FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has repeatedly threatened to revoke broadcast licenses from President Trump's least-favorite networks. He recently ordered the Disney-owned ABC to file early license-renewal applications for all of its TV stations over allegations that its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices violate anti-discrimination rules.
"The only plausible reason to issue the Order is to punish the Station for speech the government does not like", ABC said in its filings. The FCC is "using the license-renewal process to punish a broadcaster for its editorial choices" in "an extraordinary demonstration of power and coercion directed at disfavored editorial voices", it said.
ABC said the order it received "sends a clear warning to every broadcaster in America". If that warning wasn't clear enough, the FCC yesterday issued a public notice to "remind" all broadcasters of "their public-interest obligations". The public notice was issued on the same day as the deadline the FCC set for ABC to submit its early license-renewal applications, and urged all broadcasters to "review and modify their operations to ensure compliance".
Warning that other broadcasters could face threats to their licenses, the public notice said the FCC "will not hesitate to exercise its statutory authority to ensure that broadcasters either fulfill their public interest obligation or provide the privilege of being a broadcast licensee to someone that will fulfill that duty". The FCC said it may order early license reviews or other punitive measures when it "finds that a broadcaster has failed to serve the public interest". The notice said broadcasters have an "obligation to offer programming responsive to the needs and interests of the local communities they are licensed to serve".
[Hmm. Will the FCC bar Trump from TV, for "failing to serve the public interest"?]
Jennifer Sinco Kelleher: New Hawaii Law Targets Corporate Influence In Politics After Citizens-United Ruling. (Associated Press; May 14, 2026)
Hawaii's Democratic governor today signed into law a bill that uses a novel approach to reduce the influence of corporations and hard-to-track "dark-money" groups that have been able to spend unlimited amounts on politics since a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The law, which takes effect July 1, 2027, redefines corporations in a way that precludes spending on elections. A volunteer group in Montana is gathering signatures in hopes of putting a similar issue to voters in November.
The high court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission struck down a ban on corporate and union election spending as long as they don't donate directly to any campaigns. The case stemmed from Citizens United, a conservative group, wanting to run TV commercials promoting its anti-Hillary Clinton movie when she was running for president in 2008.
The ruling has benefited Democrats and Republicans. The campaign-finance watchdog group OpenSecrets tracked more than $4-Billion in outside political spending in the 2024 federal elections - almost 12 times as much as in 2008.
Some of that came from dark-money groups that aren't required to disclose donors, and the Brennan Center for Justice tallied a record $1.9-Billion in that type of spending in 2024. Dark money has also played a part in some state-level races.
Greg Sargent, The Daily Blast: "Trump's Sunsetting Visibly Worsens As MAGA Cult Cracks Up." (22-min. Podcast (May 12; The New Republic, May 13, 2026)
As Trump's mental decline accelerates in plain sight, Virginia Heffernan (the author of a piece on the tortured psychology of MAGA) explains how Trump's chief sycophants are becoming akin to an "end-stage cult".
[Now hear this (podcast)!]
Edith Olmsted: "Trump Accuses Obama Of Treason, In Unhinged Crashout About Black People." (The New Republic, May 12, 2026)
A disturbing trend emerged in President Donald Trump's latest Truth Social tirade. Trump posted more than 55 times in just three hours last night, unloading a ton of conspiracy theory content targeting former President Barack Obama, peppered with videos of Black people causing mayhem.
Trump's onslaught began by claiming that Obama had attempted a coup, and boosting a call to "arrest Obama the traitor." He then posted months-old coverage of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's claims that the Obama administration had pushed the "lie" that Russian President Vladimir Putin preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 election, which was something Putin has openly admitted.
As Trump continued to post, his allegations got increasingly outlandish. The president shared posts claiming that Obama made $120-Million from Obamacare and accusing Obama of “the most heinous crimes committed in American history", including wire-tapping Trump Tower. Other posts mentioned figures such as Senator Mark Kelly, Clinton and Jack Smith, but Obama's name appeared over and over again.
Perry Bacon, Foul Not Fair: "The Week Where Republicans May Have Stolen the Midterms." (The New Republic, May 12, 2026)
In five days last week, Republicans gained maybe 10 seats in Congress. And not a single citizen voted.
Republican state legislators, governors, state supreme court justices, and U.S. Supreme Court justices have combined over the last week to effectively hand up to 10 U.S. House seats to the GOP. That's not just bad for the Democrats, although it most definitely is that. It's bad for democracy. This can't be accepted as normal.
Early last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a gerrymander so that Republicans could win as many as four additional seats. Three days later, Tennessee Republicans seized on the U.S. Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais ruling to eliminate the lone majority-Black congressional district in the state. On Friday, four Virginia state Supreme Court justices, three appointed by the state's legislature when both houses were controlled by Republicans, invalidated a ballot measure that could have resulted in four additional seats for Democrats through redistricting. Later that day, Louisiana Republicans, also taking advantage of Callais, presented new maps that will almost certainly result in the defeat of one Democratic member of Congress there. Five days; 10 seats; zero votes from members of the public.
Adding immediate context only makes it worse. Florida voters approved a ballot measure in 2010 that explicitly bans partisan gerrymandering. The all-Republican Florida Supreme Court is almost certainly going to let the redistricting stand anyway. In contrast, a clear majority of voters in Virginia, more than 1.6-million people in total, backed the redistricting that four judges wiped away. Voting had already started in Louisiana but has now been suspended. The South, a region with a long history of discriminating against Black Americans, is now rushing to eject from Congress Black members elected by Black citizens.
Then broaden the picture further:
- We have an authoritarian president who ignores laws and core democratic values.
- He knows that the party in the White House often loses a ton of House seats.
- He knows that trend is particularly likely to continue if the president is unpopular, as Trump is now.
- And he knows that a Democratic House might force him to actually follow the law.
So instead of taking steps to become more popular or accepting defeat, he ordered Republican officials to start gerrymandering districts to ensure a party totally under his thumb keeps control of the House. And the plan is working. Republicans have won themselves on net from six to eight additional seats in these gerrymandering fights.
A lot of nonpartisan analysts and even a few Democrats are trying to downplay these redistricting gains by Republicans. Some argue that Trump is so unpopular that Democrats will still win the House. Others even claim that the redistricting will result in Democrats winning more seats than they would have otherwise because Republicans have spread out their voters too much.
Perhaps. But some estimates suggest that the Democrats will need to win the national popular vote by at least four percentage points to carry the House. That's a lot. Remember that Trump's 2024 victory, which was covered by many pundits as some dramatic shift in American politics, was by 1.5-percent over Kamala Harris. It would be terrible if Republicans lost the popular vote 48 percent to 52 percent but remained in control of the House. Or if Republicans won 226 seats or below - meaning their majority was retained only because of the Trump-ordered redistricting.
[How very TrumPutin of him!]
Matt Ford: Trump Thinks The Supreme Court Works For Him. Despite Their Handing Him An Endless Array Of Political Wins Over The Past Few Years, The President Still Believes His Nominees Haven't Shown Sufficient Loyalty. (The New Republic, May 12, 2026)
Trump's social-media rants these days are so frequent and so voluminous that it is rarely worth paying them any specific attention. But his Mother's Day post about the Supreme Court is a notable exception. The president gave a surprisingly frank assessment of his view of the Supreme Court - and how he expects personal loyalty from the justices that he appoints to it.
In the lengthy post, Trump criticized two members of the high court for voting in Trump v. Learning Resources, the case that nixed his purported ability to impose hundreds-of-billions of dollars in tariffs under a Cold War–era emergency-powers law. The Supreme Court held 6–3 that Trump had exceeded the powers laid out in the statute.
"I 'Love' Justice Neil Gorsuch! He's a really smart and good man, but he voted against me, and our Country, on Tariffs, a devastating move", Trump wrote. "How do I reconcile this? So bad, and hurtful to our Country. I have, likewise, always liked and respected Amy Coney Barrett, but the same thing with her. They were appointed by me, and yet have hurt our Country so badly!"
It would be hard to find a better example than this of Trump's thinking that the justices that he nominated to the high court should be personally loyal to him. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, his third appointee to date, was among the dissenters. There were six justices in the Learning Resources majority; four of them did not warrant a mention here. Trump did not even bother to criticize Chief Justice John Roberts, who actually wrote the opinion.
Malcolm Ferguson: "Trump Admin Sued For Diverting $100-Million In Taxpayer Funds. The Trump Administration Refuses To Answer Questions About 'Freedom 250'". (The New Republic, May 12, 2026)
A watchdog group is suing the Trump administration for allegedly using the president's "Freedom 250" organization as a vehicle to divert funds to his vanity projects without congressional approval.
On Tuesday, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), filed a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, following unanswered Freedom of Information Act requests filed back in February for records regarding the public funds being used for "Freedom 250" - the organization overseeing everything from setting up the Grand Prix around the National Mall to Trump's independence arch. The Department of the Interior never responded to the requests, and now PEER's lawsuit claims that our money is being used with "with no transparency, no accountability, and no guardrails."
"America's 250th-anniversary celebration is supposed to be an occasion for strengthening public trust in our democratic institutions, not eroding it", PEER's executive director, Tim Whitehouse, said in a statement yesterday. "In contrast, Freedom 250 is a privately-managed slush fund.… It epitomizes what is wrong with politics today."
PEER alleges that the Trump administration is using Freedom 250 to:
- redirect $100-Million in taxpayer funds from America 250 without congressional approval,
- mix private funding and public taxpayer money without oversight,
- sell "access to President Trump" for up to $2.5-Million,
- solicit foreign donations, and more.
- PEER also accuses the DOI of pressuring workers to use "Freedom 250" branding in their official email sign-offs, which could violate the Hatch Act.
Malcolm Ferguson: "Trump, 79, Falls Asleep Seconds After Speaking in White House Event." (The New Republic; May 11, 2026)
President Trump has once again appeared to doze off on camera in the middle of a White House event, this time, just seconds after he spoke.
Trump was joined by Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Oz, Republican Senator Katie Britt, philanthropist and maternal health advocate Olivia Walton, principal deputy assistant secretary for health Dr. Dorothy Fink, and others at the White House this morning to announce the "Moms.gov" website, a new tactic in the Trump administration's campaign to convince American women to have more babies.
It was the president's first public event of the day, beginning at 11 AM, and he appeared to doze off - with his eyes fully closed - multiple times while the people behind him spoke. It is becoming a regular occurrence for the president to take a little nap during an event, the most recent instance being just last week.
This isn't some late-night Situation Room meeting or some three-hour Cabinet meeting. This is the president's first scheduled event of the day. Even if he's not completely asleep, he certainly is not fully present. Capable presidents don't fall asleep at 11:30 AM.
Phillips P. OBrien, Weekend Update #184: "A Most Revealing Parade. Also: Are We About To See Trump's Greatest Public Humiliation?; Ukrainian Long-Range Strikes Improve." (photos; Substack, May 10, 2026)
In the end, Putin's great Victory Day Parade [V-E Day, celebrating the end of WW-II for Europe and Russia] went ahead yesterday without a Ukrainian attack. That being said, it really was not "great" in any way. Far from being a showcase of Russian might, what the parade really revealed was Russian weakness and Putin's fears about what he cannot control. It not being attacked, in some ways revealed more than had the Ukrainians tried to disrupt the event. In the end, it might have been better for Putin had the parade not been held at all.
Otherwise, there are two other stories that help us understand the parade situation, one that has been going on this whole week and one that is developing as this update is being written. The one developing is that Putin seems to be on the cusp of humiliating Trump (once again) in the most public way. After having promised to free 1,000 Ukrainian prisoners to protect his parade, Putin now seems to be backtracking. Remember, Trump boasted loudly and publicly about this swap.
Finally, this week revealed why Putin was so paranoid about his parade. Ukrainian long-range strikes are growing in effectiveness. They pulled off a number of impressive long-range strikes against high-value targets. It was a message that obviously is sinking in to the Kremlin.
[Also see "Ukraine Hits Russian Kalibr-Missile Warship, Deep in the Caspian Sea" on May 7, below.]
"Russia Breaks US-Backed Pledge, Attempts To De-Rail Prisoner Swap. Negotiations On The Prisoner Exchange Are Likely To Continue." (links; RBC-Ukraine, May 9, 2026)
Russia tries to complicate the prisoner-swap process scheduled as part of a three-day ceasefire with Ukraine. However, this could constitute a violation of agreements with the United States, says a source in the Ukrainian government: "They understand how important prisoner exchanges are for Ukrainians, so they always try to complicate them. But in this case, there was a conversation mediated by the United States; so responsibility now also lies with the United States, which must be able to guarantee what was agreed upon."
Cory Doctorow: "Trump's Fruitless Search For A Goreable Ox" (Pluralistic.net, May 9, 2026)
You can keep billionaires happy, or you can fight the cost-of-living crisis - but not both. The oligarchs' wealth bonanza *caused* the cost-of-living crisis. Oligarchs' pleasure causes our suffering, so alleviating our suffering will reduce their pleasure.
Robert Reich: "Viewer Beware! What We Can Do To Stop And Reverse Trump's Takeover Of The Media." (Substack, May 7, 2026)
Our media is controlled by just a handful of billionaires and their corporations. And Trump is making it worse.
Trump's FCC just approved a massive merger that would let one huge media company control what over 80% of American households see. One of these merging companies, called Nexstar, tried to silence late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
Trump's FCC also cleared the way for billionaire Larry Ellison and his son, David, to buy Paramount - which includes CBS News. The Ellisons are huge Trump boosters.
Vlad Litnarovych: "Ukraine Hits Russian Kalibr-Missile Warship, Deep In The Caspian Sea." (photos; United24, May 7, 2026)
Ukrainian forces struck a Russian small missile warship near the naval base in Kaspiysk, Dagestan, during overnight operations, according to the Ukrainian General Staff.
The targeted vessel was identified as a Project 22800 Karakurt-class missile ship - a platform capable of launching Kalibr cruise missiles frequently used by Russia in strikes against Ukraine. Ukrainian military officials said the extent of the damage is still being assessed.
The strike marked one of the latest Ukrainian long-range attacks against Russian military infrastructure far from the front line, extending all the way to the Caspian Sea region.
[Also see "How Ukraine Broke Russia's Black Sea Fleet - Ship by Ship, Strike by Strike", April 17, 2026.]
NEW: Donald Trump: The 45th And 47th President And His Administration (ProPublica; May 7, 2026)
News and investigations about President Donald Trump and his administration, his business interests and the impact of his policies as the 45th and 47th President of the United States.
[This includes a series of prior articles.]
Brian Tyler Cohen: I Was In DC During The Shooting. Here's The Perverse Irony: Trump Wanted To Create A Post-Truth World. Now It's Coming Back To Bite Him. (Substack, April 27, 2026)
As I reconcile my lived experience with my existence online, what's become a source of debate is the legitimacy of the crisis. Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok are all awash with accusations that the shooting was staged as a pretext for Trump to gin up support for his ballroom. (I'll get to that in a moment.) Now, I don't know the truth, nor am I in a position to opine. But I found this notable because Trump has been on a decade-long mission to obliterate the very concept of truth. And he did it.
There's a perverse irony to the fact that Trump's greatest success is the complete destruction of our shared objective reality. He loves to brag about his wins, when they're all clearly failures (crowd sizes, tariffs, the "hottest" economy, the 2020 election). He would tell his supporters that up is down and black is white, if it would somehow redound to his financial or political benefit. As far as Trump is concerned, the "truth" does not exist.
The shooting happened near a room full of journalists, many of whom immediately picked up their phones and began reporting. They called law enforcement to try to verify facts, they went live and started filming. They didn't hesitate to do their jobs, which is to report the truth - in this instance, as it was happening. And still, the sentiment online and of people around the country the next day is one of disbelief and rampant conspiracy theories. Trump wanted to create a world where the truth didn't exist, so he could fill that void with his own (more-convenient) version of reality. Years later, the trust that once used to bind us is now so obliterated that the knee-jerk reaction to an assassination attempt of him is to distrust everything about it.
The hotel where the White House Correspondents Dinner is hosted is known as the "Hinckley Hilton". 45 years ago, John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan right outside, wounding three people. One of them was press secretary James Brady, who suffered permanent brain damage and ultimately died from his injuries. When the Brady law passed nearly a decade later, it established background checks for gun owners.
There's been no such discussion in the aftermath of this shooting. Nothing on gun safety or mental health, not a word about political violence. Instead, what we got was a sales pitch for - you guessed it - Trump's ballroom. A $400-Million "solution" for gun violence. Well, gun violence against the president. But shootings happen every day in this country, and no one else has a $400-Million ballroom to fall back on. Americans get shot in classrooms, concerts, church, malls, temples - and yet nothing changes. A collective shrug by the people who have the power to do something about it.
So no, a ballroom is not a solution. It's a band-aid - one intended to protect a very-small and very-privileged group of people. An apt microcosm for Trump's America: fixes for the privileged elites, while the rest of the country is left out in the cold.
Vlad Litnarovych, News Writer: "How Ukraine Broke Russia's Black-Sea Fleet - Ship By Ship, Strike By Strike." (United24; April 17, 2026)
Ukraine has achieved what seemed improbable even in military theory: without a conventional navy, it has systematically eroded the offensive power of a far-stronger maritime power - in waters long treated as its own backyard.
According to Ukraine's Defense Ministry, by early 2026, roughly 30% of Russia's Black Sea Fleet had been destroyed or seriously damaged - the result of a relentless campaign of missiles, drones, mines, and deep strikes that turned the Black and Azov seas into high-risk zones for any Russian warship.
[Look ahead to "Ukraine Hits Russian Kalibr Missile Warship Deep In The Caspian Sea", on May 7, 2026.]
NEW: David Corn, Our Land: Tucker Carlson's Biggest Conspiracy Theory Yet. It Only Involves Donald Trump, Neocons, Israel, Satan, And Nuclear Weapons. (Mother Jones; April 15, 2026)
Tucker Carlson sometimes speaks plainly. Sometimes he speaks in code. When he broke with Donald Trump over the Iran war last week, he did both.
The day after Easter, during a monologue on his internet show, Carlson assailed Trump for defiling "the holiest day in Christian life" with a rabid social-media post:
- that threatened to bomb power plants and bridges (civilian targets) if Tehran did not open "the Fuckin' Strait" and
- that mocked Islam.
An outraged Carlson expressed many of the obvious criticisms:
- He proclaimed that Trump had "shattered" a "uniquely joyful and peaceful moment for Christians", and that
- Trump's "vile" vow to conduct "a war crime" was "unacceptable…under moral law".
- He accused Trump of receiving a thrill by threatening such violence.
- He called the post "evil" and declared, "No decent person mocks other people's religion… No president should mock Islam… This is a mockery of Christianity."
- He also slammed Christian leaders - most notably evangelist Paula White, the director of the White House Faith Office - for daring to compare Trump to Jesus. "Did Jesus command the disciples to go out and kill people?", he sharply asked.
This was a harsh critique that people on the Right and Left, Democrats, Republicans and Independents and folks of all faiths or none could share. Here was Carlson as a Christian peacenik anti-interventionist.
But there was something else going on in that 44-minute-long rant. Carlson opened with the fact that during his second inauguration, Trump did not place his hand on the Bible when he swore his oath to defend the Constitution. "That should have been a clue that we need to pause and think about: What IS this?", Carlson remarked. He suggested that Trump "didn't put his hand on the Bible because he affirmatively rejects what's inside that book, and what's inside that book are limits on human behavior". Trump, he said, was not accepting a basic premise of the Old and New Testament: "You are not God, and you cannot assume his powers."
Hmmm. Who might recoil at the Bible, who might be repulsed by the supposed Word of God? Carlson did not answer that. But when railing against Trump's social-media post as the work of "evil", he noted, "God creates, and Satan destroys." It seemed he was associating Trump with Beelzebub. And he wondered aloud where Trump's threats against Iran and the current stalemate will lead. He answered his own question: "Nuclear weapons… You wipe out a country of 92-million… You could have a global nuclear war… All things being equal, that's where we're heading."
Carlson was casting Trump as a Satan-adjacent, Bible-hating, evil force slouching toward nuclear Armageddon.
And there's more...
[When Carlson said (above), "No decent person mocks other people's religion…", let's also note that:
- no decent person mocks non-religious persons, either
- and worse, does not mock America's Founding Fathers, by revising those Founding Fathers' Declaration Of Independence with "one nation under God" - thereby reversing our Founding Fathers' clear Separation of Religion and State.]
Robert Reich: The Catastrophe Of Trump's War And Its Mounting Costs. (Substack; March 26, 2026)
As we near the end of the fourth week of Trump's war with no end in sight, I want to make sure you are aware of what he said today, and its implications.
After Tehran dismissed his 15-point ceasefire plan, Trump claimed today that Iran is "begging to make a deal" and that he wasn't the one pushing for negotiations.
Robert Reich: The REAL Reason Trump Is Trapped In Iran - And Why American Consumers Are Up Shit's Creek. (Substack; March 20, 2026)
Yesterday, Trump said that he'd do whatever is necessary to ease the oil crisis. He also assured America that the crisis "will be over soon".
Bullshit.
The problem isn't just that Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz. It's also that…
Simon Tisdall: Here's The News From Iran – Donald Trump Is Making America Lose Wars Again. Humiliating Failure Now Looms, As Symbolically Damaging To U.S. Global Standing And National Self-Esteem As Afghanistan Or Iraq. (The Guardian, March 15, 2026)
Donald Trump menaces the world. He's global public enemy number one. He's steadily losing the illegal war with Iran he started but cannot stop. His violence-addicted Israeli sidekick, Benjamin Netanyahu, is terrorising Lebanon. And ordinary people everywhere, their security threatened, face a huge economic bill for his reckless folly.
Add Trump's war-making to his daily:
- debasing of democracy,
- appeasing of Russia,
- punitive tariffs,
- climate crisis denial and
- flouting of international law,
and it's clear this White House travesty has gone on long enough. Americans must put their house in order, and act decisively to restrain someone who endangers us all.
Trump is a man without a plan. He hasn't the foggiest what to do next in Iran, deluding himself that he is in control of events. The more the U.S. and Israel batter Tehran and other cities, the more defiant is the odious, unvanquished Islamic regime. U.S. regional bases and Gulf Arab partners are sustaining significant damage from retaliatory strikes.
[Why yes, there IS more...]

---

Joseph Cox: The Removed DOGE Deposition Videos Have Already Been Backed Up Across The Internet. (links!; 404 Media, March 14, 2026)
Yesterday, a judge ordered those who uploaded the videos to YouTube to remove them. By today, a backup of the videos was available online as a torrent and on the Internet Archive.
Joseph Cox: We Watched 6 Hours Of DOGE-Bro Testimony. Here's What They Had To Say For Themselves. (3-min. YouTube video; 404 Media, March 13, 2026)
Over the course of a six-hour-long-or-so deposition, Justin Fox, a former-investment-banker-turned-DOGE-bro:
- refused to define what he believes counts as DEI;   
- admitted he used ChatGPT to scan government contracts for terms such as "Black" and "homosexual" but not "White" or "Caucasian";
- and said that one of the grants he helped slash was "not for the benefit of humankind" - before walking that claim back.
I watched all of Fox's deposition from start to finish. The terse exchanges, the circular arguments, the pregnant pauses, all of it. The videos, available publicly on YouTube, were released as part of a lawsuit by the Modern Language Association, American Council of Learned Societies, and American Historical Association. They provide fascinating, and perhaps horrifying, insight into the thinking of someone inside DOGE. Even with Fox's inability to answer seemingly easy questions, the responses are still illustrative of the recklessness and ham-fisted nature of a group of young, inexperienced people who caused massive damage across the U.S. government, leading to negative consequences outside of it. DOGE as an organization has been linked to 300,000 deaths due to its cuts and multiple significant data breaches. All the while, DOGE did not actually reduce the government's deficit.
Jayar Jackson: MAGA In CHAOS, As DOGE Deposition Reveals STOLEN Data Scheme. (13-min. YouTube video; WatchlistTYT, March 12, 2026)
Elon Musk's DOGE team thought they could quietly move Social Security data through Signal chats and private servers, but
- a whistle-blower,
- a court filing and
- a trail of voter-roll investigations
are now exposing how the Trump administration's operation may have crossed the line from "waste and fraud" talking points into something far more dangerous.

