant emissions, defunding research and implementation of renewable energy sources, increased drilling and fracking of fossil fuels, eliminating financial incentives for consumers to purchase electric vehicles, and revocation of other climate polluting directives.  

This furthers the Trump administration’s anti-science bias by forgoing conclusive scientific evidence that human-generated greenhouse gas emissions have impaled our planet by placing all living species on the endangered list.

Chump and all those who enable him are disgusting.  

Moving on, Molly Sprayregen (LGBTQ Nation) reports:


A man wrote in to an Irish radio station with a heart-wrenching confession of love inspired by Heated Rivalry.

RTE Radio 1 host Brendan O’Connor read the emotional letter on air, which involved a man telling another man he still loves him 30 years after they last spoke. “I am a successful, reasonably wealthy married man with two adult children,” it began. “But sometimes I find myself lost in emotion.” 

Read the whole article, it was really moving.   


Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Thursday, February 26, 2026.  Pam Bondi earlier this month was screeching and braying before a Congressional committee and now appears to have lied to that Committee and to have intentionally withheld significant documents, a witness was interviewed by the FBI four times -- first she spoke only of Epstein, then she spoke of Donald Chump and Epstein for the next three interviews but somehow those three interviews didn't get released, Pam's trying to figure out a good lie right now to excuse her actions.  




A federal judge has rejected the Justice Department’s request to search the seized devices of a Washington Post reporter as part of an FBI investigation into leaked classified documents.

In a 22-page opinion issued Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Porter of the Eastern District of Virginia criticized the government’s handling of the case, reversing course in part after previously authorizing the seizure of the reporter’s devices.

Porter previously approved a warrant that led federal agents to seize two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive, and a Garmin watch belonging to reporter Hannah Natanson in a pre-dawn raid at her Virginia home.
In his ruling, Porter concluded that the government could not be trusted to conduct a review of the devices on its own. He denied the Justice Department’s request to allow a government filter team to search the devices for materials relevant to its probe into Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, a government contractor who had top-level security clearances and was charged last month with illegally retaining classified documents.

[. . .]

The judge’s ruling marks an embarrassing setback for Attorney General Pam Bondi and her department as it carries out its investigation into the contractor, whom President Donald Trump has identified as a “leaker” who divulged classified information regarding Venezuela and shared it with the Washington Post reporter.

Embarrassing for Pam?  She's got so much to be embarrassed over.  Erkki Forster (THE DAILY BEAST) reminds:


An NPR investigation, published on Tuesday morning of the president’s State of the Union address, alleges that the DOJ withheld dozens of documents from its Epstein release that may pertain to a woman who accused Trump and Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was a minor, including three FBI interviews with the accuser. Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre told the Daily Beast that NPR wrongly stated the DOJ declined to respond to questions about what it described as missing files.

At the conference, Amanda Roberts, the sister-in-law of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent victims, declared that despite the president’s wishes, “today we are saying we will not move on, and the world is not moving on.”
Trump spent much of last year working to dissuade Republicans from voting for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which mandated a full disclosure of the files. He has also refused to meet with Epstein survivors.

After Congress passed the bill and Trump—knowing the numbers were not on his side—was forced to sign it into law, the Justice Department missed the deadline for disclosing the files. Amid their staggered release, the DOJ has been criticized for redacting Epstein’s associates while failing to redact survivors’ names in the files.


THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE addressed the cover up last night. 



MS NOW's MORNING JOE is addressing it already today. 





The vast trove of documents released by the Justice Department from its investigations into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein failed to include some key materials related to a woman who made an accusation against President Trump, according to a review by The New York Times.

The materials are F.B.I. memos summarizing interviews the bureau did in connection to claims made in 2019 by a woman who came forward after Mr. Epstein’s arrest to say she had been sexually assaulted by both Mr. Trump and the financier decades earlier, when she was a minor.

