Release them all now!

Disgraced former Rhode Island general Mike Flynn just ripped you off for $1.25 million

DOJ payout to Mike Flynn has J6-ers lining up at the trough

Liz Dye

The Department of Justice announced that it was “settling” a malicious prosecution case with Michael Flynn for $1.25 million.

Flynn’s claims were entirely without merit, and a federal judge had already dismissed them once. But the Justice Department decided to pay him anyway, calling it a righteous vindication of Trump’s constant whining that he was illegally targeted by the FBI and Robert Mueller.

"Those who instigated the Russia Collusion Hoax and Crossfire Hurricane abused their power to mislead the American people and tarnish the reputations of President Trump and his supporters,” a DOJ spokesperson told ABC. “Today’s settlement, secured by this Justice Department, is an important step in redressing that historic injustice."

Encouraged by this blatant corruption, Trump’s most ardent supporters are demanding their own cut. This week, a group of January 6 rioters filed a class action lawsuit demanding recompense for the injuries they suffered when they attempted to overturn the election.

The stage is set for the wholesale looting of the federal coffers by Trump and his MAGA allies.

New Trump Rule Would Let Private Equity, Crypto ‘Endanger Retirement Savings of Millions’

Money for tech bros

Jake Johnson

Donald Trump’s Labor Department unveiled a proposal that would welcome private equity and cryptocurrency investments into Americans’ 401(k) plans, the culmination of an aggressive Wall Street lobbying push that could leave the retirement savings of millions vulnerable to the wild swings of so-called “alternative assets.”

The proposed rule, now subject to a public comment period, was issued at the direction of a Trump executive order from last year that was characterized at the time as “the holy grail for private equity.”

In addition to giving employers a green light to include private equity and crypto investments in 401(k) plans offered to workers, the new rule would establish a “safe harbor” allowing retirement account administrators to avoid legal action from employees who believe their funds were steered into excessively risky products.

Bombs for bucks

Senator Gu posts new bill to protect you from identity theft

Sen. Gu, Rep. Carson bill would modernize identity theft protection laws

Legislation from Sen. Victoria Gu and Lauren H. Carson aims to modernize cybersecurity laws to better protect the personally identifiable information of Rhode Islanders.

“In the wake of the RIBridges cyberattack, it’s important to set clear expectations that state agencies, municipalities and companies should be meeting current best practices of an industry-recognized cybersecurity framework, such as NIST Cybersecurity Framework, to protect the personally identifiable information of Rhode Islanders,” said Senator Gu (D-Dist. 38, Westerly, Charlestown, South Kingstown) who chairs the Senate Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies. “Our current laws governing the protection of this information need updating to match the reality of our increasingly digital world and its threats.”

The December 2024 breach of RIBridges, Rhode Island’s online portal for social services, affected around 650,000 people in total, releasing Social Security numbers, employment details, financial data and other personal information to the dark web. Senator Gu and Representative Carson saw this as a clear sign that Rhode Island needed to update its cybersecurity standards.

An Inadvertent Release

Yet another monumental screwup

Joyce Vance

Judge Aileen Cannon forbade it. There would be no release of Volume II of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report, the part that dealt with the discovery that Donald Trump kept classified documents, some at the Top Secret/SCI level, when he left the White House. When Smith testified before Congress, he carefully tailored his responses to avoid violating the court’s order.

But not so much the Trump White House. In what appears to be a sloppy but serious error, the administration released a document to Congress that MSNOW’s Carol Leonnig and Jacqueline Alemany reported on yesterday. They write, “In a January 2023 'progress memo' reviewed by MS NOW, Smith’s office discussed the possible motive after the FBI discovered that Trump held on to many documents related to his businesses.” Although the document isn’t publicly available, it sounds like the sort of reports agents and/or prosecutors might prepare for supervisors. This one contains some fascinating details.

The document was released as part of a regular document production DOJ has been making to Congress in support of the Republican inquiry into Smith. House Judiciary Democrats put it like this: “This particular production contained a memorandum detailing non-public information about the classified documents Trump stole when leaving office. The newly produced materials offer a startling view of evidence gathered by Special Counsel Jack Smith during his investigations into the criminal activity of President Trump, even as DOJ continues to suppress Volume II of his final report.”

First, is the hint at motive. Why did Trump do something so obviously criminal, and not do it particularly well? Why did he lie to DOJ officials when asked to return classified material they had learned was still in his possession? What was so important to the former president? 

