Blue 812 News Issue 33 - Aug 17

Aug 17, 2025

On Friday, after a week of anticipation and buildup, Trump & Putin met on US soil (American soldiers literally rolled out the red carpet for the Russian oligarch). They met for about three hours and emerged to say very little. There was no press conference, and the presidents headed home, leaving behind more questions than answers. Trump, not one to downplay even a potential deal, spoke very briefly - providing no details or signs of a breakthrough in the war he said he could easily end on day one of his presidency, 210 days ago. What we saw was more of a pattern in Putin's approach to dealing with Trump and his demands for peace in Ukraine - slow walk peace negotiations and talk up bilateral deals and other things outside of it.

Following the meeting, Trump adopted a new position on ceasefire; one that aligns him with Putin, and puts him at odds with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, who's headed to the White House on Monday, along with other European leaders. Despite going into the summit with a ceasefire as a main goal, Trump now says one isn’t necessary, and both parties should head straight into a Peace Agreement.

On Friday morning, documents related to the Trump-Putin meeting were found in the public printer of a hotel’s business center (but her emails!). On Saturday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly dismissed the papers as a "multi-page lunch menu" and suggested leaving the information on a public printer was not a security breach. Pages 2 through 5 of the documents listed the names and phone numbers of three U.S. staff members, as well as the names of 13 U.S. and Russian state leaders (but her emails!). The printed papers are only the latest example of a series of security breaches by officials of the Trump administration. Earlier last week, members of a law enforcement group chat that included ICE members added a random person to a conversation about an ongoing search for a convicted attempted murderer (but her emails!).

Trump declared a "public safety emergency" in Washington, DC on Monday, deploying 800 National Guard troops to bolster hundreds of federal law enforcement officers who were deployed over the weekend. Violent crime in the city is at a 30-year low. Could this all be related to the recent ‘attempted carjacking’ of former DOGE employee, Big Balls?

As well as the National Guard deployment, Trump said he would place the city's police department under direct federal control using the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. If the president intends to take control for longer than 48 hours, they need to provide a written notice to Congress. Even if that notice is provided, they cannot keep control of the police for longer than 30 days.

As well as discussing crime, Trump also spoke at length about homelessness in Washington DC. "We're getting rid of the slums," he said, without giving further details. He said homeless people would be sent elsewhere but did not say where. Homelessness is down almost 20% for individuals in Washington DC in 2025 compared to five years ago, said Ralph Boyd, the president and chief executive of So Others Might Eat (SOME) - a group that provides people in the city with housing, clothing and other social services. More at BBC News.

The Eiffel Tower is taller in the summer. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

On a related but lighter note, there’s a footlong fiasco on the streets of the nation’s capital, and the White House ain’t gonna take it anymore! President Trump’s top officials are raging for justice against a guy who allegedly called federal agents, who were dispatched by Trump to patrol the city’s streets, “fucking fascists!” and slung a subway sandwich straight at an officer’s shoulder.

The story only gets dumber from there as Trump’s team went nuclear. Attorney General Pam Bondi personally announced that Sean Dunn, the sandwich slinger himself, would be charged with felony assault on an officer, a charge that carries a maximum eight years in prison. “This is an example of the Deep State,” Bondi tweeted, adding that Dunn, who had worked for the DOJ, was now fired. She then sent a gang of armed agents to arrest the suspect again at his apartment in the middle of the night, special ops-style, guns-drawn, along with a film crew. The White House posted a video of the mission on social media, as if it were the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s secret lair.

Pressure is mounting on the IN GOP as Punchbowl News reported that all Indiana GOP state lawmakers have been invited to the White House Aug. 26, and National conservative activist Charlie Kirk called out House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray in a post on X. Gov. Mike Braun has said it's up to lawmakers whether he calls them back for a special session.

So far, several Indiana Republican legislators have publicly opposed rigging the election, including State Rep. Becky Cash, State Rep. Danny Lopez, State Rep. Jim Lucas, State Senator Jim Tomes, and State Senator Spencer Deery, who hit the nail on the head when he said, “We are being asked to create a new culture in which it would be normal for a political party to select new voters, not once a decade — but any time it fears the consequences of an approaching election.” Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith has been the only high-profile Republican to support the election-rigging scheme. With 70 members, the House GOP caucus could lose 19 members and still pass any proposed legislation. More at Indiana Capitol Chronicle.

In addition to contacting your legislators and Governor Braun (see graphic below for contact info) regarding the election-rigging plot, here are some other ways to take action:

1. Utilize the MADVoters Stop Election Rigging Toolkit. You can download, print, and share their educational resources. Repost on your socials, share with your organization, and more. Education is activism, so let's get the information out there!

2. Follow MADVoters’ messaging strategy:
- Instead of saying ”gerrymandering” or “redistricting” say “rigging the election,” “cheating,” or “exploiting loopholes.” Call it what it is. Gerrymandering implies it’s “just politics.” Redistricting legitimizes it. This is an unprecedented power grab.
- Emphasize the expense to taxpayers ($30,000 per day for a special session just to pay the legislators).
- Emphasize that our role is the resistance: do not give MAGA the privilege of our apathy. Be the firewall. Slow their takeover. If IN Republicans cave to Trump’s demands, the fight isn’t over, and it will go to the courts.

3. Write Letters to the Editor. Help inform your community about the dangers that Trump's election rigging scam poses. Check out MADVoters’ writing tips at madvoters.org/madvoices.

Vigo County is poised to host one of Indiana’s largest carbon sequestration projects, with Wabash Carbon Services planning to inject 1.67 million metric tons of CO₂ annually deep underground. The carbon comes from fertilizer production and would be stored 5,000 feet below the surface, beneath layers of rock and shale.

