Today is the anniversary of the worst memo in history Robert Reich Aug 23 Friends, Today marks the start of the slide that ended in the catastrophe of Trump. On August 23, 1971, fewer than two months before he was nominated to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. wrote a memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It was titled “Attack On American Free Enterprise System” and it outlined ways in which corporate America should defend and counter attack against "disquieting voices” — environmentalists, consumer advocates, and labor unions. Powell warned that their voices were growing louder and their influence was gaining in the halls of Congress. I remember the time very well. The nation was witnessing a flowering of reform. Just as the “muckrakers” of the first years of the twentieth century had spawned the Progressive Era in response to the wide inequalities and corruption of the first Gilded Age and its “robber barons,” the reformers of the 1960s were on the verge of spawning another progressive era that would rebalance the American economy in favor of all its stakeholders. Louis Powell thought so, too, but he was deeply alarmed by it. He told corporate America that businesses must pour money into political campaigns, public relations campaigns, and litigation all aimed at putting an end to this wave of reform. Corporate America duly followed Powell’s’ advice. An entire corporate-political complex was born, including tens of thousands of lobbyists, lawyers, political operatives, and public relations flacks. Within a few decades, big corporations became the largest political force in Washington and in most state capitals. The number of corporate political action committees (PACs) mushroomed from under 300 in 1976 to over 1,200 four years later. Between the late 1970s and the late 1980s, corporate PACs increased their expenditures on congressional races nearly fivefold. Labor union PAC spending rose only about half as fast. I saw Washington change. When I arrived there in 1974 to work in the Ford administration, it was a rather seedy town. By the time I returned as secretary of labor in 1993, it had been transformed into a glittering center of corporate America — replete with elegant office buildings, fancy restaurants, pricy bistros, five-star hotels, major conference centers, beautiful town houses, and a booming real estate market that pushed Washington’s poor, most of whom were Black, out of the increasingly upscale Northwest portion of the city and made two of Washington’s adjoining counties among the wealthiest in the nation. By that time, corporations employed some 61,000 people to lobby for them, including registered lobbyists and lawyers. That came to more than a hundred lobbyists for each member of Congress. That tsunami of big money from giant corporations, their CEOs, top executives, and major investors, was engulfing American politics. It not only sunk reform; it began to rig the entire system in favor of the moneyed interests and against average working people. In subsequent years, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates, ruling absurdly that money was speech under the First Amendment and corporations were people. And America is in a second Gilded Age of near-record inequality and corruption, featuring robber barons like Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and the biggest robber of them all — Trump. What’s the answer? No easy one, of course, but we have to get big money out of politics. Start with campaign finance reform — public funds matching small-donor contributions to candidates that agree to limit their campaign spending. Here’s a video I and my talented team did about all this. Should you wish more detail — and how the Powell memo fit into subsequent decades of widening inequality and mounting corruption, and what we must do to reverse course — you might want to read my new book Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America. You can support local bookstores by ordering it at bookshop.org.

Breaking news: we outraised RNCC chair Richard Hudson BRAVO! NORTH CAROLINA DESERVES A FIGHTER LIKE OJEDA!

 

This is the biggest news since the Cook Political Report moved this race into single digits and we wanted you to be the first to know:  We just sent Richard Hudson scrambling because we officially outraised the bastard last quarter. We beat the king sewer rat of the entire Republican fundraising operation at his own game and we did it with raw organizing muscle and working-class fire. While Hudson’s been busy licking Trump’s boots and spending his days blasting emails to hawk merch from a Florida internment camp, we’ve been out here doing the honest work of building community. Town by town. Dollar by dollar. Fighting like hell to take back this seat. Help us celebrate the big news by pitching in early and making damn sure we beat him next quarter too!  DONATE TO DEFEAT MAGA EXTREMISM! He’s already dumping cash into mailers lying about his votes, 15 months out from Election Day.  I say let him panic. We are already ten steps ahead and it’s because of you. You helped us raise money AND raise hell.  This victory belongs to you. Every single grassroots donation helped us wipe that smug look off Hudson’s face and prove he’s not untouchable.  We are building something stronger than his swamp network of corruption.  We are coming straight for him and we are going to rip every last crooked root of that NRCC cash machine out of this district and toss it into the Potomac. So if you’re fired up right now, get in the damn fight with us. Send Hudson a message that his filthy blood money doesn’t scare us. Not when we have each other.  Let’s bury Hudson’s corrupt legacy in a pile of receipts. Let’s flip this seat and drag the NRCC’s rotted carcass out with him. HELP US FLIP THIS SEAT! >> Sappers clear the way, Airborne all the way! Maj. Richard Ojeda (Ret.) Candidate for Congress, NC-09