---

Michael Cornelison: Steve Witkoff: Stupid Or Traitorous? (Substack, March 12, 2026)
Steve Witkoff, Trump's ambassador for everything (Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, Iran-USA-Arabs) has long been a mystery to me. Who is this guy? Lately, this has become more clear.
Witkoff (and his accomplice Jared Kushner), have gotten a lot of money from the Arab Gulf states, and plan on making lots more money from rebuilding Gaza. Now something else has come to light.
Multiple news outfits are reporting that Russia has been giving targeting information to Iran, causing U.S. military assets in the Gulf region to get blown up. Iran's Foreign Minister admitted this is happening, and called Russia a "strategic partner". Trump officials, when asked, did not seem to care.
In a TV interview, Witkoff was asked about Trump's talks with Russian officials regarding the intelligence-sharing. His response: "I can tell you that on the call with POTUS, the Russians said they have NOT been sharing. That's what they said. We can take them at their word." (NOT emphasis added.) So, Witkoff trusts the Russians, and Iran's Foreign Minister was lying?
What is it with Witkoff? Probably he is loyal to Putin, but stupidity cannot be ruled out. Recall, also, that he negotiated a "peace plan" for Ukraine that amounted to a list of Putin's demands. That plan was thrown out and replaced with a more-balanced plan - that still calls for Ukraine to give up more territory than the Russians have conquered.
Glenn Kirschner: Staggering Revelations In The Epstein Files! All The "King's" Men: Trump's Lackeys And Their Disservice To America. (15-min. YouTube video; March 11, 2026)
We just got one heck of an Epstein-files update. We know that state law enforcement authorities in New Mexico are now investigating Jeffrey Epstein's Zorro ranch. That is the scene of allegations of horrific crimes by Epstein, Maxwell, and others, and it's good that the New Mexico law-enforcement authorities are investigating.
But the obvious question is: Why wasn't the Zorro ranch searched by law-enforcement authorities:
- when they searched Epstein's home in New York,
- when they searched his home in Florida,
- when they searched his home on his infamous island?
Well, we now know the answer to that question: Donald Trump's Department of Justice told the New Mexico law enforcement authorities to halt their investigation!
This video takes on this dramatic and deeply-troubling new revelation.
Emily Singer: Trump Says He Can End The Iran War Whenever He Wants. So Why Hasn't He? (cartoon by Jack Ohman; Daily Kos, March 11, 2026)
In a sign he's clearly worried about the negative economic and political consequences of the ill-advised war he started in Iran, President Donald Trump called up yet another reporter today to insist that everything is going great. He also said that he will end the conflict "soon" because there is "practically nothing left to target".
"Little this and that ... Any time I want it to end, it will end", Trump told Axios' Barak Ravid in a five-minute phone conversation.
Trump's ridiculous claim that he can simply decide when the war against Iran will stop is patently absurd. Iran is not a rational actor. It doesn't care about the suffering of its people, nor about preserving the non-existent relationships it has with other western nations. So long as it has munitions and the ability to cripple the global economy by choking off the Strait of Hormuz - a waterway critical to the global oil supply - it has no incentives to stop.
Bill Clinton*: "Most People Have No Idea What's About To Happen, After A Week Of Hormuz Being Closed." (24-min. Somvati Rana/YouTube AI podcast, March 10, 2026)
*- [DISCLAIMER: SOMVATI RANA is an independent, fan-made channel not affiliated with Bill Clinton, his campaign, or any political organization. The videos are inspired by public speeches and verified news for educational and analytical purposes only.]
"Strait of Hormuz closed, oil prices surge, Iran war 2026 - what happens next?" In this video, Bill Clinton shares his political perspective on the biggest oil-supply disruption in history. After U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran killed Supreme Leader Khamenei:
- Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, sending
- Brent crude past $110-per-barrel and
- gas prices soaring to $3.47-per-gallon in just one week.
Clinton breaks down:
- the leadership failures,
- the insurance-driven shipping shutdown nobody planned for,
- the collapse of Iraqi oil production,
- Iranian strikes on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, and
- why this crisis threatens not just your wallet,
- but American democracy itself.
From war-powers violations to fractured alliances to the real risk of $150 oil, this is the analysis that mainstream media won't give you. Whether you support or oppose this war, the consequences affect every single American.
[Well-said, by one of America's good Presidents! Also, let's not turn on Israel, just because its president is much like our president.]
Emily Singer: Trump's War Spikes Gas Prices - And Gets Iran A Worse Leader. (cartoon by Mike Luckovich; Daily Kos, March 9, 2026)
- Seven American service members are dead,
- dozens of Iranian children were murdered by a U.S. missile strike,
- oil is raining from the skies to poison the air for thousands of people living in Iran following an Israeli missile strike,
- and oil and gas prices worldwide are surging, as
- the war has led to the blockade of a critical waterway used to transport oil.
But hey, at least we have a new Iranian leader who is in some ways worse than the murderous oppressor whom the United States killed a little over a week ago!
Indeed, Iran announced yesterday that it replaced Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with his son Mojtaba Khamenei. The 56-year-old religious cleric lost his mother, wife, and a son, as well as his father, to U.S. strikes.
Given his relative youth, Iran's new supreme leader could have many years left to reign over the nation with an iron fist. That means we:
- spent $Billions,
- lost American lives, and
- potentially decimated the global economy, only to
- put in someone who may in fact be more extreme than the previous guy, who brutally oppressed both dissenters and women.
Heather Cox Richardson: Iran War & Cowboy Individualism (6-min. video summary; YouTube, March 8, 2026)
Heather Cox Richardson highlights the Trump administration's "cartoonish" approach to the Iran war, rooted in "cowboy individualism", and its severe real-world consequences.
- From campaign merch at dignified transfers
- to submarine attacks on unarmed vessels,
- the true cost of this conflict is becoming painfully clear.
Watch the full summary video to understand the historical context and unfolding crisis!
NEW: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: "There Is A Cover-Up Afoot": Sen. Whitehouse Unravels Disturbing Trump, Epstein, And Russia Ties. (47-min. YouTube video, March 5, 2026) Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) takes to the Senate Floor to recap the mountain of circumstantial evidence laid bare by courageous survivors and journalists connecting Trump, Epstein, and Russia.
Mahbod Seraji: This Is Not A Regime-Change War. Iran Is Being Pushed Toward State Collapse. The U.S. And Israel Have Killed Ayatollah Khamenei, But They Seem To Have No Plan For What Comes Next. (Truthout, March 3, 2026)
The U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran has already sparked regional war, and threatens to reshape West Asia for years to come. The military strikes began on February 28, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several of his top officials.
Now, several days into the war, the rationale has not been clearly articulated; U.S. lawmakers and officials have offered up different, often competing explanations for the initial attack and end goals.
Yet the massive American military buildup in the region in the weeks before the attack made it evident that something significant was coming, even as negotiations between Iranian and American officials continued, and even as the Omani foreign minister declared the night before the initial strike that an agreement was within reach.
Despite Khamenei's death, President Trump has said the strikes will continue. To what end?
- If Iran's nuclear facilities and capabilities were already obliterated during last year's U.S. strikes, as Trump has long claimed, what is now the objective?
- The elimination of remaining leaders, as U.S. forces attempted in Iraq?
- The dismantling of the Revolutionary Guard?
- The state's total collapse?
Those objectives presume that the Islamic Republic is a pyramid resting on a single figure. It is not.
- Iran's regular army, the Artesh, numbers roughly 375,000 personnel. The Revolutionary Guard - Iran's military, political, and economic powerhouse - counts approximately 125,000 or more. The Basij, Iran's voluntary paramilitary organization, maintains around 90,000 active members and can mobilize 450,000. By some estimates, nearly one-million individuals serve in or alongside the state's security structure. As of this writing, the regime has not collapsed, and these forces remain intact.
- In an eight-minute video released at the beginning of the bombing campaign, President Trump urged Iran's army, police, Revolutionary Guard, and Basij to lay down their arms and called on citizens to take control of their government. That appeal assumes a rapid implosion of the state's coercive machinery. But institutions of that scale do not dissolve because they are told to. Hundreds-of-thousands of armed men do not disarm overnight and hand the country to foreign powers or spontaneous civic committees.
- If the expectation is that bombing will accelerate internal democratic change, recent events suggest otherwise. Iran was already under severe strain. A banking crisis and sharp currency devaluation triggered nation-wide protests that began at the end of 2025, involving everyone from students and workers to bazaar merchants. Security forces responded with brutal force. Human-rights groups reported thousands of civilian casualties; authorities reported losses among their own ranks. The protests had begun to re-emerge when the bombs fell.
- Airstrikes do not create space for civic mobilization. They drive people indoors. When foreign aircraft strike cities, citizens do not gather in public squares demanding reform. They seek shelter. Within 24 hours of the start of the military strikes, hundreds of Iranians were reportedly killed, including students at a girls' school in Hormozgan Province. Whatever fragile momentum for internal change existed has now been interrupted by war.
- Following from the confusion about Trump's plan for this war, another question quickly follows: If the current leadership collapses, who governs?
- There is no unified opposition inside Iran with institutional capacity to assume control. The Islamic Republic's opponents are fragmented: reformists, republicans, labor activists, student networks, ethnic movements, and monarchists often disagree not only on leadership but on the structure of a future state. The current government has also spent decades repressing any of these forces that could come as a reasonable threat to its power, suffocating space for democratic debate.
- Among the most visible figures in exile is Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's former shah. A segment of the Iranian diaspora regards him as a transitional leader and speaks as though his succession is self-evident. On social media and satellite networks, some supporters already frame him as the natural heir to a post-Islamic Republic Iran.
- But diaspora visibility is not the same as governing legitimacy inside the country. Reza Pahlavi commands no formal political party within Iran, no known alliance with senior military officers, and no organized structure capable of securing ministries, borders, or public order in a moment of upheaval. His father and grandfather ruled through authoritarian control, and for many Iranians, especially those who experienced imprisonment, censorship, or repression under the monarchy, that history remains unresolved.
Restoration of the Pahlavi regime overlooks the institutions that still exist: the Revolutionary Guard, regional power brokers, clerical networks, provincial patronage systems, and armed groups unwilling to surrender authority to a figure whose base of support is largely external.
Even prominent American officials appear unconvinced. Donald Trump has suggested that Reza Pahlavi lacks the necessary support and capacity to lead Iran. "He seems very nice, but I don't know how he'd play within his own country", Trump told Reuters in January. "I don't know whether or not his country would accept his leadership, and certainly if they would, that would be fine with me." Of the monarchists, one anonymous U.S. official told Politico, "They scare me."
- Leadership in a country of more than 90-million people does not materialize through wish or nostalgia. It requires institutional alignment, territorial control, and internal legitimacy, none of which can be assumed from exile.
- Iran's internal complexity deepens the uncertainty about "What now?". Although Persians form a majority of Iran's population, the country includes substantial Azeri, Kurdish, Baluch, Arab, and Turkic populations. These communities are deeply-integrated into national life, yet historical grievances and regional tensions persist. It's important to remember that grievances against centralized state power in Iran long predate 1979. Ethnic and regional minorities often faced cultural and political marginalization under the Pahlavi monarchy, including denial of national rights and suppression of uprisings in outlying provinces. These long-standing issues helped fuel broader discontent that contributed to the revolution. Efforts at "nation-building" under the Shah also involved policies aimed at linguistic and cultural homogenization, which many non-Persian communities experienced as exclusionary and repressive. In stable times, such tensions are contained by a functioning center. In unstable times, they resurface quickly.
- In the northwest, Azeri communities share linguistic and cultural ties with the Republic of Azerbaijan.
- In the southeast, Sistan and Baluchistan endured decades of insurgency and state neglect.
- In the southwest, Khuzestan holds much of Iran's oil and contains a significant Arab population with a history of separatist sentiment.
- Kurdish regions are connected to broader Kurdish movements across Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.
A prolonged vacuum in Tehran would not produce orderly transition. It would invite regional intervention, militia mobilization, and competing territorial claims. Fragmentation would not be theoretical. It would be violent.
History offers sobering examples:
- The disintegration of Yugoslavia led to ethnic war and Balkanization.
- The 2003 invasion of Iraq unleashed sectarian conflict that reshaped the state.
- NATO's intervention in Libya preceded years of militia competition.
- Afghanistan's 20-year war ended with the return of the Taliban.
Iran is not identical to those cases. But the belief that sustained bombing can engineer stable democracy has repeatedly been disproven.
War does not operate with surgical precision. It does not remove one figure and install another:
- It shifts power to those most capable of wielding force.
- It weakens civil society faster than it builds alternatives.
- It deepens grievances that last generations.
Removing leadership is not the same as constructing governance.
- The price of this ambiguity around the future will not be paid primarily by generals or politicians. It will be paid by students in Shiraz, factory workers in Isfahan, merchants in Tabriz, families in Mashhad - by people who have already endured sanctions, repression, and economic collapse.
- Iran is more than its rulers. It is a layered society held together by history and shared memory. Remove the center without a viable replacement and you do not create democracy. You create a vacuum. And in this region, vacuums rarely remain empty. They fill with militaries, militias, foreign proxies, and wars that often outlive the people who start them.
If the architects of this attack have a plan for the morning after, they have not shared it. If they believe the story ends with the fall of one man, history suggests otherwise.
February 28 may not mark the end of a regime. It may mark the beginning of a far-more-dangerous uncertainty - the destabilization of a nation.
[Long, but one from which to learn.]
Andy Sullivan and Richard Cowan: Bill Clinton To Lawmakers Investigating Epstein: "I Saw Nothing." (2-min. video; Reuters, February 27, 2026)
Summary:
- Clinton says he would have turned Epstein in, had he seen evidence of crimes.
- Democrats accuse Justice Department of cover-up, say Trump must testify.
- Clinton flew on Epstein's plane several times in the early 2000s.
- First time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress.
Richard Cowan and Ryan Patrick Jones: Hillary Clinton Tells Congressional Panel She Has No Information On Epstein. (3-min. video; Reuters, February 26, 2026)
Summary:
- Hillary Clinton denies meeting Epstein or visiting his properties.
- Accuses GOP panel of deflecting from Trump's Epstein ties.
- Democrats question missing Epstein-related files from DOJ.
Barak Ravid: Israel Bombs The Council Choosing Iran's Next Supreme Leader, Official Says. (Axiom, February 3, 2026)
The Israeli Air Force today struck the building housing Iran's Council of Experts in the holy city of Qom in an attempt to disrupt the process of appointing a new supreme leader, an Israeli defense official said.
Why It Matters: The Council of Experts is the body within the Iranian regime with the authority to appoint a new supreme leader. The clerics on the council vote on a short list of candidates being drafted by a smaller secret committee.
Driving The News: The Israeli defense official said the strike took place while votes were being counted.
- It isn't clear how many of the council's 88 members were in the building at the time, or the extent of the damage.
- "We wanted to prevent them from picking a new supreme leader", the official said.
Barak Ravid: Earthquake In The Gulf: Iran War Expands To A Dozen Countries In 72 Hours. (Axios, March 2, 2026)
Just 72 hours after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran:
- the war has consumed nearly the entire Middle East,
- reached the gates of Europe, and
- raised new fears of attacks on American soil.
Why It Matters: The sheer geographic scope of the war is staggering:
- directly involving at least 11 countries,
- disrupting the global flow of oil and gas, and
- rattling markets worldwide.
President Trump said today that Operation Epic Fury is designed to last four to five weeks. In that window, the conflict has significant room to expand further.
The Big Picture: The Middle East had barely caught its breath.
After two years of war across Israel, Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen, a U.S.-brokered ceasefire last October had only brought relative quiet to the region.
Now comes another earthquake - and by early measures, a far larger one.
Driving The News: Iran had warned prior to the war that any attack on its soil would trigger retaliation not just against Israel, but against U.S. bases across the Gulf and in Iraq.
- In the opening hours of the war, Iran launched waves of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.
- Iran also struck the Kurdish region of Iraq, which it views as closely-aligned with the U.S. and Israel. Pro-Iranian militias attacked U.S. bases in Iraq, and their supporters attempted to storm the U.S.-Embassy compound in Baghdad.
- On the second day, Iran expanded its strikes to Saudi Arabia and Oman - the country that had been instrumental in brokering nuclear negotiations between Tehran and the Trump administration.
- Today, debris from two Iranian drones struck an Aramco oil refinery in Saudi Arabia - the first such attack since 2019.
- Qatar - another key mediator between Tehran and Washington - said it downed two Iranian fighter jets and condemned the "reckless and irresponsible" targeting of its territory.
The Other Side: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other officials have insisted that Iran is not at war with the region - only targeting Israel and U.S. military bases.
- But Iranian drones and missiles have struck numerous civilian targets across the Gulf, including tourist areas of Dubai.
- That gap between Iran's stated position and its actions is pushing several regional countries to consider joining the war and retaliating directly against Iran, Arab sources tell Axios.
Between The Lines: Iran has also moved to strangle commercial shipping in the Gulf, attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz by vowing to set fire to any ship that passes through.
- The U.S. has sunk several Iranian naval vessels and
- insists oil supplies remain stable, despite
- 20% of global crude shipments passing through Hormuz.
- The attacks have significantly-curtailed exports, and Qatar's suspension of liquefied natural gas production sent energy markets sharply-higher Monday.
Zoom In: Last night, Hezbollah entered the war - launching missiles and drones at Israel and opening a new front on the Lebanon border.
- Israel responded with massive airstrikes across Lebanon, including in Beirut, killing several senior Hezbollah commanders.
- Hezbollah's decision to join the fighting had been one of the key unknowns for U.S. and Israeli intelligence. Though badly degraded by years of Israeli strikes, the group remains Iran's most-powerful proxy.
- So far, its attacks have been limited and largely-intercepted by Israeli air defenses - leaving Israeli officials questioning why the group chose to enter the war without full force.
- "Everyone in Hezbollah is a target now", one Israeli defense official warned.
- In a remarkable development, the Lebanese Cabinet voted today to ban all Hezbollah military activity on Lebanon's soil. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called on the group to immediately surrender its weapons.
The Intrigue: Over the past 24 hours, drones struck the British Royal Air Force base at Akrotiri in Cyprus - dragging Europe into the conflict for the first time.
- Cypriot press reported that all indications suggest the drones were launched from Lebanon by Hezbollah, linking the attack directly to the group's entry into the war.
- Cyprus - which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency - postponed a planned ministerial summit in the wake of the attack.
- Greece announced it is sending two frigates and two fighter jets to help defend the island.
Zoom Out: The three major European powers - the U.K., France and Germany - have signaled they could get actively involved in the conflict.
- In a joint statement, their leaders said they would "take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran's capability to fire missiles and drones at their source."
- The first concrete step came from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced he would allow the U.S. to use British air bases in the region to launch strikes against Iranian missile and drone storage depots and launchers. A source with knowledge of the process said this could include British bases in the U.K., Cyprus, or Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
What To Watch: The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have not yet entered the war, but have signaled they are preparing to do so.
The Bottom Line: The war is already being felt back in the American homeland.
- The FBI and DHS placed counter-terrorism teams on high alert and a DHS bulletin warned of a "heightened-threat environment" - flagging potential terror plots and cyberattacks by pro-Iranian hacktivists.
- The U.S. Capitol announced heightened security measures today.
- In Austin Texas, a mass shooting is being investigated as potential terrorism linked to the conflict.
Ken Klippenstein: Why We Struck Iran - The Machine That All But Made The Decision Itself. (Substack; March 2, 2026)
We attacked Iran because the target was simply too tempting to pass up, military sources tell me.
No consideration was given to the what, the so what or the then what, I’m also told. The "high-value targets" were just too valuable: the Ayatollah, the Chief-of-Staff of the Army, the Minister of Defense - at least 40 senior officials in total were killed.
Trump "approved" what was all-but-impossible not to approve. The president is captive to an intelligence machine built over decades, that now produces kill packages so clean and seductive that it practically runs itself.
As the Pentagon bluntly put it, "a large-scale U.S. strike cut off the head of the snake", summarizing its view of a crisp decapitation operation.
Trump gets away with all of this by pretending we're not actually at war - a falsehood with which Congress is happy to play along. Asked if the U.S. is at war with Iran, Sen. Lindsey Graham told Meet the Press: "I don’t know if this is technically a war." Absurd as that sounds, Democratic leaders are adopting the same framing. Sen. Chuck Schumer says the strikes are "risking wider conflict", as if this isn't already that; Rep. Hakeem Jeffries says the operation has "brought us to the brink of a possible war", as if this isn't already war.
If killing a 36-year-long head of state and his deputies isn’t war, what is?
The United States IS at war with Iran, pure and simple. We have been for decades:
- We supported Iraq in its war against Iran.
- We've conducted special operations inside Iran.
- We've shot at Iranian coastal installations.
- We've sunk Iranian ships.
- We've undertaken constant covert operations in the shadows, from actual sabotage to planting cyber viruses.
- We shot down an Iranian civilian airliner.
- We attacked targets on land.
- We conducted thousands of strikes against Iranian proxies in multiple countries from Yemen to Lebanon.
- We’ve labeled the country "part of the Axis of Evil".
- We killed Quds Force head Qasem Soleimani in an aerial assassination.
- We bombed Iranian nuclear-related sites.
- We've thwarted Iranian attacks on Israel and others, maintained a tripwire ground force in Kuwait, and hardened installations in the region. [True, but when did defending allies become bad?]
From Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump, through Republican and Democratic administrations, the United States has:
- frozen countless billions in Iranian assets;
- sanctioned Iranian companies;
- cut off Iran from the world banking system;
- banned Iranian oil imports and exports; and
- penalized non-U.S. companies investing in the country.
- We have designated the nation, Iranian organizations, and Iranian individuals as state sponsors of terrorism and foreign terrorist organizations.
Add to this history that today, the American military machine continues to do its thing. In two-and-a-half decades of war since 9/11, it has perfected the ability to find and destroy a target, ANY target. I've previously written about the fundamental change that has occurred in the nature of warfare in the practice of decapitation. As we see here in the latest, the U.S. and Israel carried out an opening blow that killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other Iranian leaders.
That military feat itself is the "reason" we are where we are. Pure and simple, meticulous intelligence work identified the routines and locations of the Ayatollah and others in Iran's national-security apparatus; when a set of meetings on Saturday morning were pin-pointed, the tight-as-a-rubber-band machine snapped into action.
"Calling this 'starting a war' is a Democratic talking-point", Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said today, adding: "This is the elimination of a threat that has existed since 1979."
Because we were already at war with Iran and have been for decades, those in charge didn't think they had to ask permission (or even if they did, that they had time to do so). The target is hot, red hot, and we need to strike now to gain the maximum advantage, the briefers say. Yes, there are intelligence and diplomatic people who fret about the consequences, but like the wusses in Congress, they are brushed aside because "This is an opportunity we can't pass up."
That's how it's been explained to me.
[And that's while AI is only partially in charge...]
Robert Reich: Sunday Thought: Trump's Real Reason For War (Substack; March 1, 2026)
Trump and Netanyahu's attack on Iran is premised on a gossamer web of assumptions and inferences. Trump says Iran:
- has enough nuclear material to build a bomb within days,
- will soon have long-range missiles capable of hitting the United States, and
- plans an attack.
But he has offered NO evidence. Most experts say he's wrong.
Here's the real reason for this war. Trump wants it to divert Americans' attention from everything that's gone to shit on his watch:
- the economy,
- ICE's cruel raids and murders,
- the crisis in public health as exemplified by the measles epidemic,
- our loss of friends and allies around the world,
- his boundless corruption, and
- his increasing unpopularity as shown in plummeting polls.
- Oh, and there are the Epstein files, rapidly closing in on the man whose history of sexual assaults and braggadocio [AND his criminal actions to hide the evidence] make his complicity highly likely.
[Indeed. And there's more, such as:
- evading Congressional Checks-and-Balances,
- this past week's right-wing take-over of most of the main U.S. media AND a big chunk of Internet services,
- further diminishing of Free Speech at home and abroad,
- except for TrumPutin's own, increasingly-awful mis-use of Free Speech, and
- his revenge on the ethical AI company that objects to
- mis-use of its AI (Claude) by our military and ICE
- to squelch Free Speech,
- to wage wars (including this week's new war),
- to steal elections
- and to take vast wealth from We, The People for himself and his outrageously-wealthy cronies.
NEW: How Iran's Leader Was Killed. (14-min. YouTube video; fern.tv; March 2, 2026)
[Excellent coverage w/4K video, history and details of the first strike.]
Harrison Mann: I Was A U.S. Intelligence Analyst. Israel And The U.S. Are Lying To You About Iran. (Zeteo, March 1, 2026)
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have launched their most-dangerous war yet, but the pretenses underpinning it are weaker than ever. You're already being bombarded by lies from the White House, the Capitol, and TV commentators.
Here are seven truths behind the half-hearted arguments meant to manufacture consent for a war you never asked for:
[We share the ONE of seven that can be viewed without a paid subscription.]
1. This War Won't Keep Americans Safe.
Trump says he launched this war to "defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime". He apparently expects us to forget he used this lie the last time he bombed Iran. What was true in June still is true now:
- There's no evidence the Iranian government is on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon (despite Netanyahu's claims to the contrary for the past 30 years),
- the Iranian military does not have weapons that can strike the U.S. (despite Trump's claim to the contrary) – a fact confirmed by my old employer, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and
– Iran's leaders had no intention of pre-emptively attacking U.S. forces in the Middle East.
The Trump administration's pained justification that Iran planned to fire missiles "preemptively, but if not, if not simultaneous, against with any actions against them", is beyond dubious given that the Iranian government watched U.S. forces posturing to attack for weeks and did not, in fact, launch a pre-emptive strike against them (and "simultaneous" is an exceptionally-creative way to say "firing missiles after we start attacking them").
If Iran really represented an immediate threat to the American people, why has Trump been telegraphing this attack since mid-January? What is true is that the Iranian government's missiles, drones, and proxies can strike U.S. forces in the region, which is exactly what started happening yesterday after U.S. planes started bombing Iran. Anyone who actually wanted to keep U.S. forces safe could simply move them out of the region and out-of-range of Tehran's capabilities – or, even easier – just avoid starting a war of choice with them in the first place.
Associated Press/Jon Gambrell, Melanie Lidman, Josh Boak and Eric Tucker: Iran's Supreme Leader Killed In Major Attack By U.S. And Israel. (AP News, February 28, 2026)
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a major attack by Israel and the United States, Iranian state media confirmed, throwing the future of the Islamic Republic into doubt and raising the risk of regional instability.
President Donald Trump announced the death hours earlier, saying it gave Iranians their "greatest chance" to "take back" their country.
State media reported that the 86-year-old was killed in an airstrike targeting his compound in downtown Tehran. Satellite photos from Airbus showed that the site was heavily bombed.    
Associated Press/Brian Melley: What To Know About The New US-Israel Attacks On Iran (AP News, February 28, 2026)
The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran today in a massive operation that President Donald Trump said:
- killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while
- targeting military capabilities and
- aiming to stop Tehran from creating a nuclear weapon.
There was no comment on Khamenei by Tehran, while Trump urged Iranians to seize the moment and "take over".
In counterattacks, Iran fired drones and missiles at Israel and aimed strikes at U.S. military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. Exchanges of fire continued into the night. Iranian state media, citing the Red Crescent, this evening said at least 201 people had been killed and more than 700 injured.
Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's National Security Council, said Israel and America will "regret their actions".
The strikes came two days after the latest U.S.-Iran talks, as Trump pressured Tehran for a deal to constrain its nuclear program and built up a fleet of warships in the region. Iran's theocracy also has struggled with growing dissent following nation-wide protests that began over the economy but turned into anti-government ones.
The U.S. military said it was looking into reports of civilians killed in Iran in today's strikes. At least 115 people were reported killed and dozens wounded at a girls' school in the south, the local governor told Iranian state TV.
World leaders reacted with caution, and the U.N. Security Council met in an urgent session.
NEW: Herb Scribner: 6 Ways Trump Escalated Military Force In His Second Term. (Axios, February 27, 2026)
President Trump hasn't been shy about deploying the U.S. military during his second term.
Why It Matters: Despite promoting himself as a "president of peace", he's deployed the U.S. military in multiple American cities and across the globe, striking Iran and others, raiding Venezuela and striking suspected drug boats in the Caribbean.
- Trump's military actions may take another turn soon, with the possibility of war with Iran on the horizon.
Driving The News: The U.S. evacuated its embassy staff in Israel today, signaling that a joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran could be imminent, Axios' Barak Ravid writes.
- There are many reasons why the U.S. may hit Iran again, including the damaging Israeli and U.S. strikes last year - a major escalation in Trump's use of military force.
What They're Saying: "Under President Trump, America is respected again, and our military has restored its reputation as the strongest and most powerful on the planet. All of the President's actions have made our country safer and the world more stable", White House spokesperson Anna Kelly tells Axios.
Read more below about where Trump has sent the military.
Iran Strikes Last Year: The U.S. joined the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025 by taking out Iran's underground nuclear facilities, which led to historic escalation in the Middle East. Trump said at the time that the strikes were a "spectacular military success" and claimed Iran's key uranium enrichment sites "have been completely and totally obliterated." The attack on Iranian nuclear facilities led to widespread backlash from Congress, with many arguing Trump needed congressional authorization for such a use of military force.
Nigeria On Christmas: Trump announced, on Christmas day, that the U.S. military "launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS." U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) said the strikes were in Sokoto State. "May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues", Trump wrote on social media at the time. Trump had previously warned about potential U.S. military action in Nigeria, pointing to violent attacks against both Christians and Muslims.
"Drug-Boat" Strikes In The Caribbean: U.S. military forces started battering ships and alleged "drug boats" with lethal airstrikes, in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific in late 2025. Many officials said the campaign aimed to curb the flow of drugs.
- The strikes then shifted toward pursuing oil and later seizing tankers as a part of a move against Venezuela.
- Some congressional backlash followed, with lawmakers calling for transparency and posing legal questions about Trump's authority.
Venezuela Raid In January: Trump sent 150 aircraft into the skies in a stunning raid on former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro's fortified compound. The raid up-ended the Venezuelan government.
- Soon after, President Trump teased using military action against other countries across the world.
(Note: The U.S. military used Anthropic's Claude AI model during that operation, which has now led to a high-profile standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon over military use.)
Aircraft Carriers To Iran: Trump recently sent two aircraft carriers to the region outside Iran, building speculation that another strike may happen. The U.S. sent the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and its strike group to the Middle East in February. The Ford joined the USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group in January.
Military In U.S. Cities: Trump has deployed National Guard troops in D.C. and temporarily in Los Angeles and New Orleans amid his immigration-crackdown and law-enforcement surge. He also pushed for troops in Chicago and Portland, among other cities, but faced legal challenges that seemed to disrupt his plans.
What We're Watching: The president has threatened to use the Insurrection Act - a rarely-invoked power that lets him put soldiers on American streets. No president has used it since 1992.
[I'm watching that gross mis-use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).]
Stephanie Liechtenstein: U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Says It's Unable To Verify Whether Iran Has Suspended All Uranium Enrichment. (AP News, February 27, 2026)
Iran has not allowed the United Nations nuclear agency access to its nuclear facilities, bombed by Israel and the United States during a 12-day war in June, according to a confidential report by the watchdog circulated to member states and seen today by The Associated Press.
The report from the International Atomic Energy Agency stressed that it "cannot verify whether Iran has suspended all enrichment-related activities", or the "size of Iran's uranium stockpile at the affected nuclear facilities".
Iran has four declared enrichment facilities, but the report warned that because of the lack of access, the IAEA "cannot provide any information on the current size, composition or whereabouts of the stockpile of enriched uranium in Iran".
The report stressed that the "loss of continuity of knowledge ... needs to be addressed with the utmost urgency".
Iran has long insisted its program is peaceful, but the IAEA and Western nations say Tehran had an organized nuclear-weapons program up until 2003. The U.S. is seeking a deal to limit Iran's nuclear program and ensure it does not develop nuclear weapons.
Associated Press/Ben Finley and Jamie Stengle: Scouting America Will Alter Policies To Maintain Support From U.S. Military: Pentagon (ABC News, February 27, 2026)
Scouting America will alter several policies at the urging of the Pentagon, including a requirement that members use "biological sex at birth and not gender identity", Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced today.
Some of the changes mirror what the organization suggested to the Defense Department in January, which included:
- discontinuing its Citizenship in Society merit badge,
- introducing a Military Service merit badge, and
- waiving registration fees for the children of military personnel.
Under Hegseth, the Pentagon has taken aim at the military's partnership with Scouting America, decrying its historic rebrand in 2024 from the Boy Scouts and other changes in recent years that he sees as part of "woke culture" efforts that he wants to root out.
Hegseth said in a video posted on X that the Pentagon will cease its support of Scouting America if it fails to comply. "We hope that doesn't happen, but it could", Hegseth said. "Ideally I believe the Boy Scouts should go back to being the Boy Scouts as originally founded, a group that develops boys into men. Maybe someday."
Scouting America, which is based in Irving, Texas, didn’t immediately comment. The organization began allowing gay youth in 2013, ended a blanket ban on gay adult leaders in 2015 and announced in 2017 that it would accept transgender students. It began accepting girls as Cub Scouts as of 2018 and into the flagship Boy Scout program - renamed Scouts BSA - in 2019. As of May 2024, more than 6,000 girls had earned the coveted Eagle Scout rank.
The Pentagon said in a statement earlier this month that it was reviewing its relationship with Scouting America, claiming it had "lost its way" in many ways and calling the organization's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts "unacceptable". Emily Pickering: University Professor And Nobel Laureate Richard Axel, CC '67, To Step Down As Zuckerman Institute Co-Director, Following Epstein Ties. (Columbia Spectator, February 24, 2026)
University Professor and Nobel laureate Richard Axel, CC '67, will step down from his role as co-director of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute - after Spectator revealed earlier this month that he maintained an 11-year friendship with convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Office of Public Affairs announced Axel's resignation in a statement today. Axel, who co-founded the Zuckerman Institute, will retain his role as a University Professor and continue research in his lab.
"What has emerged about Epstein's appalling conduct, the harm that he has caused to so many people, makes my association with him all the more painful and inexcusable", Axel wrote.
Axel corresponded with Epstein from at least 2010 - two years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor - until five months before Epstein's 2019 suicide in prison, though Axel had spoken favorably of Epstein as early as 2007. His close relationship with Epstein was revealed in the Department of Justice's Jan. 30 trove of unsealed files. Mortimer Zuckerman, namesake of the neuroscience institute, also corresponded with Epstein after his conviction, according to the files.
Axel and his wife, Cornelia Bargmann, were repeatedly invited to Epstein's private island in 2011. Epstein used his island, located in the U.S. Virgin Islands, as a base for his child-sex-trafficking operation. In one instance, Epstein, through his personal assistant, offered to buy Axel and Bargmann's flights with his credit card. At least one set of tickets were voided two days before the flight was set to occur, according to records previously obtained by Spectator. A University spokesperson wrote in a previous statement to Spectator that Axel and his wife never visited the island.
"My past association with Jeffrey Epstein was a serious error in judgment, which I deeply regret", Axel said in a statement alongside his resignation. "I apologize for compromising the trust of my friends, students, and colleagues. I recognize the problems this has caused, and I will work to restore this trust."
Axel will also step down from his position as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which will continue to fund members of Axel's lab "to allow completion of their current research", according to an updated version of the statement.
"The University has seen no evidence that Dr. Axel violated any University policy or the law", the statement reads. "However, Dr. Axel made clear that in light of this past association, and the continued fall-out from the release of DOJ files, he felt it appropriate to relinquish his position as co-director", the statement continues, adding that the University "agrees with this decision, while at the same time recognizing his extraordinary contributions."
Camille Gijs and Hans Joachim Von Der Burchard: EU Loses Patience Following Trump's Latest Tariff Threat. European Commission Demands "Full Clarity" On Washington's Plans, As A Top EU Trade Lawmaker Calls To Delay A Key Vote On EU-US Trade Deal. The Delay Will Have To Garner Support Among The EU's Political Groups During An Extraordinary Meeting Set For Monday (Tomorrow) Afternoon. (podcast; Politico, February 22, 2026)
BRUSSELS: "The European Commission requests full clarity on the steps the United States intends to take following the recent Supreme Court ruling on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)", the Commission said in a strongly-worded statement issued after Trump announced yesterday that he wants to impose a new global tariff rate of 15%. "The current situation is not conducive to delivering 'fair, balanced, and mutually-beneficial' transatlantic trade and investment".
EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič spoke with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick yesterday (Saturday), as the EU grapples with the uncertainty of whether its trade agreement (struck in Scotland last summer) still applies in light of Trump's latest tariff threats.
The quickly-evolving situation pushed a senior EU trade lawmaker to urge the European Parliament to postpone a vote on legislation implementing the EU's side of its transatlantic trade deal. Trump's imposition of a 15% global tariff following Friday's high-court defeat is "a clear breach of the deal we had agreed", Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament's trade committee, told Politico today. "I will therefore propose that we suspend ratification of the agreement for the time being."
Lange said he could not rule out "renegotiating the agreement". The German Social Democrat earlier today decried "pure tariff chaos from the US administration", in a social-media post on X. "No one can make sense of it anymore - only open questions and growing uncertainty for the EU and other US trading partners. The terms of the Turnberry Agreement and the legal basis on which it was built have changed", Lange said in the post. "Do new tariffs based on Section 122 not constitute a breach of the deal? Regardless, no one knows whether the U.S. will adhere to it - or even be able to", he added in his post. "At our extra meeting tomorrow, I will therefore propose to the EP's negotiating team putting legislative work on hold until we have a proper legal assessment and clear commitments from the US side".
The Greens, via their lead lawmaker on the file Anna Cavazzini, said: "The vote on the Turnberry Agreement in the European Parliament should be paused until we have clarity. It was clear that Trump's tariffs were illegal under international law. Now we also have confirmation that they were also illegal under U.S. law."   
[Click above for more - and stay tuned!]
Trump Hikes Global Tariffs To 15% Following Supreme Court Ruling. Trump "Just Announced A NEW 15% TAX On The American People. He Does Not Care About You", Said Gov. Gavin Newsom. (Common Dreams, February 21, 2026)
Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled against President Donald Trump's use of emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs, the Republican announced plans for a 10% global import tax under another law. By today, he'd hiked it to 15%.
In a 6-3 decision penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, the high court found that "nothing" in the text of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) "enables the president to unilaterally impose tariffs". Trump responded by not only lashing out at the justices, but also invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 for a 10% global tariff beginning February 24.
Then, in a Truth Social post this morning, Trump said: "Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on tariffs issued yesterday (after MANY months of contemplation) by the United States Supreme Court, please let this statement serve to represent that I, as President of the United States of America, will be, effective immediately, raising the 10% Worldwide Tariff on Countries, many of which have been 'ripping' the U.S. off for decades, without retribution (until I came along!), to the fully-allowed, and legally-tested, 15% level. During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally-permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter."
Last week, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, released a report laying out how Trump's economic policies, particularly the tariffs, "are making life unaffordable for millions of American small businesses, their workers, and their customers."
Markey held a virtual press conference with Massachusetts small business owners celebrating yesterday's Supreme Court ruling. The senator said that "for the last year, Trump has created Pain on Main with an affordability crisis plaguing communities across the country. At the heart of it are Trump's tariff taxes. The Supreme Court did what was right and struck down these illegal tariffs. Trump said the small businesses who brought this case hate our country. He's wrong. Small businesses ARE our country", Markey continued. "I will keep fighting until every cent illegally collected from small businesses, consumers, and families in Massachusetts and across the country has been returned."
[More presidential baloney from our baloney president - plus a proper response by OUR Senator Markey. Click above to read a few more of the many official criticisms...]
Chris Walker: Trump Attacks Justices As "Unpatriotic And Disloyal" After Tariffs Ruling. Allowing The Tariffs To Stand Would Be A "Transformative Expansion" Of Unchecked Presidential Powers, The Court Ruled. (Truthout, February 20, 2026)
The United States Supreme Court today ruled that most tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on nearly every country in the world were done so illegally. The decision upholds a lower court ruling that found the tariffs to be unconstitutional, and thus, unenforceable.
In a 6-3 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts, who penned the majority opinion, explained that the court disagreed with the Trump administration's view that the executive branch could impose tariffs at will, without congressional approval, by determining they were warranted through so-called "national emergencies". The main law that the administration cited in its defense of the tariffs, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), does not include the word "tariff" in it, let alone confer the power for presidents to issue tariffs or other taxes unilaterally.
"The President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time", Roberts wrote. "But the wording of IEEPA "cannot bear such weight".
The majority also noted that the powers of imposing "taxes, duties, imposts, and excises" rest within Congress's powers, not the president's.
[Right on!]

