The Rogue Voice Podcast with Linsay Rousseau

Linsay Rousseau
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Daily correspondence from the collapsing American experiment. Linsay Rousseau aka The Rogue Voice - is a Writer📝Activist✊ Army Iraq War combat veteran 🫡 & former investigative reporter. She tackles fascism with a mix of rage and dark humor. Welcome to the rebellion b!tches. linsayrousseau.substack.com

  1. 19h ago

    Two Pilots Died Fighting A Yosemite Fire That Threatened Nothing, On Burgum's Orders

    Two firefighting pilots died fighting a Yosemite wildfire that was climbing a remote mountainside, away from every home in the park, under Interior Secretary Doug Burgum's order to fully suppress every wildfire, no matter what it's threatening. "For what?" one federal fire official told The Atlantic. "There's nothing out there. Just let nature do its thing." Another asked, "Did they die in vain?" Burgum's new Wildland Fire Service runs firefighting in every national park, and his April memo calls for "the presumption of a full suppression strategy applied to every wildfire." It's a throwback to the 10 a.m. policy from 1935: every fire out by 10 the next morning. Yosemite started letting some fires burn in 1974, because putting out every fire is why Western forests are overgrown tinderboxes. One fire researcher told the AP, "The more you make fire go away, the more fuel accumulates." So we brought back fire science from the Dust Bowl. Can't wait for the comeback of leeches. Yosemite got shock and awe. At least 17 helicopters. More than 1,000 firefighters. For a fire that burned about 6,700 acres of mountain and zero buildings, and cost at least $55 million. That's more than $8,000 an acre. For land we already own. The crews knew. One told The Atlantic, "What are we doing? There's nothing out here. We're slamming this fire shut." Six firefighters got hurt or sick. Then a helicopter doing water bucket drops went down. Pilots Greg King and Ryan Cutter were killed. The crash is still under investigation. At least 17 wildland firefighters, pilots and contractors have died this year, already more than the full-year average of the last decade. One of the best ways to stop monster fires is to set small ones on purpose, with a plan. The Forest Service's prescribed burning fell by about half last year after it lost 16% of its staff. Yosemite has done zero burns this year. Superintendent Ray McPadden canceled the one near the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, planned for around Memorial Day, because two people familiar with the decision say he was worried it would hurt visitation. What the actual feck. Four years ago, that grove survived a wildfire because the park had burned it on purpose more than 20 times. So who comes out ahead when every fire gets the full air show? An aerospace analyst told the AP, "Anyone that has an air tanker benefits." Like Bridger Aerospace, an aerial firefighting company founded by Montana Republican Senator Tim Sheehy. The Forest Service has paid it more than $235 million since 2021. Sheehy pushed to scrap Forest Service inspections of firefighting aircraft, the same month one of his old company's planes failed one with a crack in its wing. His shares now sit in a blind trust. Blind. Like the policy. Yosemite's former superintendent, Cicely Muldoon, says skipping the burns means "you're really putting people in harm's way." The kindling keeps piling up under giant sequoias older than most countries. They've survived centuries of fire. Let's see if they survive Doug Burgum. Sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/10/yosemite-fires/689069/ https://www.eenews.net/articles/burgums-wildfire-mandate-smother-every-blaze/ https://wtop.com/national/2026/06/as-wildfires-worsen-trump-administration-revives-discredited-policy-to-stomp-out-all-fires-quickly/ https://www.opb.org/article/2026/05/04/wildfire-prevention-work-declines-under-trump-administration/ https://www.propublica.org/article/tim-sheehy-bridger-aerospace-forest-service-inspection https://wildfiretoday.com/two-dead-in-helicopter-crash-at-the-dome-fire-in-yosemite-national-park/ My posts are always free. My rent is not. Subscribe to keep me yelling. Get full access to The Rogue Voice aka Linsay Rousseau at linsayrousseau.substack.com/subscribe

  2. 1d ago

    Trump Says Poisoned Camp Lejeune Marines Only Get Paid If Republicans Win Midterms