Paid for by Ojeda for NC   Ojeda for NC PO Box 35 Aberdeen, NC 28315 United States

FOCUS: David Gardner | New Tapes Reveal Ghislaine Spilling Her Secrets and Lies

 

 

23 August 25

THE $10 DONATION AND THE $100 DONATION — Which is more important $10 donations or $100 dollar donations? The truth is both are vital to keeping RSN functioning and strong. RSN has successfully transcended economic lines, there is a mutually shared belief between progressive donors of all economic strata that to move the agenda forward long-term commitment is required. Keep RSN strong. This is working.
Marc Ash • Founder, Reader Supported News

Sure, I'll make a donation!

FOCUS: David Gardner | New Tapes Reveal Ghislaine Spilling Her Secrets and Lies
David Gardner, The Daily Beast
Gardner writes: "Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice revealed new details in recordings released by the Trump administration."

 

---

donate  •  support  

PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611

 

The Maxwell Tapes: How a Convicted Trafficker Hoodwinked America At Trump's Discretion Chopped audio. Redacted transcripts. Softball questions. This isn’t transparency—it’s choreography. Dean Blundell Aug 23 “He was a gentleman.” That’s the soundbite. That’s the product. And the “interview” was built to deliver it. *We chase the stories that Main Stream Media won’t, add receipts, and arm you with context you can trust. To celebrate this community’s humbling and incredible growth, we’re giving 50% off annual subscriptions - for life - when you upgrade by August 31, 2025. Lock it in once, keep it forever, and stay affirmed and informed… Two days of testimony. Not one clean, continuous audio file—just dozens of chopped “parts” and “tests.” Transcripts peppered with redactions. And the interviewer? The sitting Deputy Attorney General, who also happens to be Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche. If you wanted to launder credibility, you’d do exactly this. For survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, it lands like a gut punch. They told their stories under oath, faced the smear machine, and a jury believed them. Then along comes a curated government release that reads like a reputation-rescue mission for the powerful. TL;DR (for readers who skim) The format screams control: fragments instead of full audio, redactions without clarity, and questions that frame answers rather than stress-test them. Maxwell’s headline claims—“Trump was a gentleman,” “I only saw him socially,” “I never recruited from Mar-a-Lago,” “no one told me anything illegal,” “Epstein didn’t die by suicide”—collapse when held next to the public record and the president’s own words about a recruitment pipeline out of his club. This isn’t transparency. It’s choreography—and it writes survivors out of the story they already proved in court. The Timeline That Stinks The order of operations feels designed, not accidental: key prosecutors out; a friendly in-house interviewer in; then a release packaged for maximum spin and minimum scrutiny. The optics aren’t “unfortunate.” They’re telling. Proffer 101: Not a Free Pass—But It Played Like One Maxwell sat under a proffer—the classic “your words can’t be used against you in our case-in-chief unless you lie.” In real investigations, that boxes a witness in. Here, it felt like a padded room: sudden amnesia met with reassurance, not pressure. The result reads less like a search for truth and more like a search for a headline. And let’s not memory-hole this: Maxwell was once charged with perjury for earlier sworn statements. Those counts were dropped after her trafficking conviction to spare survivors another trial—not because she had some new gospel truth to share. So why is she suddenly a go-to voice on who’s a “gentleman”? Claim-by-Claim: Maxwell vs. Reality 1) “Trump was a gentleman. I only saw him socially.” Why it fails: Even the president’s own words acknowledge a recruitment pipeline out of Mar-a-Lago’s spa. Survivors have said this for years. You don’t get to pretend the pipeline didn’t exist and call it “only social.” That’s not a memory. That’s a rewrite. From the survivor's vantage point: “Social” is what abusers call the front of the house. The real story lives out back—in the rooms, the schedules, the cash. 2) “I never recruited anyone from Mar-a-Lago.” (Day 2 update: “Not impossible, I don’t recall.”) Why it fails: When your “never” turns into “maybe” overnight and the interviewer tells you that’s not a contradiction, that’s not an investigation. That’s brand management. From the survivor vantage point: Recruitment wasn’t a rumor. It had a location, a method, and a routine. 