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Becky Ferreira: At the World's Largest General Science Meeting, "Surviving Trump" Is the Topic. (podcast; The Abstract, 404 Media; February 21, 2026)
"This is really a turning point and we're in a historical transition at present."
Welcome back to the Abstract! This week, we have a very special edition of the newsletter packed with everything I saw and heard at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting, held in Phoenix from February 12 to 14.
Founded in 1848, AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society, with over 120,000 members. It operates with the mission of advancing "science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people", according to its website. It's also the publisher of Science, a leading collection of journals that have graced this newsletter many times.
The over-arching theme this year was the damage inflicted on the U.S. science sector by the Trump administration and how to best respond to it. Since Trump returned to office, his team has:
- terminated or frozen 7,800 research grants,
- laid off 25,000 scientists and personnel from research agencies, and
- proposed budget cuts of 35% to federal science funding, amounting to $32-Billion, according to Nature.
It's a crucial issue goal for American science leadership, that also is reverberating through the global scientific community. But experts at the meeting highlighted the bright spots in the darkness, as the world learns to respond to the new normal.
Without further ado, here are the highlights from the meeting.
[Every article within this article promises to be fascinating.]

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The Daily Blast/Greg Sargent: Trump Erupts in Angry Panic Over 2026, as Polls Take Truly Brutal Turn. (17-min.  podcast: New Republic, February 19, 2026)
As new polls look dire for the GOP, a data analyst dives deep into the numbers, explaining how Trump's twin failures on the economy and immigration are creating unusual opportunities for Dems.
Donald Trump has the midterms on his mind. A few days ago, he erupted in a wild tirade on Truth Social, raging about voter fraud and voter ID while urging Republicans to make them central in the elections. He's now pinned this rant to the top of his feed. Over the last 24 hours, he's been on a tear, elevating half a dozen other tweets on these topics. By "warning" that Republicans must centralize voter fraud, he's actually telling them to engage in mass voter-suppression or perish.
Trump has good reason to panic: One new poll has his approval at 38%. Another survey puts Democrats ahead in the House ballot match-up by six points. And polling averages find Trump's approval on immigration, his "good" issue, at abysmal lows.
We talked to Lakshya Jain, head of political data for The Argument. He explains why:
- the numbers are even worse for Trump if you dig into the details, particularly on the economy,
- why it's so unusual that Trump is tanking on two GOP issues, the economy and immigration,
- and why that is creating unexpected opportunities for Democrats.
Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.
Michael Cornelison: Understanding Trump, With Michael Wolff: Behaviors And Implications (Substack, February 16, 2026)
I just finished viewing two podcasts from Michael Wolff's online YouTube series, "Inside Trump's Head". Michael Wolff also has written two books about Trump, mostly critical. He is no fan of Trump. Despite this, Trump sometimes calls Wolff on the telephone, an attempt to influence him or pretend he is a friend. Wolff's observations of Trump are based on his own interactions and those of others who are willing to discuss their interactions with Trump. Wolff details Trump's behaviors, without asking why he behaves as he does. I have listed below a summary of Wolff's observations (at least how I understood them). Following this, I speculate about what lies behind Trump's behavior.
[Insightful, and it correlates well with Trump's sick public record. Is it a coincidence, that this was posted on Presidents president's resident's Day in the USA?]
Travis Gettys: Melania's Real Home Revealed By Trump Biographer, As She Distances From President. (49-min. video; RawStory, February 13, 2026)
Author Michael Wolfe has concluded that first lady Melania Trump isn't living in Florida or Washington, D.C., but is instead pursuing personal business opportunities away from her husband.
The writer told The Daily Beast's "Inside Trump's Head" podcast that the 55-year-old's relationship with President Donald Trump is “remote at best", and he has discovered, while trying to serve her with a lawsuit, that she most likely lives in New York City.

ICE Deports Babson College Student "Home" To Honduras:

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NEW: Michael Casey: U.S. Apologizes For Mistake In Deporting Massachusetts College Student, But Defends Her Removal. (1-min. AP video; Associated Press, January 14, 2026)
The Trump administration apologized in court for a "mistake" in the deportation of a Massachusetts college student who was detained trying to fly home to surprise her family for Thanksgiving, but still argued the error should not affect her case.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old Babson College freshman, was detained at Boston's airport on Nov. 20 and flown to Honduras two days later. Her removal came despite an emergency court order on Nov. 21, directing the government to keep her in Massachusetts or elsewhere in the United States for at least 72 hours.
Lopez Belloza, whose family emigrated from Honduras to the U.S. in 2014, is currently staying with grandparents and studying remotely. She is not detained and was recently visiting an aunt in El Salvador.
NEW: Holly Ramer: College Freshman Is Deported Flying Home For Thanksgiving Surprise, Despite Court Order. (Associated Press, November 28, 2025)
A college freshman - trying to fly from Boston to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving - was instead deported to Honduras in violation of a court order, according to her attorney.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, 19, had already passed through security at Boston Logan International Airport on Nov. 20 when she was told there was an issue with her boarding pass, said attorney Todd Pomerleau. The Babson College student was then detained by immigration officials and within two days, sent to Texas and then Honduras, the country she left at age 7. "She's absolutely heartbroken", Pomerleau said. "Her college dream has just been shattered."
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an immigration judge ordered Lopez Belloza deported in 2015. Pomerleau said she wasn't aware of any removal order, however, and the only record he's found indicates her case was closed in 2017. "They're holding her responsible for something they claim happened a decade ago, that she’s completely unaware of, and they're not showing any of the proof", the lawyer said.
The day after Lopez Belloza was arrested, a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting the government from moving her out of Massachusetts or the United States for at least 72 hours.
ICE did not respond to an email Friday from The Associated Press, seeking comment about violating that order. Babson College also did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Lopez Belloza, who is staying with her grandparents in Honduras, told The Boston Globe she had been looking forward to telling her parents and younger sisters about her first semester studying business. "That was my dream", she said. "I'm losing everything."