    Donald Trump just told Marines poisoned at Camp Lejeune that they get their money only if Republicans win in November. His exact words: If we don't win, there's no money. If we do win, you're getting it. Ransom notes used to be cut out of magazines. Now they come with a teleprompter and a Lee Greenwood song. From 1953 to 1987, the Marine Corps served its own people a tap water cocktail of dry cleaning solvent, degreaser and benzene. In 1982, one system tested at 280 times the EPA limit. The base is a Superfund site. They just put drinking fountains on it. About a million people were exposed. The VA links it to leukemia, kidney and bladder cancer, and Parkinson's. Marine Jerry Ensminger buried his 9-year-old daughter Janey in 1985. Leukemia. Congress passed a law in 2022 to finally pay these families. More than 408,000 claims. As of August, less than 1% paid. The VFW says one law firm had nearly 10% of its roughly 2,000 clients die in the last two years. So the Justice Department has a plan for clearing the backlog. It's called waiting. Congress has nothing to do with this. Settling these claims is a Justice Department call. He said so himself: "If we win the House and the Senate, I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims." My dude. You run the Justice Department. You can direct them right now. You don't need the House to make a phone call. You barely need the phone. Jill Steen Dilgard lost her father, an uncle and two cousins who all served at Lejeune. She filed in 2022. Still waiting. She asked: "If he has all the authority he says he does to make this happen, why didn't he do the right thing from the get-go?" Because the get-go wasn't two weeks before an election, Jill. Same rally, Trump also said: "We will never abandon the heroes who served America." Never abandon! Just put them on layaway until November. Then he blamed the lawyers: "We don't want to give any to the trial lawyers." The Justice Department capped lawyers' fees at 20 to 25% in 2023, so the money he's sitting on belongs to sick veterans and families. Wrong villain, Donald. Try a mirror. Marines aren't the only ones in the program. In Kansas, he promised corn farmers year-round sales of E15, the ethanol gas made from their corn, unless the Democrat wins: "But if Adam Hamilton is in, I'm not doing it." In North Carolina, on hurricane aid and his Senate pick: "Now if Michael loses, I'm not sending it. No, I'm only kidding." Vote red, rack up points, redeem them for chemo. Meanwhile, federal judges ordered the Justice Department to come up with a mass settlement plan by October 30th, and the first trial starts October 26th. Both before the election. Ensminger and fellow victim Mike Partain: "Justice is not tied to political allegiance! The court trials start next week and will speak for us." So now we find out who his Justice Department ignores first, a federal judge or a dying Marine. My money's on both. Semper Fi means always faithful. Not always faithful, pending results. Sources: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2026/10/21/trump-helene-camp-lejeune-water https://ncnewsline.com/2026/10/21/trump-ties-nc-camp-lejeune-settlements-to-gop-win-angering-survivors/ https://www.wunc.org/2026-10-19/federal-court-rejects-camp-lejeune-settlement-calculation-challenge-as-documentation-backlog-grows https://www.kaxe.org/2026-08-04/after-years-of-delays-alleged-victims-in-camp-lejeune-trials-may-see-progress https://rollcall.com/2026/10/20/trump-ties-ethanol-boon-for-farmers-to-a-marshall-win/ https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/camp-lejeune/about/summary-of-the-water-contamination-situation.html https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/washington/testimony/2007/t20070612.htm https://www.va.gov/disability/eligibility/hazardous-materials-exposure/camp-lejeune-water-contamination/ https://www.stripes.com/branches/marine_corps/2023-11-08/camp-lejeune-toxic-water-marines-attorney-fees-11985138.html My posts are always free. My rent is not. Subscribe to keep me yelling. Get full access to The Rogue Voice aka Linsay Rousseau at linsayrousseau.substack.com/subscribe

  3. 2d ago

    Trump Opens A $25M Fraud Hotline And Names Himself The Judge. Let's Flood It.