Supporters call it climate innovation. Locals aren’t so sure. Residents near West Terre Haute have raised alarms about safety, transparency, and long-term environmental risks. Many feel the public was sidelined during key decision-making, and trust in regulators is thin. Despite over 1,000 public comments, the EPA gave the green light for construction—though actual injection still needs approval.

Indiana’s new rules on carbon storage offer some oversight, but critics say they’re too little, too late. With construction underway, Vigo County may be gambling its future on a technology that’s still far from proven.

The Terre Haute NAACP is having the second of two public meetings regarding the carbon capture and sequestration plan tomorrow at 6pm at the Vigo County Public Library. See the list of speakers and more information here.

THE BIG FREEZE is a full social, financial, political, and lockout for anyone associated with:

THE BIG FREEZE was directly inspired by “The Big No,” an organizing principle of uncompromising moral clarity taken from my good friend Meghan Kallman and her co-author Josephine Ferorelli’s outstanding book The Conceivable Future: Planning Families and Taking Action in an Age of Climate Change. In Meghan’s own words: “The Big No is saying, “We don’t want this compressor station here — or anywhere.” It’s not NIMBYISM—it’s not, we’re chasing it out of my neighborhood. This is: we need a world that doesn’t require natural gas compressor stations.”

THE BIG FREEZE is ten ways to stop the growth of immigration enforcement on a national level at virtually (in nearly all cases) no cost or personal effort. Few of us are in a position to do all of these things, but all of us can do some of them.

WE KNOW THE BIG FREEZE WILL WORK BECAUSE IT IS ALREADY WORKING

ICE’s collective morale has never been lower, and they are having so much trouble hiring that they have ended age requirements and started offering ridiculous signing bonuses and loan forgiveness. Keep the pressure on, and end the social futures of anyone who even considers this work for themselves.

See the full list at Deportnation, or listen to a discussion of the idea from the latest Opening Arguments podcast.

Bonus Good Trouble for Freedom-Fighters & Rabblerousers: don’t forget about the comment period for the ESSA changes - it ends Aug 22nd:

More info and link to the comment form in the Aug 3rd Blue812News.

Christian bigot and former Kentucky county clerk who defied the law in 2015 when she refused to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples, Kim Davis, is now trying to get in front of the Supreme Court with a much bigger target. She and her lawyers want to overturn marriage equality altogether.

As ABC News points out, this petition “appears to mark the first time since 2015 that the court has been formally asked to overturn the landmark marriage decision.” That’s because Davis is considered one of the only people with legal standing to make that request—because no one is actually “injured” when gay people get married—but her weak standing is precisely why her arguments have failed up to this point. Davis argues she has a First Amendment right to free exercise of religion—which, of course, she does—and it’s therefore unfair to sue her an individual for denying those marriage licenses. The Sixth Circuit said her personal beliefs weren’t at issue here; it was her actions as a state representative. The funny thing is that Davis always had a simple option available to her: If she didn’t want to sign same-sex marriage licenses after Obergefell, she could have resigned. Instead, she insisted on staying in her job while breaking the law.

Currently, legal experts say it’s unlikely the Supreme Court takes the case on. If the ruling were to be overturned at some point in the future, it would not invalidate marriages already performed, legal experts have pointed out. The 2022 Respect for Marriage Act requires the federal government and all states to recognize legal marriages of same-sex and interracial couples performed in any state -- even if there is a future change in the law. V Spehar of UndertheDesk News has a great breakdown on what steps couples should still take just in case. The documents outlined in the video are some of the most important documents any LGBTQ+ person or couple needs to be protected in the United States:

Nasty Women - Vigo County calendar | Indivisible Wabash Valley calendar

Wednesday, August 20th at 5:30pm: Historic Preservation Ordinance Committee Meeting at City Hall. Public comments welcome

Friday, August 22nd at 5:30pm: Vigo Dems event at 1111 Veteran’s Square. Special guest speakers: Dr. Chris Himsel, Vigo County School Superintendent; Stacy Killion, School Board President; Carey LaBella, School Board Member

Saturday, August 23rd at 9am: Diversity Walk with Hamilton Center 9am - 12 pm at 1 First Financial Plaza. More info and register to walk with Indivisible here.

Saturday, August 23rd at 12pm: Indiana Black Legislative Caucus Town Hall at City Hall

Monday, August 25th at 6pm: Vigo County School Board meeting at 501 W. Olive Street - Boardroom

Indiana's IREAD scores are improving overall, a win for the third-grade literacy rate. See how Vigo County schools did here.

Rhode Island Democrat Stefano Famiglietti won a landslide victory in his Senate District 4 race, winning over 80% of the vote – a 56-point greater margin than the top of the ticket’s victory in this district in November 2024.

In Delaware Democrat Alonna Berry defeated GOP nominee Nikki Miller in a special election for a state house seat.

The House Oversight Committee has officially issued the Epstein files subpoena. The Trump DOJ must now release the files by August 19.

The leading professional association for gynecologists is cutting financial ties with the federal government rather than adhere to Trump administration policies that it says prevent it from providing evidence-based guidance.

The Trump admin is restoring full funding for a CDC program that provides grants to reduce and track drug overdoses, including fentanyl.

For the first time in the Culinary Union’s 90-year history, all major casinos on the Vegas Strip are now unionized. Backed by 60,000 members, most of them in Las Vegas, it is now the largest labor union in Nevada.

A federal appeals court affirmed that Louisiana’s state legislative district maps were an attempt to dilute the voting strength of Black voters and ordered them to be redrawn.

Due to a ruling in Texas state court this week, Infowars conspiracist Alex Jones is a big step closer to losing his studio and brand.

Trump's time in the White House runs out in:

The English monarch is the official owner of all the swans in the country. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.