/. . . BY: ELIANA JONSHON 22 JUN 2026 ------------------------ https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!n5H4!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe9c306c4-7cd3-44ce-83e8-c9fb2b8ffb51_3508x2480.jpeg Tamika Spellman, Amber Lashbaugh, and Kelly Crouch discuss sex worker rights during a workshop with progressive Hill staffers in the House Cannon Office Building (Washington Free Beacon), Event flyer (@cpsadc/Instagram) With the midterm elections months away, left-wing staffers on Capitol Hill have their eyes on the ball. They recently hosted a “roundtable discussion” on the “hidden side of the affordability crisis”: its impact on sex workers. The Free Beacon’s Jon Levine attended the discussion hosted by the Congressional Progressive Staff Association, which was represented by a legislative aide for Massachusetts senator Ed Markey and featured two proud sex workers: Tamika Spellman, the founder of a “safe house for Black transgender women,” and Amber Lashbaugh, a “harm reduction” advocate who says she’s “in recovery.” Here’s a preview of their essential insights: “When you’re on the streets, you have a bevy of things that you have to deal with. Number one is the police, and don’t think that they are these kind and gentle watchers of the people, because they’re not. I have been raped and robbed by them,” Spellman, who is transgender, said, going into an anti-law enforcement diatribe. “I have had money extorted from me by them. I’ve been physically and mentally abused by police, and I have been a traveling sex worker for many of those years, and one thing I can say for sure, they’re all the same in every state, and I’ve been here when they come for their conference, come here every year, and those same cops are doing the same things I was doing, smoking crack, doing drugs, buying sex workers, doing all kind of ungodly things, but they want to criminalize us when they’re back in their municipalities, that’s not fair.” "I want to make sure we have a clear understanding about what I look at as a progressive, as a Democratic Socialist," Spellman added later, saying sex worker rights needed to be front and center of the agenda. READ MORE: Sex Workers Visit Capitol Hill With a Message for Woke Congressional Staffers: the ‘Affordability Crisis’ Is Hard on Prostitutes, Too Elsewhere Arizona senator and longtime Eric Swalwell wingman Ruben Gallego is facing criticism for using his campaign accounts as a “personal slush fund.” Gallego used them for trips to Miami, Chicago, Disneyland, and Disney World, according to Politico, for nearly $20,000 in child care, including $400 for “babysitting” that went to Gallego’s wife’s mother; and for 2023 Super Bowl tickets (Gallego attended the big game with Swalwell and went on to complain that it is not affordable for “too many working Americans”). As Vice President J.D. Vance touched down in Switzerland for peace talks with the Iranian regime, President Donald Trump threatened to blow it all up if the mullahs can’t keep their terrorist proxy Hezbollah from striking Israel. “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. “If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!” The Zohran Mamdani-backed socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier is offering free ice cream to those who vote early in New York’s 13th Congressional District and then attend one of her campaign’s events—a freebie that appears to violate federal campaign guidelines, the New York Post reported. Another prominent New York City congressional candidate, Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg, has dropped to fourth place in the crowded primary for the Empire State’s 12th district after opening the race as its leader. What lesson is Schlossberg—who reported no “earned income” in 2025 but who holds millions of dollars’ worth of assets in four trust funds—drawing from the experience? “If I can’t do it, then nobody can,” he told the Wall Street Journal. That’s the spirit. An elite private school in Minnesota, under fire from parents after allowing a student to feature a virulently antisemitic cartoon in a class project, got a write-up in the local newspaper, the Minnesota Star Tribune, in a piece that focuses on the school’s enrollment contract. St. Paul Academy and Summit School reserves the right to expel any child whose parent criticizes left-wing school administrators, and they’ll keep the tuition, thank you very much. This past year, the Star Tribune reports, the school expelled a ninth-grader whose father “organized a letter criticizing the head of school.” Check out our full Monday lineup below. Graham Platner Endorsed Comment From ‘RevolutionaryCommie’ Calling America a ‘Disgraceful Country’: ‘I’m an American, and I Can’t Disagree’ Pritzker Adds $800 Million a Year in New Taxes to Already High-Tax Illinois Sex Workers Visit Capitol Hill With a Message for Woke Congressional Staffers: the ‘Affordability Crisis’ Is Hard on Prostitutes, Too ‘Climate of Fear’: California Dem House Candidate Suggested Conservatives in His District Created ‘Hostile’ Environment for ‘Latinx Immigrant Communities’ A Judge’s Verdict on Israel Bloomswary Orwell Unfiltered Daddy Issues Thanks for reading the Washington Free Beacon! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.