    Donald Trump just launched a $25 million fraud bounty program, named himself the judge of who gets paid, and gave the first check to a 24-year-old right-wing YouTuber. It comes out of Trump's fraud task force, which he set up in March and put JD Vance in charge of. Vance says the work is "fun." His pitch: "if you want to help us stop it, you get to share in the rewards." Which is exactly how every pyramid scheme I've ever been invited to started. So how much do you get? Trump says 1% of whatever you uncover, no cap: "If it's $10 million, $200 million, $400 million, we're giving a 1% commission to that person." One percent of $400 million is $4 million. Six of those and the $25 million fund is gone. Meanwhile, the White House told reporters the max is $30,000. So it's worth either a fortune or $30,000, depending on who's answering the questions. And when two people claim the same tip? Trump said, "I will be the arbitrator of all of these decisions." He called it "binding arbitration." Arbitration is when both sides hand the decision to a neutral party. He has appointed himself the neutral party. The man who paid $25 million to settle the Trump University fraud cases is now the judge of fraud, running a program that also costs $25 million. If you pitched that on a TV show, they'd send it back as too on the nose. We already have a whistleblower reward, by the way. The False Claims Act has paid people 15 to 30% of recovered money since 1863. So they took Abraham Lincoln's program, cut the payout to a sliver, and made a game show host the judge. The first winner, Nick Shirley, got $10,000 for his video claiming Somali-owned day cares in Minnesota were fake. Inspectors said the centers were operating as expected. The White House says one owner in the video later pleaded guilty to padding meal claims. After that video, federal officials announced about 2,000 more immigration agents for Minnesota, and during that surge agents shot and killed two Minneapolis residents, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Two people are dead, and the guy who made the video just got a check from the White House. Tips go through fraud.gov, which hands you off to an AI chatbot. This administration's last big AI project helped pick an elementary school in Iran as a target, so I'm sure this one will be fine. But honestly? I love this program. Trump says it's open to everyone. So let's use it. Real tips only, since a false report to the feds is a crime, and lucky for us, this administration is a fraud buffet. The $330 million ballroom. The Kennedy Center's allegedly missing $6 million. Don Jr.'s firm buying into Pentagon contractor Anduril. Kristi Noem's last-day $304 million plane deal for a donor. The meme coin dinner. $100,000 a month for early access to Trump's posts. $580 million in suspiciously timed oil bets. Kimberly Guilfoyle's $100,000 Amex ask. Flood the system. The most corrupt administration in American history just opened a fraud hotline. Call it in, America. The fraud is coming from inside the house. Sources: https://apnews.com/article/trump-fraud-whistleblower-vance-cc7c155c06cbab74d423911c36f5ac78 https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/politics/2026/10/20/fraud-whistleblower-incentive-program https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/10/20/anti-fraud-whistleblower-reward-program-announced-by-president-donald-trump https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2026-iran-school-attack/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/10/15/secret-documents-reveal-donors-behind-330-million-trumps-ballroom/ https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/maga-blood-feud-between-alina-habba-and-ric-grenell-ties-back-to-17-million-transfer-from-account-tied-to-congolese-government-report/ https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/abc-news-acknowledges-errors-in-trump-sons-report-it-mysteriously-deleted/ https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/kristi-noem-seethes-after-ny-times-expose-on-a-plum-contract-dhs-gave-to-a-political-donor-on-her-last-day-as-secretary/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-meme-coin-dinner-foreign-top-bidders/ https://www.courthousenews.com/doj-defends-trump-charging-100k-for-early-access-to-truth-social-posts/ https://truthout.org/articles/trump-admin-killed-insider-trading-referral-probing-iran-war-related-oil-sales/ https://www.tovima.com/wsj/honey-please-kimberly-guilfoyle-pushed-donor-to-wire-100000-to-her-amex-account My posts are always free. My rent is not. Subscribe to keep me yelling. Get full access to The Rogue Voice aka Linsay Rousseau at linsayrousseau.substack.com/subscribe

  4. 3d ago

    Trump Plans To Go After 10 Million Student Loan Borrowers After You Vote

    Donald Trump's Treasury Department is getting ready to seize the tax refunds, Social Security checks and paychecks of nearly 10 million Americans who've defaulted on their student loans. And according to five sources who talked to The Washington Sun, they're not planning to announce it until after you vote. Why wait? One source explained: "It would be politically insane to do this before the midterms." Politically insane. Not cruel. Not wrong. Just bad timing. They're not debating whether to mug you. They're debating whether to do it before or after you mail in your ballot. Here's the plan. Private debt collectors could be hired as soon as November. Then the government grabs what it can: your tax refund, your earned income tax credit, your child tax credit, a chunk of your Social Security, and a slice of your paycheck straight from your employer. The target is the tax season ending April 15, 2027. So you file your taxes, wait for the refund you were going to use for rent, and find out Uncle Sam already cashed it. And seniors are in the blast radius. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates about 452,000 borrowers 62 and older are in default and likely collecting Social Security. The government can take up to 15% of that check. Nothing says golden years like a debt collector in your retirement. Now my favorite part. Last year, the White House budget office helped the Education Department get ready to start seizing benefits and wages. Treasury blocked it. And Treasury staff warned their bosses, quote, "This is not who you think it is. The demographics are not good for us." Translation: oh no, it's our people. And they're right. Protect Borrowers found about two-thirds of defaulted borrowers live in states Trump won. The AP found the highest default rates in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. Turns out the guy drowning in student debt isn't a gender studies major in Brooklyn. He's in Biloxi. It gets better. One economist told Common Dreams the people in default are "overwhelmingly people whose debts would have been erased" under the Biden debt relief that Republican-led states sued to block. So Republicans killed the relief, those folks fell behind, and now the same party wants to send the repo man. Are you fecking kidding me? Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent rolled out something called the "Defaulted Loans Support Center" and called it "restoring fiscal responsibility." Responsibility. From the guys hiding the bill under the couch until the polls close. And one budget hawk says all this stalling has already cost taxpayers about $5 billion. Fiscal responsibility, everybody. When the Sun asked the Education Department about all of this, it said, "We don't respond to fishing expeditions." Which is a bold thing to say right before you go fishing in somebody's paycheck. And it's not just loans. Abortion, Every Day reports the White House is also waiting until after the midterms to go after abortion. They're not running on their agenda. They're hiding it in the trunk until you've voted, and what else is back there? Politically insane is waiting until after the election to tell people you're taking their money. Politically sane is remembering that when you vote. Sources: https://www.washingtonsun.com/economy/trump-aides-plan-penalize-defaulting-student-loan-borrowers https://truthout.org/articles/trump-officials-look-to-delay-going-after-defaulted-borrowers-to-after-midterms/ https://www.wtoc.com/2025/06/03/education-department-says-it-will-not-garnish-social-security-student-loan-borrowers-default https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0639 https://jessica.substack.com/p/republicans-are-running-scared-the My posts are always free. My rent is not. Subscribe to keep me yelling. Get full access to The Rogue Voice aka Linsay Rousseau at linsayrousseau.substack.com/subscribe

