Trump20 Bak
11/2/26 accid forgot sats another 4 26 but i do not see
capt
TRUMP201126
FORGOT RECOVER
ESTB 7 26
MERRI OK
19 HEADERS
ESTB 1 26
MERRI OK
RENEE GOOD SEE FRCE TAG
KILLED EPA ENDANGERMENT 2 26 ZELDIN COAL FAKE AWARD
SEE ANTI-COMMIE // RuBIO MILLER BS TERROR ANTIFA
ISLAMOPHOBE ABDUL ILHAN IRAN WAR
SEE NUCLEAR WEAPONS
see AI 3 // TECH FASCISM
SEE SCOTUS 4 IMMUNITY
SEE STACK COURT
SEE CONSPIRACY EARTH2
FAIL EBOLA MEASLES SCREW WORM IRAN DEAL, COURT LOSSES
SEE LIE GASLT EG SOTU 2 26 alt fact 6 earth 2
SEE FASCISM ~ JUDGE RULE OF LAW RETALIATE TRUMP LAWFARE
SEE GOP STEAL ELECTION // LIE POWER ANY MEANS ~ DEMOC 2
SEE FREE & FAIR ELECTIONS GERRY 4
SEE PRESS SUPPRESS
SEE XO EMERGENCY DECLAR BS --> VOTER SUPPRESS
SEE FOX WATTERS
SEE CORRUPT 3 see KAKI KLEPTO // dereg
SEE PARDON TRUMP POLLUTER FRAUDSTER
see RACISM OBAMA APE PIX 2 26
SEE TARIFF
SEE FAIL 5 IRAN WAR MOU, REFLECT POOL
SEE DOJ 3 FAILS
XIAN NAT?
SEE BIZZOMG
bak capt 4 26 many sp
-=-=
-=-=
al green 9 26 23 counts?
-=-=-
AN 11 26
The biggest donors to President Donald Trump have seen "mind-blowing" returns for their investments, according to a new report shared exclusively with The Daily Beast, which found that these backers had received "supercharged" paydays since his return to the White House.
In a piece published Monday morning, The Center for American Progress revealed to the outlet that it had tracked over 75 entities that had donated a total of nearly $1.7 billion to Trump's "political groups, inauguration fund, pet projects such as his ballroom and family businesses since 2023." Based on the center's "conservative estimates," these entities have since received "more than $182 billion in government-related benefits" since the start of Trump's second term.
While stopping short of accusing Trump or these entities of any "criminal quid pro quo," the center noted that these kickbacks included things like "federal contracts, advantageous government policy and tariff and trade exemptions."
"We’re documenting money and timing and benefits received, but we can’t read minds. We can only follow the data,” CAP senior director of research Ryan Koronowski told The Daily Beast, adding that the scale of this dynamic was "mind-blowing."
"Among the report’s biggest winners are defense titan Lockheed Martin, which is reported to have donated $16 million to Trump-related causes, including $5 million from its subsidiary Sikorsky for the new White House helipad," The Daily Beast explained. "Lockheed has secured $44.8 billion in new or expanded contracts since Trump returned to the White House, the report states. Donors from the fossil fuel industry have injected $65.7 million into Trump’s political groups, his inauguration committee, and funding for his ballroom, according to CAP. Its report says the industry will benefit by $31.2 billion from the administration’s policies and tax benefits. Other major firms named in the report include tech titans Apple, MAGA bro Elon Musk and his various companies, and AI firm Palantir and its executives."
Apple, The Daily Beast detailed, donated $25 million to Trump's ballroom, as many other corporate donors did to curry his favor, while former CEO Tim Cook also personally donated $1 million to his inauguration fund. The company later received tariff exemptions that CAP estimated saved it around $21 billion.
After pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into pro-Trump causes, CAP estimated that Elon Musk's companies have raked in $14 billion in benefits from the Trump government. A DOJ investigation into alleged discrimination at SpaceX was also dropped.
“Money gains you influence, which gives you more money, which gives you more influence, which gives you more money. And it’s very circular,” Devon Ombres, a CAP senior director and co-author of the report, told The Daily Beast, adding that the existing dynamics between corporate spending and the federal government has been “supercharged to a degree that we’ve never seen before" under Trump.
-=-=
AN 11 26
Ever since President Donald Trump made it clear he would rig the 2026 midterms if he could not win them legitimately, American voters have felt jittery — all the more so after he offered a $1 million bounty to anyone who uncovered voter fraud.
"As polls show the Republican majority in Congress in peril, Mr. Trump has ramped up his baseless attacks, even dangling a $1 million reward to tipsters who help secure a voting-fraud conviction," wrote The New York Times' Beth Reinhard and Kevin Williams on Sunday. "Some voters are nervous about what he might do next."
Tiffany Hall, a 56-year-old Black physician from Ohio, told the Times that "I am very concerned that the election will be disrupted in ways that will affect the margins,”
Jeanne Russell, a 77-year-old Black retiree and registered Democrat from Maine, predicted to Reinhard and Williams that “I’m kind of foreseeing that there will be some dirty tricks," although she was hopeful that election officials could stave them off.
Esther Bowling, 43, and also of Ohio, argued that elections might be stolen by those who did furnish voter IDs.
“If you are an American citizen you should have to show a photo ID to vote,” Bowling told the Times.
Speaking to AlterNet in June, Common Cause Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation Dan Vicuña argued that the Trump administration may ultimately violate the law. He said that this could happen through methods ranging from voter purges and creating voter ID requirements to using law enforcement to interfere with the vote.
“I think some of these attempts to federalize, to nationalize elections are clearly illegal,” Vicuña told AlterNet. “You've seen some of that overreach already struck down — attempts to order independent agencies to force a strict voter ID requirement on people. That has been rejected. Common Cause is in court challenging the latest executive order to turn the United States Postal Service into some election administration agency and to create a further bureaucratic layer to make it more difficult to vote by mail. In terms of the president's authority to order around USPS, it's illegal. In terms of USPS's authority to become some sort of national election administration agency, it far exceeds the legal authority that Congress gave to the postal service. The statute describing what kind of work the postal service would do is about postal service work — processing mail and selling stamps. It has nothing to do with election administration.”
-=-=-=
AN 11 26
Shocking new report reveals half of the military wants to quit over Trump
Insider warns DOJ's 'destruction' will take ‘generations to repair’ MANY FAIL 5
Federal agencies under fire over unsolicited praise for Trump
101ST STRATEGY GEN SEE HEGS
Trump amplifies 'traitor' attack on fired general — demands prison
STRATEGY GEN FIRED 101ST?
AN 11 26
Trump has amplified attacks on a general caught up in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s latest purge, sharing a post calling the fired officer a traitor and demanding a stint in prison.
The controversy stems from this week’s ouster of Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia, an Army strategist on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. Hegseth put an end to Sylvia’s tenure after he was accused of passing along classified details on Iran and Ukraine to the press.
