Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.
And thank you Jinx Corle, Laurie Schmeer, Anne Savard, and many others for tuning into my live video with COURIER and Gina Hinojosa! If there are any other midterm candidates you’d like me to interview, please let me know.
Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.
It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.
What Happened
People are seeing recession indicators everywhere — at the store, in restaurants, on credit cards — but one of the biggest, most depressing, and uniquely American recession indicators has been quietly popping up in strip malls everywhere they’re legal to operate: plasma centers.
The allure of quick cash at a time when prices continue to rise and wages remain stagnant has brought a surge of new clientele to the for-profit plasma industry since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Payouts to donors hit a record-breaking $4.7 billion in 2025 and are expected to surpass $5 billion in 2026. Unsurprisingly, the states with the largest increases in donations overlap almost identically with those where residents report the highest levels of economic distress — and nowhere is that disparity more stark than in Texas.
Texas is home to more than 180 plasma centers, which doled out over $650 million to residents last year. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for governor, said that where these facilities are setting up shop and who their target customers are has shifted in recent years, from college students and low-income residents to working professionals.
“There are now these plasma centers that are popping up in suburban, middle-class areas where teachers are giving plasma two to three times a week just to pay their bills,” Hinojosa told COURIER. “It’s a second job — donating plasma two to three times a week. That’s the level of desperation people are feeling.”
Hinojosa believes the financial necessity of selling plasma is symbolic of the state of Texas under Gov. Greg Abbott’s leadership. While Abbott has enticed large corporations like Tesla to migrate from California to Texas with low taxes, the wealth their leaders have amassed has not trickled down in the slightest. The year Texas became home to the world’s first trillionaire, local businesses closed or went bankrupt at a faster rate than any other state in the country.
In an effort to transfer some of that wealth back to Texas households, Hinojosa has proposed a one-time, $1,500 tax refund. The money would come from the state’s rainy day fund, which has ballooned to a record $25 billion under Abbott. The refund, dubbed the “Greg Abbott Corruption Tax Refund” by Hinojosa, would use approximately $17 billion from the fund and provide each household with a tax-free lump sum roughly equivalent to the payout from 30 plasma donations.
Also closing at an alarming rate are the state’s public schools, a result of the state’s new voucher system that subsidizes private schools with money from Texas’ public school budget. As has happened in other states, Texas’ voucher program has incentivized the for-profit education industry to open hundreds of new private and charter schools, siphoning funds away from local public schools, forcing some to either condense their schedules to four days a week or close completely.
“It is one big grift, that is what we’re experiencing in Texas,” said Hinojosa. “We pay more — property taxes have skyrocketed under Greg Abbott — yet we have over 170 schools shutting down in the state. We have over 150 whole school districts operating at four days a week because they can’t afford to operate at five days a week. That’s the crisis we have in public schools right now; that’s why we see this as the last best chance to save our public schools.”
Despite promises that school vouchers — known deceptively as “school choice” by advocates — offer households at every income level the opportunity to improve their children’s education, it’s been confirmed time and time again that they disproportionately benefit the wealthy. The vast majority of voucher money is used to subsidize the education costs of students who already attended private schools, while lower-income households who rely on public schools are left with fewer options as schools are forced to close.
Hinojosa, who began her political career as a school board member, plans to reign in voucher spending and return funding to public schools. In the state legislature, she worked with Republicans to vote down Abbott’s voucher proposal in 2023 over fears of rural school closures. The closures that have occurred since vouchers were approved in 2025 have confirmed those fears. Hinojosa believes she can work with Republicans again as governor to shut down the state’s $1 billion voucher program and redirect the money toward reopening underfunded schools.
Attempts to Sanewash
Some say selling plasma is exploitative — others say it’s a life-saving economy booster
Middle-class Americans are selling their plasma to make ends meet
Far-Right Spin
Government made your burrito more expensive, and socialism will make it worse
California burdened most by affordability issue, Steve Hilton says
DOJ leaked withheld portion of Epstein Files to conservative media, doxxing victims
For months, the Department of Justice has refused to publicly release a section of the Epstein Files containing handwritten notes from an FBI interview with one of Epstein’s victims — but last week, some of those notes were found posted online, uploaded by a conservative journalist who received them from a DOJ employee.