The existence of the memos was revealed in an index listing the investigative materials related to her account, which was publicly released. According to that index, the F.B.I. conducted four interviews in connection with her claims and wrote summaries about each one. But only one of the summaries, which describes her accusations against Mr. Epstein, was released by the Justice Department. The other three are missing.

The public files also do not include the underlying interview notes, which the index also indicates are part of the file. The Justice Department released similar interview notes in connection to F.B.I. interviews with other potential witnesses and victims.




You’ve probably seen some hints of it. But I wanted to focus your attention on a genuine piece of news out of the Epstein Files, even weeks after their original release. In 2019, a woman came forward and spoke to the FBI claiming that Donald Trump had assaulted her in the early 1980s. In her allegations, Jeffrey Epstein essentially provided her to Trump. Other files in the Epstein trove say that the FBI conducted four interviews with the woman. But only one of them was released in the larger trove — one that detailed her accusations against Epstein. Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, says he went to view the unredacted version of the files that members of Congress can access and the missing interviews aren’t there either.




How can we claim to care about protecting girls, about holding powerful men accountable, but then change the rulebook when it touches someone we support politically?

Trump says he has been exonerated. There has been no criminal conviction tying him to Epstein’s crimes. Both of those things are factual. But the larger issue is consistency. If we demand transparency from one powerful man, we should demand it from all of them.

Right now, the Trump Epstein files debate feels less like a search for truth and more like a loyalty test.

If we want justice, it cannot stop at party lines.

That is the part I cannot ignore.


Democrats are ready to ask questions of anyone.  Tara Suter (THE HILL) notes:

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that former Attorney General Merrick Garland, who served under former President Biden, should testify to Congress about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“Why the [Department of Justice (DOJ)] under Merrick Garland, or others, weren’t forthcoming in what was actually in these files, I think is an important question that has to be answered,” Garcia, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “The Situation Room.”
“I’ve talked to [House Oversight Committee] Chairman [James] Comer [(R-Ky.)], I think it’s important that we hear from Merrick Garland, and others, and former directors of the FBI and former attorneys general. That is an important part of this investigation.”

“What are you doing, in terms of that, for accountability?” Brown asked Garcia.

“We’ve asked — we want to see them actually testify, I want to get answers from these officials. So, we’ve made those requests to Chairman Comer, I believe there will be additional subpoenas and requests made in the near future,” Garcia responded.





J








Virginia Roberts Giuffre is responsible for so much of what has happened.  She refused to be silenced.  She fought as long as she could.  She took her life last year but she changed the culture and the conversation.  Laura Trujillo (USA TODAY) speaks with her younger brother Sky Roberts:


Now her brother is trying to carry on her legacy. He is calling on Congress to pass her law and is urging the U.S. to release the rest of the Epstein files. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department has stopped its review after releasing about 3 million of 6 million pages. Trump has said America should move on.

“I am here to say proudly that what Virginia did for this world will not be in vain,” Roberts said during a press conference on Feb. 24, alongside other Epstein accusers and Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin and Suhas Subramanyam.

“She may have left this earth,” he said, pausing to catch his breath. “But her soul is still here. It lives in every survivor who decides to speak. It lives in in every victim who is still finding their voice and it lives in every person who refuses to accept the country where exploitation is met with immunity.”
Roberts has spent the past nine months speaking on behalf of his sister, sometimes with his wife Amanda. They often both still call her “Sissie,” Roberts’ childhood nickname for her.
“Virginia did not just survive, she fought. She pushed back a culture of silence,” he said, his pride showing through his voice. He wears a silver and blue butterfly pin to sympbolize hope and strength for survivors. “She proved what happens when an ordinary person decides they will not be erased.”
[. . .]
"She had a deep love for her survivor sisters and she had deep love for the millions of victims and surivvors around the world who may never be known by name, and whose lives mattered just the same," Roberts said.

"To say she trailblazed through obstacles is an understatements. She helped build a road for survivors to walk toward truth, toward dignity, toward justice," he said. "And we are here today to carry her torch down that road."

Her brother holds on to that now. And to how she was able to create a beautiful life with three children, even through her struggles.