3) “If anyone told me something illegal, I’d have done something.” Why it fails: The jury didn’t convict vacuum air. Testimony put Maxwell in the rooms, on the schedules, and handling the cash. “No one told me” collapses when you were there. From the survivor vantage point: This is the oldest trick in the book—confuse “I didn’t hear a complaint” with innocence. Sudden amnesia. It’s one hell of a thing. 4) “There’s no ‘client list.’” Why it misleads: Technically, no official “list.” But there are contact books, logs, and documents placing powerful people in Epstein’s orbit. The “no list” flourish distracts from the records that do exist—and from what survivors have consistently described. From the survivor's vantage point: People demand a perfect list so they can ignore imperfect receipts. 5) “Epstein didn’t die by suicide.” Why it fails: The official finding says suicide, paired with a brutal indictment of jail failures that made it possible. Maxwell steers you toward mystery and away from accountability—and away from the years-long pipeline of abuse that preceded the jailhouse chaos. From the survivor vantage point: Conspiracy fog keeps cameras on the cell and off the victims. The Interview That Wouldn’t Cross-Examine The pattern is unmistakable: Framing, not probing. “These were social settings, yes?” is not a question; it’s a prompt. Assurance over pressure. When answers shift, the response isn’t “walk me through the contradiction,” it’s “that’s not conflicting.” Silences where questions should be. No sustained timeline work. No document-driven cross. No “let’s pull this thread.” Then there’s the medium: dozens of fragmented audio clips. In any serious inquiry, continuity is non-negotiable. Cuts create context—and motive. Survivors deserve the uncut version. What Survivors See They see a convicted trafficker handed a microphone to varnish the reputations of men who mingled in Epstein’s world—and a government more interested in optics than the full truth. They see the same system that finally delivered a verdict turn around and platform the convicted, while the wounded are asked—again—to swallow the rewrite. This isn’t cynicism. It’s pattern recognition. If This Isn’t a Cover-Up, Prove It Release the continuous audio of both days. Publish unredacted transcripts with clear, necessary redaction rationale. Show the prep docs: who wrote the outline, which lines of inquiry were dropped, why. Disclose the decision chain: who greenlit the timing, format, and personnel. Center survivors: brief them first, invite challenges, and commit to course-correct in public. Do that, and we can talk about credibility. Until then, this looks exactly like what it feels like: a government-facilitated absolution tour for the well-connected. The Bottom Line Maxwell’s “gentleman” line isn’t a stray sentence—it’s the deliverable. Everything around it—the chopped files, the guiding questions, the sudden amnesia—serves the same goal: absolve the powerful, blur the pipeline, and push survivors back into the shadows. Watergate was a break-in followed by a cover-up. This is a generation of girls fed into a machine of money and influence—and then forced to watch as that machine rewrites their story. That’s not just scandal. That’s a moral failure at the highest levels. Why it ALL matters If you believe survivors deserve the full, uncut truth, share this post, leave a comment for the record, and subscribe so we can keep pushing for receipts over spin. This Substack is reader-supported. We’re giving 50% off annual subscriptions - for life - when you upgrade by August 31, 2025. Lock it in once, keep it forever, and stay affirmed and informed…