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Wajahat Ali and Caleb Ecarma: Epstein's Silicon Valley Connections Lead to the Trump White House. (55-min. Substack video; The Left Hook, February 7, 2026)
Billionaires partied with Epstein, indulged in his criminal and perverse appetites, and shared his racist, destructive ideology that sought to destabilize the world order to escape accountability.
Wajahat Ali, with Brian J. Karem and Kim Kelly: BEZOS and Billionaires MURDER The Free Press. (69-min. YouTube video; The Left Hook, Febuary 5, 2025)
Jeff Bezos is worth nearly $250-Billion, yet under his ownership The Washington Post is being gutted.
From Bezos to Elon Musk and Larry Ellison, billionaires aligned with authoritarian politics are consolidating media power and attacking the free press.
On The Left Hook, Brian J. Karem, former White House correspondent, and Kim Kelly, labor journalist, explain how this coordinated media takeover threatens democracy itself.
Anand Giridharadas: It's So Much Bigger Than Epstein. What The Epstein Files Really Reveal. (The.Ink, February 2, 2026)
Today, with renewed attention on the Jeffrey Epstein files after Friday's release of millions-more records, we can finally bring you the full text, un-pay-walled, of my November essay for The New York Times on what I learned by reading the first trove in its entirety. And, above, for the first time, an audio version, read by me.
As journalists comb through the Epstein emails, surfacing the name of one fawning luminary after another, there is a collective whisper of "How could they?" How could such eminent people, belonging to such prestigious institutions, succumb to this?
A close read of the thousands of messages makes it less surprising. When Jeffrey Epstein, a financier turned convicted sex offender, needed friends to rehabilitate him, he knew where to turn: a power elite practiced at disregarding pain.
At the dark heart of this story is a sex criminal and his victims - and his enmeshment with President Trump. But it is also a tale about a powerful social network in which some, depending on what they knew, were perhaps able to look away because they had learned to look away from so much other abuse and suffering:
- the financial meltdowns some in the network helped trigger,
- the misbegotten wars some in the network pushed,
- the overdose crisis some of them enabled,
- the monopolies they defended,
- the inequality they turbocharged,
- the housing crisis they milked,
- the technologies they failed to protect people against.
John Timmer: Court Orders Restart Of All U.S. Offshore-Wind Construction. Trump Admin's "It's Classified" Ploy Put On Hold In Five Different Cases. (Ars Tecnica, February 2, 2026)
The Trump administration is no fan of renewable energy, but it reserves special ire for wind-power. Trump himself has repeatedly made false statements about the cost of wind-power, its use around the world, and its environmental impacts. That animosity was paired with an executive order that blocked all permitting for off-shore wind and some land-based projects, an order that has since been thrown out by a court that ruled it arbitrary and capricious.
Not content to block all future developments, the administration has also gone after the five offshore-wind projects currently under construction. After temporarily blocking two of them for reasons that were never fully elaborated, the Department of the Interior settled on a single justification for blocking turbine installation: a "classified national-security risk".
The response to that late-December announcement has been uniform: The companies building each of the projects sued the administration. As of Monday, every single one of them has achieved the same result: a temporary injunction that allows them to continue construction. This, despite the fact that the suits were filed in three different courts and heard by four different judges.
Based on reporting elsewhere, some of the judges viewed the classified report that was used to justify the order to halt construction, but they didn't find it persuasive. In one case, the judge noted that the government wasn't acting as if the security risks were real. The threat supposedly comes from the operation of the wind turbines, but the Department of the Interior's order blocked construction while allowing any completed hardware to operate.
"If the government's concern is the operation of these facilities, allowing the ongoing operation of the 44 turbines, while prohibiting the repair of the existing turbines and the completion of the 18 additional turbines, is irrational", Judge Brian E. Murphy said. That once again raises the possibility that the order halting construction will ultimately be held to be arbitrary and capricious.
For now, however, the courts are largely offering the wind projects relief because the ruling was issued without any warning or communication from the government and would clearly inflict substantial harm on the companies building them. The injunction blocks the government's hold on construction until a final ruling is issued. The government can still appeal the decision before that point, but the consistency among these rulings suggests it will likely fail.
Several of these projects are near completion and are likely to be done before any government appeal can be heard.
David Corn: The Return Of A Dangerous Trump Conspiracy Theory (Mother Jones, Our Land, January 31, 2026)
My fellow citizens, I'm here to report to you that your president is bonkers.       
Okay, many of you know that. Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his connection to reality is tenuous. But to his credit (if we must):
- His ability to create and live in a distortion field free of facts has worked out quite well for him.
- His malignant narcissism had been good for his career.
- His other pathologies have helped him win the immense power he needs to compensate for his paranoia, profound insecurity, and cognitive decline.
Still, every once in a while, we are presented with a reminder of how truly bananas the most powerful man in the world is. That happened this week.
"Dangerous Question": Trump's Quip At The Premiere Of "Melania" - A High-Budget Documentary, Executive-Produced By The First Lady. (New Delhi TV News, January 30, 2026)
US President Donald Trump, his wife Melania Trump and other top members of his administration were at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to attend the premiere of "Melania".
The documentary has been financed at a whopping $75-Million by Amazon MGM Studios. At first, Amazon MGM Studios paid $40-Million to license the project and a related docu-series scheduled for release later this year on Amazon Prime Video. The first lady is one of the producers of the documentary, which talks about the 20 days leading up to Trump's 2025 inauguration as well as the family's return to the White House.
Besides this, the studio coughed up another $35-Million to promote and distribute "Melania", which is being made available across 25 territories outside North America, Reuters reported. Promotional ads are expected to be seen in various places, including London's Piccadilly Circus. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chairman, contributed to Trump's inaugural fund earlier this year.
Directed by Brett Ratner, the documentary offers rare access to the private life of the first lady, who has kept a low public profile during Trump's second term in office. The trailer for "Melania" starts on Inauguration Day in January last year and highlights her role as an adviser to the U.S. President, including the moment where she encourages her husband to emphasize "peacemaker and unifier" [!] in his inaugural address.
Among the top Trump-administration officials who attended the premiere were Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The documentary is being screened in about 1,700 theaters in the U.S. and Canada today.
David Corn: Nuremberg. (2-min. YouTube preview video; Mother Jones, Our Land, January 27, 2026)
[Also see: "Nuremberg" (2025 film); Wikipedia, updated January 31, 2026]
Nuremberg. It's far too appropriate a time to watch a movie about the Nazi war-crime trials. Eighty years later, we're still trying to figure out what turns humans into monsters and an entire society into a genocidal culture of hate and evil. As the movie notes, the trials - the first time nations had assembled to prosecute former government officials for plotting and waging aggressive war and for crimes against humanity - set an important precedent for the international order. That was the intention of Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon), who led the prosecution. In the film, he is a noble warrior for justice who must use his wiles to persuade the Truman administration and the Brits, Soviets, and French to mount these proceedings. Half of the movie is his heroic tale of striving to establish a legal framework for Never Again.
The emotional guts of the movie is the lesser-known story of Douglas Kelley, an Army psychiatrist assigned to examine the personalities and assess the mental statuses of the captured Nazi officials set to go on trial - most notably Hermann Goring, the Reichsmarschall and the most senior of Hitler's henchmen to be captured. This was the challenge for director and scriptwriter James Vanderbilt: How to depict Goring not merely as a one-dimensional diabolical evil-doer - but as a person who's worth getting to know, yet deserves no sympathy. Russell Crowe took on the task of portraying Hitler's top aide as both an engaging and repulsive man. And Rami Malek as Kelley is almost a stand-in for Vanderbilt, as he attempts to get close to Goring without falling for his charm and intelligence. Goring claims he did not know about the camps and was only a military man honorably serving his government. And Kelley develops a complex and fraught bond with Goring, as he tries to understand the German and the other Nazi prisoners - to gather material for a book that Kelley assumes will earn him fame and fortune.
The film is mostly accurate, though full of the usual dramatic license. As could be expected, at a key point, the Jackson and Kelley narratives intersect to benefit the forces of good and righteousness. But what fascinates the most is Goring. How does the son of a middling diplomat and the godson of a wealthy Jewish physician and businessman become such a fanatic and a critical part of one of history's largest mass-murder machines? (The godson of a Jew is an interesting backstory.) And how do he and his fellow Nazi prisoners process what the Reich wrought?
"Nuremberg" delivers no answers to the questions we are compelled to ponder about: the Holocaust, the men responsible for it, and the descent of an entire nation into murderous authoritarianism. How does evil triumph? But Vanderbilt raises all this without being heavy-handed. These are topics that deserve constant attention, even if we cannot resolve them.
At Nuremberg, such questions were applied to the most enormous of sins. But they're also relevant for what we see at home and abroad these days:
- The lust for power,
- The demonization of marginalized communities,
- The weaponization of hate and bigotry,
- The widespread use of propaganda,
- The tribalization and cultification of politics, and
- the love of violence.
Who embraces this? Who falls prey to it? "Nuremberg" reminds us that we can never stop asking.
Outcry In Italy, As U.S. Says ICE Agents Will Join Olympics Delegation (5-min. podcast; New York Times, January 29, 2026)
The Italian government said it had requested clarification from American diplomats, after D.H.S. said that ICE agents would help secure the U.S. Olympic delegation next week in northern Italy.
[And not just the ice-skaters..]
Sophie Hurwitz: The Trump EPA Ended The "Green New Scam". A Year Later, Communities Are Still Paying The Price. (Grist, January 22, 2026)
Across the country, communities that lost grants have responded in a variety of ways - suing the government, searching for other funds, or simply moving on.
Lisa Needham: Republicans Vow They'll Stop Trump's Greenland Crusade - LOL. (Daily KOS, January 20, 2026)
In the dead of Scandinavian winter, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has trundled off to Denmark to say that, no, you totally should not listen to President Donald Trump about how he wants to invade Greenland, and it's all going to be totally fine - trust us.
Of course, the big, declining toddler-president's desire to eat Greenland just because he can has been kicking around for a while now, but things got especially dicey Thursday after Vice President J.D. Vance hosted a meeting between Denmark and the White House.
Seth Meyers: Trump Gets Nobel Peace Prize from Venezuela's María Corina Machado. (13-min. YouTube video; Late Night, January 20, 2026)
Seth addresses Trump signing an executive order to protect Army-Navy football games from competing broadcasts and more in his monologue, before taking a closer look at Trump sending a message to Norway about the Nobel Peace Prize and threatening to invade Greenland.
Robert Reich: Office Hours: What Should We Do About The Fascist Now Loose Upon America And The World? We're Now In A Far More Dangerous And Violent Stage Of Trump's Regime. What Should Be Done To Stop It? (Substack, January 14, 2026)
Trump's reign of error and terror is spinning out of control:
- Minneapolis becoming a war zone.
- Americans murdered in the street.
- The Justice Department declaring the shooter innocent.
- Investigators quitting.
- Oligarchs contributing to the shooter's defense fund.
- The FBI investigating the victim's wife.
- Meanwhile, a criminal indictment of the head of the Federal Reserve because he won't cut interest rates.
- Investigations of Democratic senators.
- Trump and Hegseth committing war crimes.
- Trump claiming to be president of Venezuela.
- Trump deciding which companies will get access to its oil.
- Setting up slush funds in other countries to take the spoils.
- Threatening imminent war on Iran.
- Refusing to turn over the Epstein files, even though Congress demanded them.
From Minneapolis to Caracas, from Chicago to Greenland, from Washington, D.C., to Tehran, Trump's lawless violence - and his threats of even-more violence - are increasing. The civil liberties of Americans are ever-more endangered. His flouting of Congress and defiance of international law are growing.
What can and should be done?
[We should be done with tRUmPutin!]
Ken Klippenstein: U.S. Freezes Visas To 75 Countries. Read The Leaked Diplomatic Cable. (Substack, January 14, 2026)
In the latest sign of the sheer scale of the administration's war on immigration, the State Department has moved to pause all immigrant-visa issuances for applicants from 75 different countries, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable leaked to me. That's over one-third of the total number of countries in existence (193)!
Effective January 21, the directive was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier today. Citing the Immigration and Nationality Act, the order claims concerns over immigrants being "financially self-sufficient" as the supposed reason for the freeze.
"President Trump has made clear that immigrants must be financially self-sufficient to protect public benefits for American citizens", the cable reads. "Applicants from these countries are at a high risk for becoming a public charge and recourse to local, state, and federal government resources in the United States."
[Since Trumputin has taken away more public benefits - including our democracy and so many of its capable administrators - than do immigrants, why not fix that problem first?]
Robert Reich: Trump's Ass-Backward "affordability" Agenda?
Here's A REAL Affordability Agenda! (3-min. summary YouTube video; Substack, January 13, 2026)
The latest gauge on inflation, released this morning, showed prices increasing 2.7% in December compared with the same period a year ago. Food prices were up 3.1%. (Reminder: Trump was elected on two issues: bringing prices down, especially food, and avoiding foreign entanglements.)
Today, Trump traveled to Detroit to deliver an address to the Detroit Economic Club. It was about "affordability" and he filled it with lies, such as:
- Americans aren't paying for his tariffs. (Of course they are!)
- Inflation is "way, way down". (It's about the same as it was when he took office.)
- He insisted that "affordability" is a "fake word by Democrats".
Unfortunately for Trump, "affordability" has become even more politically potent than immigration or crime. And in his first year at the helm, he's made America less affordable.
He's also been putting forward some ass-backward ideas for "bringing down prices" that will actually increase them. His biggest:
- Fire the current chair of the Federal Reserve Board,
- Install a chair who'll lower interest rates, and
- Thereby, in Trump's addled brain, "bring down" the costs of borrowing to buy homes and cars. (In his speech today, he called Fed chair Jerome Powell, a "jerk".) Trump's decision to open up a criminal investigation of Powell is a bizarre escalation of his pressure-campaign against the central bank to cut interest rates. And it's truly ass-backwards. Without an independent Fed committed to using interest rates to fight inflation, everyone who buys or sells or invests will have to assume the risk of runaway prices in the future. The result is a risk "premium" that makes everything more expensive instead of more affordable.
---
What should be done to make America more affordable? Ten common-sense initiatives:
1. Get rid of Trump's tariffs. Trump's blanket, unpredictable, on-again-off-again, gigantic and then sometimes-modest tariffs have caused prices to jump on just about everything. That's because tariffs are import taxes that are paid by the companies that do the importing - and by their consumers. Tariffs can be a tool to create American jobs, but only if they're used in a targeted and responsible way. "Targeted" and "responsible" are two adjectives that no one uses in describing Trump's tariffs. The first step to make life more affordable for the average American is to get rid of them.
2. Bust up monopolies. Trump's overriding goal is to boost share prices. He doesn't seem to understand that most Americans aren't directly affected by share prices: Over 90% of the value of shares held by Americans is held by the richest 10%; over half by the richest 1%. In pursuit of high share prices, Trump has essentially given up on anti-trust enforcement. Big corporations are now merging and buying up potential competitors at a rapid rate. But this means less competition, and less competition results in higher prices. It's another ass-backward approach to affordability. Trump's overriding goal of high share prices collides with what should be the real goal: keeping prices low.
A real Affordability Agenda would bust up big corporations that dominate their industries, and prohibit price gouging.
3. Fight for stronger unions. Trump hates unions, and has done everything he can do to weaken the National Labor Relations Board and the Labor Department. He's given free rein to corporate union-busting. Here again, Trump's goal of high share prices and corporate profitability is at direct odds with the needs of average workers for higher wages, which are necessary if the goods and services they require are to become more affordable to them. Workers need more bargaining power to get higher wages. Unions do that. A real affordability agenda therefore would make it easier for workers to start or join them.
4. Raise the national minimum wage. For the same reason Trump believes unions and higher wages are bad for the economy - that is, his definition of the economy, which is the stock market - he's been dead set against raising the national minimum wage. But the federal minimum wage has been stuck at a measly $7.25 since 2009. Raise the damn wage! And raise it even higher for employees of big corporations that pay their top executives hundreds of times more than their workers.
5. Pass Medicare For All. Trump has been trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act because it was passed under his predecessor, Barack Obama. His latest gambit has been to block any extension of the subsidies that Americans need to be able to afford health insurance under the ACA. (The fight over this issue resulted in the longest government shutdown in history.) Without those subsidies, the typical American will be paying 30% to 100% more for health insurance this year than last - which is already driving many people out of the ACA marketplace and forcing them to live without health insurance at all.
Extending ACA subsidies is necessary but not sufficient. A real affordability agenda would make Medicare available to all Americans. This will bring down health-care costs for everyone, because Medicare is cheaper and more efficient than for-profit health insurance.
6. Make housing more affordable. Last Wednesday, Trump called for a ban on institutional investors buying single-family housing. I suppose it's nice that he's finally gotten around to this, but I'll believe it when he actually signs the legislation.
A real affordability agenda would:
- Ban Wall Street firms from buying up housing,
- Crack down on corporate landlords that collude to jack up rent prices,
- Get rid of zoning laws that make it harder to build homes, and
- Increase funding to boost the construction of housing in cities that need it most.
7. Make child care and elder care more affordable. The costs of child care take a third of the incomes of parents with young children, on average. The costs of elder care can be even higher for working people with elderly parents. Both are essential for working families. An affordability agenda would include a universal child-care program for parents and boost funding for caregivers of aging parents.
8. Give Americans paid leave. Here again, the goal of fat corporate profits and high share prices collides with what American workers need. Trump consistently opts for the former and argues that the nation "can't afford" paid family leave.
Baloney! We're the richest country in the world. Every other advanced nation provides paid leave. Working Americans need it. We should provide it, too.
9. Stop Big Finance from siphoning off people's incomes. Trump has deregulated big banks and allowed them to charge up to 30% interest on credit cards. (The banks love it because credit cards provide them with four times the return of any other line of business.) Trump has gotten rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which stopped other sleazy financial practices. And he's allowed more consolidation of big financial institutions, which means even less competition, higher prices, and shadier deals. (His Justice Department recently approved the merger of Capital One and Discover, which will pile even more debt on low-income consumers.) The captains of Wall Street have never had it so good. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon made $770-Million last year. But average working people are being shafted.
A real affordability agenda would:
- Cap credit-card interest rates at 5%,
- Stop the banks from charging late fees on unsuspecting consumers (Trump's OMB director, Russ Vought, withdrew the late fee rule in April), and
- Bust up the biggest banks, whose market power is allowing them to charge absurdly-high interest rates on all borrowing.
10. Raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations. Besides tariffs, Trump's economic policy has cut taxes mainly on wealthy individuals and big corporations. He's imbibed the "trickle-down" Kool-Aid that assumes tax cuts at the top make everyone better off.
The reality - as we've learned since Trump's first tax cut mostly benefiting the wealthy and big corporations (as we should have learned from Ronald Reagan's and George W. Bush's trickle-down tax cuts also mainly benefiting the rich and big corporations) - is that nothing trickles down. Trickle-down economics is a cruel sham. The cumulative effects of all these tax cuts has been to make America's rich far richer (now owning a record share of the nation's wealth) and big corporations far more profitable (corporate profits are also near record levels), while dramatically enlarging the national debt.
And what do we get with a bigger debt? More inflation, which makes everything less affordable. Again, Trump has it ass-backward. It's time we ended the trickle-down hoax once and for all. Besides, it's only fair that the super-rich pay more in taxes so that the rest of America can afford what Americans need: housing, health care, child care and elder care. And by the way, even after paying more in taxes, the rich will still be richer than they've ever been, and giant corporations will still be exceedingly profitable. These 10 steps are crucial for making America affordable again. Don't fall for Trump's ass-backward agenda, which will only make the rich richer and big corporations more profitable. You and I and everyone who wants to lower the cost of living for Americans should back the real affordability agenda.
[Robert Reich beat me to it: "Please share this with any Democrat or independent (hell, share it with any Republican) interested in running for office and improving Americans' standard of living.]
Deepa Shivaram: Trump's Economic Speech Veers Off-Topic As He Takes Aim At Biden And Powell. (NPR News, updated January 13, 2026)
Yesterday at the Detroit Economic Club, President Trump gave a grievance-laden speech that touched on what he labeled "a resurgent American economy" - but meandered into many different topics including criticism of former President Joe Biden, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Minnesota's Somali population and Minneapolis protesters.
"We have quickly gone from the worst numbers on record to the best and strongest numbers and an economy that is far ahead", Trump said from the Detroit Economic Club.
The speech, which comes amid polling showing his handling of the economy at a historic low, lasted just more than an hour. He touted plans to crack down on fraud, freeze federal payments to states with sanctuary cities and cap credit card fees at 10% for a year. He also teased further proposals to come on health care and housing.
"It's unfair", Trump said in Detroit on credit card interest rates. "The rates are too high to provide further relief to hardworking Americans."
But Trump spent much of his time blaming Biden for inflation rates and criticized the fed chair, Powell, whom the Justice Department is targeting in a new investigation. Trump told NBC News on Sunday he had nothing to do with the probe, but he has been criticizing Powell for months for not lowering interest rates and has been threatening to fire him.
In his remarks, Trump referred to Powell as "that jerk" and said he would "be gone soon".
Michigan was Trump's first domestic trip since a slew of international news – capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro; threatening military action against Iran after rising protests; threatening to seize Greenland; trying to move forward in the Gaza peace deal; ongoing negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war – has been the president's main focus for weeks.
But in the U.S., even a majority of the president's own supporters remain increasingly concerned about high costs and affordability. It's an issue that was critical for Democrats' successes in the 2025 elections in Virginia and New Jersey and expected to remain top of mind for midterm elections later this year.
Last month, Trump's approval rating on the economy hit a new low of 36%, according to a NPR/PBS/Marist poll. The poll showed voters feel like they are struggling to make ends meet and are most concerned about high costs.
The president previously addressed his economic agenda in an Oval Office speech and said his administration was "making progress" on lowering costs but "it's not done yet".
Julie Tsirkin: Trump Threatened GOP Senators Who Voted To Allow Congress To Vote On The War Powers Resolution, In "Angry" Calls. (NBC News, Jan. 11, 2026)
On January 8, hours after the Senate voted to advance the War Powers Resolution rebuking the White House's current and future actions in Venezuela, President Donald Trump placed "angry" calls to some of the five Republicans who crossed the aisle, according to people with knowledge of the calls. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Todd Young (R-Ind.), voted with Democrats to require the administration to get congressional approval for future military action in Venezuela.
Thursday's vote was a procedural motion; it advances the legislation to a full Senate vote that will require a simple majority.
Soon after the vote, Trump threatened each senator with primary challenges, vowing to unseat them, the people said. Two people describe the calls as "direct but cordial". But in at least Collins' case, Trump sharply criticized her and raised his voice, according to a person familiar with the exchange. Collins, a six-term senator who is up for re-election this year, hasn't formally announced her political plans.
On Truth Social after Thursday's vote, Trump said that all five senators "should never be elected to office again". "This Vote greatly hampers American Self Defense and National Security, impeding the President's Authority as Commander in Chief", he wrote. "In any event, and despite their 'stupidity', the War Powers Act is Unconstitutional, totally violating Article II of the Constitution, as all Presidents, and their Departments of Justice, have determined before me."
NBC News spoke to some of the senators in the group, including Hawley and Paul, who praised Trump. "I love the president. I think he's doing a great job", Hawley said, who forecast that he could change his vote when the Senate takes up final passage this week.
The White House hasn't responded to a request for comment and hasn't confirmed the calls.
[The original subject said, "who voted for". WORSE, they only voted to ALLOW CONGRESS TO VOTE for it! Trump continues to play Dictator, ignoring our Constitution's checks and balances. The fact that ONLY five GOP Senators acted FOR the Constitution, Congress and WE, THE PEOPLE speaks volumes.]
Jimmy Kimmel Live: Rachel Maddow On Trump Being Extremely Unpopular, ICE Shooting In Minneapolis & Peaceful Protests. (12-min. YouTube video; The Jimmy Kimmel Show, January 9, 2026)
Rachel talks about Jimmy's parents being fans, the Trump presidency not offering much to people right now, his unpopularity, the positive things that come from peaceful protests, the woman who was shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis, getting her start in morning radio, attending Dick Cheney's funeral, and her podcast Burn Order.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs: We Pressed Trump On His Conclusion About The ICE Shooting. Here's What He Said. The Exchange Was A Glimpse Into The President's Reflexive Defense Of His Federal Crackdown On Immigration. (1-min. video; New York Times, January 8, 2026)
During an interview with The New York Times, President Trump said that a woman who was shot by federal agents in Minnesota "behaved horribly" and ran an agent over. Analysis by The New York Times showed the motorist was driving away from - not toward - a federal officer when he opened fire.
Brian Tyler Cohen with Mark Elias: Democracy Watch episode 446: Justice Department Issues "BOMBSHELL" Epstein Announcement! (14-min. YouTube video; YouTube, January 7, 2026)
Justice Department reveals it's released LESS THAN 1% of Epstein files!
David Corn: The Erasure Of January 6 - Five Years Later, MAGA-World Is Still Engaging In Its Orwellian Rewriting Of History. (photos, links - including to the Trump-stalled 255-page December 17th deposition by Jack Smith, about the Trump-suppressed report analyzing January 6, 2021's Trump-inspired and Trump-enabled MAGA attack on our U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election; Mother Jones, January 6, 2026)
[This is an important article; if you don't have time to read it all now, you can skip down to its last 3 paragraphs by searching for three dashes (---). After you have read it all, you might read the finally-available 255-page official Justice Dept.-ordered deposition - and save YOUR copy of it for sharing with (and BY) current and future friends and relatives.]
In 1984, George Orwell observed that a fascist state relies upon its ability to control - or obliterate - memory. As Winston Smith, the ill-fated protagonist, ponders the Party's ability to manipulate reality and history, Orwell writes, "Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth." Another passage in the novel describes the Party's relentless effort to construct the dominant narrative: "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."
Sound familiar? It's been five years since a mob of thousands of Donald Trump supporters - which included Christian nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Confederate flag wavers, militia members, and other extremists - assaulted the U.S. Capitol to try to halt the peaceful transfer of power from an outgoing president to an incoming president. The basic facts are well-established:
- Trump refused to accept legitimate election results.
- He falsely claimed he had won the 2020 contest and spread baseless lies and conspiracy theories about the election.
- He spent weeks scheming to overturn the election and remain in power.

- Promoting these falsehoods, he incited that insurrectionist attack on Congress in which more than 140 law-enforcement officers were injured.
- While the melee was occurring, he abandoned his duty to defend the Constitution and waited 187 minutes before calling on his brown-shirts to leave the Capitol.
This is all undeniable. Yet Trump and his cult refuse to accept these fundamentals. Like the Party in Orwell's dystopia:
- Trump and the Republicans have sought to rewrite history and erase the stain of Trump's profound betrayal of America.
- He pardoned the violent marauders, and
- his henchmen in charge of the FBI and Justice Department have fired agents and prosecutors who participated in the investigation and prosecution of these thugs.
- And Trump's MAGA legions mounted a disinformation campaign that advanced various conspiracy theories ("The FBI did it! Antifa did it!") to absolve Trump and his thugs.
- More important, an entire political party and tens-of-millions of American voters memory-holed Trump's war on American democracy and his embrace of political violence. What is perhaps the gravest transgression ever committed by a U.S. president has been air-brushed out of the picture and the perp allowed (by a majority of voters) to return to the scene of the crime. This is one of the most worrisome turns in American history. If our democracy cannot protect itself from such peril and repel such a dangerous threat, can it survive?
Trump's triumph over reality was made clear this past week. On New Year's Eve - one of the deadest times for the news cycle - the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee released the closed-doors testimony it had received before two weeks from Jack Smith, the special counsel who led the investigations that indicted Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and for allegedly swiping highly-sensitive White House documents. Both cases ended after Trump won the election in November. (Under Justice Department policy, a sitting president cannot be prosecuted for federal crimes.)
Smith insisted on a public appearance, apparently knowing he had the goods on Trump. The Republicans said no, and questioned him in a private session - all the better for controlling the narrative. The fact that they made public the transcript on a holiday night tells you what you need to know about who got the best of whom.
Smith, as you know, has been repeatedly denounced by Trump as "a lunatic who waged witch hunts and investigated hoaxes generated by his fellow Deep Staters, the Democrats, and the media". And Republicans hauled Smith in as part of their never-ending crusade to find (or concoct) evidence to bolster Trump's paranoid fantasies and conspiracy theories - and to buttress their hyperbolic charge that Trump and Republicans have been the victims of what they call the "weaponization of government".
The 255-page transcript is an important document that every citizen should read. (I know, I'm being fanciful.) Smith ran circles around the GOP committee members and their staff. "Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power", Smith said at the start. He added, "Our investigation also developed powerful evidence that showed that President Trump willfully retained highly-classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a ballroom and a bathroom. He then repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents."
Smith patiently explained how Trump's (alleged) crime related to January 6: "January 6th was an attack on the structure of our democracy in which over 140 heroic law-enforcement officers were assaulted. Over 160 individuals later pled guilty to assaulting police that day. Exploiting that violence, President Trump and his associates tried to call Members of Congress in furtherance of their criminal scheme, urging them to further delay certification of the 2020 election."
This is an accusation that sums up Trump's perfidy: He tried to take advantage of this spasm of cop-beating violence to illegally remain in office. That foul deed should have disqualified Trump from ever holding any position of authority. Yet…
A key exchange occurred when a Republican staffer (whose name is redacted in the transcript) asked, "The President's statements that he believed the election was rife with fraud, those certainly are statements that are protected by the First Amendment, correct?" This has been a central contention of the Trump cult: You cannot prosecute Trump for stating his opinion that the election was rigged against him. But Smith fired back: "Absolutely not. If [these false statements] are made to target a lawful government function and they are made with knowing falsity, no, they are not." Statements made to promote a fraud are not protected by the First Amendment.
Later on in his testimony, Smith remarked that the elections case against Trump was much like an "affinity fraud" - that's when, he said, "you try to gain someone's trust, get them to trust you as a general matter, and then you rip them off, you defraud them." Trump, he told the committee, “had people…who had built up trust in him, including people in his own party, and he preyed on that." And once again, Smith reiterated, fraud is not covered by the First Amendment.
This Republican staffer took another shot at it and said, "There's a long history of candidates speaking out about they believe there's been fraud [in an election]…I think you would agree that those types of statements are sort of at the core of the First Amendment rights of a Presidential candidate, right?"
Not at all, Smith replied: "There is no historical analog for what President Trump did in this case. As we said in the indictment, he was free to say that he thought he won the election. He was even free to say falsely that he won the election. But what he was not free to do was violate federal law and use knowingly-false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function. That he was not allowed to do. And that differentiates this case from any past history."
The Republicans kept trying to mount a theoretical defense for Trump. This staffer pointed out that during the hullabaloo over the 2020 election, Trump was receiving information on supposed election fraud from Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and Sidney Powell, and he asked, wasn't Trump just "regurgitating what these people have told him?"
Smith had a sharp retort: "No. And, in fact, one of the strengths of our case and why we felt we had such strong proof is all witnesses were not going to be political enemies of the President. They were going to be political allies. We had numerous witnesses who would say, 'I voted for President Trump. I campaigned for President Trump. I wanted him to win.' The speaker of the house in Arizona. The speaker of the house in Michigan. We had an elector in Pennsylvania, who is a former Congressman who was going to be an elector for President Trump, who said that what they were trying to do was an attempt to overthrow the government - and illegal. Our case was built on, frankly, Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party."
Call 911. There was a murder in this Capitol Hill office, as Smith decimated the various lines of defense Trump's handmaids hurled at him. He forcibly denied Trump's indictments were political acts or that his office had been “weaponized". In an exchange with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), he explained the importance of his investigation:
Jayapal: What happens if there is election interference and the people who are responsible for that are not held accountable?
Smith: It becomes the new norm, and that becomes how we conduct elections.
Jayapal: And so the toll on our democracy, if you had to describe that, what would that be?
Smith: Catastrophic.
The Smith transcript generated headlines…for a day. Like most everything else in our information hypersphere, this story did not have much staying power. Trump's attempt to blow up the constitutional order has become old news. Ho-hum. He got away with this allegedly criminal act because he won the election. His pardons of the violent criminals who attacked hundreds of cops is just one item on a long list of outrages that quickly come and go. Many Americans, it seems, couldn't hold on to a clear memory of January 6 for even a few years - or couldn't be bothered to.
A high-profile public appearance in which Smith vigorously presented the case against Trump might not at this point change the overall public perception of Trump's attempted power grab and the violent raid he triggered. But that would have drawn more attention and served the truth. Which is why Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chair of the committee, and his fellow Republicans made damn sure that did not happen.
---
Today is the fifth anniversary of January 6 - a shameful day in American history. And in the last election, the nation - or about half of its voters - welcomed back into the house the arsonist who tried to burn it down. The past 10 years have sadly showed us that a wannabe authoritarian in the United States can succeed in denying reality and wiping away history. Trump did that with the Russian attack on the 2016 election, which he aided and abetted by echoing Vladimir Putin's false claims that Moscow had not intervened and by insisting ad nauseum that it was a hoax. And he has done the same with January 6, hailing it a "day of love" and "a beautiful day" and calling the rioters "great patriots".
This demonstrates how susceptible people can be to what the Party did in "1984": Erase the past (even the most recent past) and then erase the erasure.
Trump is back in the White House, pushing his agenda of authoritarianism far beyond what he could only dream of during his first term. Future historians - if there is history in the future - will wonder about much in this era. But what might puzzle them the most is how the man who nearly annihilated our constitutional republic was able to worm his way back into the presidency. Gore Vidal once referred to the nation as the "United States of Amnesia". On this dark anniversary, it's good to remember that Trump is in power today because there's been too much forgetting.
[In addition to Trumputin-and-friends belittling and stifling this Justice Department report as described, it's now obvious that Trumputin-and-friends already had secret knowledge of his very-diverting attack on Venezuela, only two nights after they released their redacted version.]
Thom Hartmann: This Brutal Doctrine Explains What Trump's Done To America - And What's Coming Next. (Raw Story, January 6, 2026)
When Donald Trump and the buffoons who surround him invaded Venezuela and captured Nicolás Maduro, they broke with almost a century of American-led respect for the international rule of law and, instead, nakedly embraced the Putin Doctrine.
There was a brief, shining moment when Russia was a democracy. I visited there at the time. Starting with Mikhail Gorbachev and lasting about a decade, Russia embraced the ideals of the European Enlightenment, which itself was inspired by the North American colonists' contact with Native American tribes who had been practicing democracy for millennia.
Then Vladimir Putin came along, began suing media outlets and large law firms into bankruptcy so his oligarch buddies could take them over, packed the courts and rigged the elections, and finally outlawed dissent, calling dissenters "the enemy within" and "domestic terrorists".
ALSO READ: ‘Destined to repeat’: J6 documentary's stark warning as America tries to forget
Instead of power flowing from the people up, it began to flow from Putin down, turning the Russian democracy into an autocracy, functionally a dictatorship with the patina of democracy because they still have elections.
Putin, via an oligarch named Oleg Deripaska, gave a man named Paul Manafort $10-Million in 2005 to install a Putin-friendly president (Viktor Yanukovych) in Ukraine as the first step to essentially turning that country into a vassal state, the way they'd already done with Belarus, Chechnya, Georgia, Transnistria, Syria, and Kazakhstan.
When, in 2014, the Ukrainian people threw out Yanukovych and voted for democracy, Putin invaded and seized Crimea, one of the most-strategically-important parts of the country (and where my daughter went to college), a preface to his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine proper.
With this was born the Putin Doctrine:
1. Russia's policy decisions, both foreign and domestic, are dictated by Putin's whims, not by the will of parliament (the Duma), or what's best for the country or its people. He protects and enriches his family and friends while punishing his enemies.
2. The rule of law internationally is irrelevant to the new Russian state; instead, "might makes right". If another country has something you want, or you don't like the way it's being run, just invade, or send millions of bots and internet trolls via social media to disrupt its society and politics (see: Brexit and Trump 2016).
3. The world is now multipolar, with the “great powers” of Russia, China, and the United States having final say in political and military activity in their regions regardless of objections from local governments. Russia will control Eurasia and eventually all of Europe; China will control Asia and eventually Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea; and the US will be the ultimate power in the Americas, both North, South, and Central.
Manafort, meanwhile, came back to America and ran Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign for "free", while shuttling insider political information for Russian intelligence to exploit with social-media trolls and paid podcasters.
While there have been times in America's past when we've flirted with this sort of world-view, it's never been made official US policy. Even when we've attacked other resource-rich countries, we've at least provided an excuse grounded in "making the world safe and advancing democracy".
That's because the United States, both internationally and domestically, used to stand for the principles of the European Enlightenment. They included the idea that:
- democracy was the natural state of humanity, ordained by what Thomas Jefferson called "Nature's God";
- that power would be diffused across three co-equal government branches; and
- that the public good would take precedence over the desires of the president’s or politicians’ friends.
The Putin doctrine - fully adopted by Trump and his lickspittles with his media lawsuits, the invasion of Venezuela, and his National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7) that identifies Democrats and anti-ICE protestors as potential domestic terrorists - tears all that down.
Trump's adoption of the Putin Doctrine ignores our history of democracy at home and the promotion of democracy abroad, saying instead that whoever has the stronger military rules the region. It abandons the "rules-based order" that the United Nations proclaimed in the 1950s - which has prevented another world war for 81 years - and says instead that, if you can successfully capture the head of a foreign state (no matter how good or bad he or she may be), you should simply go ahead and do it.
Adolf Hitler was following his own version of the Putin Doctrine when he invaded Czechoslovakia and then Poland, kicking off World War II. The oligarchs of the Old South were following it when their Confederate Army commenced the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. And now Trump has made America officially embrace it.
Our Founders never envisaged a future where an entire political party would be captured by a small group of oligarchs, politically-led by a demagogue, who would then abandon the ideals expressed in the Declaration and the Constitution.
As Dan Sisson and I document in "The American Revolution of 1800: How Jefferson Rescued Democracy from Tyranny and Faction", America's Founders considered the demagogue part of the equation, but thought Congress and the Courts would protect the nation; they never imagined that six corrupt Supreme Court justices would rewrite the Constitution to give a president immunity for all crimes committed in the Oval Office, after making legalized political bribery the official policy of the country.
As Christopher Armitage points out, about the only government institutions that are trying to preserve democracy in America now are the Blue states. And they have considerable power, because Trump can't pardon state-based prosecutions even when they're against officials in his own federal government.
Now that the Trump regime:
- has seized almost-complete control of the GOP,
- has its friends in charge of most of our major media and law firms,
- has corrupted our federal justice system,
- has deployed masked secret police across the country, and
- is challenging voters' rights at multiple levels,
America needs the Blue states to get more coordinated, to push back against MAGA's Putin-like behaviors in Red states.
Each of us who lives in a Blue state has an obligation to reach out to our state's politicians and demand that they stand up to this corrupt, illegitimate regime. As Armitage notes, we must push them to:
- Prosecute federal officials who commit assault, kidnapping, or civil rights violations in your state.
- Build public revenue streams that don't depend on federal funding.
- Expand state safety nets to catch the people federal cuts will drop.
- Demonstrate what good governance looks like.
The differences between the quality of life in oligarch-run Red states and Democratic-run Blue states have become so conspicuous that it's amazing they're not more-widely known:
- Blue states account for about 71% of America’s GDP, whereas Trump-supporting Red states only produce 29% of our income and wealth.
- The median family income in Blue states is $74,243. In Red states it's $63,553. Individual states highlight the disparity: New Jersey's median income is $89,703, while Mississippi's is $49,111.
- Counties that voted for Biden in 2020 are better educated, with 36% of their population having some college education compared to Trump's counties at 25%.
- Residents of Blue states live 2.2 years longer, on average, than residents of Red states.
Republican/oligarch-controlled Red states, almost across the board, have higher rates of:
- Spousal abuse
- Obesity
- Smoking
- Teen pregnancy
- Sexually-transmitted diseases
- Abortion (at least before Dobbs; now it would be "forced births")
- Bankruptcies and poverty
- Homicide and suicide
- Infant mortality
- Maternal mortality
- Forcible rape
- Robbery and aggravated assault
- Dropouts from high school
- Divorce
- Contaminated air and water
- Opiate addiction and deaths
- Unskilled workers
- Parasitic infections
- Income and wealth inequality
- Covid deaths and unvaccinated people
- Federal subsidies to states (“Red State Welfare”)
- People on welfare
- Child poverty
- Homelessness
- Spousal murder
- Unemployment
- Deaths from auto accidents
- People living on disability
- Gun deaths
America stands at a crossroads, as the Trump regime moves us closer every day to replacing our democracy altogether with a Russia-like federal autocracy.
There's no Abraham Lincoln in charge of our government, so it falls to us and our Blue states to enforce the rule of law, stand up for democracy, and show the skeptics and "dark-enlightenment" billionaire Tech Bros that the will of the people still matters here.
That doesn't require waiting for the election this Fall or in 2028; it just needs the governors and administrations of the Blue states to stand up against Trump's embrace of the Putin Doctrine and preserve what's left of our democratic traditions.
Ballotpedia has a good site at <https://ballotpedia.org/States#State_governments>, where you can drill down to the contact information for your state's elected officials to let them know you want them to push back hard.
Good luck: The fate and future of the American Experiment may well rest in your hands.
[Well said! And that's why we call him Trumputin.]
Robert Davis/Raw Story: Republicans Officially Rebuke Trump's Efforts To Change Kennedy Center's Name. (MSN News, January 5, 2026)
Republicans put one of President Donald Trump's most significant goals on ice today, by refusing to change the John F. Kennedy Center's name officially.
Trump has been trying for months to rebrand the Kennedy Center as the "Trump-Kennedy Center", a move that has caused a swarm of musicians to boycott the acclaimed concert hall. He has affixed his name to the building's exterior, although officially changing the name requires an act of Congress because the center was created by federal law.