Motive is not an element of the crimes Trump was ultimately charged with (indictment ironically still available on the DOJ website). There were 32 counts of Willful Retention of National Defense Information, along with some related counts and a conspiracy to obstruct justice. The lead charge, 18 U.S.C. § 793(e), provides as follows:

Wow! Trump’s Justice Department Dropped 23,000 Criminal Cases in Shift to Immigration

To pander to Trump's obsession with immigrants, thousands of real criminals go free

by Ken B. Morales and David Armstrong for ProPublica

• ICE Detention Statistics: As of early 2026, about 73.6% of people in ICE detention had no criminal convictions.
• Conviction Types: Among those detained, only about 5% have convictions for violent crimes, while the majority of those with convictions have nonviolent, minor offenses like traffic violations.

In the first days after Pam Bondi was appointed attorney general last year, the Department of Justice began shutting down pending criminal cases at a record pace.

The cases included an investigation into a Virginia nursing home with a recent record of patient abuse; probes of fraud involving several New Jersey labor unions, including one opened after a top official of a national union was accused of embezzlement; and an investigation into a cryptocurrency company suspected of cheating investors.

In total, the DOJ quietly closed more than 23,000 criminal cases in the first six months of President Donald Trump’s administration, abandoning hundreds of investigations into terrorism, white-collar crime, drugs and other offenses as it shifted resources to pursue immigration cases, according to an analysis by ProPublica.

The bulk of these cases, which were closed without prosecution and known as declinations, had been referred to the DOJ by law enforcement agencies under prior administrations that believed a federal crime may have been committed. The DOJ routinely declines to prosecute cases for any number of reasons, including insufficient evidence or because a case is not a priority for enforcement.

But the number of declinations under Bondi marks a striking departure not only from the Biden administration but also the first Trump term, according to the ProPublica analysis, which examined two decades of DOJ data, including the first six months of Trump’s second term. ProPublica determined the increase is not the result of inheriting a larger caseload or more referrals from law enforcement.

In February 2025 alone, which included the first weeks of Bondi’s tenure, nearly 11,000 cases were declined, the most in a month since at least 2004. The previous high was just over 6,500 cases in September 2019, during Trump’s first administration.

Some of the cases shut down were the result of yearslong investigations by federal agencies such as the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration. For complex cases, the DOJ can take years before deciding whether to bring charges.

The shift comes as the DOJ has undergone an extraordinary overhaul under the Trump administration, with entire units shuttered, directives to abandon pursuit of certain crimes and thousands of lawyers quitting or, in some cases, being forced out of the agency.

In doing so, the DOJ is retreating from its mission to impartially uphold the rule of law, keep the country safe and protect civil rights, according to interviews with a dozen prosecutors and an open letter from nearly 300 DOJ employees who have left the department under Trump. The Trump DOJ, the employees wrote, is “taking a sledgehammer” to long-standing work to “protect communities and the rule of law.”

The change in priorities was outlined in a series of memos sent to attorneys early last year. Trump’s DOJ has said it is “turning a new page on white-collar and corporate enforcement” and emphasizing the pursuit of drug cartels, illegal immigrants and institutions that promote “divisive DEI policies.” Trump, in an address last March at the department, said the changes were necessary after a “surrender to violent criminals” during the past administration and would result in a restoration of “fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law.”

The department prosecuted 32,000 new immigration cases in the first six months of the administration, which was nearly triple the number under the Biden administration and a 15% increase from the first Trump term. It has pursued fewer prosecutions of nearly every other type of crime — from drug offenses to corruption — than new administrations in their first six months dating back to 2009.

Local Reps. Tina Spears and Megan Cotter introduce bills to protect kids from online harm

As legislators and moms, representatives offer bills to protect kids from digital harm

Three Rhode Island representatives — all mothers of children and teens — are taking action to protect kids in an increasingly digital world with a package of legislation aimed at improving online safety for children.

Representatives Tina L. Spears, Justine Caldwell and Megan L. Cotter have introduced a package of legislation to address growing concerns around social media use and digital technology use by establishing new safeguards designed to reduce risks such as exposure to harmful content, exploitation and adverse mental health impacts among young users.

The legislation holds technology companies accountable for the products they design and deploy, particularly when their platforms are used by children. By requiring clear safety standards, transparency and proactive risk mitigation, these measures ensure tech companies share responsibility for protecting young users from harm.

The three representatives highlighted the bills at State House event today to call attention to the necessity of ensuring that laws protecting kids evolve alongside the ever-changing challenges presented by technology. They were joined by two of the Senate sponsors of the bills —Sen. Louis P. DiPalma and Sen. Lori Urso — as well the Office of the Attorney General, community advocates and a mother who spoke about losing her son to suicide after he plunged into online activities and communication she was unaware of.