Now he hopes people listen to her, through him: "Choose unity. Choose love. Choose the courage it takes to stand with survivors not only when it is easy, but when it is expensive, when it is uncomfortable and when it challenges powerful people."


Many Epstein survivors attended the State of the Union speech.  Erkki Forster (DAILY BEAST) notes:

President Donald Trump was shamed for his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files at the State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Democrats brought several Epstein survivors as guests to the president’s address at the Capitol and wore badges calling out the president’s handling of the files on the convicted sex offender.
“Stand with survivors. Release the files,” the badges read, with a black redaction box blocking the space ahead of “files,” a reference to the Justice Department’s much-criticized redactions.

Trump did not acknowledge the survivors or address the Epstein files during his record-breaking 108-minute speech.

He also hasn't spoken about Epstein since NPR and MSN NOW broke the story yesterday about the released files missing pages about Donald Chump assaulting a woman.  No claims of being exonerated since that reveal. 

Alison Durkee (FORBES) notes one of the mighty falling, "Former Harvard University President and Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will resign from teaching at Harvard at the end of the academic year, according to multiple reports Wednesday, the latest fallout from the Epstein files as the former treasury secretary was shown to have a close relationship with financier Jeffrey Epstein."  Susan Svrluga (WASHINGTON POST) adds:

Lawrence Summers will resign from his academic and faculty appointments at Harvard University at the end of this academic year because of his connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a spokesman for the university said Wednesday.

Summers, a former U.S. treasury secretary and former president of Harvard, was the latest prominent figure to resign amid ongoing revelations about Epstein’s network. Summers has resigned from his leadership role at Harvard Kennedy School, where he was co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. That resignation is effective immediately.
Harvard Kennedy School Dean Jeremy Weinstein has accepted Summers’s resignation “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government,” said Jason Newton, a spokesman for Harvard.

Summers, an influential figure in economic policymaking, had already stepped back from many of his public roles in the fall after the House Oversight Committee released documents revealing Epstein’s ties to many powerful figures. Summers’s connection to Epstein was revealed to be much closer than previously had been known, with numerous email exchanges between the two men over a period of years. The men had discussed a range of topics including Summers’s romantic interests, with Epstein offering advice, documents showed.



A Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist at Columbia University resigned from some of his positions with the institution over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

Richard Axel, co-director of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, won a Nobel Prize in 2004 for discovering over 1,000 special receptors in the nose that send olfactory information to the brain.  
“My past association with Jeffrey Epstein was a serious error in judgment, which I deeply regret. I apologize for compromising the trust of my friends, students, and colleagues,” Axel said in a statement obtained by NewsNation, The Hill’s sister network. “I recognize the problems this has caused, and I will work to restore this trust.”




Former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland was hospitalized on Tuesday following what's been described as a suicide attempt.

The incident comes after several world leaders and global elites across Europe and the U.S. faced repercussions — including resignations, terminations and damaged reputations — in the aftermath of the Epstein documents' publication over recent months,
Few nations have experienced as much upheaval from the Epstein disclosures as Norway — a Scandinavian country with fewer than 6 million inhabitants.
The nation's economic crimes division launched a corruption inquiry into Jagland — who previously chaired the Nobel Peace Prize committee — concerning his associations with Epstein. Jagland's legal representative indicated his client would assist with the investigation.

His alleged suicide attempt was downplayed by his legal team, which has insisted that he was rushed to the hospital because of extreme stress rather than a deliberate attack.


We started with Pam da Bimbo Bondi, let's close up the Epstein section with her -- this is from Jeremiah Hassel (THE MIRROR) and the AP report as well:

Attorney General Pam Bondi has appeared hesitant to prosecute any of the American individuals identified in the Epstein files, even as demands from legislators across party lines intensify for her resignation. During a contentious hearing last week before the House Judiciary Committee, Bondi declined to recognize the Epstein victims seated directly behind her.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) delivered a blistering rebuke to Bondi after she sidestepped his question regarding her decision to halt the probe into Epstein's American accomplices.
Bondi fired back at the inquiry, "This is so ridiculous that they are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done."

