SunSeeker
SunSeeker's JournalMidwife Is First Person Charged With Violating Texas' Extreme Abortion Ban
A Houston-area midwife is the first person to be charged in Texas with violating the state’s extreme abortion ban, which outlaws the procedure under nearly all circumstances.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office announced the arrest of Maria Margarita Rojas on Tuesday, saying an investigation found she has been “providing illegal abortions and illegally operating a network of clinics in the Northwest Houston area.” Rojas, who Paxton said went by Dr. Maria, was charged with the illegal performance of an abortion and practicing medicine without a license.
The former is a second-degree felony in Texas and is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Rojas, who is listed as a licensed midwife by the Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation, has not spoken out publicly, either directly or through legal counsel.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-abortion-ban-first-person-charged_n_67d89de8e4b0682946100786
Why is America Intentionally Destroying Its Gobal Influence?
This is the clearest, simplest and most intelligent explanation of how the US has used its global influence to become rich, and how Trump's spurning of that global influence, and betrayal of our allies, spells the end of the American empire:
The comments to the video are also worth a read. A lot of his followers appear to be Canadians and Europeans, and what they say about Trump betraying them is quite eye opening and heartbreaking. The trust is gone, probably irretrievably so. Nobody wants to buy anything American anymore. And nations are looking to others for military purchases like drones and planes, fearing US can no longer be trusted for maintenance parts--after Trump shockingly stopped military aid to Ukraine. Many note their countries will be purchasing from German defense manufacturers from now on. This will cost the American economy trillions of dollars in the coming years.
Schumer explains why a shutdown would be worse that voting for the CR.
Key point (near end of video): federal courts would be shut down in a shutdown, and we would not be able to run into court to get an injection against the latest Trump/Doge insanity. Courts have been the only place we have been successful at constraining Trump.
Loved ones devastated after Southern California grandparents detained by ICE
Three Southern California sisters are devastated and working to get by after they said their parents were suddenly taken away from them by immigration authorities. It’s been weeks since their mother, Gladys, and father, Nelson, were detained after the couple went in for a standard appointment with immigration authorities.
Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez moved from Colombia to the U.S. without documentation 35 years ago before settling down in Newport Beach in Orange County and building a life. The couple has raised three daughters and now have a young grandson.
The Gonzalez sisters said their parents were detained at their ICE appointment and then transferred to a detention center. “They were put into handcuffs by their wrists and ankles and treated as criminals before getting to these detention centers,” Stephanie said. “All they said is they extended their stay, even though every year they’ve had permission to be here and they’re law-abiding citizens who show up and are doing their duty to check in with immigration and say, ‘Hey I’m here. I’m not hiding or doing anything wrong.’ Then they just arrested them like that.” https://ktla.com/news/local-news/loved-ones-devastated-southern-california-grandparents-detained-by-ice/
Calif. congressman infuriates locals with response to Yosemite cuts
Over the last several weeks, as Yosemite National Park fell into chaos due to the Trump administration’s whiplash-inducing executive orders and indiscriminate layoffs, people began asking what Rep. Tom McClintock was going to do about it. McClintock, a Republican, represents the 5th Congressional District, a sprawling Central California territory that contains Yosemite. He’s been conspicuously absent from town hall meetings in gateway towns and hasn’t been making public statements.
But on Thursday McClintock broke his silence and published an op-ed that infuriated park employees and gateway residents. Here’s his gist: The federal workforce is bloated. Only a few Yosemite employees got fired. The protesters are out of line. The park will be fine. McClintock likened legitimate concerns about endangered species going extinct, devastating wildfires and public safety hazards to a “Ghostbusters” quote: “Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria,” he wrote.
He neglected to mention anything about the Trump administration suspending the park’s reservations system, which has been crucial to managing crowds and traffic congestion, and is silent on the employee credit card spending limit having been lowered to $1, meaning regional supervisors must now purchase items like toilet paper, hand soap and maintenance supplies.
The congressman emphasized that government spending must be reined in, stressing that every dollar of discretionary spending by the federal government is now borrowed. What he did not say is that the National Park Service requires less than one-fifteenth of 1 percent of the federal budget, or about $4.7 billion. Meanwhile, national parks added $56.5 billion to the economy in 2023, according to a park service report, and provided 415,400 jobs in nearby communities.
https://www.sfgate.com/california-parks/article/tom-mcclintock-thinks-yosemite-is-fine-20209454.php?fbclid=IwY2xjawI9069leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXs5ZH5wfw6IJonrg-HyzC5XcmiwBZDtUR2vNnXdXujor1yFS_HrM1jzmw_aem_wYNDL9OCZbu7aAezHgPqTA
House narrowly passes six-month funding bill as shutdown deadline nears
Source: NBC News
The Republican-led House voted Tuesday to pass a six-month funding bill that would prevent a government shutdown at the end of the week, overcoming fierce Democratic objections.
The vote was 217-213, with all Republicans but Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky supporting the continuing resolution. One Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted for it.