On Friday, Trump put up two screenshots on Truth Social of conservative voices praising Hegseth’s decision and wanting the general prosecuted. In one such post, Sylvia was branded a “traitor” who ought to be “sent to Leavenworth,” the military prison for personnel convicted by court-martial. While Trump did not make the demand for incarceration directly, he saw to it that the call for retribution was put before his followers.
It is yet another senior officer to go from the department since Hegseth assumed command nearly two years ago.
Sylvia, ex-commander of the 101st Airborne Division, was the director for strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Staff.
The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon has put the case before the Justice Department for any legal action it sees fit, though the department has not publicly released supporting evidence. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said an internal probe led to the personnel move and that the department has zero tolerance for unauthorized disclosures of classified material.
CBS News cited a Pentagon official saying Sylvia failed three polygraph tests over the alleged leaks, but two other Pentagon sources disputed the accusations while still linking the firing to the tests.
This is part of Hegseth’s drive to root out officials he believes are leaking classified information to the news media, which has led to stricter rules for reporters and more polygraph testing.
When pressed on the allegations against Sylvia on Thursday, Trump had this to say: “She’s going to have big problems. Long-term problems.” He appeared to be referring to the male general as a woman. The president added that the administration was looking for those who let sensitive information slip.
At first, the Joint Staff issued a note of thanks for Sylvia’s 32 years in the military, then retracted it the next day, saying it did not accurately reflect the full circumstances. Sylvia, a recipient of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his service in Afghanistan, has not publicly addressed the allegations.
One colleague told The Washington Post that Sylvia had denied leaking classified information but acknowledged having dealings with reporters in the past.
Sylvia is not the first to leave under Hegseth; his predecessor in the same post, Lt. Gen. Joseph McGee, was forced to retire last year.
As things stand, the case is under investigation. A referral is not the same as criminal charges being filed, and it is not known if the Justice Department will bring a case against the general.
-=-=
-=-=
AN 10 26
Zeteo reports that President Donald Trump and Republicans are “engaging in an all-out effort to challenge the results of next week’s midterm elections in a desperate campaign to cling to power” for the next two years. But sources inside the White House confirm that Trump is personally issuing the marching orders — regardless of the damage it does to American democracy. ADMIT ON AK?
“The president and the White House are steering all of this,” a Trump adviser told Zeteo.
The Trump administration is already spreading unfounded fears of noncitizen voting, in what Zeteo writers Justin Glawe and Asawin Suebsaeng describe as “selectively and vindictively targeting political opponents and liberal state leaders.” They’re also conducting arrests and threatening to criminally prosecute Democratic election officials, and they’re strong-arming the politicized Justice Department to argue in court that an election isn’t legally legitimate unless Trump’s side is the winner in it.
“To help sway the election in Republicans’ favor, the DOJ is apparently violating its own policies by attempting to interfere with how states administer elections and determine the validity of votes,” reports Zeteo. “And even as its lawsuits flounder, the Trump-Vance administration has zero intention of taking its foot off the gas between now and Election Night, and possibly beyond.”
The dark cloud looming over November consists of three scenarios that have election officials "holding their breath,” reports Zeteo. This includes the prospect of the president installing military troops or federal law enforcement in polling locations. It could also include attempts to block the certification of valid election results, either by lawsuit or by outright seizing ballots or voting machines. And Trump himself has suggested he might challenge the election victories of Democrats if Republicans are not victorious in certain elections.
“Again: Trump has refused to rule any of this out,” reports Zeteo, “and has indeed test-run preliminary versions of each authoritarian power grab.”
According to sources speaking with Zeteo, Trump is already hammering away in the background, demanding if his lieutenants and assorted hacks are “ready for different election challenges.”
Trump has already admitted his intent on the record, reports Zeteo, telling reporters that “I’m the one that said do it,” when explaining a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to proactively decertify the outcome of the race for one of Alaska’s U.S. Senate seats if a Republican is not the winner.
It does not matter that Justice Department guidelines are clear that the DOJ is not supposed to interfere with how states handle elections, according to the DOJ’s own website. But consistency is not the Trump administration’s strong suit, reports Zeteo.
DOJ spokespeople did not respond to Zeteo’s request for comment, including on details of whether or not the head of the public integrity section officially waived its own guidelines.
“Either way, the intent of the policies is clear,” Zeteo reports.
-=-=
-=-=
AN 11 26
Trump’s $5M gold statues spark scorn after photos show 'melting' leakage
-=-=
RWW MISC
10/30/2026
byKyle Mantyla
Mattathias Schwartz @ The New York Times: If Trump Gets Another Supreme Court Pick, MAGA Wants a Loyalist
For years, Supreme Court aspirants have avoided talking about how they might rule. Trump’s frustrations with his first-term picks could change that.
Tess Owen @ Wired: Elon Musk’s Ties to Texas Republicans Go Much Deeper Than the Midterms
As Election Day approaches, the billionaire’s longstanding relationships with GOP leaders in Texas are under scrutiny.
Robert Downen @ Texas Monthly: Greg Abbott Hired an Election Denier to Protect Texas Elections. He’s Using the Job to Attack Muslims.
Nate Schatzline, a Christian nationalist pastor who left his state House seat to work in the governor’s office, told a GOP group that “all Islam is radical” and described plans to “crack down” on it.
Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Pressed on affordability at town hall, JD Vance says all the wrong things
A young conservative voter asked the vice president a sincere question about one of the most pressing issues facing her generation. It did not go well.
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling @ The New Republic: Todd Blanche Basically Coached Ghislaine Maxwell in Epstein Interview
House Democrats’ report revealed how much Blanche helped Maxwell during the interview.
Will Neal @ The Daily Beast: Trump Forced to Make Embarrassing U-Turn on Campaign Trail
The president was meant to be campaigning in Kansas. Then he pulled out. Now, the state is back on his schedule.
-=-=
DRAGS DOWN FOX
AN 10 26
Trump has been losing support among his base on issues ranging from the economy to his corruption, but despite that it has been conventional wisdom since his first presidential campaign that aligning with Trump's movement attracts audiences to media outlets.
Now the biggest conservative media outlet of all is finding that's no longer the case — and adjusting accordingly.
"It was satisfying to learn that Fox “News,” long the biggest blight on American journalism, is losing viewers just before a momentous election," reported Dan Rather and Team Steady on Thursday. "And it’s not a small drop. Fox has lost more than a quarter of its viewers compared to a year ago. It was the largest decline of any cable news channel in the month before an election in a decade, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Fox still has the largest audience of any American cable news channel. But while Fox has been losing viewers, CNN and MS NOW have both been gaining."