Lieu's retort was damning: "There are over 1,000 sex trafficking victims. And you have not held a single man accountable. Shame on you. If you had any decency, you would resign right after this hearing concludes."



Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) are calling on the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate Attorney General Pam Bondi, accusing her of perjuring herself when asked about evidence relating to President Trump in the Epstein files.

The demand – made in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche – comes after a heated exchange between the California Democrat and the attorney general earlier this month in which he accused her of lying under oath during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
“Testifying before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on February 11, 2026, Attorney General Bondi emphatically stated, ‘There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.’ Yet a number of the documents from the Epstein files released to date by the Department of Justice directly contradict her statement. When confronted with her lie, she did not retract her statement, she doubled down. She stated, ‘Don’t you ever accuse me of committing a crime,’” the lawmakers wrote in the letter sent to Blanche on Monday. 

“We request that you immediately appoint a special counsel to investigate Attorney General Bondi for committing perjury. America cannot have a liar and a criminal as our top law enforcement officer.”


Let's stay with the White House for a moment more.  Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) reports:

A high-profile MAGA influencer on X with hundreds of thousands of followers has been exposed as being secretly run by a White House staffer.

According to Wired, "To its audience, Johnny MAGA looked like an independent voice, another outraged supporter in the MAGA media ecosystem. The account regularly boosts Trump’s Truth Social posts and goes to bat for the administration, attacking Democrats like California governor Gavin Newsom."
The account also pushed images of flag-burning demonstrators in Minneapolis after the killing of Renee Good, saying, “They’re burning the American flag right now in Minneapolis, and they really expect you to believe that ICE shot an innocent civilian.”

The account was created in January 2021 and has often been at the front of pushing far-right, pro-Trump content. It was also active throughout the 2024 election, going after former Vice President Kamala Harris often in very personal ways.
However, underneath the surface, Johnny MAGA was anything but organic.

"Johnny MAGA appears to actually be a White House staffer named Garrett Wade who works for the Trump administration as a rapid response manager, helping to run the very same White House account his anonymous MAGA account amplifies," said the report. "A phone number associated with Wade is linked to Johnny MAGA, according to a WIRED review of publicly available records, and the connection was confirmed by a source close to the White House."

Chump's surrounded himself with con artists and grifters.  Like Ka$h Patel.  Graig Graziosi (INDEPENDENT) reports: 

A whistleblower is claiming that FBI Director Kash Patel’s use of a bureau jet delayed the law enforcement agency's ability to respond to the Brown University mass shooting late last year.

Agents from the FBI's evidence response team were reportedly delayed in reaching Brown University following a December mass shooting, which left two dead and nine injured, because Patel reportedly had the plane in Florida.

A whistleblower gave an account of the situation to Senator Richard Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office and the Justice Department's Inspector General’s office on Tuesday accusing Patel of hindering the agency's ability to conduct critical investigative tasks by misusing its resources, according to MS NOW.
Patel was reportedly in South Florida with one jet and had placed a hold on the second jet for another FBI team that would not typically respond to the scene of a mass shooting, according to sources who spoke to the broadcaster. The sources said Patel was in Florida on the day of the shooting and did not fly back until the following day.


Durbin made a point to note that the whistleblower provided the information after Patel used the FBI’s Gulfstream jet to fly to Milan, Italy to chug beer with the U.S. men’s hockey team and create pretty unsavory social media content at the Winter Olympics.

In regard to Kirk’s death during an event at Utah Valley University in September 2025, the whistleblower alleges that the FBI’s shooting reconstruction team was delayed by at least a day because there was a pilot and plane shortage “caused by the Director’s personal flights,” according to Durbin.
During the Brown University shooting in December, which killed two and injured nine, Patel was reportedly in South Florida visiting his elderly parents, an FBI official familiar with Patel’s travel told MS NOW. The outlet reports that the only other available jet had been placed on hold for another FBI team that typically wouldn’t respond to the scene of a mass shooting. Instead, a team had to drive overnight through a snowstorm from Virginia to the Rhode Island university, arriving at 9 a.m. the following morning to immediately process evidence, according to the whistleblower.