“As technology evolves, so does our responsibility to protect children,” said Representative Spears (D-Dist. 36, Charlestown, New Shoreham, South Kingstown, Westerly). “These bills are about putting common-sense guardrails in place to ensure kids can engage online more safely.”

Their effort reflects a broader commitment to meeting the needs of families and communities, while holding technology platforms accountable for the environments they create.

“These proposals recognize that online spaces are part of everyday life for kids,” said Representative Cotter (D-Dist. 39, Exeter, Richmond, Hopkinton). “Our goal is to make those spaces safer, healthier and more responsible.”

The legislation includes measures to strengthen protections for minors on social media, gaming and other online platforms as well as on school-provided devices and applications, and establish safety standards for AI companions.

Under Donald Trump, ‘Everything Is for Sale’

Trump Exploits 250th Anniversary of US Independence for Yet Another Grift

Jake Johnson for Common Dreams

Allies of the Trump administration, in partnership with the White House, are reportedly using the upcoming 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence as another opportunity to solicit deep-pocketed donors, enticing them with promises of access to the president and other rewards.

The New York Times reported Sunday that donors who give at least $1 million to Freedom 250—a group announced by Donald Trump in December—have been promised a path to “gain access to, and seek favor with, a president who has maintained a keen interest in fundraising, and a willingness to use the levers of government power to reward financial supporters,” including through his crypto scam and ballroom project.

Trump has described Freedom 250 as a “public-private partnership” dedicated to organizing “a celebration of America like no other” later this year. Listed as official corporate sponsors of the initiative are prominent corporate names, including ExxonMobil, Mastercard, and Palantir.

The Times obtained a donor solicitation document circulated by Meredith O’Rourke, Trump’s top fundraiser. Donors who give at least $1 million to Freedom 250 “will receive prominent logo placement at Freedom 250 events,” which are expected to include UFC fights and an IndyCar race.

Freedom 250 appears to have been created to dodge oversight that applies to America250, a bipartisan congressional commission formed to plan official celebrations of the nation’s semiquincentennial.

Today's civics class

Kristi Noem all but killed FEMA.

Will her departure save it?

Jake Bittle, Staff Writer

"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

During the year she spent leading the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, Kristi Noem faced a torrent of criticism. Lawmakers from both parties assailed her for lying about the shooting of protestors in Minneapolis and spending millions of dollars on television commercials. Government audits concluded that she “systematically obstructed” investigations and created security risks at airports.

Now she has become the first cabinet-level official fired by President Donald Trump during his second term. After a combative hearing this week, during which Noem seemed to mislead Congress about whether Trump approved her ad spending, the president fired her.

As DHS secretary, Noem also raised eyebrows for an unprecedented degree of control over staffing and spending at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. She paused most FEMA payments, leading to extensive delays for disaster recovery, and sought to slash the agency’s on-call workforce by thousands of employees. She also expressed a desire to downsize or eliminate the agency entirely, shifting the burden of disaster relief onto the states.

A growing number of critics and experts believe that Noem’s interference with FEMA may well have been illegal. This week, two Senate Democrats released a report alleging that Noem’s blanket freeze on FEMA payments violated federal law. At the same time, lawyers for a federal workers’ union argued to a federal judge in California that Noem’s workforce cuts also violated the law. In both cases, critics pointed to legislation passed after Hurricane Katrina, which prohibits DHS from interfering with FEMA.

Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate

A deeper understanding of corruption in the Trump regime

By Corey G. Johnson, Brandon Roberts and Al Shaw for ProPublica

Thousands of companies are jockeying for billions of dollars in Defense Department contracts to build a shield designed to intercept and destroy missiles launched against the United States.

But amid the intense competition, a handful of firms have an important inside connection.

At least four of the companies awarded contracts so far are owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm founded by billionaire Steve Feinberg, who until last year ran the company and is now the deputy secretary of defense — the second-highest-ranking official in the Pentagon.

Feinberg oversees the office in charge of the Golden Dome for America project, which is modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

Feinberg filed paperwork saying he divested from Cerberus and its related businesses. But his government ethics records contain an unusual clause: He is allowed to continue contracting with the company for tax compliance and accounting services as well as health care coverage, a financial relationship that documents show could continue indefinitely.