Rather and Team Steady added, "It turns out that this election is just not much of a turn-on for the propagandists at Fox. The downward trend at the cable channel matches the drop in approval ratings of the president, whose numbers have fallen off a cliff. So who is dragging down whom? Fox believes it’s Trump. The channel has long deemed Trump rallies must-see TV. This month, not so much. In October, it aired only nine of 24 Trump events."
They continued, "And when they do air them, the man-on-the-street interviews aren’t what they used to be. At a Trump rally to support Senate candidate Darline Graham in South Carolina on Thursday, a Fox reporter asked an attendee why he was there. “There’s nothing like seeing a cult right up front,” he responded. The reporter quickly abandoned the interview."
Speaking with AlterNet in August, cult expert Dr. Steven Hassan explained that Trump and his movement are indeed cult-like, in large part because they are encouraged to remain loyal to the president even when his behavior actively harms them. He achieves this by creating an in-group/out-group mentality.
"We are social beings, and we're emotional beings primarily," Hassan told AlterNet. "So a key point in my BITE [Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotional] model of authoritarian control is information control. I emphasize how these destructive groups, like the Trump movement, are lying all the time. And part of the appeal is really about using emotionally leading rhetoric to scare people, to create "the other," to demonize. I'll quote Eric Hoffer's 1951 book, "The True Believer." He said, "The strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil." We know that, evolutionarily, we're going to overreact to anything that's a perceived danger or threat to us."
Hassan added, "So "owning the libs" means that they are a danger, and he's going to save people from them."
-=-=
-=-=-
Trump boosts bizarre claim that Jesus sent him to reverse Obama
rallies increasing wacko? cancelled 10 29?
-=-=
AN 10 26 INTEL STK
Trump’s taxpayer-funded gamble just lost $10 billion in one day
-=-=
an 10 26
Trump’s next golf makeover comes with Superfund toxic sludge
-=-=
MMA ALSO JDV FRAUD BS?
Wayne Allyn Root claims he is behind Trump’s new $1 million election bounty
Wayne Allyn Root says “my good friend” Natalie Harp gives Trump his columns: “She sits right next to President Trump wherever he is — in the office, in Mar-a-Lago, in his plane, on the golf course”
10/28/26
OOPS CUT?
AN 8 26
Three-time Republican speechwriter Peter Wehner says he knows what fuels the fury that sent President Donald Trump and MAGA into a frenzy over the Natalie Harp debacle.
“In 2016, Trump found a constituency already primed for grievance, and taught it to want more. His supporters have kept themselves in a state of frenzy ever since. They need to be perpetually outraged, aggrieved, and insulted. MAGA world has become addicted to the feeling. It delivers a jolt of adrenaline, it provides a feeling of social belonging, and it gives people a sharpened sense of purpose,” said Wehner, describing the unique rage-fit that seized MAGA social media accounts and the White House media room after a Georgia Democrat made a sneering reference to Trump’s fawning dependence on a young blonde helper.
“They see themselves as warriors in a drama of their own construction. They view their opponents — Democrats, progressives, critics of Trump — as personifications of evil. Inflicting pain on their enemies feels good, really good, and it feels just.”
Wehner said Trump is aware of the rage he kindles in MAGA-world, of course. It’s why he once told his supporters: “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”
The Georgia senator’s snipe was “a response to Trump’s collapsing support and the fracturing MAGA movement,” Wehner said, and it came at a time when Trump supporters desperately need common ground and a common enemy. The senator’s comments gave them “a chance to lash out, to go on the offensive, and to shake feelings of powerlessness and impending doom. At a time when defending Trump is nearly impossible, attacking his opponents becomes imperative.”
“But there’s something else going on as well, at least with one subgroup of Trump supporters,” Wehner added, “… many radio and television commentators, podcasters, and members of Congress among them — who were dedicated conservatives before Trump came along. They believed character was destiny and virtue mattered; they revered the rule of law, institutions, and norms; they championed free trade and free markets, fiscal responsibility, and a strong Western alliance; and they opposed patrimonialism, corruption, and lawlessness in the presidency.”
These same people had to surrender all those commitments and much more to support a cad like Trump, and they know it.
“The cost of speaking out against him, even when they knew better, was simply too high. They wanted to stay in the good graces of those in power. So they broke. And they know they broke,” said Wehner. “This has caused a painful degree of cognitive dissonance within many of them. They want to think better of themselves — and others to think better of them — than their actions warrant. What they see in Ossoff’s comments is a chance to signal that they are still who they once were, or at least seemed to be. In this case, they are portraying themselves as enraged at Ossoff’s ‘misogynistic lies.’ His comments are ‘repulsive’ and ‘guttersnipe statements.’”
They adore finally getting to call a Democrat a “disgusting coward” and a “disgusting pig,” said Wehner. It soothes the rotten spot created by their own cowardly pig in the White House.
“One can almost hear, from the distant past, their words of moral outrage at Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Of course, in this case, Trump supporters have aligned themselves with a man who was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming a woman. Who falsified business records to conceal a sex scandal with a porn star shortly after the birth of his child. Who celebrated his affairs through tabloids. Who said if you have power, you can “grab ’em by the [privates].” Who has called women ‘fat pigs’ and ‘piggy,’ ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals,’ and ‘horseface.’”
Trump had even suggested that tough questioning by a woman was due to her monthly period, Wehner said. And he’s said that “it doesn’t really matter” what the media write “as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of [body].”
But nobody flew into a rage over Harp like Trump, Wehner believes, because the Ossoff sting made clear that Trump is a sundowning president with emerging mental decline who requires a “diaper nurse” to keep him walking in a straight line at public events.
“Gabriel García Márquez’s novel The Autumn of the Patriarch is about an unnamed dictator, an illiterate who rises to power and brutally takes control of a country. … The ‘autumn’ in the title refers to the corrupt patriarch’s physical and mental decay, his growing paranoia, his psychological isolation, and his inability to form genuine human connections. He surrounds himself with sycophants, creating a false reality, complete with fake news and newspapers, including a single copy of the national daily newspaper — the news rewritten to please him, created only for the dictator. He needs it to maintain his ‘throne of illusions.’”
“Ultimately, we know, thrones of illusion do collapse,” Wehner added, “and not only in novels.”
-=-=
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump ambassador telegraphs plan to blame Canada for election losses
-=-=
AN 10 26
On Tuesday,,President Donald Trump's desire for "absolute immunity" came under fire from a man very familiar with the disgraced fellow Republican president whose image Trump wishes to rehabilitate, Richard Nixon.
After reviewing a number of expert scholarly opinions Thomas B. Edsall, who contributes a weekly essay to The New York Times, quoted Philip Allen Lacovara, "a former deputy U.S. solicitor general and counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor. Lacovara thinks the Supreme Court handed Trump "a virtual get-out-of-jail card"" with their ruling in 2024 that the president has a very high bar before being guilty of a crime.