  5. 4d ago

    Trump DOJ Kills Criminal Probe Of Meta After Meta Pays Trump $31 Million

    Trump's Justice Department just shut down a criminal investigation into whether Meta helped kids buy fentanyl pills on its apps, right after Meta's lawyers, including Trump's own personal law firm, went to DOJ's political bosses and asked nicely. Since the pandemic, federal prosecutors in Virginia had a criminal grand jury investigating whether Meta helped create a market for young people to buy fentanyl pills and other addictive drugs, let prescription drugs get promoted to children, and made money off it. Meta executives had been subpoenaed to testify, the one notification you can't swipe away. Last year, Meta's lawyers went to DOJ's political leadership to get the case dropped, and it kept going. They went back, and this time, Bloomberg Law reports, senior leaders at DOJ headquarters told the career prosecutors to stop. The department is weighing a fine or a deal where Meta doesn't get charged at all. Which is a great deal if you can get it. Just ask anybody doing time for selling one pill. Meta's legal team includes a former Republican deputy attorney general and Sullivan and Cromwell, a law firm that also represents Donald Trump personally. So Trump's own law firm is lobbying Trump's Justice Department for a company that's been paying Trump. I'm sure those meetings are tense and adversarial. Nobody even gets a mint. Meta has sent $31 million Trump's way. In 2024, Trump warned Mark Zuckerberg he could spend "life in prison" if he did anything illegal during the election. Then Zuckerberg had dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Then Meta gave $1 million to Trump's inauguration. Then Meta paid $25 million to settle Trump's lawsuit over getting suspended from Facebook after January 6th. They paid him for the ban. That's a bouncer tipping the drunk guy he threw out. Then $5 million for the White House ballroom. Turns out life in prison comes with a cash option. DOJ's explanation? The department "has ended the Biden-era days of aggressively and indiscriminately targeting corporations and businesses." Indiscriminately. The case was about fentanyl and children. How were prosecutors supposed to go easier on that? Investigate it casually? Swing by on a Friday? In 2024, a watchdog group found more than 450 ads on Meta's platforms selling drugs. One fake pharmacy listed Xanax, Percocet, OxyContin and fentanyl, like a drive-thru menu for overdoses. Meta says its ads get reviewed by "automated technology." Meta's automated systems did manage to take down the No Kings Instagram account on the day of the protests. Meta called it an error. So the robot can't spot a fentanyl menu, but it found the protest account in record time. Here's why every parent should care. If your kid buys a pill on Instagram, it could kill them. If they survive and get caught, they get a record. If the company accused of helping put those pills in front of your kid gets investigated, it gets a meeting with the president's lawyers. This administration loves to talk about fentanyl. They've blown up boats over it. They say it's a war. Turns out the war has a VIP entrance, and the cover charge is $31 million. Trump told Zuckerberg he could spend his life in prison. Instead, Zuckerberg helped pay for the ballroom. Sources: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/meta-platforms-drug-sale-criminal-probe-halted-by-doj-officials https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-donates-1-million-trump-inauguration-fund-zuckerberg-mar-lago-mee-rcna184014 https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/meta-agrees-to-25-million-settlement-with-trump-over-jan-6-account-suspension-president-capitol-rotunda-mark-zuckerberg-tech-company-amazon-jeff-bezos-tesla-x-elon-musk-censorship-twitter-facebook-google https://newrepublic.com/post/216672/list-white-house-ballroom-donors-trump-corruption https://campaignforaccountability.org/ttp-report-meta-allows-drug-ads-selling-everything-from-opioids-to-cocaine/ https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/new-trump-book-defends-2018-putin-meeting-taunts-113256093 https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-17-2026 My posts are always free. My rent is not. Subscribe to keep me yelling. Get full access to The Rogue Voice aka Linsay Rousseau at linsayrousseau.substack.com/subscribe

  6. 5d ago

    This Week in Tyranny: Trump Bails Out Putin, DOJ Threatens Vote Counters, ICE Chases A Dead Man

