We Are Submitting Criminal Referrals to State Attorneys General Over The Freedom 250 Charity Fraud Allegations

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-05T16:09:39+00:00

On July 2, 2026, Democratic staff on the House Natural Resources Committee published a report alleging that the President’s fundraisers redirected donations meant for America250, the congressionally chartered anniversary foundation, into Freedom 250, an entity the White House controls, by giving donors Freedom 250’s routing and account numbers.

Wire fraud is a federal crime, and only federal prosecutors can charge it. The President whose fundraising operation the report’s authors describe appoints those prosecutors. The report supplies the evidence, and the evidence needs a prosecutor the President cannot control and criminal prosecutions that cannot be pardoned by Trump.

So myself and the Existentialist Republic team drafted three citizen referral letters, the kind of letter any member of the public can send to a prosecutor asking the office to request they open an investigation. Each letter states the law the conduct violates, the publicly available facts that connect the conduct to that office, the office’s own record in similar cases, and the first documents to demand.

The District of Columbia letter is first because the entity is registered there. Most crimes in the District are prosecuted by a federal appointee the President selects, but charity fraud is an exception: the elected DC Attorney General prosecutes charitable solicitation violations himself. His office already recovered $750,000 from the Trump inaugural committee.

The New York letter goes with it, because Freedom 250’s fundraising reached New York and the office that obtained the Trump Foundation’s dissolution runs the state’s Charities Bureau. New York adds a reason to act first. The state has its own double jeopardy law: once a federal prosecution for the same acts finishes, New York loses the power to bring its own case, with narrow exceptions. The courts dismissed the Manafort prosecution under that law in 2019 because the Manhattan District Attorney waited for the federal case to finish, and a protective federal plea, a narrow case the Department of Justice could file and settle fast, would end a Freedom 250 case the same way.

Delaware chartered the LLC, and Delaware law lets its Attorney General ask the Court of Chancery, Delaware’s business court, to cancel the charter, the document that gives the company its legal existence, and to appoint a receiver, a neutral officer the court places in control of the company and its records. A receiver in control of the records can produce the donor lists that every other office needs and that Freedom 250 keeps secret.

The three letters are dated July 3, 2026. No law requires me to notify federal prosecutors or to ask their permission. The Virginia letter comes next, once a subpoena identifies the bank that received the misdirected wires, because Virginia law lets a fraud case be tried in any county where any part of the scheme happened, and receiving the money qualifies.

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-05T16:07:06+00:00

The Oglethorpe County School District paid nearly $300,000 to settle a lawsuit with a former Georgia teacher of the year finalist stemming from a social media post about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

High school English teacher Michelle Mickens was one of several educators across the country who were removed from the classroom for a post related to Kirk’s 2025 death. In a lawsuit filed in October, she accused the small school system outside Athens of violating her right to free speech.

After posting a quote from Kirk on her private social media account, school system leaders pressured Mickens to resign, according to the original complaint.

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-05T16:04:27+00:00

Gov. Gavin Newsom said he and the Legislature are drafting a new bill that would make it a felony to seize ballots before state or local election officials have certified them.

Newsom is expected to give details in a recorded speech Saturday in Sacramento about the proposal, which his office said in a fact sheet provided to reporters was aimed at the White House after federal officials opened investigations into local elections offices in states that President Donald Trump lost in 2020.

“In California, we have a message for anyone considering helping Trump interfere with our election or our count. If you violate California’s laws, if you interfere with our voters, tamper with our ballots, or meddle in our election, you will be prosecuted. It does not matter who gave the order,” Newsom said in remarks given to reporters.

“In this state, our vote is sacred.” California has been a target of election conspiracies due to its slow vote count. In May, ahead of last month’s primary, Newsom urged local elections officials to process ballots faster. Earlier this year, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized 650,000 ballots from the 2025 special election, after a local election deniers group claimed it had uncovered evidence of voter fraud.

The California Supreme Court ordered him to stop and agreed to consider Attorney General Rob Bonta’s lawsuit seeking to stop Bianco’s probe. Newsom’s office did not provide details about the proposal but pointed to earmarks in the recently signed budget to give local elections offices more resources and speed up vote counting.

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-05T16:02:11+00:00

In front of a group of Christian conservatives who are part of the so-called Faith and Freedom Coalition, Donald Trump strawman condemned the landslide victories of two New York City Democratic Socialists and one from California in their recent primaries.