Lacovara told Edsall, "Although the wholly unjustified and constitutionally unsound decision in the Trump immunity case in 2024 purported to leave open the possibility of prosecuting a president (1) for some official acts and (2) for any unofficial acts, these exceptions are largely illusory — at least so long as the current majority remains on the Supreme Court."
He continued, "The opinion in the case creates a virtually impenetrable barrier protecting Trump from being prosecuted for such things as corruption; complicity in unlawful, extrajudicial killing; selling pardons; soliciting contributions from prospective office seekers; awarding federal contracts to big donors; interfering with elections; and any of the other abuses in his rap sheet."
Edsall proceeded to mention that Lacovara has backed up his work and emphasized Lacovara's observation that the Supreme Court has made it potentially impossible to prosecute this president even when there appears to be significant evidence of quid pro quo financial transactions (bribery) using the president’s office to grant favors in return for personal financial benefits for himself and his family.”
Trump has developed a particular interest in rehabilitating Nixon's image because Trump supporters believe the prosecution of Nixon was a Democratic example of "law fare," or prosecution of a president for exercising his supposedly legitimate prerogatives.
"Trump is passing policies by fiat or by executive order, so he’s sort of acting like the legislative branch, because Congress isn’t doing these things," Luke Nichter, professor of history at Chapman University, who edited two volumes of Nixon's White House tapes, told AlterNet in terms of what Trump learned from Nixon's attempts to gain power through the executive branch. "Then the judicial branch is acting more like the executive. It’s acting as a referee: You can do this, but you can’t do that. And Congress is reduced to holding a lot of hearings and talking, but not necessarily taking leadership."
He added, "So they’ve become kind of the judicial branch. We’ve had a sort of corruption of the three branches of government, where none of them is really functioning the way our founders intended."
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump's new spy chief focused on cleaning up Tulsi Gabbard's mess
-=-=
As reports reveal the White House is requesting several veterans groups to back President Donald Trump’s arch project, some groups are denying claims that they are in support of the controversial monument. The final vote hearing is scheduled for November 5, but many are against the arch due to its location and size.
The Washington Post reports that, according to anonymous sources, the Vietnam Veterans of America, Veterans for America First, and other groups are expected to file an amicus brief opposing efforts by some veterans to block construction of Trump’s proposed arch.
Thomas Burke, national president of the Vietnam Veterans of America, told the outlet that his organization and three others planned to remain “neutral” and that he was unaware of the amicus brief. Burke also shared a statement from the four groups saying they did not “endorse or oppose any specific architectural design or proposal.” The statement also called on Americans to stand in solidarity with veterans by supporting a new monument honoring their service in Memorial Circle.
Judge Tanya Sue Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama who was selected in 2014, is reviewing a lawsuit filed by three Vietnam War veterans who argue that the proposed arch would disrupt the experience of visitors to Arlington National Cemetery and undermine the historical significance of nearby monuments. The 250-foot structure is proposed for Memorial Circle, near the cemetery.
Jay Kalner, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America’s Northern Virginia chapter, told The Post on Tuesday that he and other local VVA leaders oppose the arch. The National Parks Conservation Association, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Institute of Architects and other groups filed an amicus brief arguing that the project requires explicit congressional approval. They argue that a century-old authorization cited by Trump officials applies to a different project and does not apply to his proposal.
Trump’s proposed arch is grandiose. The proposed arch would be an imposing, 250-foot-tall concrete structure with an opening 55 feet wide. If approved, it would stand more than twice the height of the nearby 99-foot Lincoln Memorial. According to USA Today, two gilded eagles would sit atop the arch’s legs, while a gilded, winged figure holding a torch would crown the structure. Positioned across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial, the arch would create a striking visual presence near the nation’s historic landmarks.
The plans extend beyond the monument itself. The 166-foot-wide structure would include an observation deck overlooking the surrounding area, with six stairways and five elevators providing access to interior spaces and public areas. The proposed development would also feature a plaza, granite pavers, landscaping, a stone seating wall and illuminated pedestrian crosswalks.
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump, who has made billions since returning to the White House, is also collecting nearly $3 million from Republican campaign funds through his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to a new report.
The Washington Post reported that between January 2025 and September 2026, Republican congressional campaign groups spent $2.9 million at Trump-owned properties. The payments covered fundraising events, hotel rooms, meals and other expenses, continuing the controversial financial relationship between the president's businesses and his political allies.
Republican spending at Mar-a-Lago has more than tripled after adjusting for inflation, compared with the same period during Trump's first presidency.
Overall spending at Trump properties was slightly below the inflation-adjusted $3.3 million in a comparable period in his first term, per the report. The report states the spending is significant considering the loss of Trump’s conveniently located Washington Hotel, which he no longer operates under his brand after selling the lease. The report notes that lawmakers and lobbyists are traveling hundreds of miles from their districts to spend money at Trump’s properties.
The Republican National Committee accounted for nearly $1.8 million of the spending, making it the biggest customer among the political organizations the report analyzed. Other big spenders include the PAC MAGA Inc. and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
A joint fundraising committee associated with Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, spent more than $120,000 at Trump businesses. One Mar-a-Lago bill exceeded $48,000 during the week of Jackson's birthday celebration in April.
Republican congressional candidate Joe Mitchell's campaign spent nearly $90,000 at Trump properties, particularly at his Palm Beach club.
Republican officials defended the spending by claiming that the choice is best on donor demand.
"We hold events where donors want to show up, and that's Mar-a-Lago," NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella told the Post. He also added that the event generated substantially more money than was spent.
Spending eventually slowed as Republican groups paid $336,000 to Trump businesses from June through September, compared with $1.3 million in inflation-adjusted spending over the same stretch of his first term.
The Post's accounting did not include Trump's campaign and affiliated committees, as well as spending by groups with undisclosed donors.
With recent polls showing most voters are concerned about corruption, reports that Trump’s family business earned $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency and related partnerships in 2025 drew heavy criticism.
The report serves as another example of how Trump privately profits from loyal GOP allies, as Democrats warn they will investigate his businesses if they win congressional power at the midterms.
-=-=
an 10 26
epstein Incendiary new 50-page report revives Trump's worst nightmare
Trump faces new legal nightmare over White House press crackdown
-=-=-
-=-=
AN 10 26
'Morally bankrupt': McConnell rips Trump for 'coddling' Russia deals
-=-=
an 10 26
Wednesday, a new poll by Politico revealed that “impeachment is back on the menu.” With President Donald Trump’s approval hitting historic lows and scandals rocking his administration, a majority of voters – including a surprisingly high percentage of Republicans – want him impeached. And barring that, they want several of his officials on the chopping block.