Also Read: America's most dangerous enemy sits at its very heart

Republicans had a chance to make that change in the most recent appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior, which has some say in the center's operations. However, Republicans rebuffed Trump by leaving out any provisions that would officially change the name, Matt Rice, Washington correspondent for The New York Sun, reported today. The move happened at a time when Trump's base had fractured over several recent scandals.
The Trump Report/Fergus Macphee, with Scott Lucas: It's Time To Take Trump's Global Threats Seriously. (35-min. video; Times Radio, January 5, 2026)
Professor of International Politics Scott Lucas tells Times Radio's Fergus Macphee why interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodriguez, and Donald Trump's threat towards her matter. They also discuss whether the U.S. President's ambitions will stop with Venezuela, and how other world leaders could respond.
The Associated Press: Holocaust-Survivor Eva Schloss, The Step-Sister Of Anne Frank, Dies At 96. (photo, podcast, links; NPR News, January 5, 2026)
LONDON - Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the step-sister of teenage-diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96.
The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died Saturday in London, where she lived.
Britain's King Charles III said he was "privileged and proud" to have known Schloss, who co-founded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. "The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding and resilience through her tireless work for the Anne Frank Trust UK and for Holocaust education across the world", the king said.
[May her - and her step-sister's - good work live on, and help to civilize our troubled "civilization".]

Trump Attacks Venezuela:

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U.N. Warns That U.S. Strikes in Venezuela May Violate International Law, Risk Wider Instability. | AC1G (8-min. YouTube video; DRM News, January 5, 2026)
UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo warned the UN Security Council that U.S. strikes in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro risk violating international law and destabilising the region. Speaking on behalf of Secretary-General António Guterres, she urged respect for the UN Charter and a peaceful democratic path forward.
Jeffrey Sachs Blasts U.S. Power Grab Over Venezuela and Maduro Capture, at Historic U.N. Meeting. | AC1G  (9-min. YouTube video; DRM News, January 5, 2026)
Economist and UN-adviser Jeffrey Sachs delivered blistering remarks at an emergency UN Security Council meeting, condemning U.S. strikes on Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Sachs warned of U.S. "hegemonic power grabs", urging the Council to defend the UN Charter and international law.
Jaclyn Diaz and Jasmine Garsd: Maduro And Wife Plead Not Guilty To Narco-Terrorism Charges. (photos, podcast; NPR Breaking News, updated January 5, 2026)
Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and his wife, politician and attorney Cilia Flores, made their first court appearance at a federal court in New York City this (Monday) afternoon, when they both pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Maduro is facing charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine-importation conspiracy and weapons charges. Flores and other senior Venezuelan officials, including Maduro's son, are also facing charges.
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein is overseeing the proceedings. Monday's hearing lasted less than an hour, with both Maduro and Flores submitting their pleas.
It's one of the first times the now-former head of the Venezuelan state has been seen publicly since the U.S. attacked Caracas, captured Maduro and his wife, and brought them to the U.S. over the weekend to face charges.
Maduro greeted people in the courtroom with "Happy New Year" as he entered. During the proceedings, he introduced himself as the president of Venezuela as well as a prisoner of war. Flores introduced herself as first lady of Venezuela. Her right eye appeared swollen and her forehead was bandaged in what may be injuries sustained during the U.S. military operation. Maduro's defense requested X-rays and medical attention for what they said may be a broken or bruised rib, which they say was sustained during the military operation.
A heckler stood up in court to say, "You will pay in the name of the Venezuelan people." Maduro turned to face him and responded, "I am a man of God."
Outside the courtroom, crowds gathered and emotions were high. Protesters played drums and sang the Venezuelan national anthem. Some who opposed the Trump administration's actions demanded the U.S. release Maduro. Others decried harsh conditions for Venezuelans under Maduro.
Maduro and Flores were captured in their Caracas compound in a surprise U.S. military operation Saturday. The same day, the U.S. Justice Department released a 25-page indictment that accuses Maduro and his allies of importing thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. with protection from Venezuelan law enforcement. It alleges Maduro provided drug traffickers with diplomatic passports and partnered with drug cartels to send cocaine to the U.S. via points in the Caribbean and Central America. The indictment claims Maduro began drug trafficking into the U.S. as early as 1999.
In a post on X this past weekend, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote that Maduro and his wife "will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts."
Maduro is being represented by Barry J. Pollack, a leading trial attorney in the U.S. whose high-profile clients include Julian Assange and Enron executives. Pollack didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Flores is being defended by Mark Donnelly, a Houston-based attorney who specializes in white-collar criminal defense. In a statement sent to NPR Donnelly said, "Our client is in good spirits. We look forward to reviewing and challenging the evidence the government has. While we would love to present our side now, we will wait to do so in court at the appropriate time. The first lady is aware that there is a long road ahead and is prepared."
The next court date is March 17th. If convicted, Maduro and his wife could face life in prison.
Brian Tyler Cohen, with Pod Save The World co-hosts (served on President Obama's ??) Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes: No Lie episode 301: Trump Dealt BAD NEWS After Venezuela Invasion. (47-min. YouTube video; YouTube, January 4, 2026)
Trump plunges the United States into a new regime-change war in Venezuela to start off the new year.
[Another excellent analysis of Trump's craziest and most-risky escalation yet. Are Congressional Republicans about to stop supporting Trumputin and his cronies?]
NEW: David Feldman: Trump Says He'll Run Venezuela. Here's Why He's NUTS! (61-min. YouTube video; The Mop-Up, January 4, 2026)
Pod Save The World: Breaking: Trump Invades Venezuela. (51-min. podcast; Crooked.com, January 3, 2026)
Gabriel Rubin: U.S. Raid On Venezuela Threatens New Global Ruptures. (Reuters, updated January 3, 2026)
The United States has long waged deadly interventions among its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere. Its latest, this morning's shock raid on Venezuela and the seizure of autocratic ruler Nicolás Maduro, is particularly brash. The country is already in a state of near-collapse, its economic output falling by roughly 70% since 2013. Yet the Trump administration's move to decapitate its leadership risks further worsening a crisis that has already displaced 8-million refugees, perhaps magnifying it by destabilizing ally Cuba. It is an ominous harbinger of further jockeying by global superpowers, promising yet more conflict.
Annie Paul: Ricardo (@Ric_RTP): PETRODOLLARS? The Capture Of Venezuela. (repost from X (eX-Twitter); January 3, 2026)
- Annie says: This seems to me the most-plausible explanation for the U.S. interference in Venezuela…what a way to enter 2026. SMH.
- Ricardo (@Ric_RTP) is the author of this important article.
- D&J thank Ricardo for the article, and Annie for re-posting it to a trusted site on Substack. And now, the start of the article:
The real reason the U.S. is invading Venezuela goes back to a deal Henry Kissinger made with Saudi Arabia in 1974. And I'm going to explain why this is actually about the SURVIVAL of the U.S. dollar itself. Not drugs. Not terrorism. Not "democracy". This is about the petrodollar system that has kept America the dominant economic power for 50 years. And Venezuela just threatened to end it.
Here's what really just happened:
Venezuela has 303-billion barrels of proven oil reserves. The largest on Earth. More than Saudi Arabia. 20% of the entire World's oil.
But here's the part that matters:
Venezuela was actively selling that oil in Chinese yuan. Not dollars. In 2018, Venezuela announced it would "free itself from the dollar". They started accepting yuan, euros, rubles, anything BUT dollars for oil. They were petitioning to join BRICS. They were building direct payment channels with China that bypass SWIFT entirely. And they were sitting on enough oil to fund de-dollarization for decades.
Why does this matter?
Because the entire American financial system is built on one thing: the petrodollar.
[Read the rest of Ricardo's important article - at Annie's website (above)!]
PBS News Weekend: Maduro Captured. (first 13-min. of 27-min. YouTube video; PBS.org, January 3, 2026)
Trump says the U.S. will indefinitely run the country of Venezuela after the military's capture of Nicolás Maduro. Some Venezuelans celebrate the U.S. operation, while others worry about what comes next.
[Others? Many Venezuelans and others must be doing both!]
David Frum Show/Bonus Episode: Anne Applebaum: How Is Trump Planning to "Run" Venezuela? (29-min. YouTube video; MS Now, January 3, 2026)
David Frum is joined by The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum to react to the news of the American raid and capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Heather Cox Richardson: How The U.S. Taking Out Maduro Matters To The World. (33-min. YouTube video; HCR YouTube, January 3, 2026)     
Rachel Maddow: Her Early Reaction To President Donald Trump's Strike On Venezuela And Capture Of Venezuelan President Maduro. (16-min. YouTube video; MS Now, January 3, 2026)
Philip Wegmann: Trump's Venezuela Gamble And America's Shifting National-Security Strategy. (RealClear Politics, January 3, 2026)
President Donald Trump has embarked on his own regime-change mission. And this time the United States intends to keep the oil.
American Special Operations Forces captured Nicolás Maduro in a daring raid, nabbing the Venezuelan leader from his bed early this (Saturday) morning before sending him north aboard the USS Iwo Jima to New York, where he will face criminal charges related to an alleged narco-terrorism conspiracy. The leftist strongman had ruled the South American state for more than a decade.
Now Trump will take over. "We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition", he told reporters during a Mar-a-Lago press conference, deputizing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to manage in the interim as "a team".
Though long a critic of the foreign entanglements that defined the presidencies of his Republican predecessors, Trump insisted he could do regime change right. "We'll run it properly. We'll run it professionally", he said. "We'll have the greatest oil companies in the world going in."
Trump will not, however, clean house. He claimed Delcy Rodríguez, a Maduro loyalist and the current Venezuelan vice president, was already willing to work with the United States to remake the country. He said it would be "very tough" for opposition leader María Corina Machado to assume power. Just hours after perhaps the most-consequential decision of his tenure, the once-ostensibly-isolationist president was suddenly and remarkably open-ended in his commitment to rebuild a nation thousands of miles away from his own. Of a potential American occupation force, Trump said, "We are not afraid of boots on the ground."
While Attorney General Pam Bondi characterized the operation as "an arrest with military support", Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie wondered how that legal characterization applied to Trump’s promise to take over and run the country. That question will soon be litigated on Capitol Hill, though Democrats don't have the numbers, nor Republicans the appetite, to check the White House.
Trump has offered different condemnations of Maduro at different times. He first condemned him as being complicit in the drug trade that brought "poison" to American shores, then reproached the authoritarian as a puppet of foreign adversaries, before finally flaying his regime for the nationalization of American oil producers in the region.
Perhaps a combination of those irritants has inspired Trump's latest foreign-policy evolution. Once averse to intervention, he now welcomes the opportunity to rebuild a regime immediately after he removed its leadership. He remains consistent on at least one count. After criticizing the Bush administration for not turning a profit in the War on Terror, Trump seems hell-bent on avoiding that same mistake. He said that U.S. energy companies would rebuild the nation as they return to Venezuela and seek new revenue streams. Any costs incurred would quickly be deferred by the new oil revenue, or what the president described as "the money coming out of the ground".
Even if the newly-announced nation-building mission may be something of a flashback to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Trump did not echo language of the War on Terror. He spoke for nearly an hour [taking dishonest jabs at others and often repeating himself - after arriving a half-hour late, and dozing while others spoke]. Not once did the president, or his assembled people, say the word "democracy".
Trump's Public Announcement Of His Overnight Sneak-Attack On Venezuela (93-min. YouTube video, but first 34-min. is an empty podium; PBS News, January 3, 2026)

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NEW: Alex Brandon and Bilal Hussein/Associated Press: Trump Vows To "Rescue" Iran's Protesters. Iran Warns The U.S. To Stay Out Of it. (NPR News, January 2, 2026)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - U.S. President Donald Trump and top Iranian officials exchanged dueling threats today as widening protests swept across parts of the Islamic Republic, further escalating tensions between the countries after America bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June.
At least seven people have been killed so far in violence surrounding the demonstrations, which were sparked in part by the collapse of Iran's rial currency but have increasingly seen crowds chanting anti-government slogans.
The protests, now in their sixth day, have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, the demonstrations have yet to be countrywide and have not been as intense as those surrounding the death of Amini - who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
Trump initially wrote on his Truth Social platform, warning Iran that if it "violently kills peaceful protesters", the United States "will come to their rescue". "We are locked and loaded and ready to go", Trump wrote, without elaborating.
Shortly after, Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker who serves as the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, alleged on the social-platform X that Israel and the U.S. were stoking the demonstrations. He offered no evidence to support the allegation, which Iranian officials have repeatedly made during years of protests sweeping the country. "Trump should know that intervention by the U.S. in the domestic problem corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the U.S. interests", Larijani wrote on X - which the Iranian government blocks. "The people of the U.S. should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers."
Georgism (Wikipedia; posted here January 2, 2026)
"Free trade, free land, free men!" Georgism, in modern times also called Geoism, and known historically as the single-tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that persons should own the value that they produce themselves, while the economic rent derived from land - including from all natural resources, the commons, and urban locations - should belong equally to all members of society. Developed from the writings of American economist and social reformer Henry George, the Georgist paradigm seeks solutions to social and ecological problems based on principles of land rights and public finance that attempt to integrate economic efficiency with social justice.

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Emma Lazarus, Author Of "The New Colossus" (original manuscript, images, links; Wikipedia, posted here January 2, 2026)
Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish and Georgist causes. She is remembered for writing the sonnet "The New Colossus", which was inspired by the Statue of Liberty, in 1883. Its lines appear inscribed on a bronze plaque, installed in 1903, on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus was involved in aiding refugees to New York who had fled anti-semitic pogroms in eastern Europe, and she saw a way to express her empathy for those refugees in terms of the statue.
Heather Cox Richardson: U.S. Immigration, Ellis Island, The Statue Of Liberty And More... (Letters from an American, January 1, 2026)
On January 1, 1892, seventeen-year-old Annie Moore walked down the gangway from the steamship Nevada with her two brothers Anthony, eleven, and Philip, nine, and into history as the first person processed through the newly-opened Ellis Island Immigrant Station. The establishment of a federal facility for processing immigrants had been a long time coming. Between 1892 and 1954, when Ellis Island closed, more than 12-million immigrants would come through the facility on their journey to the United States.
Immigrants arrived at Ellis Island after a two-week journey from Europe. After entering New York Harbor, they sailed by the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island, dedicated just six years before the facility at Ellis Island opened. A gift to the people of the United States from the people of France, Lady Liberty stood on a broken chain-and-shackle that symbolized the abolition of slavery in the U.S., and held up a torch to the newcomers. She held a tablet that represented the law. It was engraved with "July IV MDCCLXXVI" - July 4, 1776, the date of the Declaration of Independence.
In 1965, Ellis Island became part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, formalizing its connection to Lady Liberty and to the poem inscribed cast and mounted inside the base of the statue in 1903. Emma Lazarus turned away from the old "Colossus of Rhodes" - the giant statue of the Greek sun-god Helios that stood at the entrance to the harbor of the Island of Rhodes and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - to offer the world "The New Colossus", a woman, Lady Liberty, the "Mother of Exiles":
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"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
  With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
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[Much more online, describing what so many immigrants experienced (with major support from Abraham Lincoln and his Republican Party) on their first day(s) in America.]

