Notices by Chuck Darwin (cdarwin@c.im), page 22

No doubt recognizing that being associated with countless images of emaciated and maimed children is not good for the brand in general,

the White House and Zionist groups in their orbit have dusted off the "Helpless/Frustrated President" playbook and seek to distance Trump from the horrors emanating from Gaza (just as the Biden White House did with great success).

It’s easy, low effort, panders to antisemitic tropes of our otherwise benevolent leaders being manipulated by a foreign other, and provides what any head of a criminal enterprise seeks:
plausible deniability.

https://therealnews.com/biden-media-narrative-trump-helpless-stop-gaza-genocide

In a stunning reversal,
the Pentagon said it will uphold a longstanding program that supplies critical hurricane data to federal weather forecasters
—just days before it was set to end.

The move follows outcry from meteorologists and public officials blindsided by the planned cancellation at the start of hurricane season. 

https://gizmodo.com/in-rare-spasm-of-sanity-pentagon-backtracks-on-plan-to-scuttle-storm-tracking-2000637473

President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan had planned to make brief stops in New York and Dallas next month, en route to and from Latin America,
hoping to demonstrate the island’s strong ties with the United States in defiance of China.
But the Trump administration,
which is focused on talks with Beijing over trade and a possible summit,
told Mr. Lai to cancel his proposed stopover in New York,
Mr. Lai canceled his whole trip.
The hints of tension between Taipei and Washington come at a sensitive moment for Mr. Lai.
He suffered a serious setback over the weekend when a sweeping recall campaign aimed at removing 24 opposition lawmakers failed to dislodge any of them.
Taiwan is also among the economies facing a Friday deadline for tariff negotiations with the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/world/asia/trump-taiwan-china.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Palestinian activist
Awdah Hathaleen
who helped film the documentary
"No Other Land" highlighting Israel’s violent occupation of the West Bank, was shot and killed by an Israeli settler on Monday

https://truthout.org/articles/activist-who-helped-film-no-other-land-shot-and-killed-by-israeli-settler/

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has been in Trump administration’s crosshairs since he ordered the return of more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants summarily deported to El Salvador in March

Now Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, ordered the DOJ to file a misconduct complaint against Judge Boasberg

This is the second instance of the Justice Department filing a misconduct complaint against a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. 

The DOJ claimed in February that U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes had engaged in “hostile and egregious misconduct” against the Trump administration
during the proceedings of
"Talbott v. Trump",
a case challenging the president’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. 

Reyes, a Biden appointee, is well known for her blunt approach to oral arguments,
regularly grilling attorneys of either party in a punchier manner than many of her colleagues
while still maintaining an atmosphere of respect. 

The Justice Department’s complaint is still under review.

https://www.courthousenews.com/doj-files-misconduct-complaint-against-chief-dc-judge-james-boasberg/

For the first time in the history of the United States,
asylum seekers will have to pay to file an asylum application.
The so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” or OBBA, mandates new minimum fees for immigration and visa applications.

The legislation authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Attorney General to raise fees above the minimum,
and all fees are subject to an annual inflation adjustment starting in fiscal year 2026.
Asylum seekers must now pay a host of new fees
— $100 to file a claim,
an additional $100 for every year their application is pending,
and $550 to apply for a work permit.

OBBA bars asylum seekers from receiving fee waivers.
Of the 149 countries that are signatories on the 1951 Refugee Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol, only three impose application fees on asylum seekers.
https://truthout.org/articles/asylum-seekers-now-have-to-pay-to-file-immigration-claims/

Tom Lehrer made all of his music 100% public domain

so if seeing people sad about his death makes you want to check them out…
it’s free.

he wanted you to share them.

https://tomlehrersongs.com

https://bsky.app/profile/silencedrowns.com/post/3luxmkwnxb222

Overnight fires in the forested mountains surrounding Bursa, in northwest Turkey,
spread rapidly, tinting the night sky over the city’s eastern suburbs with a red glow.
Dozens of severe wildfires have hit the country daily since late June,
with the government declaring the two western provinces of Izmir and Bilecik as disaster areas on Friday.

Bursa governor’s office said in a statement Sunday that 1,765 people had been safely evacuated from villages to the northeast
as more than 1,900 firefighters battled the flames.
The highway linking Bursa to the capital, Ankara, was closed as surrounding forests burned.
A firefighter died from a heart attack while on the job, the city’s mayor, Mustafa Bozbey, said in a statement,
adding that the flames had scorched 3,000 hectares (7,413 acres) around the city.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/flames-threaten-turkeys-4th-largest-city-as-southern-europe-grapples-with-wildfires

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is doubling down on his threat to overhaul the state's independent redistricting process,
escalating a political standoff with Texas Republicans that's becoming a flashpoint in the fight for control of Congress.