“Half of Americans support impeaching Trump and more than two-thirds expect Democrats to try if they flip the House — even though they have doubts about whether doing so would materially weaken the president,” writes Politico. “In total, 54 percent of Americans — including 81 percent of voters who plan to support Democrats in the midterms and a quarter of Republican midterm voters — say Trump has committed impeachable offenses, the poll found. More than 41 percent of respondents said Trump had used the presidency to benefit himself or his family financially, and a third said Democrats should prioritize investigating how he’s enriched himself, while another third said they should focus on probing his immigration crackdown.”
Majorities on both sides of the aisle, however, think that an impeachment in the House would do little to check the president. What is striking, however, is the sizeable number of Republicans who want to see Trump impeached. Even if they think it will have little impact on him, that one of four midterm GOP voters approve has major implications for the November elections. While the poll found that Democratic voters are split on whether their candidates should talk about impeachment in their midterm campaigns, these numbers suggest that a surprising number of people across the political spectrum could back that message. While most voters agree that Trump’s impeachment might not deliver the change they hope, Democrats are eager to oust his Cabinet secretaries. Democratic midterm voters say they want to see the House impeach HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (65 percent), Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (63 percent), VP JD Vance (58 percent) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (49 percent).
It is notable that the polls were conducted between October 16-19, just before an explosion of bipartisan outrage erupted over Trump’s recent concessions to Russia and suggestions that his administration may have actively hindered the Ukrainian war effort. Fox News was already sounding impeachment alarm bells before the Russia scandals, and now that accusations that the administration may have acted illegally have leapt up – even among conservatives – experts have raised the possibility. What’s more, recent reports revealed that Pentagon insiders are ready to “spill their guts” in proceedings against Hegseth that have been pushed by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). As one “well-connected” source told the Telegraph, “There’s going to be a lot of people that are going to very quietly go to the chair of the armed [services] committee and are going to spill their guts, provide them with everything they can and leak everything they can. It’ll be horrendous. It’ll be consistent embarrassment."
-=-=-=
-=-=
an 10 26
Trump’s 250-foot arch triggers last-minute shakeup
-=-=
Nicolle Wallace left stunned as former official lists Trump’s concessions
AN 10 26
PUTIN
-=-=
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump's bid to hide secret messages faces new court showdown
Yale dean warns corporate US 'cowards': Your 'dirty deals' will be exposed
-=-=
HEDGES SAID PPL IN STR OUR ONLY DEFENSE //
AN 10 26
Trump receives a chilling warning that he could face a lengthy prison sentence in a new analysis examining what could happen if he attempts to interfere with the midterm elections, drawing comparisons to a president who tried to seize power and is serving life in prison.
In The Nation on Thursday, Paul Loeb and South Korean activist Jungmin Choi gave an example of Yoon Suk Yeol's downfall, whose failed December 2024 martial law declaration ended in mass protests, impeachment and life in prison for insurrection.
The authors say that Yoel’s fall from grace is an example of why Americans should resist any attempt by Trump or his administration to refuse to accept the election results.
“How do you stop a would-be dictator? The first requirement is knowing that it’s possible,” they wrote.
On December 3, 2024, Yoon declared martial law, which banned political activity and sent troops into the National Assembly. However, protesters fought back by surrounding the building, and lawmakers forced their way past military forces to overturn the martial law decree.
The protesters grew to over a million in just a few days, and Yoon was impeached and removed from office.
He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison in February 2026 after he was found guilty of leading an insurrection. Yoon escaped the death penalty and has filed multiple appeals for his conviction.
The court found that Yoon attempted to obstruct lawmakers from carrying out their constitutional duties by sending armed forces to the legislature.
“It is sufficient to conclude that there was intent to obstruct or paralyze the Assembly’s functions for a considerable period,” Judge Ji Gwi-yeon said.
Loeb and Choi detail five lessons for Americans from Yoon’s failed attempt at seizing power. They include the importance of voting, public resistance, and encouraging the military to refuse illegal orders. They referenced the six US senators and House members with military and national security backgrounds who released a video last November urging the military to refuse illegal orders.
They add that the effort to safeguard an election doesn't end once ballots are cast, noting that local authorities, the courts and regular citizens may all have a part to play if an administration tries to obstruct the process.
“But massive, immediate nonviolent protest will also be essential,” the authors wrote.
They also mention that it is essential to protect voting polls, writing: “For the US midterms, most points of contestation will be local: Citizens and local governments need to protect polling places and vote-counting centers, including having police protect them from disruption.”
They write that in the US, "power gets consolidated in stages," and aside from legal challenges, protest organizations such as Indivisible and No Kings have conducted poll monitoring and Hands Off the Vote trainings.
Following the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and Trump's subsequent pardons of the insurrectionists, many have feared what he may do if he doesn't hold on to power.
-=-=
World leaders laugh off Trump’s 'funny' move to make MAGA global
'Real anger' erupts inside Trump's White House over key US ally: report
FOR POLICY?
-=-=
AN 10 26 IRS?
Cornered Trump demands miracles from agency he gutted
-=-=
PRES Z SAYS IF PUTIN AND TRUMP GANG UP, HE CANNOT WIN 10/22/26
PRAISED RALLY GUY WHO PUNCHED HECKLER
-=-=
an 10 26
On Thursday, the Trump administration’s attempt to dodge blame for the disruption of Ukraine’s Starlink capabilities appeared to blow up. What’s more, the call came from inside the house, as it was Vice President JD Vance who accidentally exposed the whole thing. While President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials have attempted to direct responsibility for the throttling of Ukraine’s Starshield speeds at the company rather than the government, Starlink CEO Elon Musk has pushed back, asserting that the military branch of the system is operated by the Pentagon. When asked about this by Fox News, Vance appeared to back up Musk’s account.
“Fundamentally, Elon Musk runs a private corporation, and I think it's completely understandable that he doesn't want to get in the middle of what is a war between two state actors without the United States government effectively directing him on what to do,” said Vance. “So I don't think this is about Elon. I think it's fundamentally, what is America's policy in Ukraine to Russia going to be?" And as Reuters National Security Correspondent Erin Banco emphasizes, “As Vance notes here, Starshield is a contract held between DOD and SpaceX. Contractually, SpaceX can't do anything without decision from USG.”
In other words, if Vance is right, then the Trump administration has actively degraded a U.S. ally’s military capacity while aiding one of the United States’ greatest adversaries. As many commentators have suggested, Trump has increasingly aligned with Russia through both word and action. Critics have argued that Trump's order dropping sanctions to buy Russian diesel not only breaks U.S. law, but hands President Vladimir Putin a financial lifeline while doing little to ease skyrocketing diesel prices.
Trump has blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the ongoing war — which was launched by Russia — while his special envoy has drawn bipartisan outrage for calling Putin a “humanitarian.” Meanwhile, Putin has floated the idea that Russia, the U.S., and China hold a summit to discuss the war — without Ukraine’s participation — a move Fox News says would be a “serious mistake.” According to Fox national security analyst Rebeccah Heinrichs, “The Russians view the United States as its number one adversary, and they're trying to get the United States to back down and not support Zelensky.”