    Welcome back to This Week in Tyranny. While you were watching Elon Musk’s Roadster hop over a Cybertruck on 600 liters of compressed air like the world’s most expensive whoopee cushion, the Trump administration spent the week making sure nobody can stop it from doing anything. This week: Trump let Putin off the hook to fix gas prices from his own war, his Justice Department threatened to jail election workers, two Democrats co-wrote a bill that locks judges out of protecting your public lands, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the general who warned him about missile defense, Trump says he can pardon himself, and ICE says it was chasing a dead man. Let’s get into it. Trump Bails Out Putin to Fix Gas Prices From His Own War Late Friday night, Donald Trump signed an executive order waiving the Russia sanctions law he signed himself last month. It’s named after his late golf buddy Lindsey Graham, and the Senate passed it 86 to 11. The order is titled “Implementing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act.” It implements it by not doing it, which is also how I implement my gym membership. His official reason? “National interest.” The real one is at the pump. His war in Iran pushed gas past $4.30 a gallon, and those sanctions came with tariffs on countries buying Russian oil. So to clean up after his own war, he’s bailing out the guy bombing Ukraine. Russia said thanks that night with 332 drones and four cruise missiles, killing at least four people. Even Republicans lost it. John Cornyn said, “Lindsey would be appalled.” Thom Tillis said if Trump wants lower energy prices, “he can do it by solving the Iran problem.” Don Bacon listed Trump’s lame-duck wish list, ballroom included, and said, “I think the agenda is dead.” Hold that thought. Same week, Ukraine’s military Starlink slowed down mid-bombardment, grounding the drones that shoot down Russian drones. Two US officials told Reuters the order came from inside the White House. Trump: “it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Elon.” Elon: limits are “decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” So it wasn’t Elon, and it wasn’t Trump, except Elon just told the whole internet it’s always Trump. DOJ Threatens to Jail Vote Counters, Sends the Password on a Sticky Note Trump’s Justice Department just threatened to jail election workers in Los Angeles for counting ballots. It started with a thumb drive. DOJ sent California about 20,000 names of people who were mailed ballots, people DOJ claims are noncitizens. It gave the state 48 hours to pull their ballots and sent the password on a sticky note, like every phishing scam I’ve ever deleted. LA County wouldn’t open it, the deadline passed, and DOJ sued California, then warned that anyone who counts those ballots risks “becoming aiders and abettors to a federal crime.” Trump reposted it: “They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!” Three exclamation points. That’s how you know it’s legally sound. Where’d the 20,000 come from? DOJ won’t say. This year it charged about 50 people with voting as noncitizens. There are more than 227 million registered voters. And DOJ is 0 for 26 on these voter-roll lawsuits. Threatening the vote counters is just plan A. Trump’s childhood friend Peter Ticktin, lawyer for pardoned election denier Tina Peters, told a MAGA livestream “there would have to be martial law” if there’s “another rigged election.” In this crowd, rigged means one they lose. Peters met with Trump earlier this month. And sometimes they don’t even have to try. A lawsuit says Texas never recorded nearly 600,000 people who registered to vote at the DMV last fall and winter, because a state software update broke. Early voting starts tomorrow. Pick your weapon: a threat, a martial law fantasy or a broken computer nobody fixed. Fewer of your votes get counted. Democrats Write Judges Out of Public Lands, Hand Trump the Bulldozer Trump has spent this term handing our public lands to oil, gas and mining companies, and two Democrats just helped him get around the one thing slowing him down: judges. Senators Martin Heinrich and Sheldon Whitehouse co-wrote a bill with Republicans and the White House that would stop a judge from halting a mine, a pipeline or a drilling project on public land, even one that breaks the law. The “only remedy” a court gets is sending the project back to the agency “without vacatur or issuance of an injunction.” Translation: the judge gets to say “you broke the law,” and the bulldozers keep going. It’s a speeding ticket that comes with a full tank of gas. Your window to sue drops from six years to 150 days, and mining companies could dump waste on public land for $80 an acre a year. Their reason? Cheaper energy and more clean power. Whitehouse says it’ll “flood the grid with clean, affordable energy.” From the administration that froze hundreds of wind projects. Last