This week, the Texas Legislature kicked off a special session where redistricting is on the table,
🆘as Republicans reevaluate their congressional maps to help the GOP retain its slim House majority after the 2026 midterms.
After a Friday meeting with Texas lawmakers at the governor's mansion in Sacramento,
🔥Newsom told reporters the situation is a "five-alarm fire for democracy in the United States."
"We are committed to this process. This is not a bluff," he said.
⚠️"Everything is at stake if we're not successful next year and take back the House of Representatives."
https://abc7.com/post/california-governor-gavin-newsom-calls-gops-push-redraw-congressional-maps-tx-existential-crisis-democracy/17298566/

Shoot First laws in the United States lead to substantial increases in violence
and the senseless loss of hundreds of lives every year.

Research shows that these laws have increased gun homicides by up to 11 percent nationally,
translating to more than 700 deaths annually.

Some Shoot First states have seen even steeper increases, with those rates rising by 30 percent or more in Alabama, Florida, and Missouri.

Adolescents experience higher rates of gun homicides under Shoot First laws.

And though many people associate gun homicides and assaults with cities, research shows that Shoot First laws do not discriminate, increasing violence in suburban and urban counties as well as among white and Black populations

https://everytownresearch.org/report/stand-your-ground-laws-are-a-license-to-kill/

We know 14 republican senators are ready to break with their party to support NIH.

Tell them this is important.
Talk to family.
Talk to friends.
Repost this video.
Don’t let the Trump destroy science.
Join us to save it.

https://bsky.app/profile/jenna-m-norton.bsky.social/post/3luvrm4fta22j

As federal immigration agents attacked a U.S. citizen, they warned him:
“You’ve got no rights here.”

What began as a simple traffic stop for Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio, an 18-year-old Floridian, in May,
turned into a traumatizing arrest when U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrived at the scene.

Alongside his mother and two undocumented male companions,
Laynez-Ambrosio was laughed at, ridiculed, and violently detained by a group of officers,
according to video footage secretly captured by the teenager,
first reported on by The Guardian.

“Wait, hold up,” Laynez-Ambrosio said when agents opened the door of their company work van.

“You guys have no rights to do that.”

“We don’t have rights to do that?” one agent said, laughing.

The video footage, panning upward,
then shows the border patrol agents restraining one individual in a chokehold.

All three men were forced out of their vehicle and onto the ground.

As another companion is manhandled by three officers in tactical gear, the sound of a stun gun is heard going off,
sending the man crashing onto the floor as he cries and shakes in agony.

“You can’t be doing that,” Laynez-Ambrosio said.

“Get on the ground,” an officer screams at him.

“I’m not going to get up, I’m going to just stay like this,” Laynez-Ambrosio responds.

“Y’all scaring the dude.… I’ve got rights to talk.”

“You’ve got no rights here.
You’re a migo, brother,”
an agent told Laynez-Ambrosio.

“I do,” Laynez-Ambrosio insisted. “I was born and raised here.”

In the aftermath of the violence, the ICE agents can be heard laughing and making light of the pain they inflicted on their arrestees, referring to the Taser use as “funny,” and insulting its target as a “dick.”

“You can smell that … $30,000 bonus,” said another officer.

Later, the officers can be heard claiming that more individuals have started to resist their arrests,
anticipating even more extreme uses of force in future.

“We’re going to end up shooting some of them,” an agent said,
referencing Laynez-Ambrosio’s attempts to assert his rights.

“This kid goes like … ‘No, you can’t do that’;
I’m not doing shit.
We told you already to get out,
you either get out or I’m going to pull you out.”

Federal authorities have been tasked
by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller
to arrest 3,000 undocumented immigrants per day
—but actually doing so has forced the agency to seek out immigrants that the administration did not advertise targeting,
such as noncriminals
and even lawful residents possessing visas or green cards.

So far this year,
ICE agents have been caught interrogating children,
deporting U.S. citizens,
and stuffing uncharged prisoners into America’s very own concentration camp.
https://newrepublic.com/post/198468/immigration-agents-laugh-us-citizen-records-arrest

The Trump administration
illegally withheld funding
from the federal child care program, according to congressional investigators.

It’s the third time this year that
investigators from the Government Accountability Office
have determined the administration
defied Congress on spending.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/us/politics/trump-head-start-government-accountability-office.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

A judge in Illinois dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit Friday
that sought to disrupt limits Chicago imposes on cooperation between federal immigration agents and local police.

The lawsuit, had alleged that so-called sanctuary laws in the nation’s third-largest city “thwart” federal efforts to enforce immigration laws.

Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson said he was pleased with the decision
and the city is safer when police focus on the needs of Chicagoans.

“This ruling affirms what we have long known:
that Chicago’s welcoming city ordinance is lawful and supports public safety.
The city cannot be compelled to cooperate with the Trump administration’s reckless and inhumane immigration agenda,”
he said in a statement.

Governor JB Pritzker welcomed the ruling,
saying in a social media post:
“Illinois just beat the Trump administration in federal court.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/25/chicago-trump-lawsuit-immigration-sanctuary?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible vision loss in the elderly population.

AMD is characterized in its late form by neovascularization (wet type)
or geographic atrophy of the retinal pigment epithelium cell layer (dry type).

Regarding the latter type, there is growing evidence supporting an association between the pathophysiology of dry AMD and key proteins in the complement cascade.

The complement cascade works as a central part of the innate immune system by defending against foreign pathogens and modified self-tissues.

