You Don't Say

 

Another Salvo in the War of Hate

Transgender people living in Kansas have been ordered to hand back their driver’s licenses if they do not reflect their assigned-sex-at-birth, under a new law.  Residents received letters informing them that the controversial House Substitute for Senate Bill 244 would take effect immediately.

The letter, seen by Erin In The Morning, a website dedicated to covering issues impacting transgender people, says that drivers will be issued a new license upon handing in their old one.

“Please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials,” the letter reads. “That means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credentials will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential.”  The legislation was vetoed by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, earlier this month, but was then overwritten by a Republican supermajority in the state legislature.

However, the rapid enactment of the new law has left transgender residents across the state scrambling to get the correct identification.  Iridescent Riffel, a transgender woman who commutes to work, says that she is now worried about getting into her car.  “I don’t want to get a misdemeanor just trying to go to work,” she told The Kansas City Star. “I’m salaried. I’m not working hourly, and not everyone has that same privilege as me.”

SB 244 also requires transgender Kansans to use bathrooms and multi-occupancy private spaces in accordance with their sex assigned at birth, while in government buildings.  The bill allows private citizens to take legal action against someone if they suspect them of not using the bathroom that is in accordance with their assigned sex at birth. If successful, someone who files a complaint against a transgender person in a public bathroom could stand to gain $1,000.

Anyone found to have used a bathroom not in accordance with their assigned sex at birth will be given a written warning on their first offense. On their second offense, they will receive a $1,000 fine. A third offense carries a $ 1,000 fine and a six-month prison sentence. Another change enforced by the sweeping bill relates to the term “gender,” which has now been defined as a person’s “biological sex at birth.”

As the law continues to be rolled out, Democratic Representative Abi Boatman has slammed the new legislation.  “The persecution is the point,” Boatman told The Kansas City Star.

Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, also accused Kansas’s lawmakers of choosing “politics over people.” “Forcing people into the wrong bathrooms, stripping them of accurate IDs, and allowing government-sanctioned harassment doesn’t make anyone safer - it targets transgender Kansans for no reason and will undoubtedly impact many others who are targeted with animus whether or not they are transgender,” Robinson said in a press release.

Governor Kelly vetoed SB 244 earlier this month, describing it as poorly drafted legislation.  “Not only will this bill keep brothers from visiting sisters’ dorms and husbands from wives’ shared hospital rooms, it will cost Kansas taxpayers millions of dollars to comply with this very vague legislation,” she added. 

 

Like any Fascist, Trump Is Trying to Criminalize Protesting

The Trump administration believes you don't have the right to record Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in public. This stance is both factually wrong and an attempt to chill free speech by conflating it with violence.

At a July 2025 press conference in Tampa, Florida, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said, "Violence is anything that threatens them and their safety, so it is doxing them, it's videotaping them where they're at when they're out on operations, encouraging other people to come and to throw things, rocks, bottles."

In September 2025, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin called "videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online" a form of doxing. She added, "We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law."

These aren't idle threats. The Trump administration strong-armed Apple into removing an app from its mobile store that tracked ICE activity and threatened criminal investigations into its creators.

The most aggressive application of this policy has come in Chicago under "Operation Midway Blitz," where ICE officers have relentlessly targeted protesters, reporters, and clergy engaged in protected First Amendment activity. In October, a group of journalists and protesters filed a lawsuit alleging "a
pattern of extreme brutality in a concerted and ongoing effort to silence the press
 and civilians."

In court filings, the plaintiffs stated that federal officials' own testimony illustrated their point. For example, when ICE field director Russell Hott was asked if he agreed "that it's unconstitutional to arrest people for being opposed to Midway Blitz," he answered "No."  "Similarly, [U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Greg] Bovino testified that he has instructed his officers to arrest protesters who make hyperbolic comments in the heat of political demonstrations, even though such statements—which do not constitute true threats—are protected speech," the motion argued.

U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction against DHS in early November 2025, saying the government's conduct "shocked the conscience."  Ellis found much of the officials' testimony not credible. Bovino, for instance, testified that he never used force against a protester he was filmed tackling, and in another instance, Ellis said, he lied about being hit with a rock before firing tear gas at demonstrators. Nor did evidence support the government's claims that federal officers issued warnings before firing less-than-lethal projectiles at those protesters.  "Describing rapid response networks and neighborhood moms as professional agitators shows just how out of touch these agents are, and how extreme their views are," said Ellis.

Cato Institute senior fellow Walter Olson points out that, "While the Supreme Court itself hasn't yet faced the issue squarely, the seven federal circuits that have done so…all agree that the First Amendment protects the right to record police performing their duties in public."  Likewise, federal circuits have upheld the right to use vulgar language to oppose police without fear of retaliation, and to warn others of nearby police checkpoints or speed traps.

Recording government agents is one of the few tools citizens have to hold state power accountable. Any attempt to redefine observation as "violence" is not only unconstitutional—it's authoritarian gaslighting. When a government fears cameras more than crimes, it isn't protecting the rule of law. It's protecting itself.

 

Foo Fighters - Your Favorite Toy

So True!

 

Crazy Pete Doesn't Like Rules of Engagement

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared particularly unhinged during the first official news briefing about President Donald Trump’s attacks on Iran. Hegseth praised Israel, the U.S.’s military partner in the Iran strikes, for joining in what he described as “unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history.” 

Hegseth said that the campaign was being carried out “all on our terms, with maximum authorities. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars.” 

It was unclear what "politically correct wars” Hegseth is talking about. Maybe that one against Nazi Germany? Despite his bluster, Hegseth seemed rankled by the suggestion that we are now involved in a regime change.   "This is not Iraq,” he said. “This is not endless." 

His remarks, like most everything in the Trump administration, were not in sync with President Donald Trump’s own boasts to Fox News anchor Bret Baier. Trump claimed that U.S. and Israeli forces targeted an Iranian leadership meeting and took out “49 leaders.” 

Hegseth also bristled at questions about the timeline for U.S. involvement, calling them “gotcha-type” questions, though he also warned that the Trump-initiated conflict “will include casualties. War is hell and always will be”

In case anyone forgot-- last June, Hegseth claimed Iran’s nuclear program—one ostensible reason for this latest strike—was “devastated” by prior U.S. strikes.  

 

 

Release all the Epstein Files Now!

There are fresh reports that q secret storage locker rented by Jeffrey Epstein contained computers, video tapes, sex-slave manuals and photographs of naked women. The Telegraph revealed that Epstein paid private detectives to remove items from his Florida property in an apparent attempt to hide them from investigators ahead of a police raid in 2005.  These were kept at a nearby storage facility in Palm Beach for several years while police investigated the pedophile.

The unit was rented on Epstein’s behalf by the Riley Kiraly detective agency and was one of at least six storage lockers leased by the late financier over a 16-year period.  An inventory of the secret Palm Beach lock-up showed that the stashed items included three computers, 29 address books and a three-page list of masseuses in Florida.  The hidden storage unit also contained nude photographs, believed to be of Epstein’s victims, as well as dozens of pornographic magazines, VHS tapes and DVDs eroticizing teenagers.  An 8mm video cassette tape was also locked away in the storage unit, apparently containing footage of someone in the shower and a woman in lingerie, as well as a 2005 calendar, greeting cards, letters and laboratory results.

The New York Times has also now reported that 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.  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 summary of the four interviews, 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.