A growing number of lawmakers are calling for investigations into the Starlink matter, while seven Republican senators have signed a letter telling Musk to remove Ukraine’s restrictions. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has declared the sabotage of Ukraine an act of “treason,” suggesting it warrants the seizure of Starlink.
-=-=
-=-=
ref hill
A bipartisan group of nearly two dozen House members is urging President Trump to ask tech mogul Elon Musk to give Ukraine access to Starlink satellite systems to hunt for missile launchers inside Russia, according to a letter sent Wednesday and obtained exclusively by The Hill.
The signatories included seven House Republicans alongside 16 Democrats, widening the GOP coalition looking to bring Trump back to the side of Ukraine as he has swung hard in favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We are writing to urge you to ask Elon Musk to let Ukraine use the Starlink satellite internet system to hunt for missile launchers inside Russia. With one phone call, you could both save lives and give Vladimir Putin greater incentives to negotiate,” the lawmakers wrote.
“If Ukraine cannot reliably intercept Russian ‘arrows,’ it must be able to shoot the ‘archer.’ The Starlink system run by Mr. Musk’s company SpaceX could help with that.”
The Republican signatories include stalwart Ukraine supporters Reps. Joe Wilson (S.C.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Don Bacon (Neb.), along with Reps. Carlos Gimenez (Fla.), Jeff Hurd (Colo.), Andy Harris (Md.) and Max Miller (Ohio), who represents a heavily Ukrainian district.
“Mr. President, we all share the goal of bringing an end to the war in Ukraine and the devastating loss of life it has caused,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter sent Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, Putin presently has no intention of stopping the bloodshed.”
The letter bolsters the lobbying campaign on the Senate side led by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who chairs the Armed Services Committee and led a congressional delegation to Ukraine last week.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) was also on that trip and penned an op-ed in The Washington Post urging the U.S. to give Ukraine expanded access to Musk’s satellites.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has also pushed for more U.S. help in targeting Russia’s missile launchers.
“Mr. President, as you know, Kyiv has petitioned Mr. Musk for a carve-out to this restriction. But only you can push this matter over the goal line,” the lawmakers wrote.
Trump has called for Ukraine to stop hitting Russian oil refineries, blaming those attacks for the high diesel prices in the U.S. that are largely attributed to the war against Iran.
The bipartisan letter comes as a growing number of Republicans have expressed outrage over disruptions in Ukraine to Starlink — and its military-
grade version, Starshield — that hampered air defense and offensive missions.
The Wall Street Journal reported Musk ordered a slowdown in Starlink’s services. It’s not clear how involved Trump was in the discussions surrounding the slowdown.
Some Republicans have joined Democrats in calling for an investigation into the throttling of Starlink and Starshield. Many of these same Republicans have expressed further outrage over Trump waiving sanctions on Russia to export diesel fuel, as he tries to lower prices before the midterms.
Fitzpatrick and Bacon, in particular, have threatened to disrupt Trump’s agenda after the midterms if the president does not change course on Russia and Ukraine.
This includes providing Ukraine “any and all defensive equipment,” blocking imports of Russian oil and raising sanctions against Russia, Fitzpatrick wrote on social media Monday.
“Each and every one of these items will be brought to the House Floor—and each and every one of these items will pass on the House Floor by an overwhelming margin,” he wrote.
-=-=
Trump's own spy chief just secretly delivered a warning to Putin :report
AN 10 26
-=-=
MIKE VS ABDUL WEAPONS GRIFT CDA TARIFF?
AN 10 26
Trump raises eyebrows with 'Hail Mary' pass to save Collins' hide
-=-=
an 10 26
New report reveals Trump is too broke to pay farm bribes
-=-=-
Trump’s Truth Social account shares more links to John Solomon’s Just the News than any other news site
mma grpx
trump’s Truth Social account shares more links to John Solomon’s Just the News than any other news site
Written by Matt Gertz
Research contributions from Kayla Gogarty, John Whitehouse & Gideon Taaffe
Published 10/21/26
President Donald Trump has shared links to Just the News, the right-wing agitprop site helmed by White House staffer John Solomon, in at least 367 Truth Social posts or reposts since he returned to the White House last January — more than any other news outlet over that time period.
...
-=-=
10 20 26 trms
delay bad post midterm abort rx cda
pro putin buy diesel, cut starlink...
Trump has 'nothing left to lose' — and Putin has everything to win: Krugman
Trump’s Greenland threats spark arctic power grab as Russia looms
Trump says protesters would vote for him if their parents 'slap 'em around'
-=-=
an 10 26
CNN ups the ante with major legal threat against Trump over press ban
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump faces legal blow as BBC asks judge to crash his delay tactics
-=-==
AN 10 26
Trump’s budget rips nearly $3 billion from swing state’s coffers
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump's secret White House ballroom donor list has leaked, revealing that some of the $333 million comes from companies with lucrative government business interests and a $2.5 million pledge by the daughter of a banker who Trump later pardoned.
Internal fundraising records obtained by The Washington Post identify 67 donations over $10,000 and show at least $77 million came from donors who requested to stay anonymous. The report says the money was funneled through a nonprofit into a White House account controlled by the president.
One of the more controversial names on the list is Isabela Herrera, who is the daughter of international banker Julio Herrera Velutini. Her father was indicted in 2022 for allegedly helping finance a Puerto Rican governor's campaign in exchange for getting rid of a regulator investigating his bank.
Following Trump's 2024 presidential campaign victory, the Post’s expose revealed that Isabela Herrera gave $3.5 million to a Trump-aligned political committee. In September 2025, she also pledged $2.5 million to the ballroom fund and paid the first installment of $835,000 the following month.
Shortly after the donation, in August 2025, prosecutors had reduced her father's bribery case charges to a misdemeanor through a plea deal. Trump then pardoned him in January 2026, four months after his daughter's ballroom donor pledge.
The reporting does not establish a specific link to the ballroom donation influencing the pardon.
Apple and Nvidia each committed $25 million, as did billionaire Charles Ergen and the Adelson family. Nvidia sought anonymity for its contribution, even though it publicly supported the project.
Ergen put up his $25 million once federal regulators had closed an inquiry into his firm, the telecommunications company EchoStar. In the case of Rocket Companies, a subsidiary put forward a $10 million pledge some weeks after one of its big acquisitions was given the nod by a federal agency, per the documents. Rocket has said there is no link between the gift and the government’s sanction.
The Post found that about half of the funds raised come from companies or executives tied to federal contracts during Trump's second term.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle defended the donors and said the administration would hunt down the leakers. He described allegations of conflicts of interest as baseless and added that the contributors are “a wide array of great American companies and generous individuals.”
Despite Trump’s claim that he will also help fund the project, his name did not appear on the list.
