Trump's Distractions are Not Working While Epstein Stays Center of Attention (WaPo, Jul 21 2025, Cleve R Wootson Jr)
“Donald Trump is the one who cast himself as the elite who doesn’t side with the elites. He’s the elite who sides with the people. He’s going to drain the swamp,” said Russell Muirhead, a professor of democracy and politics at Dartmouth College and a Democratic state legislator from New Hampshire.
“But when he says, ‘There’s nothing to look at here. We’re not going to release what the Justice Department has, and forget about that list’ … it looks like he’s just another elite, corrupt like all the rest, and that impression will remain, to some extent, regardless of whether this particular story is at the top of people’s attention.”
Thanks to KL who sent me an important set of articles that are crucial for discussion among your groups.
The Trump administration is set to destroy nearly $10m of contraceptives for women overseas… (The Guardian, July 18 2025, Carter Sherman) The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.
A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000.
The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.
The Trump administration plans to divert birth control funds to Fertility programs instead. New York Times- a New Focus for Birth Control Program Helping Women Get Pregnant
A little-noticed plan for an “infertility training center” signals that the administration intends to take a new approach with Title X, which has long helped low-income women access contraception.
I bring all this up not to make us all feel worse About life and medical priorities but to make us aware of what is going on and not covered in the news as much as some would like. No one is saying IVF money isn’t important BUT contraception for people who can’t afford them is important. If you can’t afford the contraceptive I think it is pretty clear why we should be compassionate about supplying them. Children cost way more than contraceptives.
And our USAID contraceptives that are being destroyed were often for women dealing with rape. It is inhumane to just destroy these contraceptives that still have a few years of shelf life left in them.