FBI Director Kash Patel’s Olympics schedule included two hockey games and hours of “personal time” with a spatter of actual meetings.
The schedule was obtained and published Wednesday by The New York Times, and it comes as the FBI director faces intense scrutiny for his use of taxpayer-funded government resources for recreational activities. When the U.S. men’s hockey team beat Canada in the gold medal game, Patel joined the team’s locker room celebrations and was seen chugging beers with the players.

In response to the criticism, Patel has emphasized that his time enjoying the Winter Olympics was only a small portion of his trip to Italy and that he was there in an official capacity.

His schedule, however, showed plenty of downtime. According to the report, Patel arrived in Rome on Thursday, February 19 and had dinner with Tillman Fertitta, the U.S. ambassador to Italy. The next day, the director had an hour-long meeting with Italy’s domestic security agency. Patel then took part in a photo op with Italian law enforcement before having “snacks and drinks” at the interior ministry. Later in the day, he flew to Milan for his first hockey game of the weekend.



About 10 F.B.I. employees, some veteran agents, were dismissed this week for their work on the investigation into President Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Florida, according to five people with knowledge of the move.

The firings are part of a rolling barrage of retribution aimed at those who worked on the two federal prosecutions of Mr. Trump after his first term in office. They came hours after Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, told Reuters that as part of the documents inquiry, the bureau had subpoenaed phone metadata for himself and Susie Wiles, currently the White House chief of staff.

They are not expected to be the last, those people said.

Requests for phone records are common in complex criminal investigations to establish timelines and provide proof of communication. It remains unclear if the F.B.I.’s Trump-appointed leaders have accused employees of wrongdoing. In the past, they have not. In some cases, firings have violated procedural safeguards created to protect agents from politically motivated dismissal, according to agents and their lawyers.

The F.B.I. Agents Association, a professional group representing bureau employees, denounced the dismissals in a statement, describing them as an unlawful termination that “violates the due process rights of those who risk their lives to protect our country.”




Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

Senator Murray: “You called for you called birth control pills a quote ‘disrespect of life,’ and said Americans quote ‘use birth control pills like candy.’ You also claimed—contrary to established science—that hormonal birth control has quote ‘horrifying health risks’ for women.”

***VIDEO of Senator Murray’s Q&A HERE ***

Washington, D.C. — Today, at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing, the committee considered the nomination of Casey Means for Medical Director in the Regular Corps of the Public Health Service and Surgeon General of the Public Health Service. U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)—a former chair and senior member of the HELP Committee—grilled President Trump’s unqualified nominee on her concerning and harmful claims regarding the safety of birth control and pressed her on whether she would call out misleading claims on vaccines for infants and antidepressants for pregnant women.

In 2018, Means dropped out of her surgical residency and in 2019, she started a functional medicine practice where she treated patients without an active medical license until 2021. A close ally of RFK Jr., Means provides unconventional wellness advice on social media and in her newsletter where she earns money promoting dozens of supplements and health technologies.

[BIRTH CONTROL]

Senator Murray began her questioning by pressing Means on her harmful and misleading statements about birth control, noting that Dr. Means has called birth control pills “a disrespect of life,” claimed Americans “use birth control pills like candy,” and asserted that hormonal birth control carries “horrifying health risks” for women. Senator Murray underscored that there are 18 FDA-approved contraceptive methods, both hormonal and non-hormonal, backed by decades of evidence showing they are safe and effective, and stressed that millions of women rely on birth control every day and deserve clear, evidence-based guidance from public health leaders. Senator Murray said: “Thank you Dr. Means for being here, let me start with this. You called birth control pills, and I’m going to quote a ‘disrespect of life,’ and said Americans quote ‘use birth control pills like candy.’ You also claimed—contrary to established science—that hormonal birth control has quote ‘horrifying health risks’ for women. Now here are the facts: there are 18 FDA-approved contraceptive methods—both hormonal and non-hormonal—and there are decades, decades, of evidence showing that every one of these birth control methods is safe and effective.”