The $333 million in pledges is far below his initial target of $400 million. Furthermore, the cost of building the larger East Wing project has soared to $600 million.
--==
-=-=
an 10 26 big bogus bill reality sinks in?
Republicans shift to healthcare fraud as costs dominate voter fears
-=-=
RWW MISC
10/16/2026
byKyle Mantyla
Shawn McCreesh, Tyler Pager and Hamed Aleaziz @ The New York Times: Katie Zacharia Is Ousted After 5 Days as White House Press Secretary
Ms. Zacharia was shadowed by questions about how she had presented her legal career and handled her first press briefing.
Giulia Carbonaro @ Newsweek: Americans Told To Use New Trump Coins at Liberal Businesses
U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach is challenging Americans to "get a roll of Trump dollar coins," a newly minted gold-colored $1 coin featuring the president’s portrait, and spend them at their "favorite liberal coffee shop."
Zachary Leeman @ Mediaite: Kid Rock Lumps Abdul El-Sayed in with 9/11 Terrorists, Ft. Hood Shooter By Saying They Were All ‘Assimilated’ in US
Kid Rock lumped Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in with literal terrorists on Friday during a wild rant on Fox News.
Curtis M. Wong @ HuffPost: Trump Dubs Himself A 'Freaking Genius' For Passing Cognitive Test
When the president successfully recited five words, he said the test’s administrators were astonished.
Brittany Gibson @ Axios: Trump's MAGA allies openly discuss martial law
MAGA activists are pushing for President Trump to resort to extraordinary measures — including martial law — if they believe the midterm elections are "rigged."
Garrett Graff @ Doomsday Scenario: Trump's Tyranny, Part I: ICE's Reign of Terror
We’ve already gotten used to a level of fascism, authoritarianism, and corruption that would be unthinkable and shocking to us just a decade ago.
-=-=
TEARING UP TAKING OVER DC GOLF ~AA?
Exposed: How Trump uses golf courses to dodge millions in taxes
-=-=
AN 10 266
Trump's recent decision to hand over $4 billion to Russia despite sanctions that he implemented is bringing up questions about his continued relationship with President Vladimir Putin.
In a podcast with The Bulwark's publisher, Sarah Longwell, former lawyer for Robert Mueller's special counsel team, Andrew Weissmann called Trump a "freaking moron" for continuing to support Putin over Ukraine.
"So, one: you're supporting authoritarians over democracy. A true national hero over an actual villain of the United States. For what? You've relieved that country of sanctions. They're you're giving them, you know, billions of dollars of sales, which they weren't supposed to get for a trickle of diesel that isn't going to make a difference to America, in terms of any sort of significant way. You know, would make a difference to America? End the g---amn war!" Weismann exclaimed.
Longwell agreed, saying with frustration that Putin is aiding Iran in killing Americans, but that "Trump has always been looking for a reason to work and do business with Putin."
Weissmann, who spent two years of his life researching and investigating the Trump and Russia connection. An incredulous Longwell said that Trump was "using our energy crisis as a pretense to like get in bed with Putin, which is clearly always wanted to do or been in. I mean, we've got these weird Russians paying for Don Jr.'s wedding!"
She asked whether Weissmann still wants to "get him on this."
"So, he managed to sort of politicize all of that," Weissmann said of the Muller investigation. "The thing that just to get cut through the chase is I still don't know the answer to what is the connection between the two of them, but I know that one theory, the innocent explanation is that Donald Trump just has a fascination with and emulates authoritarians."
While all of that is true, it doesn't answer the question, he added. It isn't as if there's a "Russian voter bloc in the United States."
Longwell closed by saying that she truly hopes that someday the world can get to the bottom of what was going on between Trump and Russia and whether it's an affinity or if it's simply that Putin is nice to him and pretends to like him and promote him.
"But also, this is where you have Steve Witoff and Jared [Kushner] freelancing on all of these things where they have financial interest. I don't know if you saw the story today," Longwell continued. "Again, we're really derailed here, but the a story just came out today that was tracking the ballroom donations and all of the favors that were given to those people who did that. And so, you know, I think some of this is just we live we have the most corrupt president of in American history."
From the executive branch perspective, Weissmann said that they operate exactly like Putin and Russia with the "pay-to-play" politics.
-=-=
AN NYT 10 26
The New York Ties reports the U.S. budget deficit is nearing $2 trillion and putting the kibbutz on President Donald Trump’s economy — and his big plans for cutting cost.
The United States budget deficit, which increased to $1.99 trillion this fiscal year from $1.78 trillion in 2025, “approached its highest level since the pandemic, as spending on the military, safety net programs and interest on the debt dwarfed the Trump administration’s cost cuts, Treasury Department figures showed on Friday,” said Times reporter Alan Rappeport.
The widening gap between what the government spends and what it collects in taxes and other revenue comes at a critical moment when investors are already spooked about the nation’s surging debt load, along with stubborn inflation. All of this is driving up borrowing costs. Treasury bond yields boosting interest rates for mortgages, credit cards and auto loans, pushing them to their highest levels in two decades earlier this month.
“Without real action on these vital fiscal issues, America is careening toward an ominous fiscal crisis that would leave all of us much worse off sooner than anyone in Washington apparently wants to believe,” said Carolyn Bourdeaux, executive director of Concord Action, an advocacy group that promotes deficit reduction.
The last time the deficit topped $2 trillion was in 2021, when the pandemic prompted Congress to approve a huge stimulus package to help keep the economy afloat. But analysts point out that there is no pandemic-style crisis forcing the nation to take on that load this time—just a president’s extravagant spending policies.
“Instead, the shortfall stems from increased spending on the military, interest payments on the debt and Social Security benefits, coupled with falling corporate tax receipts as a result of the tax cut package,” reports the Times.
This, explained Bourdeaux, means we’re already accruing a dangerous, outsized amount of debt—which will turn into a black hole when the next expensive crisis rolls along.
“The higher that interest rates move in the government bond market, the less likely it is that governments can finance these interest expenses in a sustainable way, so the stress begets more stress,” said Daleep Singh, chief economist at Prudential Global Investment Management told the Times. “It crescendos in the absence of a credible fiscal plan, which is not forthcoming.”
The Congressional Budget Office said last week that spending in the United States has been pushed higher by the growing cost of Social Security benefits, which are tied to rising inflation, and payments to military personnel. Higher long-term interest rates increased the cost of interest on Trump’s escalating debt by more than $100 billion from 2025. The Ties reports overall, spending was up 6 percent to $7.4 trillion.
The avalanche of Trump-style annual deficit will certainly reduce the fiscal ambitions of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to a distant dream. Bessent said that his goal was to bring the deficit as a share of the economy to 3 percent, said the Times. But after falling from 6.3 percent in 2024 to 5.9 percent in 2025, the measure rose above 6 percent again this year.