The 37 pages of handwritten notes have been the subject of speculation, criticism, and lawsuits over the DOJ’s stewardship of the Epstein Files. Attorney General Todd Blanche has blocked the publication of millions of investigative files the DOJ has on Epstein, including the handwritten interview notes, claiming they are merely duplicative of records that have already been released. But an unredacted copy of the notes, uploaded to the document hosting site Scribd by Washington Examiner reporter Kaelan Deese, reveals enough discrepancies between what they contain and what was already public to cast Blanche’s entire defense into question.
“There are a few details that wouldn’t have needed to be redacted,” said Dr. Rye Howard-Stone, a computer scientist who tracked the origin of the leaked notes and verified their authenticity. “There’s a road trip to New Jersey, a school trip to Washington DC, and then the names of corroborating witnesses she gave the FBI — who, according to the Post and Courier, were never contacted. Obviously, the names of the witnesses should be redacted. But the fact that there are, or potentially are, uncontacted witnesses is important.”
Blanche has repeatedly invoked the duplicative defense since Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, claiming that — contrary to the law as it’s written — he can withhold any duplicate records since the information they contain has already been published. However, even by Blanche’s own standard, there appears to be no legal reason to withhold the notes from Doe 4’s interview, as the leaked documents disprove the notion that the information would be redundant.
In fact, releasing duplicative records does not appear to have been a consistent concern to the DOJ at all when deciding what to release. An independent analysis by COURIER and ThorianAI found that at least 40% of the DOJ’s Epstein Library consists of duplications. The outlet has added a “deduplication” feature to its Epstein Files database that shows users how many duplicates or variants exist of each file. Instead, Blanche’s top priority seems to be preventing the release of any information that could implicate Trump.
“There have been no saving graces in the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files,” said Howard-Stone. “This is just yet another example in a long chain of miscarriages of justice in this case by the government.
The discovery of the fully unredacted notes is the latest revelation in a bizarre saga involving allegations against Epstein and Trump. The omission of Doe 4’s FBI interviews were first discovered in February, when independent journalist Roger Sollenberger found references to them in the Epstein Files, but the interviews themselves were nowhere to be found. American Freakshow Nina Burleigh and Katie Chenoweth dug deeper and found that Doe had been labeled a protected source, a designation typically reserved for informants who provide credible information involving high-profile individuals.
The DOJ initially — and falsely — claimed the information was duplicative, but ultimately conceded and released the typed interview reports, known as FD-302s, in early March. The typed reports revealed new and graphic allegations against Trump, including that he raped and beat Doe 4 when she was a young teen. Early drafts of the report — handwritten notes investigators took while interviewing Doe 4 — remained withheld, with the DOJ once again arguing that the information they contained was redundant.
“The Department has not produced underlying handwritten notes for FD-302 interview reports because, by their nature, the underlying notes are substantially similar to the ultimate reports, and have accordingly been deemed duplicative of the typewritten reports memorializing the interviews,” Blanche wrote in a court filing on the matter. “Their handwritten nature further complicates the redaction process and increases the risk of inadvertent disclosure of victim [personal identifying information].”
On March 6, the same day the DOJ released the typed interview notes, Deese uploaded the handwritten versions to Scribd. It remains unclear whether he received an embargoed copy of the released documents that erroneously included the notes or whether a DOJ employee leaked them in secret. Deese didn’t mention the notes in an article published the following day and has not responded to requests for comment on this story.
In April, independent journalist Katie Phang sued Blanche over the release of the handwritten notes, as well as a number of other omissions she argued represented the government’s failure to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. While the case remains ongoing, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan found in June that the DOJ was in violation of the law, and chastised Blanche and government attorneys for ignoring court orders intended to bring him back into compliance.
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COURIER’s newly-launched Epstein investigation project
For too long, the Epstein Class has dealt in wealth, power, and politics to avoid accountability and deny victims & survivors their due justice. The public deserves the truth, but the Trump Administration is failing its legal obligation to deliver it.
That’s why we’re expanding our coverage to follow the money and investigate the power players in and outside the government. With a new database by Thorian AI, we have unprecedented access and ability to navigate more than 1.2M files and we’re sharing access—and what we’re finding—with you.