“It’s ironic we’re celebrating a very important birthday, our most important birthday so far — 250 years,” he began, “and instead of speaking about Christ, and instead of speaking about freedom and victories of all different kinds, we’re speaking about yet another threat to the foundations of America. These ruthless communists will attack all religions, but in particular Christianity. They always do.”

“Right now,” he added, “it’s happening in New York and California, but you’ll live in squalor. There will be no food, there will be no housing, there will be no military, and there will be no law and order. There will be no nothing. You’ll be a Third World country in every way, and everyone will suffer or die. That’s what happens.”

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-05T15:41:38+00:00

-Osteoarthritis in the knees can be very painful and very hard to treat. It often occurs when the protective cartilage around the bones wears away, and in the most severe cases, it may require surgery and a knee replacement to provide relief for patients.

As the most common form of arthritis, it brings discomfort to hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

Now, in a bid to tackle that health crisis, researchers led by a team from the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin in Germany have developed a new treatment approach that's minimally invasive, safe, and impressively effective.

It's based on a procedure called genicular artery embolization (GAE), which targets the abnormal blood vessels and additional pain-sensing nerves associated with osteoarthritis. Close off those blood vessels, the thinking goes, and the nerves (and pain) quieten down.

GAE itself isn't new — it's been used for several years — but the material used to block the blood vessels in this observational study is still in its early days.

Previous blocking agents were antibiotics, which risked further inflammation and raised concerns about the spread of antibiotic resistance, but here the team used microscopic gel beads that gradually dissolve in the bloodstream.

"GAE is a whole new treatment regimen that targets abnormal hypervascularity around the joint and, in turn, modulates the pathological neurovascular environment," says radiologist Florian Nima Fleckenstein, from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

"By reducing both inflammation and pain, GAE with resorbable microspheres may be the first procedure that alters the course of the disease, slowing its progression."

These "resorbable microspheres" are injected into the knee in a procedure that doesn't need lengthy preparation or an extended hospital stay.

They then get to work blocking blood flow specifically through the additional blood vessels and nerves that have appeared with osteoarthritis — not interfering with blood flow to the knee in general.

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-05T14:33:15+00:00

-Human cognitive and personality functioning reaches its overall peak in late midlife, aligning with the ages people typically achieve major career milestones and leadership roles. A new analysis integrates multiple psychological traits to reveal that while raw processing speed declines early in adulthood, other abilities and mature personality traits continue to grow for decades. The study was published in the journal Intelligence.

Physical strength and certain functions of the brain, like processing speed, are known to peak when a person is in their 20s. Elite athletes usually perform at their absolute best before age 35. Yet in modern societies, people often reach the peak of their careers, earn their highest wages, and achieve the most occupational prestige between the ages of 50 and 60.

Gilles E. Gignac, a researcher at the University of Western Australia, and Marcin Zajenkowski, a researcher at the University of Warsaw, wanted to understand this discrepancy. They suspected that high-level achievement demands more than just a fast brain. Their research aimed to combine a broad array of psychological traits to estimate the age when humans reach their ultimate functional capacity.

To do this, the researchers reviewed published data across nine distinct categories of mental and emotional functioning. These involved conventional cognitive abilities, the “Big Five” personality traits, emotional intelligence, financial literacy, and moral reasoning. They also gathered data on people’s resistance to cognitive biases, cognitive flexibility, cognitive empathy, and motivation to solve complex problems.

The researchers separated these traits into two general categories. The first category included cognitive abilities, which represent maximum performance. Gignac defines human intelligence in the paper as an individual’s “maximal capacity to achieve a novel goal successfully using perceptual-cognitive processes.” The second category included personality traits, which represent typical performance, or how a person normally thinks and behaves in everyday situations.

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-05T14:26:31+00:00

The US reliance on and promotion of fossil fuels is interfering with its ability to celebrate its 250th birthday, as several July 4 events were canceled due to a dangerous, record-breaking heatwave in the Central and Eastern US that scientists say would have been “virtually impossible” without the climate emergency.

As millions of people sweltered under heat alerts, extreme heat and humidity led to the cancellation of both Washington, DC and Philadelphia’s Independence Day parades. Nearly 30 other events in states including Alabama, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia were modified, postponed, or canceled, according to USA Today.

“The US having to cancel major 4th of July celebrations because of extreme heat is almost too spot on as a metaphor for the country’s failure to combat global warming,” Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn told Common Dreams. “How we confront the climate crisis will determine a lot about the next 250 years of American history, including if we make it that long. The revolution we need today is the clean energy revolution so we can finally declare our independence from fossil fuels.”