BREAKING: Patrick Dugan changed his mind and is now running against me as a Republican

 

FIGHT BACK >> Hi folks, it’s Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.    It’s official. Patrick Dugan, who pretended to be a Democrat so he could run against me in the primary this year, changed his mind, announcing he would run as a Republican in the general election this November.    It’s shocking but unsurprising that a politician like Dugan would so brazenly lie in the hopes of getting elected.    Let’s be clear. He specifically said he would NEVER run as a Republican.    This doesn’t make any sense.    But I guess that’s par for the course in this Trump-led Republican Party. They blur fact and fiction. They blur truth and lies. They blur science and scams, and they blur elections and insurrections. That’s who they are.    They are at war with the truth.   Now, MAGA Republican donors are going to siphon HUGE sums of cash into this race. So I’m setting a goal of raising $10,000 by our mid-month fundraising deadline. Can you pitch $20 or more right now to help me stand up to my Republican opponent?

DONATE NOW I’m not one to back down from a fight, and Philly is worth fighting for.    Thank you,   Larry Krasner   CONTRIBUTE

Lawrence Krasner for District Attorney 239 S Camac St Philadelphia, PA 19107 United States

Supporter update: Rescuing animals in need

 

How we’re still helping Los Angeles after the wildfires   Adam Parascandola, vice president of the Animal Rescue Team here at Humane World for Animals, reflects on the six months that have passed since the wildfires in Los Angeles devastated whole communities. At the time, we saw the astounding courage and strength of the many California-based groups working on the ground. We pledged $1 million in funding to support the recovery efforts and for future preparation. In this blog, Adam gives updates about how we’re continuing to help Los Angeles recover.

Make sure you and your pet are prepared for emergencies Watch this quick, one-minute video to learn how to prepare for your pet's safety in case of a disaster. A few simple steps, like packing an evacuation bag, can make all the difference when a crisis happens.   Our third suspected dogfighting case this summer Our Animal Rescue Team has been busy this summer, rescuing dogs from several different alleged dogfighting operations in multiple states. Read about one of these important rescues.

Your impact in support of a cruelty-free Bok Nal Animal advocates like you helped garner nearly 100,000 signatures in support of a cruelty-free Bok Nal. We also launched a public awareness campaign in Seoul, South Korea to celebrate this initiative and support their phase out of the dog meat industry by 2027. Until then, we’ll continue our lifesaving work. Together, there is nothing we cannot achieve.   Monkeys, opossums and more returned to the wild Together with our partners, we helped rehabilitate and release 14 mammals and birds back into the wild of the Guatemalan rainforest. Some of the animals included were a collared hawk, opossums, a white-nosed coati, a raccoon and black howler monkeys. Many arrived at the rescue center as babies or juveniles separated from their mothers or taken to be used as pets.

Families are really struggling to afford their pets right now Inflation, the high cost of pet care and a lack of pet-friendly housing options are just some of the reasons so many people are struggling to afford to care for their pets right now. Learn more about this complex issue and what you can do to help! There is no easy fix to this problem so we all have to work together to make sure pets and their families can stay together.   Hope for wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service broke the law when it decided not to protect gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains under the federal Endangered Species Act. The ruling is the result of a lawsuit that we and our allies filed last year challenging the agency’s decision.

Photos by GDMatt66/Getty Images; Jean Chung/For Humane World for Animals; Rodrigo Pop/Humane World for Animals; Colin Hackley/AP Images for Humane World for Animals; Meredith Lee/Humane World for Animals; Keith Getter/Getty Images; Bob Landis

Donate today to stand up for animals who need you.

© 2025 Humane World for Animals, Inc. 1255 23rd Street, NW, Suite 450, Washington, DC 20037 donorcare@humaneworld.org | 202-452-1100