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NEW: David Pakman Show: Psychologist DROPS HAMMER: I Think Trump Had A Stroke. (19-min. YouTube video; Substack, January 1, 2026)
Dr. John Gartner, former assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and founder of Duty to Warn, joins us to discuss signs of cognitive decline in Donald Trump's second term.
Ken Klippenstein: This Insane Post Foreshadows The Year To Come: Why 2026 Is A Year For The Big, Bold And Brazen. (images; Substack, January 1, 2026)
On New Year's Eve, the Department of Homeland Security's X account posted an illustration of a 1960s car parked on an idyllic beach. The caption (I'm not making this up) is "America After 100-Million Deportations".
A casual reference to the forcible removal of over a quarter of the country (coming from the official account of a cabinet-level department of the U.S. government!) is, of course, insane. But there's a message behind the madness, as I quickly realized after looking up some of the latest polling on DHS.
It turns out that DHS's vision of an imagined past resonates with quite a few people. Recent polling from Gallup finds that the Department is the only federal agency to see a significant increase in its job rating in 2025.
But here's the kicker: Gallup also found a huge increase in Americans' support for immigration (including among Republicans). So what explains the support for DHS but not its vision of mass deportation?
Vision is the keyword here. People are sick of the realistic and the reasonable, because look at where it got us: houses you can't afford to buy and healthcare you can't afford to use. A mass immigration bringing back a 1960s-era country isn't really what Americans want; it's the boldness of the idea that appeals to people. They want political leaders to think big. And what's bigger than 100-million?
President Trump seems very aware of this, having taken up the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence as an opportunity to impose his vision of where the country goes from here, with his typical penchant for grandiosity. He said in his New Year’s address: "2026 will be a celebration of America like no other, honoring our nation and all of its glory … Working with states, companies, and organizations across the country, we will renew the patriotism, pride, and pioneering spirit of America, and lay the groundwork for the next 250 years of independence and freedom."
[Democracy, tolerance, honesty and fairness are conspicuously absent.]
Trump senses people's appetite for vision and is eager to provide his own. Others in his administration are, too.
Another DHS post yesterday declared, "We will not live like this anymore" over a meme titled, "AMERICA IN 2025". It's a play on the old expectations vs. reality meme. The post says "what we expected" above an image of Jetsons-style hover cars and a rocket-powered Bass-Pro-Shop pyramid zooming through a futuristic cityscape (lol); "what we got", it then says, is an image of urban decay in Minneapolis and a misspelled sign for a "Quality Learing [sic] Center" - a reference to a government-funded child-care center in Minneapolis that has become a fixation for MAGA in recent days.
Trump's war on immigration obviously isn't going to get us any kind of utopian future (much as I'd like to ride the Bass-Pro-Shop spacecraft). But it's important to recognize that these memes speak to a bone-deep hatred people have for the realistic, reasonable, moderate center that Washington is so enamored with. The insanity is the point.
But for anyone not looking forward to this Bass-Pro-Shop, anti-immigration future, 2026 has already produced another vision rebelling against the moderate middle. Today, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as the Mayor of New York City. As he took office, he laid his hand on a Quran - something I never thought I'd see. Bringing together an inclusive coalition around a vision of a "rent freeze" widely-mocked as unworkable and unrealistic by the punditocracy, Mamdani is a symbol of the people's yearning for the impossible. It remains to be seen if Mamdani will take on the greatest cause of our political stagnation - the national security state and its own vision of a society besieged by lurking threats - given his decision to avoid the issue entirely. He may come to see that the public is now ready for a big change here, too.
[There's more in this thoughtful article about absurd political promises.]
Mary Trump: Trump's Desperate Neediness Laid Bare. (8-min. YouTube video; Mary Trump Media, January 1, 2026)
Why Trump's craving for fake praise reveals the damage, desperation, and danger at the core of his authoritarian behavior.
NEW: Regina Davis Moss: With "Trump Babies" Remark, Republican Strategy Is Revealed. President Donald Trump's Administration Will Stop At Nothing To Ensure The Political Dominance Of White People In This Country. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 31, 2025)
This opinion piece argues that:
- A remark by Dr. Mehmet Oz about "Trump babies" reveals a Republican strategy to ensure White political dominance. (During an Oval Office press conference on November 6, 2005 announcing the lowering of fertility-drug costs, the former talk-show host and heart-surgeon–turned–Trump's-administrator for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said: "We've dropped [the price of] infertility drugs to make lots of Trump babies, I'm hoping by the midterms.")
- This strategy includes voter suppression, undermining reproductive justice, and incentivizing births among "traditional families".
- The article flags a demographic shift: the non-White population is projected to become the majority in the U.S. by 2045.
- Policies - like gutting Medicaid and social safety nets - disproportionately affect the ability of women of color to have children.
[Starting wars (say, in Venezuela three days after this article) and disproportionately driving young adults of color to enlist could also align with this analysis. On January 3, Trumputin also appears to have personally loaned the U.S. Armed Forces (and Venezuela!) to his oil-company cronies - and omitted mention of (while accelerating!) Global Climate Change.]
NEW: Francesca Ebel: As Russia's War Grinds On, Its Society Is Fraying. (Washington Post, December 30, 2025)
The Kremlin presents the country as strong, united and on an inevitable path to victory. But as peace negotiations drag on, Russian society is deteriorating.
Robert Reich: Sunday Thought: The Reckoning. (Robert Reich, December 28, 2025)
Sometimes a nation needs a nightmare before it can fully awaken to long-simmering crises.
Martin Luther King Jr. mobilized the nation against racial injustice by making sure almost everyone in the United States saw its horrors - on the nightly news, watching peaceful Black people getting clubbed and arrested for exercising their rights. Were it not for that painful national exposure to racist brutality, we wouldn't have gotten the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act.
Something similar happened in the first years of the 20th Century, when muck-raking journalists revealed the monopolies, corruption, and public-be-damned arrogance of the robber barons. Were it not for that painful national exposure, we wouldn't have gotten the reforms of the Progressive Era.
A similar dynamic is playing out as Americans witness the nightmare of Trump's neo-fascism: its mindless cruelty, blatant attempts to silence critics, wanton destruction of much of our government, open racism and misogyny.
Trump has revealed himself in ways his first-term handlers wouldn't allow:
- a sociopath who posts AI cartoons showing himself shitting on millions of Americans who marched against him.
- A malignant narcissist unable to respond to the tragic killings of Rob and Michele Reiner without making it all about himself.
- A chronic liar who says prices are dropping, when everyone knows they're rising.
As Americans see all this, outrage has been growing. We are beginning to mobilize - not all of us, of course, but the great majority:
- Record numbers of us marched on October 18, No Kings Day.
- Democratic candidates have won just about every recent special election and mayoral and gubernatorial contest - and a remarkable number of down-ballot races in bright-red states and cities.
- MAGA is coming apart.
- Trump's polls are tanking.
We are organizing and mobilizing with a resolve I have not seen in my lifetime.
America had to come to this point. We couldn’t go on as we were, even under Democratic presidents. For 40 years, a narrow economic elite has been siphoning off ever more wealth and power.
[There's more - in this excellent article (pin its cartoon to the wall!), and in the year to come!]
George Conway: Trump Explodes As Canada Redirects Aluminum Exports Away From The U.S. (20-min. YouTube video; Conway Media, December 24, 2025)
Canada's unexpected move to send its aluminum shipments to Europe has ignited a strong reaction from Donald Trump, raising fresh questions about trade loyalties and economic strategy. This shift signals growing tensions in North-American trade relations, and highlights how global alliances are rapidly changing.
In this video, we break down:
- why Canada made this decision,
- how it impacts the U.S. economy, and
- what it could mean for future trade negotiations.
Stay tuned for the:
- political fallout,
- economic consequences, and
- what comes next,
in this escalating trade story.
Suzanne Nuyen: New Epstein Files Mention Trump. (13-min. podcast; NPR, Up First newsletter, December 24, 2025)
The Justice Department yesterday released about 30,000 pages of new documents, including flight logs, memos and letters, related to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The files contain hundreds of references to President Trump.
It's well-established that Epstein was well-connected and knew many influential figures, including Trump and former president Bill Clinton, NPR's Sarah McCammon tells Up First. She emphasizes that Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but notes that the documents continue to highlight the relationship between Trump and Epstein, raising questions about how much Trump knew about Epstein's activities.
Thomas L. Knapp: "Big Balls" Was Just the Beginning. (source is Vittoria Elliott/WIRED; Rational Review News Digest, December 23, 2025)
"Since the beginning of the Trump administration, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency/DOGE, the brainchild of billionaire Elon Musk, has gone through several iterations, leading periodically to claims - most recently from the director of the Office of Personnel Management - that the group doesn't exist, or has vanished altogether.
But DOGE isn't dead. Many of its original members are in full-time roles at various government agencies …. Even if DOGE doesn't survive another year, or until the U.S. semi-quincentennial - its original expiration date, per the executive order establishing it - the organization's larger project will continue. DOGE from its inception was used for two things, both of which have continued apace:
- the destruction of the administrative state, and
- the wholesale consolidation of data,
in service of concentrating power in the executive branch. It is a pattern that experts say could spill over beyond the Trump administration."
[Also see, "Big Balls" No Longer Works for the U.S. Government. (Reader-Supported News/RPN, June 25, 2025), below.]
NEW: Anastasia Tsioulcas: It Was Called The Kennedy Center, But 3 Different Presidents Shaped It. Now, Trump Adds His Own Name To It. (2-min. podcast, photos, videos, etc.; NPR, All Things Considered, December 19, 2025)
Yesterday, the Kennedy Center's name was changed to The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. By this morning, workers were already changing signs on the building itself, although some lawmakers said that the name can't be changed legally without Congressional approval.
Though the arts venue is now closely-associated with President Kennedy, it was three American presidents, including Kennedy, who envisioned a national cultural center – and what it would mean to the United States.
[And none of them were named Trump.]
The Eisenhower Administration
In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower first pursued building what he called an "artistic mecca" in Washington, D.C., and created a commission to create what was then known as the National Cultural Center.
Three years later, Congress passed an act to build the new venue with the stated purpose of presenting classical and contemporary music, opera, drama, dance, and poetry from the United States and across the world. Congress also mandated the center to offer public programs, including educational offerings and programs specifically for children and older adults.
The Kennedy Administration
A November 1962 fundraiser for the center during the Kennedy administration featured stars including conductor Leonard Bernstein, comedian Danny Kaye, poet Robert Frost, singers Marian Anderson and Harry Belafonte, ballerina Maria Tallchief, pianist Van Cliburn – and a 7-year-old cellist named Yo-Yo Ma and his sister, 11-year-old pianist Yeou-Cheng Ma.
In his introduction to their performance, Bernstein specifically celebrated the siblings as new immigrants to the United States, whom he hailed as the latest in a long stream of "foreign artists and scientists and thinkers who have come not only to visit us, but often to join us as Americans, to become citizens of what to some has historically been the land of opportunity and to others, the land of freedom."
At that event, Kennedy said this: "As a great democratic society, we have a special responsibility to the arts - for art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color. The mere accumulation of wealth and power is available to the dictator and the democrat alike; what freedom alone can bring is the liberation of the human mind and spirit which finds its greatest flowering in the free society."
Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline were known for championing the arts at the White House. The president understood the free expression of creativity as an essential soft power, especially during the Cold War, as part of a larger race to excellence that encompassed science, technology, and education – particularly in opposition to what was then the Soviet Union.
The Johnson Administration
Philip Kennicott, the Pulitzer Prize-winning art and architecture critic for The Washington Post, said the ideas behind the Kennedy Center found their fullest expression under Kennedy's successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson.
"Johnson in the Great Society basically compares the arts to other fundamental needs", Kennicott said. "He says something like, 'It shouldn't be the case that Americans live so far from the hospital. They can't get the health care they need. And it should be the same way for the arts.' Kennedy creates the intellectual fervor and idea of the arts as essential to American culture. Johnson then makes it much more about a kind of popular access and participation at all levels."
Ever since, Kennicott said, the space has existed in a certain tension between being a palace of the arts and a publicly accessible, popular venue. It is a grand structure on the banks of the Potomac River, located at a distance from the city's center, and decked out in red and gold inside. At the same time, Kennicott observed: "It's also open. You can go there without a ticket. You can wander in and hear a free concert. And they have always worked very hard at the Kennedy Center to be sure that there's a reason for people to think of it as belonging to them collectively, even if they're not an operagoer or a symphony ticket subscriber."
[And they want to rename its Opera House for Melania Trump...]
Deborah Mary Sophia and Timothy Gardner: Trump Media Bets On Fusion Energy With $6-Billion TAE Deal. (Reuters, December 18, 2025)
Summary:
- Deal adds fusion power to Trump family's diverse ventures.
- Trump Media to be holding company housing both firms' divisions.
- To start building world's first utility-scale fusion power plant in 2026.
- Fusion-industry reps recently met with U.S. Energy Dept. reps. U.S. President Donald Trump is getting into the fusion power business through a $6-Billion merger of his social-media firm with Google-backed TAE Technologies, announced just days after industry leaders met with U.S. Energy Department representatives to urge federal funding. The all-stock deal announced today is an ambitious bet on the power boom spurred by artificial-intelligence data-centers, and adds to the Trump family's growing roster of diverse ventures from cryptocurrency to real-estate holdings and mobile services.
After his return to office this year, Trump's close relatives have pursued ventures leveraging his political power and policy shifts. The Trump family has, for instance, amassed $Billions in crypto-related wealth as Trump throws his support behind digital financial assets. Greater support from the federal government could potentially boost the value of this investment, as well. The news put a charge into shares of the money-losing Trump Media today, sending them up 35%. The stock, popular with retail traders, had lost more than 70% of its value over the last 12 months following a big surge during the 2024 campaign. "At face value, this is a Barbenheimer mashup. Trump Media gets a dramatic new growth story tied to the AI power crunch and data-center (hyper-scaler) electricity demand, while TAE gets a fast lane to being publicly traded via an all-stock merger valued above $6-Billion", said Michael Ashley Schulman, partner and chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors.
Jack Cocchiarella: OMG! Trump CAUGHT Admitting COLLAPSE After DISASTER Speech! (14-min. YouTube video; Jack Cocchiarella show, December 18, 2025)
After a news introduction by Lawrence O'Donnell, political commentator Jack Cocchiarella reacts to Donald Trump exposing his own collapse.
[As TrumPutin (a.k.a. tRUmp) continues to dismantle the USA, he also dismantles MAGA and what little is left of himself.]
Rachel Maddow: Trump Loses On Public-Health Leadership, As States Leave His "Flock Of Quacks" Behind. (10-min. video; MS NOW, December 16, 2025)
As Donald Trump fills the leadership roles of the U.S. public-health system with quacks and kooks, sane states are taking it upon themselves to employ actual experts with real public-health administration experience to make sure the public has credible guidance - even if that guidance is not coming from the federal government.
Dr. Debra Houry, former CDC official and new senior medical adviser to the California Department of Health, talks with Rachel Maddow about this new shift in public-health authority as Donald Trump and his clown show are simply ignored.
[A sad second prize; but, as TrumPutin (a.k.a. tRUmp) continues to dismantle the USA and Congress continues to stand by, others ARE taking steps to undo some of his once-inconceivable damage.]
Court Filing Offers More Details About Trump's White House Ballroom. (1-min. video; ABC News, December 16, 2025)
The Trump administration reveals new details about the White House ballroom construction ahead of the first hearing in the lawsuit to stop the project.
Amy Goodman, DemocracyNow!: Journalist Reveals FBI Is Offering a "Bounty" for Reporting "Anti-Trump Thought". A leaked DOJ memo directs the FBI to review records from the past five years, says Ken Klippenstein. (47-min. Truthout video; Truthout, December 8, 2025)
A leaked memo by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directs the Justice Department and FBI to compile a list of groups that may be labeled “domestic terrorism” organizations, based on political views related to immigration, gender and U.S. policy. The memo was obtained by independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein, who joins us to discuss how it expands on President Donald Trump's NSPM-7 directive following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which ordered a national strategy to investigate and disrupt groups the administration claims could incite political violence. Bondi's effort targets "not just the left", but "anyone who isn't a Trump supporter", says Klippenstein of the sweeping order, which identifies targets as:
- entities expressing "opposition to law and immigration enforcement",
- support for "mass migration and open borders",
- "radical gender ideology", or
- "views described as anti-American, anti-capitalist or anti-Christian", as well as
- "hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality".
People who report extremists may be financially rewarded, and the FBI is reviewing records from the past five years, as well as the present.
[Traitors, defining traitors. "They labelled him a traitor, themselves the traitor crew, but his soul goes marching on!"]       
NEW: Chris Walker: After Failing to Win Nobel Peace Prize, Trump Is Awarded FIFA's Newly-Created "Peace Prize". Fédération Internationale de Football Association's President Gianni Infantino Described Trump As His "Close Friend" During The Award Ceremony. (Truthout, December 8, 2025)
On December 5th, FIFA President Gianni Infantino awarded President Donald Trump the first-ever "FIFA Peace Prize - Football Unites The World", an award that was created just weeks after Trump failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Infantino described Trump as his "close friend" during the ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., which took place during the FIFA World Cup draw.
For several weeks after the award was announced in early November, commentators have speculated that the award was a sham and would be going to Trump, given his friendship with Infantino and his visible dismay at having lost the Nobel Peace Prize.
According to the international soccer organization's website, the FIFA peace prize is granted to "individuals who, through their unwavering commitment and their special actions, have helped to unite people all over the world in peace and consequently deserve a special and unique recognition."
[Also, because TrumPutin assumed control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in February, and offered "his friend" inappropriate free use of it (Washington Post, November 13, 2025). Well, other than the fabricated "peace prize" for himself; friends trading favors, at the public's expense.]
That [special-favor, consolation-prize] award came the same week that the U.S. Institute of Peace added Trump's name to the outside of their building, which now reads, "Donald Trump United States Institute of Peace".
Trump has frequently asserted that he is deserving of a peace prize, claiming that he has helped end multiple wars and military conflicts around the world. In reality, fact-checkers have noted that although Trump has had a hand in numerous temporary ceasefires, he has not "ended wars" or "created lasting peace" as he's claimed.
But there are many reasons why Trump may be un-deserving of a peace award. [Examples, which] likely amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. And Trump has often encouraged violence against dissident voices, including by stating at his political rallies that he wouldn't "mind so much" if someone shot members of the press, or labeling Democratic lawmakers as "seditious" and threatening "death" as punishment.
FIFA presenting a "peace prize" is a questionable endeavor on its own, given the organization's willingness to overlook human-rights abuses in order to advance its own interests. For example, the organization has selected Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 World Cup, despite that country's documented history of human-rights violations, use of child-labor, and dangerous working conditions for foreign laborers, among other concerns.
[But, "Trump friends" DO "overlook abuses (human rights, political bribes, replacing government administrators and even Supreme Court judges with 'Trump friends') in order to advance their own interests".
And TrumPutin also is a traitor, a crook, a liar, and a great threat to our democracy. No wonder, that he is his own best friend!]
Julia Jacobs: Six Memorable Moments From The "Trump Kennedy Center" Honors. (6-min. podcast; New York Times, December 8, 2025)
During his first term, President Trump broke with precedent and steered clear of the Kennedy Center Honors, after some of the artists being celebrated criticized him.
This year's Honors were essentially the Trump Show.
Mr. Trump, who took over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts at the start of his second term, hosted the ceremony last night (CBS will broadcast it later this month). He took an unusually-direct role in choosing the honorees.
Here are six memorable moments from the weekend of Honors-related events:
1. The president made a winking mention of a "Trump Kennedy Center".
In extolling some of the changes that he was making at the arts center, Mr. Trump feigned a slip-up, referring to "the Trump Kennedy Center - I mean, Kennedy Center". The friendly audience in the opera house erupted in laughter and applause. "I'm sorry!", the president said, holding up his hands and not looking very sorry. It wasn't the first time that the president had - perhaps half-jokingly - slipped into his remarks a new name for the decades-old cultural institution, which he took over after purging Democrats from its traditionally-bipartisan board of directors, installing himself as chairman, and replacing its longtime president with a loyalist.
2. Mr. Trump compared himself to Johnny Carson.
Mr. Trump had late-night talk show hosts on his mind. When he first took the stage, he suggested that he would try to "act like Johnny Carson". "We miss Johnny, don't we?", he said, before launching into what he described as "the most-exciting evening of this kind in a long, long time in our country."
Mr. Trump brought up one of his favorite targets: the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who Mr. Trump has repeatedly said should be fired from his post.
On Saturday, during a ceremony in the Oval Office in which he bestowed the honorees with medallions, Trump said: "I've watched some of the people to host - Jimmy Kimmel was horrible". (Mr. Kimmel has not hosted the Kennedy Center Honors, although he has hosted other awards shows, including last year's Academy Awards, which Mr. Trump criticized at the time. And Mr. Kimmel was one of the comedians who paid tribute to David Letterman at the honors in 2012.) Mr. Trump added, "If I can't beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don't think I should be president".
3. The president still loves "Phantom".
A pop-culture obsessive, Mr. Trump was not shy about appearing like a fan. Especially when it came to Mr. Crawford, who originated the title role in "Phantom of the Opera" in London in the 1980s. "I don't want to say how many times I've seen you in 'Phantom'", Mr. Trump told Mr. Crawford at a dinner at the State Department on Saturday. At the gala yesterday, Mr. Trump and Mr. Crawford watched from the presidential box as two singers, David Phelps and Laura Osnes, performed the musical's title song.
4. This time, the artists did not criticize Mr. Trump.
During his first term, some of the artists who were given honors at the Kennedy Center - including Norman Lear, the television producer, and Carmen de Lavallade, the dancer and choreographer - criticized Mr. Trump and said they would not attend a reception at the White House. Mr. Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, announced that they would not participate in the honors "to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction".
This time, artists and presenters either praised Mr. Trump effusively or sought to distance themselves from the politics of it all. Kelsey Grammer, who was chosen to speak at the honors in praise of Mr. Crawford, told Fox News on Saturday that Mr. Trump was "one of the greatest presidents we've ever had".
Gene Simmons of Kiss applauded the idea of having the president host the program and, in a conversation with reporters on the red carpet, even praised his plans to build a White House ballroom. "I believe the ballroom that's being built, which is going to be twice as big, that is exactly what we need - a face-lift", he said. "Have you ever been to Versailles? The American house of the people is shameful."
Mr. Trump appeared to wonder from the stage if some in the audience wouldn't be so effusive. In previewing performances by the country musicians Vince Gill, Garth Brooks and Brooks & Dunn, Mr. Trump told the guests: "They probably don't like me very much. But all I know is they're big, right? We want bigness. We don't care if they like Trump - we want bigness, right?" Garth Brooks performed at President Biden's inauguration in 2021, calling the appearance a "statement of unity" and "not a political statement".
5. As host, Mr. Trump roasted his audience.
An awards show audience is liable to become subject to some good-natured ribbing, even when it contains members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet, Kennedy Center donors and board members, corporate executives, conservative media personalities and Washington aides. "So many people I know in this audience, some good, some bad", Mr. Trump said midway through the show. "Some I really love and respect. Some I truly hate. But they're having a good time."
And when he spoke about the "persistence" of artists in his opening remarks, Mr. Trump landed more jabs. "I can say that with a lot of the members of our audience - I know so many of you, and you are persistent", he said. "Many of you are miserable, horrible people. But you are persistent, you never give up. Sometimes I wish you'd give up, but you don't."
6. The president joked about a new role next year.
With the president exerting more influence over the performing arts center, a reporter on the red carpet suggested another idea: What about Mr. Trump as an honoree? "That’s an interesting one, I haven't thought of that", the president replied, with a glimmer in his eye. "Yeah, I think I'm going to nominate myself for next year."
According To The U.S. National Park Service Website, Martin Luther King Jr. Day And Juneteenth Are No Longer Listed As Free-Admission Days. This Marks A Shift For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Which Has Been A Free-Admission Day For Years. (National Park Service, December 6, 2025)
Changes are coming to the National Park Service's free-admission days next year, impacting when visitors can enter without paying.
According to the National Park Service website, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth are no longer listed as free-admission days. This marks a shift for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which has been a free-admission day for years.
In place of these days, new additions have been made. September 17, Constitution Day, and June 14, Flag Day - which is also President Donald Trump's birthday - are now among the days with waived admission fees.
Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery, was only added as a free-admission day last year.
Officials noted that these free admissions will apply solely to U.S. citizens and residents.
Mike Nellis: Trump's Corrupt Pardons Are a Middle Finger to Every American. Why Cuellar's Pardon Is Different. (Endless Urgency, December 5, 2025)
I don't think there's anything angering me more right now than the corruption of the Trump administration - and the sheer brazenness of these daily deluges of pardons. Trump has already issued over 1,600 pardons. Joe Biden? Just 80. With Trump, it's literally one or two people, every day.
I want to zero in on one pardon in particular - though honestly, I could go off on dozens - and that's the pardon this week of Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas. This one really, deeply pisses me off - because I have no idea what Trump got out of it.
I've seen some Dem influencers try to frame it like Trump's playing 4D chess - pardoning a Democrat to divide us, make us fight each other. I don't buy that for a second. Trump's not some Machiavellian genius - that's giving him 'way too much credit. It also completely glosses over the fact that Cuellar was facing trial for taking $600,000 in bribes from an oil and gas company. That's not some minor slip-up. That's serious.
Some folks have said the case against Cuellar was flimsy. Maybe. I don't know. But that's what a trial is for. Let the process play out. Let a jury decide. And I think it's important for Democrats - especially when it's one of our own - to say that out loud.
Because I don't know why Trump did this. Maybe money moved behind the scenes. Maybe there was a political angle. Maybe he just did it to screw with us. But whatever the reason, he did it - and now you've got people out here saying, "Well, look, Trump pardons Democrats, too! That's bipartisan!"
I don't give a damn what party you're in - if you're accused of a crime, you should go through the process. Same with the Epstein files. I don't care if Democrats are in there - release it all. Let the public see what the rich and powerful are doing behind closed doors. Because corruption is everywhere. It's unchecked, and it's metastasizing.
Issuing pardons without any meaningful review or explanation is extremely dangerous, because it signals that normal legal safeguards no longer apply. This kind of unchecked power reinforces the reality that we are already living under increasingly authoritarian conditions - and the more leaders get away with it, the deeper that governance style entrenches itself.
Democrats have to be willing to call that out. If we want to be taken seriously on corruption - which, by the way, should be one of the defining issues of 2026 and 2028 - we've got to own it. We've got to take on insider trading in Congress. We've got to deal with the rot inside our own house. No more ignoring it because it's inconvenient or uncomfortable.
One of the reasons Trump thrives, is because people believe the whole damn system is corrupt. That everyone's just in it for themselves. And you know what? That belief helps him. People say, "At least Trump's honest about it."
They're not wrong to feel disillusioned. And a lot of Democratic strategists know that corruption is a message that breaks through. It's a way to talk about who's winning and who's losing in Trump's America. It ties directly to issues people care about: affordability, healthcare, security, fairness. That's where we can connect.
Same goes for Epstein. The Trump administration has become a full-blown protection racket for billionaires and their well-connected buddies. And we’ve got to name that. But we've also got to name it when it's happening in our own damn party. No more looking the other way. Maybe Cuellar's innocent. I honestly don't know. But he never got his day in court. And that matters.
Here's my final thought: What kind of message does this send to the people at the FBI and DOJ who are actually trying to do their jobs - trying to take down bribery schemes, political corruption, drug traffickers, sexual predators? How demoralizing it must be, when Trump turns around and pardons the very people they spent years building a case against!
I think the pardon power, as it exists, needs to go. It was meant to be a fail-safe - a check on the system, when it gets something wrong. Instead, it's now the most-blatant form of institutional corruption we have.
We've got to keep calling it out. If we're serious about winning elections - about building a country where accountability and responsibility actually mean something - then this can't slide. Because this is why a third of Americans don't vote. They see a rigged game. A system where the rich and well-connected protect each other, and everyone else gets screwed.
We can't let it happen again. Not with the pardons. Not with Epstein. Not with any of it. We've got to keep the pressure on - even when it's hard, even when it's messy, even when it's one of our own.
[YES.]
Senate Votes To Prioritize Oil Over Arctic Conservation. (Defenders Of Wildlife, December 4, 2025)
The United States Senate today approved resolutions under the Congressional Review Act to overturn previous Biden administration protections for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, clearing the way for expanded oil and gas drilling. The rollback is an all-out attack on public lands, Indigenous communities and wildlife in America's Arctic. Following the House's decision to nullify these policies, both chambers have also voted to remove protections from the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. 
"Once again, oil and gas development is taking precedence over science-based solutions for conserving wildlife and mitigating climate change. In these instances, the use of the CRA accomplishes nothing meaningful and instead harms iconic species such as polar bears, caribou, wolves and migratory birds", said Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations at Defenders of Wildlife. "In addition to threatening wildlife, severe regulatory disruption in Alaska is the inevitable result of targeted rollbacks in one of America's most-ecologically-critical regions."
Phil McKenna, Inside Climate News: Rare Win For Renewable Energy: Trump Admin Funds Geothermal-Network Expansion. A First-In-The-Nation Heating-And-Cooling Network In Massachusetts Is Set To Double In Size. (Ars Technica, December 3, 2025)
The US Department of Energy has approved an $8.6-Million grant that will allow the nation’s first utility-led geothermal heating and cooling network to double in size.
Gas-and-electric utility Eversource Energy completed the first phase of its geothermal network in Framingham, Massachusetts in 2024. Eversource is a co-recipient of the award along with the city of Framingham and HEET, a Boston-based nonprofit that focuses on geothermal energy and is the lead recipient of the funding.
Geothermal networks are widely considered among the most energy-efficient ways to heat and cool buildings. The federal money will allow Eversource to add approximately 140 new customers to the Framingham network and fund research to monitor the system's performance.
The federal funding was first announced in December 2024 under the Biden administration. However, the contract between HEET and the Department of Energy was not finalized until September 30 - and was just announced today. The agreement, which allows construction to move forward, comes as the Trump administration is clawing back billions of dollars in clean energy funding, including hundreds of millions of dollars in Massachusetts.
[Translation: TrumPutin blocked this existing funding commitment until September, when it suited his purposes to permit it - perhaps to divert attention from his total blocking of such funds until  now, perhaps because he sees a way to profit from it.]
Deadline White House, Nicolle Wallace: Rachel Maddow: "He Must Resign!", On Pete Hegseth Shifting Blame For Caribbean Boat Strikes After Backlash. (9-min. YouTube video; MS NOW, December 2, 2025)
Rachel Maddow, Host of The Rachel Maddow Show joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with:
- reaction to the Trump White House and Defense Secretary pivoting blame on the boat strikes conducted in the Caribbean, and
- what it means for the American military, with a cabinet secretary appearing to throw anybody in the United States military under the bus in order to escape accountability.
The Rachel Maddow Show, with Rep. Adam Smith: Possible War Crime Puts Trump's "Illegal Orders" Freak-Out In New Context. (10-min. YouTube video; MS Now, December 2, 2025) Rachel Maddow relays the details of a new Washington Post report that Donald Trump's secretary of defense, former weekend cable-news host Pete Hegseth, gave orders to kill everyone on board a boat he accused of running drugs to the United States, which meant finishing off the survivors of an initial strike that destroyed the boat - the literal text-book definition of an illegal order.
Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee joins to discuss a new, bipartisan push to investigate Hegseth's orders.
Alexander Willis: "This Is Truly Insane": Trump Stuns With Eye-Popping Multi-Million-Dollar Purchase(s). (RawStory,
November 25, 2025)
Buried within a mountain of financial disclosures made public recently, is a potentially multi-million-dollar purchase made by President Donald Trump between August and October, a purchase that has left some critics stunned by its lack of news coverage.
"In a normal administration, this would be a huge scandal", wrote journalist and political commentator Molly Jong-Fast in a social media post today on X.
The purchase was, according to a report today from The New York Times, for between $1-Million and $5-Million worth of corporate debt of the technology company Intel. The disclosure was published amid the Trump administration's decision to secure a more than $11-Billion stake in the company, making the U.S. government hold 10% of the company's stock.
"This is truly insane", wrote journalist Ryan Grim in a social media post on X today, responding to the news.
Intel is not the only company Trump has personally invested in. Last week, reporting showed that Trump had also purchased as much as $6-Million in corporate bonds for the weapons manufacturer Boeing, a purchase made close to the company being awarded a $877-Million contract from the Defense Department.
Back in September, Trump also purchased between $500,000 and $1-Million worth of Boeing bonds. Since January, Trump has purchased, at a minimum, $185-Million worth of bonds.
These personal investments of the president continue to run in tandem with the Trump administration's unprecedented purchases of company stocks and bonds, which officials say "are being carried out in the interest of national security".
"It is an unusual new strategy that has already committed more than $10-Billion in taxpayer funds and shows little sign of slowing", wrote the Times reporter Ana Swanson in a report today. "The government's growing portfolio of corporate ownership involves minority stakes, or the option to take them in the future, in at least nine companies involved in steel, minerals, nuclear energy, and semiconductors, a New York Times analysis found. The deals were all struck in the past six months, with the bulk made in October and November."