December, Heinrich was asked whether this administration would even follow a permitting law. His answer: “Well that’s what the courts are for, right?” Martin. Buddy. You just wrote the courts out of it. More Than Just Parks broke this down. Go follow them. Hegseth Fires the General Who Counted the Missiles, Then Runs Out of Missiles Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the Army general who warned him we were running low on missile defense, and then the Iran war burned through most of it. CBS News reports that two months before the war, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George warned the Army was “critically short on missile defense munitions” and would stay “strategically low until 2030.” Hegseth fired him in April, in the middle of the war. Since then, according to the think tank CSIS, we’ve used up to 61% of our prewar Patriot interceptors and about 82% of our THAADs. Those are the missiles that keep other missiles from hitting our troops. The Pentagon says, “Claims of U.S. munitions shortages are false.” In the Army, when somebody tells you you’re low on ammo, you count the ammo. You don’t fire the guy who counted. The same Pentagon is holding its report on the US strike that killed at least 123 children at a school in Minab, Iran, until after the midterms. The report’s finished. The election just isn’t. Trump Says He Can Pardon Himself, Hands His Staff a Permission Slip Donald Trump told Newsmax, “I could have given myself a pardon the last time I left office.” No court has ever ruled on it, but the Justice Department’s position since 1974 is that he can’t, because nobody gets to be the judge in their own case. He also wants to pardon his staff, because “I don’t want to see people that work for me go through years of nonsense.” The nonsense is the justice system. A pardon promised in advance works a lot like a permission slip. And the report he really doesn’t want you to read just got buried again: Jack Smith’s report on the Mar-a-Lago case, where Trump kept boxes of classified documents in a bathroom and a ballroom. An appeals court was set to hear arguments on releasing it November 2, the day before the election. Then Trump’s lawyer cited the campaign’s “extensive commitments,” a co-defendant’s lawyer cited a “nonrefundable” trip, and the hearing got canceled. Nothing protects a president like a nonrefundable plane ticket. ICE Runs a Man Down, Blames a Dead Man An ICE agent in Houston ran a man down with an SUV, and ICE’s excuse is a ghost. Agents tried to stop a truck, and Miguel Parra Hernandez, 48, jumped out and ran. Surveillance video shows an ICE SUV chasing him, and then he’s on the ground with a broken leg. ICE says he “ran in front of” the vehicle. The Harris County DA says it looks like the agent used the car as “a deadly weapon” and is weighing charges. ICE says it stopped that truck because its target was inside. According to the immigrant advocacy group FIEL, the man in ICE’s photo died years ago, and his daughter handed over a death certificate. The DA’s office says the target wasn’t in the truck. So either ICE’s paperwork is fiction or its agents can see dead people. If ICE can invent a dead suspect to explain running a man down, every report it files about anyone is a ghost story. Speed Round Okay, speed round. Musk Could Feed Kids, Buys a Hopping Car and Ken Paxton Instead Elon Musk has enough money to feed a lot of hungry kids, protect oceans and fund cancer research. Instead he’s a kid playing with toys. This week’s toy: a car that hops. September’s toy: Ken Paxton. Musk gave $158 million to super PACs backing Paxton for Senate in Texas. Trump’s Donors Build the Ballroom He Said He’d Help Pay For Don Bacon’s dead agenda included Trump’s $330 million ballroom, which the White House said Trump would help pay for. The Washington Post got the donor list: Nvidia and Apple at $25 million each, Palantir and Lockheed Martin at $10 million each, all into a White House account Trump controls. Trump’s name isn’t on it. Kimberly Guilfoyle lost her job for asking one donor to cover $100,000. Trump’s donors are handing him tens of millions for a ballroom nobody needs. 80% Say No to Hegseth’s Execution Livestream, His Church Leader Says Yes And 80% of Americans opposed Pete Hegseth’s livestreamed execution in a Washington Post, ABC and Ipsos poll, so Trump canceled it. Cheering it on was Doug Wilson, the pastor who leads Hegseth’s church network: “executions in the Scriptures were public.” The Secretary of Defense wanted a public execution, his church leader quoted the Bible to bless it, and the only thing that stopped them was a poll. That’s your week in tyranny. Welcome to the golden age. Sources: https://www.axios.com/2026/10/17/trump-russia-waiver-putin-republicans-democrats https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/17/trump-pauses-us-sanctions-on-russia/ https://thehill.com/homenews