“So, I wanted to ask you, help me understand, should women trust the FDA which approved all 18 methods of birth control after a very rigorous look at the evidence, or should they trust your statement that there are ‘horrifying health risks’ to birth control—which contradicts that evidence?” asked Senator Murray.

“Thank you, Senator Murray, for your question. I’m curious if you’re aware of what the side effects of hormonal contraception are?” Means replied.

Senator Murray pushed back, “I’m curious if you are with the FDA that went through all of these and rigorously looked at them, or as Surgeon General if you’re going to tell the truth to the American people?”

“I absolutely believe that these medications should be accessible to all women, and also, all medications have risks and benefits. And in our current medical climate, with the burden on doctors, doctors do not have enough time for thorough informed consent conversations. Some of the horrifying side effects of birth control that I have mentioned include blood clots and stroke risk in women who have clotting disorders, who are smokers, who have obesity–” replied Means.

“So, is it general?” asked Senator Murray.

“No, it’s not in general, I am very careful with my words and when I say those comments, which are taken out of context, I am speaking about particular women that can be hurt if there is not informed consent about their medical history, their lifestyle exposures, and their family history. I want those women, and I know you do too, to be able to have a thorough conversation with their doctor and know whether they are higher risk for side effects when prescribed the medication,” responded Means.

“Saying that is one thing, but saying on, you know, different shows that ‘birth control pills are a disrespect of life’ is very different,” said Senator Murray.

“I am passionate about women’s health, and I think it is disrespectful to women–” replied Means.

“Saying that people ‘use birth control pills like candy’ is very different than what you just said,” said Senator Murray.

“We prescribe a huge amount of hormonal contraceptive, and I do not believe most of those conversations have informed consent because of the pressures that doctors are under because of our broken health care system. I want what’s best for women as do you–and I want every woman who could be at risk for a side effect to know if a woman died because of a stroke or a blood clot because they did not have a thorough conversation–” said Means

“Dr. Means, I just have two minutes left and I have other questions. Let me move on. Thank you,” responded Senator Murray.

[MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH]

Senator Murray continued her questioning by pressing Means on key maternal and child health issues, including vaccine safety, infant health, and maternal mental health. She raised concerns about recent comments from FDA official Tracy Beth Hoeg casting doubt on the safety of RSV vaccines for infants and questioning the safety of antidepressants, including SSRIs, during pregnancy. Senator Murray stressed that the Surgeon General must provide accurate, evidence-based public health information and pressed Dr. Means’ ability to do so: “Tracy Beth Høeg, she’s an anti-vaccine skeptic, she was elevated by the Trump administration to serve as the top drug regulator at FDA. She made comments last week casting doubt on the safety of RSV vaccines for [babies]. As I’m sure you know, RSV can be deadly, even for healthy, full-term infants. Do you believe that Dr. Høeg is wrong to question the safety of RSV vaccines?” asked Senator Murray.

“I have not read that article or seen that quote. I would need to know what she said before I commented on that,” Means answered.

Senator Murray replied, “Well, you do know that RSV is the leading cause of hospitalization for infants?”

Means replied, “I do, I have a seventeen-week-old and I am very aware of that.”

“Do you hear her statement, as Surgeon General, would you contradict it?” Senator Murray asked.

“I certainly have absolutely no issue having very frank conversations with anyone in the administration if I believe that their statements are misguided in some way or not fully informed. That’s not a conversation I would have publicly first; I would have a private and direct conversation with anyone in the administration if I felt that patients were at risk because of views,” Means replied.

“I also want to ask you about maternal health. Mental health conditions are the leading cause of maternal death in the U.S., including suicide and overdose deaths. In her comments last week, Dr. Høeg, same woman, also expressed concern about the safety of the anti-depressants during pregnancy. Specifically, she called out SSRIs, the most commonly prescribed type, do you believe that SSRIs are dangerous for pregnant women?” Senator Murray continued.

