u/Nerd-19958

In response to Donald Trump's recent settlement of his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (an Executive Branch department) for leaking his tax returns* several years ago, and the ensuing $1.776 billion J6 slush fund, former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges filed suit to block the fund, which Trump calls an "anti-weaponization fund" to compensate "victims" of prosecution of J6 attempted insurrection.

*Every president from Richard Nixon onward, except Trump, has voluntarily released his tax returns annually.

Good news -- Dozens of anti-vaccine bills have been defeated in several states; defeating junk "MAHA" pseudoscience and quackery

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-states-reject-anti-vaccine-bills-public-health-groups-fight-maha-2026-05-18/

___________________________________

• Pro-vaccine groups successfully lobbied Republican lawmakers to block anti-vaccine bills
• Both sides expect more anti-vaccine bills in future legislative sessions
• White House directed Kennedy to pause anti-vaccine actions before midterms

WASHINGTON, May 18 (Reuters) - Dozens of state anti-vaccine bills backed by "Make America Healthy Again" supporters have failed after public health groups won over Republican state lawmakers, marking a series of defeats for the backers ​of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The failures show a limit to the political power of the MAHA coalition groups that had set out this year to pass ‌laws against mandatory vaccinations in at least 10 states, hoping to capitalize on a rise in anti-vaccine sentiment and their role in helping elect President Donald Trump.

* * * * *

While anti-vaccine bills have been proposed before, more emerged this year due to the coordinated efforts of MAHA groups, the groups told Reuters. ...

Those states include Idaho, which saw six bills introduced; West Virginia, which saw nine; Tennessee, which saw eight; and South Dakota, which saw five - none of which passed...

Idaho last year passed a first-in-the-nation ban on vaccine mandates, but failed to advance further anti-vaccine legislation this session. Florida, too, discussed doing away with vaccine mandates but did not pass bills to do so during its legislative session.

* * * * *

Iowa public lobbying records give a snapshot of the advocacy push. Faber said advocates there were monitoring 18 anti-vaccine bills, one of ​which would have removed vaccine requirements for primary and secondary school students.

* * * * *

© 2026 Reuters. All rights reserved

Addition by subtraction -- unqualified, anti-vaxxer Tracy Beth Hoeg is expected to step down from her position as Acting Director of FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). This is a consequence of the departure of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, M.D. See excerpt from article linked below:

>WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - The acting head of the ​U.S. Food and Drug Administration's drug center, Tracey Beth Hoeg, is expected to leave the agency just ‌days after Commissioner Marty Makary resigned, according to three people familiar with internal planning.

>Hoeg, an epidemiologist and sports physician who cast doubt on COVID vaccines during the pandemic, helped lead the effort to overhaul the U.S. childhood vaccination schedule by reducing the number of recommended shots from 17 to 11 in January.

FDA drug center head expected to leave after commissioner's exit, sources say [Reuters]

The author of this opinion piece draws a parallel between Trump's Department of Justice's persecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center for funding paid informants to gather information about violent racist hate groups, and private lawsuits from 2016-17 claiming that Greenpeace USA and other opponents of an oil pipeline project were violating the federal Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations Act because pipelines were allegedly safer for transporting oil than other means of transportation. Thus the plaintiffs sought to charge the pipeline opponents with misrepresenting their mission of protecting the environment. One of those suits was immediately dismissed, the other was settled while an appeal was pending.

Democrats and civil rights organizations filed suits (since combined) intended to block certain aspects of a Trump executive order issued in late March regarding a purported database of legal US citizens to be compiled by the Department of Homeland Security and shared with the States, for voter suppression purposes. Additionally Trump's order directed the US Postal Service [an independent Federal agency, not part of Trump's cabinet] to create a rule that would only permit vote-by-mail materials to be delivered to people on that list.

The true intent of DOJ was shown by their comment that "...while acknowledging that the state lists would not contain perfect information about every eligible voter, can’t be held responsible for potential unlawful actions by a state to remove an eligible voter from the rolls, Pezzi said."

(Excerpt)

>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved Thursday to relax limits that require coal-fired power plants to prevent the release of toxic heavy metals into streams and rivers, saying a three-year-old rule is unduly costly for the energy industry at a time when energy demand is spiking.

According to the linked article, Federal courts have ruled against ICE in approximately 90% of detention cases in connection with Trump's mass deportation agenda. Not surprisingly, ICE and its xenophobic followers attribute this to activist judges, radical left-wing lunatics, and the usual catchphrases.

However, the extent of rulings against ICE are telling: out of 11,600 court decisions, 10,200 went against ICE. According to the article, Politico has released the full database of those rulings.

When the Federal government demands 10% ownership of a company in return for a bailout, and approves another company's foreign merger only in return for veto power over the merged company's major decisions -- anyone who does not recognize that as socialism is blinded by the orange fool's fake tan glow.

I am very thankful that Spirit Airlines did not agree to a similar Trumpist takeover; had they done so, Don the Con definitely would have had his chubby diseased hands in the till. Considering Trump's war of choice on Iran and resulting skyrocketing jet fuel prices definitely put the final nail in Spirit's coffin, that would have been a decidedly corrupt look (even considering the source).

Section 8.2.2.1 of Mediacom's updated service agreement states that, for customers who use Mediacom's routers / gateways, that equipment [which the customer pays to lease] is also used to broadcast Mediacom's Wi-Fi network for their cell customers (Mediacom Mobile Service) as well as the customer's own home Wi-Fi. (Mediacom cell phones default to using Wi-Fi where available rather than cell networks.)

I don't know if this is standard practice among cell service providers. It seems to me that if a customer pays to lease equipment and pays for Mediacom Wi-Fi at a specified bandwidth, that if Mediacom is also using that equipment to service their cell customers, the home customer's bandwidth might be negatively affected.

In any event, in the same section noted above, a phone number is provided for home customers to inform Mediacom that they do not want their leased equipment used to also broadcast Mediacom's Mobile Service Wi-Fi network.

Three years ago we moved to a small development where Mediacom is the only provider. Mediacom recently sent an updated service agreement which stated (among other things) that if a customer rents their Wi-Fi equipment from Mediacom, Mediacom will use that equipment to provide service to Mediacom's Wi-Fi network (Mediacom Mobile, for cell phone customers) as well as the home customer's Wi-Fi. Mediacom's cell phone network defaults to Wi-Fi where available.

In other words, Mediacom is charging home Wi-Fi customers to rent equipment, which Mediacom also uses to extend its own Wi-Fi network.

I am posting this here to ask if Comcast / Xfinity does the same? We were Comcast / Xfinity customers for 20+ years at our previous home, but unfortunately only Mediacom is available in our small community.