  7. 6d ago

    The Gilead Gazette: ICE Jails Abuse Victims, Scuba's Me Too Moment, Trump Rates Men's Butts

    Hey fam, welcome back to the Gilead Gazette, where the forecast is always partly cloudy with a chance of some guy in a suit trying to grab the steering wheel of my uterus. This week, Trump’s ICE is locking up women for being abused, Trump fires the women around him and saves his compliments for the handsome men, Dr. Oz cuts off trans kids’ medical care while two Democratic governors hold the door, and the scuba world is having its Me Too moment. Let’s get into it. ICE Jails Abuse Victims, Abusers Say Thanks Trump’s ICE is jailing women who were the victims in domestic violence calls. ProPublica found immigrant women arrested on domestic violence allegations, never charged with anything, and handed straight to ICE anyway. Police show up to a domestic call, can’t tell who hit who, and arrest somebody. If that somebody is an immigrant woman, the jail flags her for ICE, and she ends up at a detention center in the Michigan woods in a red jumpsuit, the color ICE uses for high security risks. The high security risk is the one with the black eye. Leya had given birth a month earlier when her boyfriend punched her in the face. Later he called the police on her during an argument. They arrested her. Prosecutors refused to charge her. Didn’t matter. She spent four months locked up while her baby girl had her first birthday, took her first steps, and stopped calling her “Mamá.” This is by design. About a week after the inauguration, Trump’s administration eliminated protections for immigrant crime victims applying under the Violence Against Women Act. A judge ordered them restored. The administration appealed. DHS says, “we will never apologize for deporting illegal aliens, because that’s how we save lives.” Whose lives, exactly? Because the guy with the fists is doing great. And this goes way past one detention center. Every abuser in America just got a brand new line to use on his partner: go ahead, call the cops, and see which one of us gets deported. A Michigan prosecutor says there’s already a “chilling impact” on women coming forward. So congratulations to the administration for making domestic violence safer. For the guy doing it. Trump Fires the Women, Calls the Men Beautiful Trump keeps pushing women out of his administration, replacing them with men, and saving his compliments for the men’s looks. Last year Trump bragged he had “more women in our Cabinet than any Republican president in the history of our country.” Then he got rid of half of them this spring, and every one was replaced by a man. To be clear, I’m not saying these women shouldn’t have been fired. I’m saying they never should’ve been hired. Neither should the men. The difference is only one of those groups ever gets shown the door. Noem got fired from Homeland Security and handed a made-up envoy title. According to Meidas, that title quietly expired, and now she’s a senior adviser to the deputy secretary of state. She’s being demoted so slowly it’s basically an internship in reverse. This week Kimberly Guilfoyle got pushed out as ambassador to Greece over reports she asked a donor to pay her $100,000 American Express bill, which she denies. Earlier this year Trump said, “I love calling her Kimberlay. That’s my little pet name.” This week? “I guess she dated my son a long time ago.” She was engaged to his son for four years. “Dated” is doing some heavy lifting. Now let’s check on the men. The Secretary of Defense helped launch a war with Iran, blew up boats in the Caribbean, and wanted to livestream a firing squad. Still employed. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first pick for attorney general, just got sued by two women for sex trafficking, and responded by posting a photo of three women in bikinis with a woman’s name on it, implying it was his accusers. Then he admitted he wasn’t sure it was either of them. At his rally Friday in Georgia, Trump said, “Rick Jackson is a very handsome beautiful looking guy.” That’s the governor candidate caught on tape answering a voter who said a woman who claims rape “needs to prove it” with “Right, got you.” Trump also called Senate candidate Mike Collins “all man,” and announced, “We are allowed to have big strong handsome soldiers now.” Meanwhile, at his rally in Ohio, a woman in a “Release the Epstein Files” shirt got punched in the face. Trump called her a “fat guy” who “needs to go on a diet.” Same rally, he told the crowd he’d “looked at” Senator Jon Husted’s ass. So the women get fired, the woman who got punched gets diet tips, and the men get rated on their butts. Dr. Oz Cuts Off Trans Kids, Two Democrats Hold the Door As of Tuesday, Trump’s Medicaid chief, Dr. Oz, cut off federal money for trans kids’ medical care, and two Democratic governors decided to help him. The rule bans federal Medicaid dollars for puberty blockers, hormones and surgery for kids. Dr. Oz calls it “sex-rejecting procedures,” a phrase no doctor has ever said to an actual patient. He says he’s “following the science.” This is the man who got hauled in front of the Senate for hyping miracle weight-loss supplements on daytime TV. Kids already on hormones keep federal coverage for up to six months to taper off. Kids on puberty blockers, the medication that basically hits pause on puberty, get cut off immediately. The health research group KFF estimates about 130,000 trans young people rely on Medicaid or CHIP in states that hadn’t already restricted this care. Families with money will just pay. So “protecting children” turns out to have an income cap. States can still cover this care with their own money. But Virginia under Governor Abigail Spanberger and Arizona under Governor Katie Hobbs, both Democrats, quietly announced they’d stop. The best part? Virginia is one of the states suing to block the rule. They’re taking Trump to court over it and following it anyway. That’s like pressing charges against a mugger and handing him your wallet on the courthouse steps. Diving Has Its Me Too Moment, PADI Holds Its Breath The scuba and freediving world is having its Me Too moment, and the agencies that certify people to breathe underwater are suddenly having a hard time speaking. Since early October, women across diving have been posting about being harassed and assaulted, often by instructors, expedition leaders and dive shop owners. One freediver says that at 23, during her PADI courses in Colombia, the instructor she was staying with came into her room while she slept and raped her. Police never found him. I’m a dive instructor, and here’s the thing. Sixty feet down, the person teaching you is the person keeping you alive. That’s a lot of power to hand to a guy nobody is checking on. A 2025 industry survey found 47% of women divers had been sexually harassed, and only 9% of the people harassed reported it. Freediving brand Molchanovs suspended an unnamed “brand collaborator” and said, “To anyone who has felt unheard by us, we are sorry.” That’s a start, but they still won’t say who he is or what he did. And PADI, the biggest certifying agency on the planet, declined to comment. PADI will literally certify you as a mermaid. But a statement on sexual assault? Apparently past its depth limit. Divers aren’t waiting for the agencies. There’s a petition demanding they ban convicted sex offenders from teaching, and Girls That Scuba and Women in Ocean Science launched a survey on harassment in wildlife tourism that got 1,500 responses in two days. Links are in the description and comments. The Instagram account Karma Is Around The Korner is collecting women’s stories from across the dive industry, with an email if you want to report something. If you’re booking a dive trip, it’s worth a look. Then ask the shop what their safeguarding policy is. If they look at you like you asked for the submarine’s wine list, keep your money on land. And ask other women. Girls That Scuba is a good place to start. Speed Round Okay, speed round. Missouri Calls Its Abortion Ban a Right Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway wrote an op-ed describing Amendment 3, which puts an abortion ban in the state constitution, as protecting a woman’s right to abortion “for medical emergencies.” Calling a ban a right is like calling a padlock a door. Florida’s Chief Justice Gave Anti-Abortion Activists a Courthouse Tour Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz called Roe an “abomination” and once gave an anti-abortion group a private tour of the courthouse. He’s on the ballot this November. Florida, feel free to give him a tour of the exit. SNL Rehires the Guy It Fired, He Calls Women Whores And comedian Shane Gillis, who SNL fired in 2019 after old clips of him using racist slurs resurfaced, just hosted for the third time and used his monologue to say, “I didn’t know women just dress like whores now,” about gym clothes. SNL alum Ego Nwodim posted her workout outfit captioned “Whore reporting for duty.” Michael Che’s take: “That’s comedy.” So getting fired from SNL is apparently the fastest way back onto SNL. Shane, nobody at the gym is dressing for you. Nobody at the gym is thinking about you at all, which seems to be the real problem. Stay angry. Stay loud. Under Her Eye. Sources: https://michiganadvance.com/?p=114383 https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/trump-administration-cabinet-officials-women-20261015.html https://www.meidasplus.com/p/friday-breaking-she-just-got-fired https://www.meidasplus.com/p/tuesday-afternoon-updates-trumps-418 https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article317634839.html https://www.meidasplus.com/p/today-in-politics-bulletin-482-101626 https://theweeklylist.substack.com/p/week-101-the-return https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/cms-ends-medicaid-chip-funding-gender-affirming-care-minors https://genderju

