Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.
The Trump administration wants to strip the American Bar Association of its power to accredit law schools. Trump’s beloved personal aide wrote him letters calling him her “Guardian and Protector” and saying she was “unworthy” of him. An outbreak of salmonella and E. coli linked to alfalfa sprouts has sickened at least 55 people in 15 states. And a Texas Democrat running for Senate against Ken Paxton is campaigning on tortured puppies and a stolen pen.
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If you can’t beat the lawyers, stop making new ones.
The Department of Education has released a 500-page report recommending that the American Bar Association be stripped of its authority to accredit law schools, a role it has held since 1952. Without ABA accreditation, a school’s graduates may not qualify to take the bar exam.
Assistant Secretary of Education David Barker told the Wall Street Journal that accreditation “operates like a cartel” and that “when there’s no competition, accreditors feel free to inject their own political preferences, their own ideologies into the work that they do.” He accused the ABA of using its accreditation power to push a progressive agenda.
The ABA called it retaliation for its lawsuit against the administration last year over executive orders targeting law firms that represented clients Trump disliked. They said the campaign is “uniquely destructive” to the legal system.
Texas has already shifted accreditation authority to its state Supreme Court, and Florida and Ohio have taken similar steps. If the federal government strips the ABA’s power, whoever replaces it will decide what every law school in the country has to teach to keep its funding.
The recommendation will now go to an independent advisory panel for review in September before a final decision is made.
The Daily Beast published in full this week two letters Natalie Harp wrote to Trump in 2023, and the contents are about as comfortable to read as you’d expect. That’s not a joke, that’s a warning.
Harp, who earns $150,000 a year as a special assistant and executive assistant to the president, wrote that Trump is “all that matters” to her, called him her “Guardian and Protector,” and signed off one letter “with all my heart.”
In that letter, written during or after a golfing trip in Scotland and Ireland, Harp apologized for walking on the course instead of riding in a cart, for forgetting to eat and sleep, and for anything else she might have done to upset him. She told Trump she was envious of women “whose only job seems to be to talk with you and look pretty,” adding: “I want that job!!”
Harp now sits outside the Oval Office and controls access to the president, meaning foreign leaders typically go through her to reach Trump. She was one of the small group who accompanied him when he secretly switched planes in Turkey to avoid a reported assassination attempt.
It was also revealed this week that Harp has declined for a year to undergo a full background check. Her estranged brother told CNN he believes she has an “unhealthy obsession” with the president.
The White House responded by calling Harp “one of the most loyal and hardest-working aides on President Trump’s team,” which is probably the most honest thing they’ve ever said.
I’m still willing to bet more people got sick from that last story than this one.
At least 55 people across 15 states have been affected by an outbreak of salmonella and E. coli linked to alfalfa sprouts produced by Everything Sprouts, a Minnesota-based grower. Four have been hospitalized, and health experts expect that count to rise.
Officials in both Minnesota and Wisconsin are advising anyone with alfalfa sprouts from Everything Sprouts or Calco at home to throw them out immediately.
Investigators found multiple strains of bacteria among those sickened, including three different strains of E. coli and salmonella. Outbreaks involving two pathogens simultaneously are uncommon, but then again so is everything else right now.
This is the third major foodborne illness outbreak of the summer, following a salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeno peppers that sickened more than 400 people and a cyclosporiasis outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce that affected roughly 15,000.
Someone should tell the HHS Secretary, but he’s been busy making sure your kids can get measles again.
While other politicians have skeletons in their closet, Ken Paxton has 400 dogs in a lab.
Texas A&M University used more than 400 dogs in its research labs and reported to the U.S. Department of Agriculture that three-quarters of the tests performed on 82 of them produced “pain or distress.” When rescue groups from 23 states filed public records requests to find out what was happening to those animals, the university refused to hand over the care logs and health records.
Republican Gov. Ken Paxton’s office gave them the legal opinion they needed to keep everything sealed, citing veterinary-client confidentiality, a privilege that was designed to protect family pets and their owners, not taxpayer-funded research labs. PETA later obtained records showing dogs had been caged for nearly a decade, suffering from recurring infections, organ failure, and muscle atrophy.
Paxton’s opponent in the race for U.S. Senate, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, recently posted to X: “I wish Ken Paxton would protect puppies the way he protects pedophiles,” in reference to a plea deal Paxton’s prosecutors offered to a Waco man accused of repeatedly sexually abusing a child.
The puppies are not the only thing Talarico is using to make Paxton’s character the issue. He also revived the story of a $1,000 Montblanc fountain pen that attorney Joe Joplin left in a dish at a courthouse metal detector in 2012, which Paxton was caught on camera taking. Talarico’s campaign has since secured Joplin’s endorsement and is selling a “Not Ken Paxton’s Pen” on its website for $6.
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Democrats Flip Pennsylvania House Seat Republicans Held for Nearly 30 Years. Democrat Brandon Dukes has won a special election for Pennsylvania’s 12th state House District, defeating Republican Scott Timko by fewer than 100 votes. The district, which covers the suburban Cranberry Township area north of Pittsburgh, had not elected a Democrat since the late 1990s. Trump won it by 18 points in 2024, and the previous Republican incumbent won by 30. Governor Josh Shapiro said Pennsylvanians were “rising up and using their power to combat the chaos, cruelty, and corruption.” The result makes it the 31st state legislative seat Democrats have flipped since Trump’s second term began, with no flips going in the other direction.
Ohio Grand Jury Refuses to Indict Man Who Destroyed a Flock Surveillance Camera. A Clermont County grand jury declined to indict Cody Morelock, who was charged with felony vandalism for allegedly unbolting and destroying a Flock Safety license plate reader camera in Union Township. The devices capture license plate data, vehicle descriptions, and movement patterns, storing everything for 30 days. The ACLU of Ohio has warned that the system allows any agency using Flock to search another agency’s data without a warrant, creating a mass surveillance network with no oversight.
** 29 States Are Suing Meta for Designing Instagram and Facebook to Addict Children.** A coalition of 29 states is suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for allegedly designing its platforms to hook young users. The states assert that features like the infinite scroll, visible like counts, and targeted algorithms were built to keep children on the platforms for as long as possible, because Meta makes more money that way. Internal documents show an Instagram presentation from 2018 stating that “if we want to win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens.”
** Darth Vader Showed Up to a City Council Meeting to Mock Flock Surveillance Cameras.** A man dressed as the Star Wars villain appeared at the podium of the San Diego Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee meeting on Wednesday to deliver a satirical endorsement of Flock’s license plate reader cameras. And yes, the council did address him as Darth Vader. “The Emperor is a fan of Flock,” he told the committee, trademark heavy breathing audible through the microphone. “This technology will help us find the rebel scum and their hidden base on Hoth.” He urged one council member to “work on your Jedi mind tricks” before waving his hand at the audience.