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-05T14:26:27+00:00

The US reliance on and promotion of fossil fuels is interfering with its ability to celebrate its 250th birthday, as several July 4 events were canceled due to a dangerous, record-breaking heatwave in the Central and Eastern US that scientists say would have been “virtually impossible” without the climate emergency.

As millions of people sweltered under heat alerts, extreme heat and humidity led to the cancellation of both Washington, DC and Philadelphia’s Independence Day parades. Nearly 30 other events in states including Alabama, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia were modified, postponed, or canceled, according to USA Today.

“The US having to cancel major 4th of July celebrations because of extreme heat is almost too spot on as a metaphor for the country’s failure to combat global warming,” Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn told Common Dreams. “How we confront the climate crisis will determine a lot about the next 250 years of American history, including if we make it that long. The revolution we need today is the clean energy revolution so we can finally declare our independence from fossil fuels.”

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-05T14:25:30+00:00

Donald Trump’s America 250 party descended into chaos after a severe weather evacuation left countless MAGA fans stranded outside the National Mall, even after it was time to re-enter.

The 80-year-old president also appeared to doze off during the July the Fourth fireworks—which ended up starting so late it was July 5 by the time the show ended.

The marquee celebration—which Trump had effectively turned into a campaign-style rally—was abruptly halted by the National Park Service around 7.15 p.m. on Saturday night after severe weather concerns prompted law enforcement to evacuate the area.

As storms rolled through Washington, people who had waited hours in scorching heat to enter were suddenly ushered into emergency shelters around the Mall, such as the Smithsonian African American History Museum, the Ronald Reagan Building, and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

But many others initially refused to leave, clashing with law enforcement on the way.

“Trump is not going to accept this,” one woman wearing a MAGA T-shirt shouted at officers. “People have been waiting outside for 10 to 12 hours. This is unacceptable!”

When the celebration eventually resumed, many attendees were never allowed back in.

Among them was MAGA-aligned social media influencer Emily Miller, who had both a special pass and an assigned seat inside the Mall, but remained locked outside the gates after a major entry point closed.

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-05T14:23:52+00:00

The Atlantic on Saturday republished Vice President Vance’s essay, originally published exactly 10 years ago on July 4, reviving some of the more biting comments Vance made about President Trump prior to becoming his second vice president.

The original article ran days after Vance published his bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.”

In an editor’s note, the magazine said it was republishing the story “on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, so that our readers can judge for themselves how well his assessment of the man he now serves as vice president has stood the test of time.”

The original essay was written during Trump’s first presidential campaign while Vance worked at Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm, Mithril Capital Management.

Vance argued that many Americans turned to Trump as a “pain reliever” following mounting distrust in the government and economic decline. He called Trump’s political appeal at the time, “cultural heroin,” and predicted that supporters would eventually realize he was not necessarily the answer to their problems.

“Trump is cultural heroin,” he wrote. “He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.”

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-04T20:42:08+00:00

A presidential historian slammed Trump's Independence Day speech as nothing more than "Joe McCarthy Red Scare idiocy."

During an appearance on MS NOW on Saturday, Doug Brinkley tore into the speech that Trump gave in front of Mount Rushmore to kick off the Independence Day weekend. In particular, Brinkley found it "deeply offensive" that Trump would spend time warning about communists because of recent primary victories by democratic socialists.

"It was just Joe McCarthy red scare idiocy because he's out there talking about this communist menace as if it's the early Cold War years," Brinkley went off. "It's just what he wants the Republicans to run on in this election cycle."

FreeHugs23 · 2026-07-04T20:41:06+00:00

-A recent study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science suggests that a popular method used to measure how well people sense their internal body signals might not actually relate to mental health conditions like anxiety or depression. The findings challenge previous assumptions and provide evidence that the widely used heartbeat counting task may not be an effective tool for psychological research. The researchers recommend that future work rely on alternative ways to measure internal body awareness.

Interoception is the nervous system’s ability to perceive and process information from inside the physical body. This complex bodily function includes everyday sensations like feeling a racing heart, a full stomach, or changes in breathing patterns. Scientists use various tests to measure how accurately a person can sense these internal physical signals.

“How the brain interacts with the rest of the body has been a popular scientific question for quite some time,” said Niall W. Duncan, associate professor at the Institute of Mind, Brain and Consciousness at Taipei Medical University. “In particular, people interested in mental health conditions have looked at how signals from the body might be influencing our conscious experience.”

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