Swinging Back Toward Democracy

---

Rick Wilson: Trump SHUTS DOWN His Entire Schedule As Chaos ERUPTS Nationwide! (14-min. YouTube video; America's Hope, November 27, 2025)
(For decades, Rick Wilson worked as a Republican strategist, but his outspoken criticism of Trump and Trumpism made him a leading figure in the anti-Trump Republican movement.)
All hell is breaking loose inside Donald Trump's White House. What's left of it, anyway. And Trump isn't even in the building because he knows exactly what's happening back in D.C.
The whole operation is cratering: Marjorie Taylor Green's resignation, the wave of threatened resignations behind her, the whispers about firing Cash Patel, Pam Bondi, Christy Gnome, Pete Hegseth. Take your pick from the loyalty roulette.
MAGA isn't just fractured. It's an open civil war and every day it gets a little messier for him. Which is why - at the exact moment Trump is finally taking the heat he's earned for the cognitive slide, the exhaustion, the short days, the obvious decline - he's pulling the emergency lever he always pulls: Cancel everything and hide.
That's where we are. That's how desperate it's gotten.
[One more reason to be thankful, on this Thanksgiving Day.]
Jennifer Welch: Trump's RUSSIAN COVER-UP Exposed by LEAKED Audio! JD Vance in HOT WATER! (17-min. YouTube video; IHIP News, November 26, 2025)
Trump and his cronies were caught in an obvious lie and are trying to cover for the Kremlin.
[TrumPutin, at his putinest!]
Wajahat Ali and Lev Parnas: How Trump And The GOP Are Aligning With Putin And Betraying Our Allies. Putin Continues Playing Trump, As Steve Witkoff Is Being Sent To Affirm A "Peace Plan" Engineered In Moscow That Will Abandon Ukraine And US Allies. (40-min. YouTube video; The Left Hook, November 26, 2025)
With the rise of Trumpism and the mainstreaming of the global criminal syndicate, we've witnessed a violent insurrection, extortion, the rise of stochastic terrorism, and the unethical funding of the AI and Crypto boom.
Now, we're seeing the money laundering of dirty foreign policy in real time.
Earlier today, Bloomberg published the audio transcript of a 5-minute phone call between Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov, a senior foreign policy adviser to Putin, in which he consulted Russians in October on how to flatter and win-over Trump. Again, Witkoff serves in the Trump Administration, which, if you've forgotten by now, is supposed to serve the best interests of the United States of America. Last week, the US presented Ukraine with a 28-point plan that seemed to have come straight from Russia, courtesy of Witkoff, who, coincidentally, has now been directed by Trump to meet Putin in Moscow.
It all comes full circle, beginning and ending with Russia, with corrupt middlemen willing to sell out democracy, human rights, and our allies to serve their financial and ideological interests.
All of this is par for the course, according to former Trump fixer Lev Parnas, who engaged in similar shady backdoor deals while helping Trump during the first Administration. Parnas has long warned to keep an eye on Witkoff, who, like Jared Kushner before him, has also secured $1.5-Billion from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
All of the worst people in the world are drinking all of our milkshakes, and Ukraine and Eastern Europe are just their first step. Venezuela and its massive oil reserves are next, as teased out in Project 2025. Trump's extra-judicial murders of fishermen aren't just a wag-the-dog distraction from his flailing presidency, but part and parcel of a larger global plan to depose Maduro with a Trump-Putin friendly leader who is "open for business".
Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen revealed the plot last week on Fox News: "Capital expenditure is always followed by job growth. The peace deals - we are seeing a peace dividend from that. And I think there's a very good chance that if something happens with Russia, Ukraine, if something happens down in Venezuela, that we could really see oil prices go down even more."
Lev joined me today to discuss the breaking news and how it corresponds to what his sources have been telling him regarding Putin's long game and Trump's capitulation to the world's worst authoritarians and oligarchs.
Jimmy Kimmel: Trump Hurls Insults and Pardons Turkeys. Hegseth Threatens Senator Kelly. RFK Junior Jr.'s Love Poems. (15-min. YouTube video; Jimmy Kimmel Live, November 25, 2025)
The White House is ready for Thanksgiving, Trump spent some time pardoning two turkeys while bragging and ranting about his political enemies, the day after Thanksgiving is known to plumbers as Brown Friday, Hegseth opens investigation into Senator Mark Kelly over the video reminding service members that they're not required to obey illegal orders, we chat with RFK Junior Jr. about his love poems & since Trump seems to think that gas costs $2 a gallon we're asking that if you see a sign that actually says that, please take a picture and post it with #Gassolini.
Thom Hartmann: Trump Broke The Law With This Horrible Threat - And It Will Be His Doom. (RawStory, November 25, 2025)
I've been feeling something unusual these past few weeks: optimism. Not naïve optimism or the kind that ignores danger, but the real optimism that arrives when you see people waking up, standing up, and refusing to bow before a lawless president who believes rules are for suckers and the Constitution is a mere suggestion rather than the foundation of our republic.
We're now governed by a man who treats legal limits as personal insults. Donald Trump doesn't just violate our nation's norms and laws; like every wannabe third-world tin-pot dictator before him, he despises the idea that any law can constrain him at all.
Trump and the spineless sycophants in his administration have rejected the entire idea of a rules-based society. He and his lickspittles are:
- turning the presidency into a throne,
- trying to transform you and me into its subjects, and
- painting as enemies anyone who insists soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen (and others in government) should follow the law.
Under Trump's neo-fascist worldview, the only "legal" act is obedience, while defiance of his whims and illegal orders is a crime. We saw this when Trump lashed out at lawmakers who reminded our military that their sworn oath is to the Constitution and not to him personally. He posted a rant about those six CIA and military veterans/lawmakers and wrote "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!", in response to their message that both history and law - including military law - require soldiers to refuse illegal orders. Then he reposted a message calling for them to be hanged.
That wasn't a rhetorical flourish: it was Trump's declaration of war on the rule of law, something so essential that it's the basis of every democracy and civilized society in history throughout the world. Instead of respecting American ideals, he's sounding more like his "good friend", the murderous dictator of Saudi Arabia (who's given Trump's family $Billions, with more $Billions on their way).
You'd think that after the My Lai massacre, the horrors committed at Abu Ghraib, and the Nuremberg trials, Americans - and Trump and those around him - would have gotten the message, but over at the Fox propaganda channel and on other right-wing media they're actually defending this obscene behavior.
It's also criminal behavior: 18 U.S. Code § 610 makes it a crime for any federal official - including the president - to use their authority to intimidate, threaten, or punish citizens for their political expression, voting behavior, or dissent. Threatening members of Congress with execution for following the law is an extreme, textbook violation.
Meanwhile, the country is learning how this un-American philosophy plays out on the ground. In cities like Charlotte, Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc., masked, anonymous, secret-police-style federal agents descend without warning, kicking in doors and smashing car windows, arresting U.S. citizens, stealing people's possessions, invading trusted community spaces, shuttering businesses, and sending tens-of-thousands of students home in fear. This isn't border enforcement or public safety. It's warfare against due process and America itself. It's gotten so bad that Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and her peers are getting death and bomb threats.
Our nation’s Founders warned us that America's greatest threats to liberty would come not from abroad, but from leaders who'd try to turn our legal system and military against us. James Madison said the means used against foreign dangers, too-easily become instruments of tyranny at home. That warning wasn't theoretical: it was aimed directly at moments like this.
Yet we're also seeing something the Founders hoped for, something that echoed their heroic efforts against King George III: average Americans refusing to be cowed. People are:
- documenting abuses,
- flooding the streets in peaceful protest,
- forming rapid-response networks,
- hauling the government into court, again and again.
Ordinary citizens are doing the job Congress has been too afraid, too compromised, or too divided to do. It's the most patriotic thing happening in America today.
Which is why Trump's response to lawful dissent has been so horrific: He's demanding Saudi-style executions. He wasn’t being metaphorical: he demanded actual executions (although he later pretended to walk it back). That’s the language of a dictator. It’s the purest expression of Trump's governing philosophy: if the law gets in his way he simply ignores it.
This isn't merely corruption. It's not even ordinary authoritarianism. It's a direct repudiation of the entire American experiment. Defiance of courts and the law is a poison that says the only legitimate authority is the will of the leader, and Trump's entire presidency has featured a non-stop campaign to replace the rule of law with the rule of Trump:
- He enriched himself in office (he's made $Billions off his position in just 10 months).
- He wielded the government as a tool of reprisal.
- He attacked judges.
- He extorted foreign governments.
- He stole government property
- and lied about it to federal investigators.
- He's using public office to reward loyalists and punish critics.
- He now presides over masked, unaccountable paramilitary raids that terrorize American communities.
The Constitution offers a clear remedy for a president who behaves like this. Impeachment isn't a political act: it's a constitutional obligation when a president becomes a danger to the Republic. And Trump crossed that line long ago. The only way to restore the rule of law is for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings immediately. Half measures are complicity. Silence is complicity. Delay is complicity.
But impeachment alone isn't enough. There must also be criminal prosecution of Trump and his co-conspirators. Real prosecution, by real prosecutors, following real evidence, for real crimes.
And while we're at it, DOGE deserves a pretty-good looking at, too. And what happened to all those government investigations of billionaire donors' companies?
Trump and those doing his bidding must face justice. His children who participated must face it. His bagmen and loyalists who broke laws to carry out his will must face it. A nation can’t heal if high office becomes a shield from justice. Equality before the law is the foundation of any functioning democracy. If we abandon that principle now, we abandon the Republic itself.
I believe we're at or very near a turning point:
- People are rising up.
- Communities are resisting.
- Judges are pushing back.
- Journalists are exposing what the administration wants hidden.
- The illusion of Trump's invincibility is cracking.
- Billionaires who believed he could terrorize the country into submission on their behalf, are discovering that Americans refuse to bow.
This country was built by people who rejected kings. It can survive this counterfeit king, too. But only if we act. Only if we insist that the Constitution still has meaning. Only if we refuse to let a lawless president redefine the rule of law as disloyalty.
Trump has declared war on the American Way. The only acceptable response is the full force of our constitutional system:
- impeachment,
- prosecution, and
- the unrelenting assertion that no man, no family, and no political movement is above the law.
I realize the political reality is that Mike Johnson won't allow such a vote in the House, and the Senate is now controlled by Republicans so timid and cowed by Trump that a GOP senator who's a physician is afraid to criticize Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
But we're only 12-months away from an election that could sweep both bodies, and we must lay the foundation now for that. That means;
- waking up as many people as possible (share this newsletter and others!),
- engaging with groups like Indivisible, and
- supporting litigators and progressive Democrats.
We can do this. We just need resolve, passion, and to begin the hard work of reclaiming the American Way and the American Dream - as Democrats did in the 1930s and the 1960s, and both parties did to oust Nixon and imprison his cronies in the 1970s.
[So well said, that we posted it in full!]
The Best People, with Nicolle Wallace and Heather Cox Richardson: Americans Are Saying "Hell No!" To Trump Fascism - And It's Working. (50-min. YouTube video; MS NOW, November 25, 2025)
Heather Cox Richardson sees a significant realignment happening in our democracy right now. And the return of human agency. She joins Nicolle Wallace for a wide-ranging conversation on "The Best People". Cox Richardson highlights the growing conflict between the citizenry and an executive branch that shows a bent toward aristocracy over democracy, but sees progress happening right now. "Listen, there's two ways we could go. We could embrace fascism fully, which is absolutely the direction that this government is going. Or we could do what Americans before us have done and say, "hell, no!" And it certainly feels to me like that's the direction we're going.
Heather says:
- the reclaiming of Democracy is the work of everyday people and
- it's happening now in new and unseen communities,
- but cautions: "It's a process, not an instant fix".
She talks about:
- the need for an FDR moment,
- what we can learn from Abraham Lincoln's rise, and
- why Senate Republicans went underground like "a bunch of freaking moles".
You'll also see Heather turn the tables and interview Nicolle!
Jennifer Welch: MAGA Politicians HATE Trump!! MASSIVE MAGA Resignations INCOMING!? (11-min. YouTube video; IHIP News, November 25, 2025)
The Trump administration is such a national embarrassment, Republican politicians are trying to find the exit.
Jennifer Welch and Angie "Pumps" Sullivan: LEAKED Plan PROVES Trump Is OWNED By Russia! What Does The KREMLIN Have On Trump? (17-min. YouTube video; IHIP News, November 24, 2025)
Leaked Trump "peace plan" was clearly written by the Russian government and is sending MAGA into panic mode.
[TrumPutin won't like this video. Memorize and share.]
Heather Cox Richardson: A Judge Today Dismissed The Indictments Of Former Federal Bureau Of Investigation Director James Comey And New York Attorney General Letitia James, Ruling That President Donald J. Trump's Revenge Action Overstepped His Authority. Trump Plans To Appeal Immediately. (Letters from an American, November 24, 2025)
U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie of South Carolina today dismissed the indictments of former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, ruling that President Donald J. Trump's appointment of Lindsey Halligan as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid.
Trump had demanded the indictment of the two. When he was FBI director, Comey had refused to drop an investigation into Trump's then–national security advisor Mike Flynn, who had lied to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian operative before Trump took office. James had successfully sued Trump, several of his children, and the Trump Organization for fraud, and when the interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Seibert, said there was not enough evidence to indict them, Trump forced him out of office and replaced him with Halligan, a former insurance lawyer and Trump aide.
Within days, Halligan obtained a grand jury indictment for Comey, charging him with lying to Congress, and another for James, charging her with alleged mortgage fraud. As David Kurtz points out in Talking Points Memo, the indictments were widely understood to be targeted prosecutions of those Trump considered enemies.
By law, after a Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney leaves the job, the attorney general can appoint an interim U.S. attorney for 120 days. If the position still has not been filled, the right to make another interim appointment goes to the district court, which has sole authority over the position until the Senate confirms a president's nominee. This provision prevents a president from making an end run around the Senate's duty to advise and consent by making consecutive 120-day appointments.
The Trump administration attempted to thwart this law. Trump appointed Seibert the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia on January 21, and as the 120-day deadline approached, he nominated Seibert for the position. The district judges voted unanimously to keep Siebert on as the interim U.S. attorney as his nomination proceeded. But then Siebert declined to prosecute Comey and James, and Trump forced him out, pushing Attorney General Pam Bondi to put Halligan into his place as a new interim appointment.
Today, Currie found that Halligan's appointment violated not only the law, but also the appointment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which requires the president to obtain the "advice and consent of the Senate" for such appointments. That unlawful appointment means that all of Halligan's actions undertaken as a U.S. attorney are invalid. Because she was the only prosecutor to sign off on the Comey and James prosecutions, they, too, are invalid.
After the judge's decision, Comey posted a video saying that while the case mattered to him personally, "it matters most because a message has to be sent that the president of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies. I don't care what your politics are. You have to see that as fundamentally un-American and a threat to the rule of law that keeps all of us free." He called for Americans to "stand up and show the fools who would frighten us, who would divide us, that we're made of stronger stuff, that we believe in the rule of law, that we believe in the importance of doing things BY the law."
Attorney General Bondi said the government will "be taking all available legal action, including an immediate appeal". Shut down by the courts, Trump is turning to military justice to enforce his will.
[There's more - but with TrumPutin, it's all of the same pattern.]
Robert Davis: Ex-GOP Analyst Rick Wilson Issues Dire Warning About Trump After Midterm: "He Is Planning A Siege." (RawStory, November 23, 2025)
President Donald Trump appears to be staring down lame-duck status as the 2026 midterm election approaches:
- The president's overall-approval rating was at 40% today (The Economist), down 16 points from when he took office.
- Similarly, Americans have largely soured on Trump's domestic and economic policies.
- Republicans also handed Trump a stern rejection by overwhelmingly supporting legislation to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files (despite the administration's attempts to pressure people to vote against the bill.
But according to one ex-GOP analyst, that doesn't mean Trump's administration will be any less dangerous, even IF the GOP gets the thrashing as experts expect. Rick Wilson, a co-founder of The Lincoln Project and a former Republican strategist, argued in a new Substack essay that these issues can lead one to believe things are about to return to normal. However, Wilson warned, Trump is likely to become more dangerous as his support fades. "Trump is not planning a quiet sunset", Wilson wrote. "He is planning a siege."
The president appears to be laying the groundwork for this siege by appointing people who challenged the legitimacy of the 2020 election to key posts within the federal government. One such individual is Heather Honey, Trump's deputy assistant secretary for election integrity at the Department of Homeland Security. Honey worked for a state anti-voting group in Pennsylvania and continues to spread the debunked theory that Trump lost the 2020 election because of widespread voter fraud, according to Democracy Docket.
"Trump is already aiming the federal machine at the midterms...If you think a lame duck can't cause chaos, you didn't learn the lesson of 2020", Wilson wrote. That lame-duck period "gave Trump and his allies space to organize a coup attempt...Now imagine that same playbook with four years of institutional capture, a more radical staff, and a president who knows he can't be re-elected and doesn't care who he burns. Watch what happens in red-state legislatures and courts when Trump calls on them to throw out the election results, or when Mike Johnson declines to seat newly elected members."

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Seth Meyers: MAGA Stunned After Zohran Mamdani Charms Donald Trump In The Oval Office. (11-min. YouTube video; A Closer Look, November 24, 2025)
[TrumPutin lied hard to keep him out; but now that he IS the new mayor of NYC, where Trump owns big-time property...]

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PvtJarHead: Numerous Top MAGA X.COM/Twitter Accounts Revealed To Be Foreign Agitators After New-Feature Rollout. (Daily KOS, November 23, 2025)
Elon Musk's social-media site X has rolled out a new feature in an effort to increase transparency - and unwittingly revealed that many of the site's top MAGA influencers are actually foreign actors.
The new "About This Account" feature, which became available to X users two days ago, allows others to see where an account is based, when they joined the platform, how often they have changed their username, and how they downloaded the X app.
Upon rollout, rival factions began to inspect just where their online adversaries were really based on the combative social platform - with dozens of major MAGA and right-wing influencer accounts revealed to be based overseas.
Twitter users rounded up dozens of these accounts, sharing their disbelief. Some Democratic influencers rejoiced: Harry Sisson, a Gen-Z, pro-Biden creator, said, "This is easily one of the greatest days on this platform. Seeing all of these MAGA accounts get exposed as foreign actors trying to destroy the United States is a complete vindication of Democrats, like myself and many on here, who have been warning about this."
There were some rumors that Musk had disabled the feature upon seeing so many of his biggest fans unmasked, but as of today, it seems to still be intact.
Bots spreading misinformation and propaganda has been a long-running problem on Twitter, a problem that has been significantly exacerbated since Musk bought it in October 2022 and then renamed it X. Its AI chatbot, Grok, has also been found to frequently make and amplify false claims.
Some of the many articles re this new discovery:
The Daily Beast: "Musk and MAGA are suffering a self-inflicted injury..."
New Republic: "They've spent years stoking division in America..."
The Guardian: "Now their arrogance has blown up in their faces..."
RawStory: "The hits keep coming…"
Reddit: "I've warned of shit like this before..."
[Whoops! More trouble for TrumPutin...]

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Ken Klippenstein: National Security Moms Are Here. Trump's Call For Arresting Democrats Targets New Political Bloc. (Substack, November 20, 2025)
"SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!", Trump bellowed on social media today in one of his headline-grabbing attacks on Democrats. It obscures a more important issue: the rise of the national security moms.
Ever since Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill won their governor seats, the "next generation" of Democrats have declared a multi-front war against the Party old guard, yes, but also against the populist wave embodied by Zohran Mamdani. Spanberger, a former CIA officer, and Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, embody the national-security-state-alum-turned-politician that the Democratic Party has come to see as its salvation. Seen as the alternative to the anti-establishment Mamdani-types, they're cast as a return to sober, responsible, and (most importantly) predictable leadership.
Other Democrats in this mold - Senators Elissa Slotkin (former CIA) and Mark Kelly (former Navy), as well as Representatives Jason Crow (former Army), Chris Deluzio (former Navy), Maggie Goodlander (former Navy) and Chrissy Houlahan (former Air Force) - circulated a video this week urging their colleagues in the military and intelligence community to resist any unlawful orders coming down from the Trump administration. Set to soaring West-Wing-style music, the video featured these members of Congress rattling off their national security credentials before issuing a solemn call for American troops to uphold the Constitution.
Per the video:
"We want to speak directly to members of the military and the intelligence community, who take risks each day to keep Americans safe. We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now. Americans trust their military, but that trust is at risk. This administration is pitting our uniform-, military- and intelligence-community professionals against American citizens like us. You all swore an oath to protect and defend this constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear: you can refuse illegal orders."
Trump responded by calling for the members to be "arrested and put on trial". "Their words cannot be allowed to stand", Trump said in a post on social media "We won't have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET. President DJT."
The incident is the highest-profile moment yet for the national security moms, a term that appeared in a Democratic-Party press release this summer. In August, the Democratic Governors Association issued a post to its website titled, "The Year of the National Security Mom". While acknowledging that national security isn't a top policy concern for voters, the post went on to argue that national security experience signals qualities that could bring the Party back to power. "Ms. Spanberger and Ms. Sherrill stand as an emerging model of leader, one whose experience combines maternal-nurturing with 'Who's your daddy?' bad-assery in a way that confounds partisan molds", the post says. "Spanberger posits that for voters sizing her up, her work at the CIA can serve as a shortcut to, "She's tough. She's hard-working. She's thorough." The post declared that then-candidates for governor "Spanberger and Sherrill are the next generation of leadership" - a phrase echoed by Democratic Party leaders throughout and since the election.
Before the November elections, when asked if Zohran Mamdani was the future of the Democratic Party, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said simply: "No". Asked about Mamdani earlier this month, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell replied: "I'm going to focus on the election of Abigail Spanberger, who is clearly a moderate, as is Mikie Sherrill. Both women [have] strong military and national intelligence backgrounds."
When asked after the election if Mamdani was now the soul of the Democratic Party, Jeffries further said that that title belonged to Spanberger and Sherrill. Spanberger made clear her disdain for Mamdani when she asserted that "he wasn't a Democrat" - a puzzling remark, given that he had won the Democratic nomination.
The national-security moms have emerged as an alternative to the populist wave, as well as successors to the old guard. Internal Democratic talking points produced in response to Trump's call for them to be arrested - leaked to me from a source close to the national-security moms - provide some insight into their mindset. Put simply, it's an obsession with policies and procedures, citing the Manual for Courts Martial and the Defense Department's Law of War Manual to make the point that what they'd said was accurate and legal.
This edge-of-your-seat reading is what they want the future of politics to look like: a process-obsessed snoozefest that might make sense for a legal briefing, but not talking points for the general public.
What’s more, it's doubtful that many see the endless wars this group of politicians served in as having enhanced our national security. That's what also makes the declaration of war by the national security moms such a losing strategy if it is intended to be the rebranding of the next generation and the path to 2028. It isn't about any meaningful definition of national security - that is, making the country safer. It is about "qualifications" to run, about process and the rules, about sticking with the possible rather than the desirable, a low-risk and low-collateral-damage version of politics that people don't seem to be looking for right now. It promises stability rather than change.
I've already written about Mamdani's own salute to national security in keeping on NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch and about how the full release of the Epstein files will get steamrolled by "national security concerns". Today's war is national security versus the people, plain and simple.
Judge Orders Trump Administration To End National Guard Deployment In Washington, DC. (1-min. AP video; AP News, November 20, 2025)
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb concluded that President Donald Trump's military takeover in Washington, D.C. illegally intrudes on local officials' authority to direct law enforcement in the district.
NEW: Oliver Willis: So Much For Day 1: Fox News Says, "Don't Blame Trump For Awful Economy". (2-min. YouTube video of Fox News video, and Cartoon by Drew Sheneman; Daily Kos, November 19, 2025)
Trump's approval has hit a new low but, somehow, Fox News thinks it's not his fault. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll released yesterday, Trump is at 38% overall approval, the lowest rating in that poll since he returned to the White House in January. Of particular concern for respondents was Trump's handling of everyday expenses, with only 26% surveyed approving his approach to the issue.
During a segment on today’s edition of "Fox & Friends", co-host Lawrence Jones lamented the current state of affairs for Trump as "unfair". "It has only been nine months", Jones said, arguing that Trump needs more time in the presidency for his economic ideas to work. "It's kind of unfair for someone that's been there nine months, to put it all on them."
Jones' comment runs in stark contrast to Trump's own rhetoric from the 2024 campaign, where he made a roster of claims about policy that he would implement on Day 1 to address economic issues. The vast majority of those promises were broken, and Trump has squandered the growing economy he inherited from former President Joe Biden (as he did in his first term following former President Barack Obama).
The Fox host's excuses echo Speaker Mike Johnson, who said on November 6 in response to a question about rising food prices, "All of the economists have shown that food prices always go up. There's an inflationary level that's built into grocery prices."
In response to Johnson, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani noted, "In 2024, Republicans promised to lower the cost of groceries. In 2025, they're shrugging it off, saying 'food prices always go up.'"
Prices have increased for consumers - in large part due to the tariffs that Trump has implemented, artificially-increasing costs that have been passed along to families. Trump's own Commerce Department released data today, showing that Trump's so-called Liberation-Day tariffs increased the trade deficit and reduced imports to the U.S. Trump has dismissed concerns about affordability, arguing that it is simply an issue made up by Democrats.
Simultaneously, Democrats have been winning elections by prioritizing the issue and illustrating the role of Republican policies in increasing costs for families. Democrats won races in New York City, Virginia, New Jersey, and other areas on this platform - while the Right has marched in lockstep behind Trump's failing approach. How unfair.
NEW: Lisa Needham; ICE Expands Surveillance State In New And Awful Ways. (Cartoon by Mike Luckovich; Daily Kos, November 19, 2005)
On November 12, we learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was going to hire bounty hunters to track down immigrants and feed them to ICE. But what if government officials made that much, much worse? Welcome to this week.
Is it a good sign of a healthy democracy if the government starts paying people to snitch on their neighbors? 404 Media is reporting that ICE is recruiting ex-military and ex-law enforcement officers to track down immigrants and feed them to ICE. For their troubles, they get $300 for every person whose address they verify and then turn over to the gaping, vicious maw of ICE. Sure, this is theoretically limited to ex-military and ex-cops, but those folks aren't still in the military or law enforcement. They're private citizens with no particular expertise, and there is certainly no reason that this can't just expand to anyone who is willing to take $300-a-pop to surveil and betray their neighbors. It's now time to just throw open the doors - and toss some cash - to anyone craven enough to do this. 404 Media found that at least one government contractor appears to be soliciting applications via LinkedIn. Wouldn't this sort of thing be more successful over at X? It's already a Nazi bar, so it seems like it would be a dandy place to find terrible people.
It's not a stretch to say that you can draw a direct line from SB8, the Texas bounty-hunter law, to this awful plan. In that instance, Texas empowered literally anyone to sue someone who aided or abetted someone obtaining an abortion. This weaponization of private actors has led to things like a dude suing his ex-wife’s friends because they may have helped her get a medication abortion.
In Texas, if the abortion bounty hunters prevail in court - and the law is written so that it is nearly certain they would do so - they get at least $10,000. Whoo! Makes that $300-per-immigrant look pretty paltry. To get your money in Texas requires a trial, but to get your ICE money, you just have to slide over some addresses.
NEW: Alix Breeden: Trump Follows Through On Promise To Destroy The Education Department. (Cartoon by Clay Jones; Daily Kos, November 19, 2025)
President Donald Trump made a promise on the campaign trail to shutter the Department of Education, and now that promise is coming to fruition.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced yesterday that six programs under her jurisdiction will be transferred to the Departments of State, Interior, Labor, and Health and Human Services. "The Trump Administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states", she said in the press release. "As we partner with these agencies to improve federal programs, we will continue to gather best practices in each state through our 50-state tour, empower local leaders in K-12 education, restore excellence to higher education, and work with Congress to codify these reforms."
And, of course, since the sole purpose of education is to prepare students for the workforce, McMahon told reporters yesterday that the Labor Department will take over programs for K-12 students.
The process of tearing apart the Education Department started in March when Trump signed an executive order attempting to shut it down, which was halted because it requires congressional approval. But this hindrance was merely used as an excuse to dismantle the department from within, so McMahon got to work laying off nearly half of her department's workforce. From threatening lawsuits against universities she claims to be racial-profiling white people, to pushing the Trump administration's anti-trans agenda, McMahon has been hard at work hacking away at education from all angles.
Essentially, McMahon has been rendering her department useless to prove to Trump's buddies in Congress that it should be shut down for good. She even argued in an op-ed that, since schools were still able to run during the government shutdown, we don't need the Education Department after all. "Students kept going to class. Teachers continued to get paid. There were no disruptions in sports seasons or bus routes", McMahon wrote.
At least without an Education Department, we won’t have to hear her idiotic takes anymore.
NEW: Lisa Needham: Shady Crypto Company Doesn't "Have A Problem" With Bribing Trump. (Daily Kos, November 19, 2025)
President Donald Trump loves his bribes. He has made no secret of the fact that giving him millions of dollars - be that in the form of sham lawsuit settlements or "donations" to one of his many tacky projects - is a sure-fire way to get what you want.  And while most companies tend to shy away from explicitly saying, "Hell yeah, we’re down for bribes", Coinbase is out and proud about buying the president.  During an appearance at Axios' BFD event, Coinbase President and COO Emilie Choi was asked if the company's donation to Trump's ballroom was meant "to keep good relations with the White House". Choi didn't hesitate or qualify her answer: "Sure!" "Frankly, I don't even have a problem [with it]", she added. "I think if you go to D.C., there's a lot of buildings that need to be updated, and so if private industry has to do that, it is what it is."
We typically fix public buildings using a little thing called "taxpayer money", but that's for suckers. Trump would never know how much you love him, in that situation as just another corporate taxpayer. But if you slide him a bunch of cash directly, you can display the fealty he craves.
Even before Trump's second term began, Coinbase already knew it hit the jackpot. You see, the Biden administration had an annoying habit of trying to regulate the crypto industry. But after Trump won the 2024 election, Coinbase's top lawyer went on X to say that the regulation would “never be adopted; it is DOA with the next admin and DOA in the courts". He was right. In May, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau withdrew the regulation.
Though that was an abstract giveaway to the entire crypto industry that just happened to benefit Coinbase, the company also got some treats directly:
- In February, the Securities and Exchange Commission helpfully dismissed its civil enforcement action against Coinbase.
- In 2023, the SEC sued Coinbase for making $Billions by acting as an unregistered broker, but it only cost Coinbase a paltry $1-Million donation to Trump's inauguration slush fund to make it disappear. Quite the bargain!
It's just common sense for the crypto folks to suck up to Trump. They get lax regulations, and they can even get a sweet pardon like Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who received a pardon from President Donald Trump as a reward for his bribes.
For its part, Coinbase is taking a belt-and-suspenders approach. Trump has made sure that the federal government won't touch the company - as long as it keeps the cash flowing. But what if some pesky shareholders or state regulators get it in their head that they have the right to demand that Coinbase follow the law? Fortunately, there's a solution for that. Coinbase is currently incorporated in Delaware, which has long been a business hub. But Texas has recently made a play for companies to reincorporate there, promising:
- even-fewer regulations than Delaware,
- lower taxes, and
- a special business court designed to be extra friendly to businesses.
So that's where Coinbase is going.
But while all of this corruption is playing out right in the open, Coinbase still gets irked if anyone actually points it out. When Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said that the crypto industry's hand in Trump's ballroom was "an example of how Trump's corruption factory works", Coinbase's chief policy officer whined that "corporations from all industries donated as well".
That makes it okay, then! Everybody knows that, if a broad swath of corporations bribes the president, then it's totally fine.
But in light of Choi's Axios confession, Coinbase's past fury at being called out for its pay-to-play efforts rings pretty hollow. There's no reason to bother pretending that this is above-board, because no government institution is going to intervene. Now is the time to go all in on open corruption, and Coinbase is leading the way.