Through three distinct pathways, a series of plasma and membrane-associated serum proteins are activated upon identification of a foreign entity.

Several of these proteins have been implicated in the development and progression of dry AMD.

In this review, we provide an understanding of the role of the complement system in dry AMD
and discuss the emerging therapies in early phase clinical trials.

The tentative hope is that these drugs may offer the potential to intervene at earlier stages in dry AMD pathogenesis,
thereby preventing progression to late disease.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9405256/

US district judge James Boasberg has said he may initiate disciplinary proceedings against justice department lawyers for their conduct in a lawsuit brought by Venezuelans challenging their removal to a Salvadoranprison in March.

Boasberg, a prominent Washington DC, judge who has drawn Donald Trump’s ire, said during a court hearing that a recent whistleblower complaint had strengthened the argument that Trump administration officials engaged in criminal contempt of court by failing to turn around deportation flights.

Boasberg also raised the prospect of referring DOJ lawyers to state bar associations, which have the authority to discipline unethical conduct by attorneys.

He said:
"I will certainly be assessing whether government counsel’s conduct and veracity to the court warrant a referral to state bars or our grievance committee, which determines lawyers’ fitness to practice in our court."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/jul/24/us-politics-trump-administration-live-updates?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Just six months after he regained power, in part by promising to rapidly reduce prices, Trump has presided over the chaotic rollout of tariffs on an array of overseas products that many have argued risk having the exact opposite effect.

After a lull, the consumer price index (CPI) is back on the rise. In June, everything from fruit and washing machines to dresses and toys became more expensive.

Businesses in the US and around the world have struggled to keep up with the Trump administration’s erratic rollout of its aggressive trade strategy:
the daily White House soap opera of warnings, threats, confusion, deadlines, delays and drama.

Putting to one side the steady stream of twists, cliffhangers and all-caps declarations, each episode has pushed US tariffs higher.

AA The overall average effective tariff rate is now set to hit 20.6%, according to the non-partisan The Budget Lab at Yale, its highest level since 1910.

Eventually, someone has to foot the bill

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/19/trump-inflation-tariffs-fed-powell?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Donald Trump wants to make it illegal to criticize him. He is trying to end freedom of speech.

That’s the best way to understand or explain what’s happening here. It’s a gradual process, but this is how it starts.

-- Max Berger

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/18/stephen-colbert-late-show-skydance

The end of Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ has implications beyond late-night TV

The facts are these: The highest-rated show on late night was nominated for an Emmy on Tuesday. On Thursday, Paramount/CBS announced its cancellation.

Stephen Colbert announced at the Thursday evening taping of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” that he’d found out, only the night before, that his show would be canceled at the end of the season, in May 2026,
and that no one would be replacing him. “It’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS,” he said. “This is all just going away.”

It was a shocking announcement. It feels, for one thing, like an institution is ending — one David Letterman helped define in reaction (and opposition) to “The Tonight Show” in 1993.

And it’s not, from the business side, that big a surprise;
late-night television has been languishing for some time.

CBS canceled “The Late, Late Show with James Corden” in 2023 and Taylor Tomlinson’s show “After Midnight” in March.

But it’s hard to ignore a larger, troubling pattern here with potential implications for far more than late-night TV.

On July 1, the announcement came that the network’s parent company, Paramount Global
— which needs Donald Trump’s administration to approve the pending sale of the company to Skydance Media
— was settling (rather than fighting) the president’s lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview of the-candidate Kamala Harris.

⭐️They will be paying the president $16 million.

Before the settlement, CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon and “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens both left (or were made to) after registering their disapproval.

Those who remain are clearly shaken.

“Can you hold power to account after paying it millions?” John Dickerson,
the anchor for “CBS Evening News,” said while reporting on the deal the day the settlement was announced.

“Can an audience trust you when it thinks you’ve traded away that trust?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/2025/07/18/colbert-late-show-cancelled-paramount-lawsuit/

David Barton isn’t just a primary pitchman for the Ten Commandments law in Texas

His fingerprints appear on 28 bills that have cropped up before the legislatures in 18 states this year.

A data analysis of the bills exposes how their language, structure and requirements are inherently identical.

In dozens of instances, they match model legislation pitched by Barton verbatim.

At the Texas hearing, Barton’s eyes fixated on the cover of the rare 1782 Aitken Bible.
“It also says it’s ‘a neat Edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools,’” he continued. “It has the Ten Commandments.”

In actuality, Barton lifted language from Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken
calling on Congress to sanction a Bible that could also be for
“the use of schools.”

Christian nationalists have for years falsely claimed the Revolutionary-era printing includes a government promotion of Christianity.

Barton has long been accused of taking historical quotes out of context,
and in 2012, the Christian publisher of his bestselling book on Thomas Jefferson ceased its production because “basic truths just were not there.”

Texas is one of three states in the last two years to pass a law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in public schools.

The mandates are part of a coordinated nationwide effort to overturn a 1980 Supreme Court ruling forbidding Kentucky from requiring Ten Commandments displays in classrooms.

https://www.the74million.org/article/state-laws-requiring-ten-commandments-in-schools-are-the-product-of-a-far-right-bill-mill/