  8. Oct 16

    ICE Is Taking Kids From Their Parents And Labeling Them "Unaccompanied"

    ICE is arresting parents inside the United States, taking their kids, and stamping those kids “unaccompanied” so it can lock them in federal shelters and foster care for months. Mother Jones found kids as young as 8. Under Biden this almost never happened. Under Trump, kids taken inside the country instead of at the border are now about 1 in 5 of the children sent to these shelters, and lawyers think it’s closing in on half. Kids used to be held about a month. Now the average is more than six. In April, ICE arrested a Venezuelan dad outside his home in El Paso with his 11-year-old son. Around midnight, officers took the boy away. His dad begged them, said his son needed him. They told the kid he’d be in touch with his father. Then ICE labeled him unaccompanied, a child alone in America. He wasn’t alone. His stepmom was here and tried to take him home, but she didn’t have a taxpayer ID number, so the government wouldn’t release him to her. The dad didn’t hear anything for about five days. When he did, he said, “You kidnapped my son.” The boy got bounced through hotel rooms in Arizona, then foster care in Texas. More than three months later, the government sent him back to Venezuela by himself and never told his mom when he’d land. An 11-year-old sat outside an airport in Venezuela until dark, until his lawyer helped his mom find him. His lawyer said, “They literally were gonna fly an 11-year-old boy by himself and just dump him in Venezuela.” Homeland Security’s official statement: “ICE does not separate families.” Oh, okay. So the 11-year-old in Texas foster care was just on a really long sleepover. And if a relative does step up to take one of these kids home, it might cost them. The agency holding these children shares what it learns with ICE. Reuters found more than 12,000 people have been arrested off those tips. One lawyer said, “They are using the children as bait.” The agency that’s supposed to protect these kids is running a lost and found where the guy behind the counter has handcuffs. A former deputy director of that agency says the point is “to make sure no one ever sends their kids to the US again.” So the policy is to traumatize enough children that word gets around. What the actual feck. The Trump administration did this in 2018. The whole country saw kids in cages, and the backlash got so bad Trump signed an order to end it. Now it’s back, just harder to see. They moved it from the border to your neighbor’s driveway and gave it a nicer label. Unaccompanied. That’s what they call a kid after they take his dad. Sources: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/10/ice-orr-office-refugee-resettlement-donald-trump-stephen-miller-family-separations-foster-care-deportations/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/thousands-children-sponsors-arrested-by-ice-after-tips-us-child-migrant-agency-2026-07-28/ My posts are always free. My rent is not. Subscribe to keep me yelling. Get full access to The Rogue Voice aka Linsay Rousseau at linsayrousseau.substack.com/subscribe

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Daily correspondence from the collapsing American experiment. Linsay Rousseau aka The Rogue Voice - is a Writer📝Activist✊ Army Iraq War combat veteran 🫡 & former investigative reporter. She tackles fascism with a mix of rage and dark humor. Welcome to the rebellion b!tches. linsayrousseau.substack.com

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