Finally, many Epstein Files are released:

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Seung Min Kim: Trump Signs Bill To Release Jeffrey Epstein Case Files, After Fighting It For Months. (AP News, November 19, 2025)
President Donald Trump signed legislation tonight that compels his administration to release files on convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein, bowing to political pressure from his own party after initially resisting those efforts. Trump could have chosen to release many of the files on his own, months ago.
"Democrats have used the 'Epstein' issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories", Trump said in a social-media post as he announced he had signed the bill.
Now, the bill requires the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in a federal prison in 2019, within 30 days. It allows for redactions about Epstein's victims for on-going federal investigations, but DOJ cannot withhold information due to "embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity".
It was a remarkable turn of events for what was once a far-fetched effort - by an odd congressional coalition of Democrats, one GOP antagonist of the president, and a handful of erstwhile Trump loyalists - to force the disclosure of case files. As recently as last week, the Trump administration even summoned one Republican proponent of releasing the files, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, to the Situation Room to discuss the matter, although she did not change her mind.
[Read the rest, and see Clay Bennett's cartoon, below.]
Emily Singer: Pam Bondi Won't Commit To Releasing Full Epstein Files. (1-min. YouTube video; Daily Kos, November 19, 2025)
Attorney General Pam Bondi today refused to commit to releasing all of the Epstein files, giving a cagey answer that suggests it may be a long time before we ever see the documents related to the accused child-sex trafficker. Bondi's comment came at a news conference, in which a reporter asked whether the investigation that President Donald Trump ordered into the deceased Epstein's ties to Democrats would preclude her from releasing documents in accordance with the bill Congress passed yesterday.
Bondi did not give a yes or no answer, and instead chose to defend her office's handling of the files. "We have released 33,000, over 33,000 Epstein documents to the Hill, and we will continue to follow the law and to have maximum transparency", Bondi said - refusing to answer the question asked of her.
Of course, Bondi has not been transparent about the files. She and her minions - including Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, who flanked her at today's news conference - have done everything in their power to keep the documents under wraps.
Blanche, who is Trump's former criminal defense attorney, interviewed jailed Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell earlier this year in what amounted to a rigged conversation in which Maxwell said Trump was not involved in Epstein's crimes. Of course, Maxwell had every reason to lie, as she is seeking clemency from Trump in order to be released from her decades-long prison sentence for federal sex-trafficking charges. She was already rewarded handsomely after that interview with a transfer to a minimum-security prison, where she is reportedly receiving more-favorable treatment than other inmates.
[What, she wants us to trust her and TrumPutin's other co-liars?]
Emily Singer: Mike Johnson Looks Like An Idiot After The Epstein Vote. (1-min. YouTube video, and "Nothing To Hide" Cartoon by Clay Bennett; Daily Kos, November 19, 2025)
House Speaker Mike Johnson was "deeply disappointed" with the Epstein files outcome. Despite House Speaker Mike Johnson's best efforts to run interference for President Donald Trump, the bill to force his Dear Leader to release the Epstein files easily passed both chambers of Congress yesterday, and now heads to Trump's desk for a signature.
The Epstein files saga is a total and complete loss for Johnson, who spent months trying to convince the public that there was no need for them to see the documents related to now-deceased convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, while at the same time attempting to block the legislation that would force Trump to release the documents from ever getting a vote in the first place.
In the end, both efforts failed.
[Mike Johnson "looks like an idiot"? No; more like one more TrumPutin-appointed conspirator against democracy. Don't miss the rest of this article, and its TrumPutin cartoon!]
NEW: Stephen Groves, Matt Brown And Joey Cappelletti: What's Next For The Epstein Files, After Trump's Social-Media Posts? (6 short videos; AP News, November 17, 2025)
The House is heading toward a vote tomorrow on a bill to force the Justice Department to release the case files it has collected on the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, pushing past a months-long effort by President Donald Trump and Republican leaders to stymie the effort.
The push for more disclosure in the years-old sex-trafficking investigation into Epstein has come roaring back, since the House returned to Washington after a nearly two-month absence during the government shutdown. As lawmakers returned last week, they were greeted by new details from a tranche of Epstein's emails, including claims that Trump had "spent hours" at Epstein's house with a sex-trafficking victim and that he "knew about the girls".
The new revelations and the coming vote showed one of the rare instances where Trump has not been able to exhibit almost-total control over his party. Bowing to the growing momentum behind the bill, Trump indicated today that he would sign the bill if it passes both chambers of Congress.
The sex-trafficking case into Epstein has only grown in political influence, since Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019. He faced charges that he sexually-abused and trafficked under-age girls, and since then many more have said they were abused by the well-connected financier.
Now, many lawmakers say that the Justice Department also needs to release its case files on Epstein, arguing that it could show that other people were aware of or complicit in Epstein’s sexual abuse. House Democrats, joined by a few key Republicans, have been able to force a vote on the bill to do that by using a rarely-successful measure called a discharge petition.
As it became apparent that the bill will pass the House, most likely with significant support from Republican lawmakers, Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson changed their approach from outright opposition to declarations of indifference.
"Here’s what I want: We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do", Trump told reporters, adding that he believed the issue was distracting from his accomplishments.
[Wrong. This issue, like so many others, is focusing on TrumPutin's accomplishments - for Putin.]
Endless Urgency, with Mike Nellis: The Common Thread Between The Epstein Cover-Up And Trump's Corrupt Pardons. Two Scandals, One Truth. (Substack, November 17, 2025)
I continue to be completely bewildered that the biggest story in the country isn't Donald Trump admitting - on live TV, on 60 Minutes, just two weeks ago - that he has no idea who he's pardoning. He said it out loud, and the media just kind of shrugged and moved on.
NEW: Melissa Quinn: Epstein Said Trump "Knew About The Girls" In 2019 Email, House Democrats Say. (Yahoo News; November 13, 2025)
Yesterday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released emails exchanged between Jeffrey Epstein and others about President Trump.
Among the documents is a 2011 message from Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime associate, that said Mr. Trump "spent hours at my house" with one of Epstein's victims, whose name is redacted. In another email in 2019 to author Michael Wolff, Epstein wrote, "Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop."
Maxwell was convicted of conspiring in Epstein's sex trafficking ring and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Wolff has written several books about Mr. Trump.
House Democrats said the emails were turned over by Epstein's estate, which they said released more than 23,000 documents that lawmakers are now reviewing. The full Oversight Committee also released more than 20,000 pages of records from Epstein's estate yesterday, and claimed Democrats "cherry-pick" from the material "to generate clickbait." The latest batch includes emails, records from court proceedings, transcripts from depositions, press clippings and other material.
Mr. Trump has previously said he cut ties with Epstein years ago, and he has not been accused of wrongdoing.
[Democrats on the House Oversight Committee revealed one set of pertinent Epstein/Trump documents. Suddenly, the FULL Committee (e.g., its Republicans) decided to release a large amount of data THEY had been holding back. C,YS? ITN!]
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling: Trump Freaks Out Over Epstein Emails In Furious Rant. (New Republic, November 12, 2025)
Donald Trump has finally broken his silence about the damning new Epstein details.
Donald Trump is beginning to squirm under pressure as Congress pushes to release the main Epstein files. Trump ranted on his "Truth Social" today about the bipartisan bid to make the case files public, claiming that the entire effort was a "hoax" to deflect from the government shut-down. "Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap", Trump posted. "The Democrats cost our Country $1.5-Trillion Dollars with their recent antics of viciously closing our Country, while at the same time putting many at risk - and they should pay a fair price. "There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!", he continued.
In a separate post, Trump reiterated that he believed Democrats were "using the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax to try and deflect from their massive failures, in particular, their most recent one - THE SHUTDOWN!"
Congress is potentially hours away from voting on a discharge petition that would force a vote to release the main files.
For months, just four Republicans had penned their signatures on the discharge petition. But in early November, concern swelled among GOP lawmakers that Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was even cozier than previously understood: A few conservative representatives with ties to the FBI and the Justice Department spilled last week that the true details of the Epstein files are "worse" for Trump than previously reported.
Apparently trying to unravel conservative support for the files' release, Trump phoned his MAGA acolytes yesterday in an unsuccessful attempt to get them to remove their signatures from the petition.
Some files released by House Democrats early today shed even more light on the Trump-Epstein connection, illustrating that as late as 2011 Epstein was grateful Trump had stayed quiet about abuse that had taken place at one of the financier's residences. The "dog that hasn't barked is Trump", Epstein wrote to his longtime girlfriend and criminal associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, at the time. When queried by Michael Wolff in 2019 about the extent of Trump's knowledge of abductions of young girls, Epstein remarked: "Of course he knew about the girls he asked Ghislaine to stop."
[TrumPutin, still:
- lies that Democrats created HIS government shut-down,
- hides facts from the government AND the nation,
- orders Republicans to avoid learning about, let alone releasing, HIS unlawful acts, and
- calls Republicans who no longer do his evil "very bad, or stupid" for daring to escape HIS trap.
TrumPutin, as always, tries to pin HIS evil doings upon others.]

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Hafiz Rashid: Federal Judge Orders Hundreds Of ICE Detainees To Be Released. Trump's Federal Takeover Of Chicago Is Ending In A Major Flop. (New Republic, November 12, 2025)
A federal judge today ordered the release of hundreds of immigrants detained in Chicago, amid the Trump administration's reckless "Operation Midway Blitz".
U.S District Judge Jeffrey Cummings said the government may have violated a consent decree against "warrantless arrests" because most of those who were arrested didn't have a criminal record or deportation order. Cummings ordered that those who do not pose a significant risk or have mandatory detention orders be granted bond by November 21.
Right Now, with Perry Bacon: The Young Voters And Minorities Who Backed Trump In 2024 Hate Him Now. (31-min. YouTube video; New Republic, November 12, 2025)
Political analyst Michael Podhorzer discusses why the Republican candidates in New Jersey and Virginia came nowhere near matching Trump's 2024 support among voters of color and young voters.
Voters under age 30, Black voters, and Latinos were much more supportive of President Trump in 2024 than they were of past Republican presidential candidates. But exit polls, conducted last week of the races in New Jersey and Virginia, show that Republican candidates didn't even match Trump's lowered performance. The GOP lost overwhelmingly among all three voting blocs.
Michael Podhorzer, former political director of the AFL-CIO and now a prominent writer on Substack, argues that the idea that Trump had built some kind of durable multi-racial working-class coalition was always over-stated. He says both the 2024 and 2025 elections can be attributed to backlash against the incumbent president.
Podhorzer and Perry also discuss the election results in New York City, which showed that Zohran Mamdani's base isn't really working-class voters but self-identified liberals and those under 30. He won more than 70% of those two blocs, while running about evenly with Andrew Cuomo among voters without college degrees and those with less than $50,000 in family income.
Randy Rainbow and "Donald Trump": "Big Phony Schmuck!" (5-min. YouTube video; Randy Rainbow, November 10, 2025)
Randy lectures Donald in a pseudo White House interview, then skewers serenades him with a new Randy Rainbow song parody.
Brittney Melton: Senators Reach Deal To Re-Open The Government. (14-min. podcast; NPR, November 10, 2025)
A bipartisan group of senators reached a deal last night to reopen the government and end the longest shutdown in U.S. history. The vote on the first procedural step was 60 to 40, with seven Democrats and one independent joining most Republicans on the measure. The agreement would fund the government through Jan. 30.
Along with the stop-gap measure to fund the government, the Democrats who defected received a promise of a vote on health care, NPR's Claudia Grisales tells Up First. Some of the Democrats who voted no were furious about the defection. Sen. Elizabeth Warren stated that the defection was a terrible mistake and that the American people want them to fight for health care. The Senate has several hurdles to clear before the measure can be passed - and even then, it will need to pass the House.
The Trump administration now has two days to increase SNAP benefits from 65% to 100% after a federal appeals court refused a request to pause a lower court's orders to do so. The administration could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved in the matter for the second time in just a few days.
Another battle is unfolding involving states that have already paid out full benefits after a federal judge ordered it, but before the higher court said "Not so fast!", NPR's Tovia Smith says.
Much of these legal battles could be rendered moot with the expectation that when the government reopens, Congress can appropriate SNAP funding for the fiscal year. Smith says there is no certainty as to when families will receive the benefits after the shutdown ends - but in the past, states motivated to get benefits flowing did so within a matter of days.
Helen Coster, John Shiffman, Christine Soares, Alexandra Ulmer and Linda So: A Reuters Special Report: In Trump 2.0, MAGA-Aligned Influencers And Media Emerge As The New Mainstream. (Reuters, November 8, 2025)
A Reuters examination details how rightist influencers and Trump officials have formed a powerful alliance, working together to target perceived adversaries, amplify false claims and reshape the media landscape. The shift comes as a growing number of social platforms and traditional outlets accommodate Trump.
For decades, Republicans railed against what they saw as a liberal media establishment shaping American politics from the left. Nearly a year into U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, that narrative is flipping. A new constellation of influencers, billionaire moguls and social-media platforms – many embracing or amplifying White House themes – is pulling the nation's information ecosystem to the right.
Right-wing influencers and conservative media personalities, often working in lockstep with Trump officials, have become a potent force in a widening campaign of retribution against perceived enemies of the Trump administration. Empowered by ownership and technology shifts in the media and bolstered by financial incentives, these figures help discredit Trump's rivals and amplify his administration's talking points and false claims, blurring boundaries between official messaging and private-sector news and opinion.
Jennifer Ludden: Trump Administration Ordered To Restore Full SNAP Benefits BY TOMORROW. (NPR, November 6, 2025)
A Rhode Island federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to find enough money to restore full funding for SNAP benefits by tomorrow.
In failing to fully fund the food-assistance program that covers 42-million low-income Americans, U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell Jr. said the government "failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer." He also said President Trump showed "intent to defy a court order" when he posted on Truth Social this week that SNAP benefits would not restart until after the federal shutdown was over - a comment that was walked back by the White House.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture swiftly appealed the judge's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, keeping food aid in limbo. In a statement to NPR, the USDA blamed Senate Democrats for withholding services to promote their agenda and compromising "not only SNAP, but farm programs, food inspection, animal and plant disease protection, rural development, and protecting federal lands."
The judge's order this afternoon comes in response to a challenge filed by cities and nonprofits after the administration said it would halt funding for the program on Nov. 1. McConnell and another federal judge in Boston ordered the government to use emergency funds to keep SNAP funding flowing, but Trump administration officials said it was only able to partially cover the payments.
"The court could not be more clear", said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one the groups that brought the lawsuit. "The Trump-Vance administration must stop playing politics with people's lives by delaying SNAP payments they are obligated to issue."
[Perfectly stated, Mr. Perryman! See yesterday's Robert Reich article, below.]
Senate Convenes, As Government Shutdown Breaks Record For Longest In U.S. History. (WATCH LIVE; AP News/PBS News, November 5, 2025)
Government shutdown enters 36th day, breaking record set during Trump's first term as impact spreads nationwide.
The Senate is scheduled to convene today at 10AM ET.
[Watch in the player above.]
Michelle L. Price and Jill Colvin: Mamdani Tells Trump That New York Is Ready To Fight, After President's Threats Fail To Thwart Voters. (AP News/PBS News, November 5, 2025)
Zohran Mamdani wasted little time as mayor-elect of New York City before making clear that he sees part of his new role as standing up to the president of the United States, who had threatened not only to defund the city if he won but also to arrest and deport him.
Mamdani, a Democrat, addressed the Republican president directly and at length from the stage at his victory party in Brooklyn, last night: "Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up", he said, before declaring, "If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him."
Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized American citizen after graduating from college, went on to cast himself as the embodiment of resistance:"New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant", he said. "So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to ANY of us, you will have to get through ALL of us."
Trump, who has spent months insulting Mamdani and warning that the city would be ruined if he won, seemed to be watching. "…AND SO IT BEGINS!, he posted on social media as Mamdani spoke.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who campaigned on a slate of far-left progressive policies and a cheery optimism that stands in stark contrast to Trump's darker and hard-line tactics, is expected to continue to face the president's persistent political bashing - along with a federal government that may try to thwart his agenda.
"Mayor Trump": New York has remained relatively unscathed by Trump's administration, as he has targeted cities including Los Angeles and Washington, dispatching the National Guard. The current mayor, Eric Adams, enjoyed an unusual alliance with the Republican president, whose administration dropped a federal corruption case against the mayor so he could better assist with the president's immigration agenda.
Robert Reich: The True Test Of Our Progress. Trump Has Put America Into Reverse. (Substack, November 5, 2025)
The Democrats had a great day yesterday. It's crucial that they hone their economic message for next year's midterms on affordability, based in fairness.
Trump is doing the opposite. Although a federal court ordered Trump to continue to provide food stamps to about 42-million low-income Americans who depend on them, Trump yesterday threatened to deny them anyway until the end of the government shutdown. In a post on social media, he said benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as food stamps, "will be given only when the Radical-Left Democrats open up the government, which they can easily do, and not before!"
How low Trump has sunk!
Eighty-eight years ago, in his Second Inaugural Address, Franklin D. Roosevelt told America, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
It was not a test of the nation's military might or of the size of the national economy. It was a test of our moral authority. We had a duty to comfort the afflicted, even if that required afflicting the comfortable.
The Trump regime has adopted the reverse metric. The test of its progress is whether it adds to the abundance of those who have much and provides less for those who have too little. It is passing this test with flying colors.
The regime initially signaled its willingness to tap $4.65-Billion in emergency money to fund food stamps, which would cover about half of this month’s benefits. As a result, some food aid would have started to go to American families who need it, but not nearly as much as they require - and not for weeks. New applicants this month wouldn’t get any.
Now, in direct defiance of the judge's order, Trump is saying no food stamps will be provided at all - unless congressional Democrats relent on their demand.
And what is that demand? That lower-income Americans continue to receive subsidized health care. Otherwise, health care premiums for millions of lower-income Americans will skyrocket next year by an average of 30% because the Trump Republican "Big Beautiful" (Big Ugly) bill slashed Obamacare subsidies.
Republicans had rammed the Big Ugly through Congress without giving Senate Democrats an opportunity to filibuster it because Republicans used a process called "reconciliation", requiring only a majority vote of the Senate.
The Big Ugly also requires Medicaid applicants and enrollees - also low-income - to document at least 80 hours per month of work. Many people dependent on Medicaid won’t be able to do this, either because they’re incapable of working or won’t be able to do the required paperwork to qualify for an exemption from the work requirement.
All told, the Big Ugly cuts roughly $1-Trillion over the next decade from programs for which the main beneficiaries are the poor and working class, and gives about $1-Trillion in tax benefits to the richest members of our society. It is the most dramatic reversal of FDR's moral test in American history.
In the face of this outrage, the shutdown is the only practical leverage Democrats have.
Last weekend, just as millions of low-income Americans were losing their food stamps, Trump threw a lush "Great Gatsby"-themed party at his Mar-a-Lago estate, replete with 1920s flappers and Gatsby-inspired music from the Roaring Twenties. Some critics have called it “tone deaf,” but it was an accurate rendition of the tone Trump has set for America: Trump is throwing a huge party for America's wealthy - giving them tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks to ensure that their wealth (and support for him) continues to grow.
Meanwhile, he is throwing to poor and working-class Americans the red meat of hatefulness - hate of immigrants, people of color, the "deep state", "socialists", "communists", transgender people, and Democrats. This is the formula strongmen have used for a century - more wealth for the wealthy, more bigotry for the working-class and poor - until the entire facade crumbles under the weight of its own hypocrisy.
But yesterday, millions of American voters refused to go along with this unfairness. They repudiated, loudly and clearly, the formula Trump and his regime have used.
It is now the responsibility of all of us - whether Democrat or Republican or Independent; whether wealthy or middle class or working class or poor; whether conservative or progressive - to return the nation to a path that is MORALLY SUSTAINABLE.
[TrumPutin be damned! He always was. THEY always were. It's HIS CALL whether Congress can return to session immediately. Just STOP STEALING FROM OUR COUNTRY - and GIVE IT BACK with a BIG TARIFF attached!]
Joel Rose: FAA Will Reduce Air Traffic By 10% At Many Airports To Maintain Safety. (NPR, November 5, 2025)
As the U.S. government shutdown enters a record 36th day, air traffic controllers, who are required to work without pay, are feeling the squeeze.
The FAA plans to reduce air traffic in 40 "high-volume markets" beginning in two days. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told reporters the agency wants to reduce the pressure at those airports before safety is compromised.
The FAA has already been delaying flights at some airports because of widespread staffing shortages among air traffic controllers. Some have taken on second jobs, and many are calling out sick. Even before the shutdown, the system was more than 3,000 certified controllers short.
[TrumPutin's arbitrary government shutdown continues to cause hardships and deaths in many ways, including today's plane crash.]

Detailed Analysis Of Trump's First-Term Lies ("Bottomless Pinocchio" lists):
[For much more, have your web browser search for "washington post +bottomless pinocchio +trump".
This important section was not posted to these pages until late-June 2026, so it also appears there.]

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NEW: Four Years Of Trump Falsehoods (5-min. video, links to more; Fact Checker, Washington Post; January 23, 2021)
The Fact Checker counted a total of 30,573 false or misleading claims made by President Trump during his [first] White House tenure. Here's what we learned.
[What ALL OF US learned, except for Trump's most-radical supporters!]
NEW: Glenn Kessler, Meg Kelly, Salvador Rizzo, Leslie Shapiro and Leo Dominguez: A Term Of Untruths: The Longer Trump Was President, The More Frequently He Made False Or Misleading Claims. (Fact Checker, Washington Post; January 23, 2021)
The Washington Post Fact Checker started tracking President Donald Trump's false or misleading claims as a first-100-days project - but in response to reader requests, continued to add to the database through his entire [first] term.
By the time Trump left office, he had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency - averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.
Trump made about 6 false or misleading claims a day in his first year as president, 16 a day in his second year, 22 a day in his third year - and 39 a day in his final year.
(Explore the Fact Checker's database of false claims made by President Trump while in office.)
Put another way, it took Trump 27 months to reach 10,000 false or misleading claims and another 14 months to reach 20,000. He then exceeded the 30,000 mark less than 5 months later.
Scroll the timeline below to see how the president's daily false statements added up to a tsunami of untruths that kept rising during his presidency.
NEW: In Four Years, President Trump Made 30,573 False Or Misleading Claims. (graphs, most-repeated claims, etc.; Fact Checker, Washington Post; updated January 20, 2021)
The Fact Checker's database of the false or misleading claims made by President Trump while in office.
NEW: Meet the Bottomless Pinocchio! (2-min. video, links; Fact Checker, Washington Post; December 10, 2018)
President Trump's false and misleading claims that have been repeated more than 20 times led us to create a new Pinocchio rating.

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NEW: Edward Klein: Trump Family Values (Vanity Fair; March 1994)
Once on the brink of losing his gaudy empire, Donald Trump is about to take his casinos public in a sale that he figures will net him billions. Joining him in his comeback are new bride Marla Maples and baby daughter Tiffany. For Trump, getting to the altar was as difficult as any of his financial maneuvers. With his parents telling him to go back to Ivana, and Marla setting deadlines, only Marla's mother kept the course of love running smooth. Edward Klein joins the re-emerging mogul as he prepares for the deals of his life.
NEW: Marie Brenner: After The Gold Rush (Vanity Fair; September 1990)
Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Adolf Hitler's collected speeches, "My New Order" (1941), which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Hitler's speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.

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