The measure now heads to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. Republicans control 53 seats, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has made clear he’s firmly against it. That means at least eight Democratic senators would have to support the bill to cross the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and send it to President Donald Trump’s desk.
The government is set to run out of money late Friday night.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-vote-funding-bill-avert-government-shutdown-rcna195808
Media Matters accuses Musk's X of 'abusive' tactics in new lawsuit
U.S. media watchdog group Media Matters sued Elon Musk’s X on Monday, accusing it of bringing "abusive," costly and meritless lawsuits to punish Media Matters for its reporting on advertising on X after Musk bought the social media platform.
Media Matters' lawsuit, opens new tab in federal court in San Francisco asked a judge to block two cases that X filed in Ireland and Singapore against the watchdog.
The lawsuit also asked the court to declare that California is the appropriate venue for disputes involving X and its terms of service. X is currently also suing Media Matters in a federal court in Texas.
"X initiated a vendetta-driven campaign of libel tourism, spanning three jurisdictions in three countries, all arising from the same conduct: Media Matters’ use of X’s platform in accordance with X’s Terms of Service and its truthful reporting on the results," the complaint said.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/media-matters-accuses-musks-x-abusive-tactics-new-lawsuit-2025-03-10/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0B_Rm9xXM8nmPbbkAENgY9bUPCwsALtVZddqlKKe89Nx4gPCDj5cD6Ub8_aem_M1OveFJftLeRA2R3yejkXA
What Will Save Us
History is written in moments like these. Two days ago, in the French Senate, Claude Malhuret delivered a speech that cuts to the heart of our time—blistering in its truth and what we need to do. Every word matters.
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Transcript below of an incredibly powerful and deadly accurate speech in the French Senate two days ago by Mr. Claude Malhuret. This may some day take its rightful place alongside the best of Sir Winston Churchill and President John F Kennedy.
Brace yourself:
“President, Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers, My dear colleagues,
Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened.
Washington has become the court of Nero, a fiery emperor, submissive courtiers and a ketamine-fueled jester in charge of purging the civil service.
This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose more customs duties on you than on his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.
The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is all about. He thinks he will intimidate China by lying down before Putin, but Xi Jinping, faced with such a shipwreck, is probably accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.
Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy. Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally. Never has anyone trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military general staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media.
This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution.
I have faith in the strength of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor.
Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to submit or resign.
Tonight, he took another step into infamy by stopping the delivery of weapons that had been promised. What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: face it.
And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin.
The countries of the South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe or whether they are now free to trample on it.
What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with its first principle being the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
This idea is at the very source of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries.
Mine is Greenland, Panama and Canada, you are Ukraine, the Baltics and Eastern Europe, he is Taiwan and the China Sea.
At the parties of the oligarchs of the Gulf of Mar-a-Lago, this is called “diplomatic realism.”
So we are alone. But the talk that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated.
Interest rates at 25%, the collapse of foreign exchange and gold reserves, the demographic collapse show that it is on the brink of the abyss. The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war.
The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in one day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands and that they have three imperatives.
Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that it holds, and of course to impose its presence and that of Europe in any negotiation.
This will be expensive. It will be necessary to end the taboo of the use of frozen Russian assets. It will be necessary to circumvent Moscow’s accomplices within Europe itself by a coalition of only the willing countries, with of course the United Kingdom.
Second, demand that any agreement be accompanied by the return of kidnapped children, prisoners and absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia and Minsk, we know what agreements with Putin are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion.
Finally, and this is the most urgent, because it is what will take the most time, we must build the neglected European defence, to the benefit of the American umbrella since 1945 and scuttled since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It is a Herculean task, but it is on its success or failure that the leaders of today’s democratic Europe will be judged in the history books.
Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is to recognize that France has been right for decades in arguing for strategic autonomy.
It remains to be built. It will be necessary to invest massively, to strengthen the European Defence Fund outside the Maastricht debt criteria, to harmonize weapons and munitions systems, to accelerate the entry into the Union of Ukraine, which is today the leading European army, to rethink the place and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, to relaunch the anti-missile shield and satellite programs.
The plan announced yesterday by Ursula von der Leyen is a very good starting point. And much more will be needed.
Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power again. In a word, the Draghi report will have to be implemented. For good.
But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament.
We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the extreme right and the extreme left.
They argued again yesterday in the National Assembly, Mr Prime Minister, before you, against European unity, against European defence.
They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain at the beck and call of Putin.
Peace for the collaborators who have refused any aid to the Ukrainians for three years.
Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great. But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken in the last month have finally made the Americans react.
Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical.
The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, the Parliament, the Supreme Court and social networks.
But in American history, the freedom fighters have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads.
The fate of Ukraine is being played out in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the United States who want to defend democracy, and here on our ability to unite Europeans, to find the means for their common defense, and to make Europe the power that it once was in history and that it hesitates to become again.
Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost.
The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century.
Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.”
-Claude Malhuret speaking to the French Senate Tuesday March 4 2025. You have just read the transcript of a speech that will live forever in the history books.
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