According to International Labour Organization, 29 million slaves - 71% of the estimated total - are women and girls. They also comprise 99% of forced labour workforce in sex industry, and 84% of forced marriages.

Outgoing Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), defeated in May's GOP primary by a Trump-endorsed opponent, made clear Friday he plans to use his "newfound political freedom" to extract concessions from the White House – or blow up its plans in the process, Punchbowl News reported Monday.

At the top of Cornyn’s list is officially shuttering the Trump administration’s anti-weaponization fund, a taxpayer-funded $1.7 billion fund dedicated to awarding payouts to those who’ve claimed to have been unfairly targeted by the Biden Administration’s Justice Department. Cornyn suggested that President Donald Trump’s nomination of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche could be in jeopardy if the White House doesn’t fold on the fund.

“They’re not enthusiastic about it, but if they want to get [Blanche] out of the committee, I think they realize they need to talk to us,” Cornyn said, according to Punchbowl News.

Just my opinion but it might not be that unpopular, who knows?

The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas is trying to turn a key talking point of his Republican opponent against him — alleging Attorney General Ken Paxton is guilty of the same type of voter fraud he has spent years trying to eliminate.

“As our state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton has gone on a voter fraud witch hunt,” state Rep. James Talarico, who is challenging Paxton in the race to replace U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, said during a campaign event in Houston. “Turns out, he was committing voter fraud the whole time, voting illegally in six elections in a row from the wrong address.”

Talarico’s comments come after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune revealed that Paxton moved out of the home he shared with his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, in 2024 but continued to vote using that address, including during the March Republican primary in which he beat Cornyn. Three election experts told the news organizations that Paxton may have broken state law.

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/50080745

On March 30, on a morning like any other in my hometown of Milwaukee, a man in plain clothes emerged from a car speeding toward me, a handgun visible at his side, and asked, "Are you Salah Sarsour?” 

Within minutes, nearly a dozen cars and some 20 agents – masked, plainclothes, one flashing a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge – converged on me and informed me that I was under arrest. 

I was sure it was a case of mistaken identity.  

After all, I have been a legal permanent resident for over 30 years with a clean record here, a business owner deeply connected to my community, and a devoted father of six children and nine grandchildren, all of whom are U.S. citizens.

I was wrong.

In a brazen assault on the First Amendment and an affront to the Constitution, I believe I was targeted, arrested and detained by the Trump administration for speaking out against the ongoing atrocities Israel is committing, just as I and so many others believe that Mahmoud Khalil, Sami Hamdi, Yaacub Ira, Leqaa Kordia and others were before me.

As a national leader supporting some of the largest and longest-standing grassroots organizations for Palestinian rights, my arrest marked a serious escalation in the Trump administration’s repression agenda. This is not just an attack against me and others working for Palestinian freedom; it is an attempt to dismantle the very values we profess as a nation. 

Although a judge on June 18 ordered my release, affirming that my speech in support of Palestinian rights is constitutionally protected, my legal battle is far from over. I still face the threat of deportation.

My case is part of a broader retaliatory pattern targeting those who have worked to expose Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. The aim is simple and should give us all pause: to have a chilling effect on constitutionally protected free speech that the government dislikes. 

The conditions in the ICE jail in Indiana, where I spent 80 long days, were degrading and dehumanizing.

I was denied appropriate testing and proper nutrition needed for my Type 2 diabetes, losing at least 30 pounds while in custody.

Basic religious accommodations, like halal food and mandatory Friday congregational prayers, were not reasonably provided, and I faced disruptions to and ridicule of my obligatory dawn prayers.

...

Aspects of my confinement were hauntingly reminiscent of my experience growing up under a brutal Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, where we became accustomed to violent, humiliating treatment at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

...

Why is the Trump administration undermining our constitutional rights to silence criticism of a foreign country and opinions it doesn't agree with? The erosion of our civil liberties is the real threat facing America today.

While Trump touted the proposed changes as safeguards to keep non-U.S. citizens from voting, state election officials argued they were ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.

Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia challenged Trump’s order in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston. They argued that Trump’s order was unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the authority to set election rules.

U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, agreed and halted Trump’s order from being implemented for the Nov. 3 elections — but only in the states that have sued.

Apparently there will be some boycott of PS in regards of decision to discontinue disks.

From 23 to 30 of August.

... a 70-year old chief medical officer at the California-based firm Immix Biopharma was found to be a fugitive sex predator who disappeared during his 2005 trial. Though he went by Richard Graydon in the more than twenty years since, his real name turns out to be Ronald Fischer — an anesthesiologist accused of raping numerous women on his various yachts (yes, plural).

A recent Army memo speeds up the process of firing underperforming civilians while giving them less time to defend their work.

The policy, issued July 7, lays out a monthlong process for reporting, investigating and opting to remove an employee. The changes follow Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s September 2025 directive to fire unsuccessful employees “with speed and conviction,” aiming to rid the department of those it feels are hindering its progress. And it puts the Army’s 188,000 or so civilian workers on unsteady footing as the service plans to continue cutting those jobs in 2027.

The guidance provides paths to firing for two sets of Army civil servants: one for general schedule employees and others who comprise the vast majority of the workforce; and a truncated one for those who staff exchanges, bowling alleys and other facilities that generate revenue, known as “nonappropriated fund” employees.

Endtour (Jef Wu) - RealmTraveller #001 Bathing the Sunshine

TIL In 1980 the Supreme Court awarded the Sioux nations $122 million for the Black Hills, a settlement the tribes have refused on the grounds that acceptance would extinguish their claim to the land, leaving the award to accrue interest in a federal account now worth over $1 billion.

House Democrats who voted against cutting US aid to Israel received three times as much money from pro-Israel donors as those who voted in favor. (Median = 3.1 times as much.)

Democrats who voted against the amendment accepted an average of $348,239; those who voted in favor received $115,932 on average. All together, $34 million in pro-Israel cash was behind the votes against cutting aid to Israel.

Did the money actually buy votes? Or did the money simply help keep in office politicians who are comfortable ignoring voters?1 Neither option is very good.

The U.S. has paused bombing Iran for a third straight night after senior Trump administration officials reportedly warned the president about dwindling munitions stockpiles. In response, Iran said it would pause retaliatory strikes against U.S. bases across the Middle East. Over the weekend, the Pentagon updated its official war casualty database, adding more than 140 wounded service members. The new figures show that 18 U.S. troops have been killed and 624 wounded since the U.S. launched its war against Iran back in February. The Pentagon is separating the casualty figures: Deaths and injuries after the ceasefire ended on July 7 are listed in a separate database labeled generically as “overseas operations casualties.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of attacking an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, saying one sailor was killed and another injured. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia ⁠of passing on to Iran its satellite observations in the Middle East, allowing Iran to launch attacks across the region. This comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to visit the White House Tuesday for the first time since the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran in February.

Despite the lull in fighting, Britain said its armed forces were ready to defend itself after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps warned the U.K. not to allow U.S. bombers to fly from U.K. bases. On Thursday, the IRGC claimed that the U.S. had flown bombing missions against Iran from Fairford Air Base in southwest England.