“I don’t want to be a broken record here, but I do believe that every medication has risks and benefits and you need to have a nuanced conversation with your doctor before starting a medication. That is, I think, the most responsible position for any doctor to share,” Means answered.

“Well strong evidence has shown that SSRIs are safe in pregnancy, most do not increase the risk of birth defects, but untreated depression in pregnancy puts women at risk,” Senator Murray replied.

“Certainly, and I agree with you, but I still think a patient – I don’t think it’s responsible to make a blanket statement for all Americans,” Means responded.

“Okay, well, if confirmed as Surgeon General, it will be your job to give accurate and up-to-date public health information to the American people. I assume you will take that responsibility seriously,” Senator Murray concluded.

“I will, and I absolutely do. And I also believe that the American people are looking for a more nuanced conversation about health, and I believe that that will help restore trust in public health,” Means said.

Senator Murray, a longtime congressional leader on health care and public health issues, has been consistently holding Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services accountable. Murray has been a leader in raising the alarm over RFK Jr.’s nomination and handling of HHS since the beginning—speaking out on the Senate floor, holding numerous events, raising the alarm after meeting with him, and hammering the threat he poses to Americans’ health nonstop.

She spoke out forcefully against RFK Jr.’s ousting of the entire ACIP panel, including one ACIP member from Washington state. Senator Murray has held countless events across Washington state and in Washington, D.C. with doctors, patients, and former HHS officials to lift up how Trump and Republicans’ attacks on health care will be devastating for families. In early September, Senator Murray took to the Senate floor to reiterate her call for RFK Jr. to be fired after he pushed former CDC Director Susan Monarez out of her job for refusing to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations without evidence.

On September 8th, Senator Murray called on Chairman Cassidy to compel RFK Jr. to testify publicly before the HELP Committee. At the September 17th HELP Committee hearing with former CDC Director Susan Monarez and former CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Deb Houry, Senator Murray pressed both witnesses on whether they would feel confident telling parents to trust ACIP’s vaccine recommendations now, after RFK Jr. purged the entire panel of experts and replaced them with unqualified anti-vaccine skeptics—Former CDC Director Monarez replied that she would be “very nervous” to tell parents to trust any recommendations coming from the new ACIP panel. Senator Murray also requested in September an independent, comprehensive Inspector General review by the HHS Acting Inspector General of recent actions taken at HHS to limit access to vaccines, and recent personnel changes at the CDC. In December, she spoke out against ACIP’s vote to end the recommendation of vaccinating all newborns for hepatitis B at birth, without any new evidence prompting the change. Murray continues to press Republican leadership to compel RFK Jr. to answer publicly before the HELP Committee for his nonstop assault on America’s public health infrastructure.

Senator Murray is a longtime leader in the fight to protect and expand access to reproductive health care. Over the course of her career, Senator Murray has fought to ensure widespread access to affordable birth control. She leads the Access to Birth Control Act, which would guarantee patients’ timely access to birth control at pharmacies nationwide—including by addressing pharmacists’ refusals to dispense contraception that prevent patients from obtaining their preferred form of birth control. She also pushed to ensure birth control was covered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and led the fight against the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling. Senator Murray is widely credited with leading the fight to make Plan B available over the counter.

As a leading Congressional champion of efforts to expand maternal health care and improve access to care for pregnant women, Senator Murray introduced the Healthy Maternal and Obstetric Medicine (MOM) Act, which would ensure that all women eligible for coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance marketplaces, as well as women eligible for other individual or group health plan coverage, can access affordable health care coverage throughout their pregnancies. The bill would establish a special enrollment period (SEP) for expectant mothers. Currently, marriage, divorce, having a baby, adoption, and changing jobs are considered qualifying life events that trigger a special enrollment period; however, becoming pregnant is not considered a qualifying event. The Healthy MOM Act would change that. 

###






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