Feinberg’s financial statements and ethics agreement are part of a trove of nearly 3,200 disclosure records that ProPublica is making public today. The disclosures, which can be viewed in a searchable online tool, detail the finances of more than 1,500 federal officials appointed by President Donald Trump. Records for Trump and Vice President JD Vance are also included.

The documents reveal a web of financial ties between senior government officials and the industries they help regulate — relationships that have drawn scrutiny as Trump has dismantled ethics safeguards designed to prevent conflicts of interest.

On his first day back in office, Trump rescinded an executive order signed by President Joe Biden that required his appointees to comply with an ethics pledge. The pledge barred them from working on issues related to their former lobbying topics or clients for two years. Weeks later, Trump fired 17 inspectors general charged with investigating fraud, corruption and conflicts of interest across the federal government. Around the same time, he removed the head of the Office of Government Ethics, the agency that oversees ethics compliance throughout the executive branch. The office is currently without a head or a chief of staff.

Against that backdrop, ProPublica has, over the past year, used the disclosure records to investigate how personal financial interests have intersected with government decision-making inside the Trump administration.

The documents helped show that senior executive branch officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, made well-timed securities trades, at times selling stocks just before markets plunged because Trump announced new tariffs. (The officials either did not respond to requests for comment or said they had no insider information before they made their trades.)

Other disclosures revealed that two high-ranking scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency who recently helped downgrade the agency’s assessment of the health risks of formaldehyde had previously held senior positions at the chemical industry’s leading trade group. (The EPA said the scientists had obtained ethics advice approving their work on the project.)

In December, ProPublica reported that Trump has appointed more than 200 people who collectively owned — either by themselves or with their spouses — between $175 million and $340 million in cryptocurrency investments at the time they filed their disclosures. Some of those appointees now hold positions overseeing or influencing regulation of the crypto industry. Among them are Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney and now the second-highest-ranking official in the Justice Department.

Blanche’s disclosure records show that he owned at least $159,000 in crypto-related assets last year when he shut down investigations into crypto companies, dealers and exchanges.

Makes total sense

How much does it cost to keep Sec. of "War" Pete Hegseth going?

AG details scope of Catholic Church child sexual abuse and cover-ups in RI over decades

Providence Catholic bishop apologizes to victims of clergy sex abuse

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

For more than seven decades, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence concealed the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by over six dozen clergy members, according to a long-awaited report released Wednesday by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha. 

A total of 72 deacons and priests faced credible accusations of abuse dating as far back as 1950, the 282-page report states. Only 14 of the men listed are still alive. 

Systemic sexual abuse by New England Catholic clergy was exposed over two decades ago. But the AG’s report, which took nearly seven years to complete, pieces together as complete a picture as possible of what happened in Rhode Island, home to the largest per capita Catholic population in the nation. 

“The numbers are staggering, shocking, astounding,” Neronha told reporters during a more than two-hour press conference at his downtown Providence office. “And we know we didn’t get it all.”

State Police and the AG’s office found at least 315 victims of abuse, most of which occurred during the 1960s and 1970s. The most recent known incident of misconduct cited was in 2011, when the principal of St. Joseph School in West Warwick alleged a deacon who taught in the school “had pulled down the pants of several sixth-grade boys.”

Most accused priests avoided disciplinary action or criminal charges because the diocese would often transfer them to new parishes without warning those congregations — a practice the report called “priest shuffling.” Neronha said 31 Rhode Island priests were transferred at least five times during their careers, promoting a “culture of secrecy.”

“That went on for decades,” Neronha said.

Only 20, or about 26% of the clergy identified in the report, ever faced criminal charges. Just 14 clergy were convicted. 

Neronha’s office has charged four current and former priests with sexual abuse for allegations over the course of the investigation between 2020 and 2022. 

Three of them are still awaiting trial, while the fourth died after being deemed incompetent to stand trial in 2022.

Trump’s election “reforms” are his way of disrupting the 2026 election

A fraudulent approach to a nonexistent problem

Sabrina Haake

The November midterms will hand Trump his ass on a platter, so he is doing everything a fascist can do to stop them.

He reassigned the Director of National Intelligence—statutorily funded to guard Americans from foreign threats—to oversee the seizure of Americans’ confidential voter data in Georgia. 

He issued an executive order, laughable for its breadth, mandating new voter registration and rules nationwide. He is urging Republicans to both gerrymander and “nationalize” federal elections, with growing threats to surround polling places with armed ICE goons. After ICE killed two protesters in Minnesota, he tried to leverage the violence to get his hands on the state’s voter rolls (Nice state you got there).

Where brute force and intimidation won’t work, Trump is pushing the Department of Justice to fight for confidential voter data through the courts.

It’s not going so well.

The Don of Justice

ICE covered up murder of US citizen Ruben Ray Martinez in Texas Last March

‘How Many Other Killings Are They Concealing?’ 

Jessica Corbett for Common Dreams

Demands for accountability are mounting after internal records revealed this week that an officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations fatally shot Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old US citizen, almost a year ago in South Padre Island, Texas.

“While Martinez’s death was reported in local media at the time, the reports did not identify HSI involvement or disclose that a federal agent fired the shots through the driver-side window,” Newsweek reported, citing publicly available information and records obtained by American Oversight through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

“It shouldn’t take 11 months and a FOIA lawsuit to learn that the government killed someone,” American Oversight said on social media late Friday. Separately, the watchdog noted that “the details sound similar to the death of Renee Good,” a 37-year-old US citizen and mother of three fatally shot by officer Jonathan Ross last month in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Good’s killing, and two Customs and Border Protection agents’ subsequent fatal shooting of 37-year-old US citizen and nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, have fueled outrage over President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, resulting in a congressional funding fight that has partially shut down the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees both agencies.

ICE’s internal report on the Texas shooting states that HSI agents were helping redirect traffic at the site of a major accident early on March 15, 2025. Martinez and his passengers aren’t named, but the document claims that the driver of a blue four-door Ford “failed to follow instructions,” including verbal commands to stop and exit the vehicle.

Instead, the driver “accelerated forward, striking a HSI special agent who wound up on the hood of the vehicle. Upon observing this, HSI group supervisory special agent utilized his government-issued service weapon, discharging multiple rounds at the driver through the open driver’s side window,” according to the ICE report—a version of events that a DHS spokesperson echoed in a Friday statement added to the Newsweek article, which was initially published Wednesday.

The DHS spokesperson also said that the incident remains under investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Ranger Division, whose press secretary, Sheridan Nolen, confirmed that “this is still an active investigation by the Texas Rangers, and no other information is currently available.”

Charles Stam, a lawyer for the Martinez family, told the New York Times that the 23-year-old was the driver in the ICE report. Stam and another attorney, Alex Stamm, also said in a statement that eyewitness accounts of the scene don’t match the document.

“It is critical that there is a full and fair investigation into why HSI was present at the scene of a traffic collision and why a federal officer shot and killed a US citizen as he was trying to comply with instructions from the local law enforcement officers directing traffic,” the lawyers said.

The Times also reached Martinez’s mother, Rachel Reyes, who said her son worked at an Amazon warehouse in San Antonio and was out to celebrate his birthday. According to her: “He was a good kid. He doesn’t have a criminal history... He never got in trouble. He was never violent.”

Reyes challenged the federal government’s narrative about her son, telling the newspaper: “What they’re saying is different from what they told the family, so that’s adding insult to injury... They are making it sound different. I don’t appreciate their language.”

In a Friday interview with the Texas Tribune, American Oversight executive director Chioma Chukwu also called out the government: “What they’re telling the public is very different than what they’re doing behind closed doors. The only reason why we’re able to make these connections and really call into question the public statements that they’re making to mislead the public is because we’re able to get our hands on these documents... That should deeply concern everyone.”

The revelations this week have generated concern. André Treiber, the Democratic National Committee’s Youth Coordinating Council chair, wrote on social media Friday evening that “ICE murdered a Texan last March and we are only just learning about it now. They are once again offering the excuse that this was done in self-defense, but forgive me if I am extremely skeptical after they’ve been caught lying about that exact same thing multiple times already.”

Federal lawmakers also sounded the alarm on Friday. Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) declared that “Americans deserve immediate answers and an independent investigation of the shooting.” Another Texas Democrat, Congressman Joaquin Castro, similarly called for “a full investigation,” including into the monthslong “cover-up.”

US Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), whose Chicagoland district has also faced a recent ICE invasion, pointed to other deaths tied to the agency, including those of Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, who was shot by ICE in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park last September; Keith Porter Jr., who was shot by an off-duty agent on New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles, California; and Linda Davis, a special education teacher in Savannah, Georgia, who was killed in a Monday car crash that involved a man fleeing ICE.

“For a whole year, DHS hid that they murdered Ruben, a young man in Texas, after a traffic stop. Just like they did with Silverio, Renee, Keith, Alex, and Linda, they lied and avoided accountability,” said Ramirez, who supports abolishing ICE. “How many more people have to be executed before my colleagues realize that reforms are not enough?”

Advice for the Chief

Sparky for President