-=-=
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump is flooding the Supreme Court with a baker's dozen cases, at least according to a recent report.
"The Supreme Court is already confronting President Trump’s agenda this term, but a lot more is still coming," reported The Hill's Zach Schonfeld on Sunday. "The administration is petitioning the justices to take up 13 additional cases, The Hill’s analysis of the court’s docket shows."
He added, "Unlike lower courts, the justices choose which cases they hear. They’re still taking up cases for this term, meaning the battles could be resolved as soon as next year."
Schonfeld continued, "From transgender troops to an asylum ban, from foreign student deportations to horseracing, here’s where the Supreme Court could soon get involved."
The journalist proceeded to describe the asylum ban, transgender troops, foreign student deportations, university grant cuts, u.s attorney firings, nationwide injunctions, immigration bond hearings, horseracing, Idaho land exchange, attorneys' fees and damages against government officials.
Since the commencement of Trump's second term, the Supreme Court has ruled in a number of landmark cases, usually in the president's favor. From constructing the White House ballroom and firing federal officials at will to keeping lists of supposed non-citizens to be barred from voting, the Supreme Court consistently sides with the president — although the administration occasionally loses a case, such as on tariffs or transgender care for inmates. The Supreme Court is led by its conservative wing, which has six members, and has a minority liberal wing with three members. The latter have been frequently critical of the former, especially in recent months.
“Part of the reason why the court got it wrong was a kind of lack of the appropriate concern or understanding of the consequences of their decisions,” Justice Elena Kagan told the Catholic University’s law school in Washington D.C. in October. “I do think in all these areas the court has blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works and has created a democracy that doesn’t work as well as it should.”
By contrast, conservatives like Justice Clarence Thomas argue that the court's current conservative thrust is necessarily responding to a push to the left more than a century ago.
“At the beginning of the twentieth century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream,” Thomas argued in April. “The proponents of this new set of first principles, most prominently among them the twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson, called it progressivism.”
-=-=
MILES T DIESEL STAR LINK?
AN 10 26
On Thursday, a whistleblower from President Donald Trump’s first administration laid out the pattern of Russian collusion that has extended across both terms. According to Miles Taylor – who served as the Deputy Chief of Staff in Homeland Security and leaked White House secrets – Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine amount to “treason” worthy of impeachment.
As Taylor notes, this week has brought a flurry of controversy prompted by Trump’s actions regarding Russia and Ukraine. It began on Tuesday, when Russian ballistic missiles struck Ukraine without warnings that would usually come via U.S. satellites, killing and injuring dozens of Ukrainians. While American officials claimed the detection failed due to “bad weather,” Ukrainian officials said someone in the U.S. was “playing” with the system.
Then the next day, Starshield – the military version of Elon Musk’s Starlink, which Ukrainian troops use to fly drones and intercept Russian attacks — was suddenly throttled without warning. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was furious and warned that “people will die.” Musk surprised everyone by putting the blame on the White House, posting, “Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately POTUS.” The White House has not denied his claims.
“Are we to believe this was a coincidence?” asks Taylor. “Missile warnings and battlefield communications all coming down at the same time? Was it all ‘the weather’? Not even a fool would accept that conclusion. Look at last week, and you can surmise exactly what happened. And it may well be criminal.”
Days before, explains Taylor, Trump held a “suspicious” phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which he announced a deal to buy millions of tons of Russian diesel, breaking sanctions he himself signed into law mere weeks earlier. Even Republican Senators have warned that he broke the law by giving a financial gift to the U.S. adversary. On the same day, Trump’s envoys told Ukraine that if Kyiv didn’t stop striking Russian oil refineries, Washington would cut off intelligence.
Then on Saturday, after Russian glide bombs killed 20 people in Ukraine, Trump said something that Putin “has been dreaming of, declaring, “It’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.” Finally, late Wednesday, FBI Director Kash Patel responded to reports that he’s planning to visit Moscow to meet with the FSB, the successor to the KGB, with the taunt, “From Russia, with Love…”
According to Taylor, “There are very serious questions here, with very serious implications for the Trump presidency. What did the president know, and when? What did Putin ask of Trump in that phone call? Did Donald Trump agree to give Putin a financial boost and buy his oil? Did Putin suggest it might help Trump in the midterms by lowering gas prices? Did Trump offer to weaken Ukraine’s defenses for Putin? Did Trump then personally order the Pentagon to restrict Ukraine’s satellite communications while Ukrainian cities were under attack? Did he order American agencies to sit on intelligence about incoming strikes? What, exactly, did the two men say to each other on Friday?”
As Taylor notes, Trump has actually already been impeached previously, in 2019, over this exact issue: withholding military support for Ukraine in order to extract a political benefit for himself in a “perfect phone call” with the Ukrainian leader. At the time, he froze foreign aid that was supposed to go to Ukraine in order to get leverage over them to help his re-election. Now he’s doing it again, though Taylor asserts the matter is “more serious” this time. “After a very suspicious phone call with Vladimir Putin,” writes Taylor, “Trump may have shut down early warning systems and battlefield communications — by literally switching them off while civilians slept in their apartments in Ukraine, in the crosshairs of Russia — in order to pressure Ukraine into a bogus ‘energy ceasefire’ in order to herald lower gas prices before the U.S. midterm elections.”
While this situation doesn’t precisely fit the Constitutional definition of treason, in Taylor’s estimation, “a president who puts his allies in mortal danger with favors to an enemy and for personal benefit has essentially done what treason describes. And impeachment doesn’t require a statute. Indeed, the words ‘high crimes and misdemeanors' were written to allow Congress to impeach a president for abuses of the public trust, and there’s no clearer abuse than a commander in chief using American intelligence as leverage against the people it was built to protect, on behalf of the dictator trying to kill them.” Trump has been impeached over such actions before. Now, writes Taylor, “The question our country must confront is whether the leader of the United States lowered the shield so that Putin could carry out murder and so that he could secure some political wins. In 2017, it took a special counsel to find out what Trump and Russia were doing together. In 2026, it might get blown open over an alleged lie about a weather report. The collusion is real.”
-=-=
an 10 26
Trump faces new court battle after GOP judge quotes Orwell in rebuke
-=-=
an 10 26
Smoking gun: Buried detail in FBI lawsuit could trigger impeachment
Trump family's lucrative business faces unexpected Supreme Court threat
-=-=
an 10 26
One of the forces behind President Donald Trump’s Iran paranoia was the fear that a single nuclear blast miles above America could knock out the power grid and plunge the country into darkness.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the political prominence of beliefs that Iran could knock out the U.S. with nothing more than an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).
Ironically, the report began by mentioning that during Trump's first term, he "signed an executive order directing federal agencies to defend the United States against an unusual type of nuclear strike that his advisers warned could shatter the power grid, wipe out critical infrastructure and lead to a national collapse."
The problem is that it's incredibly unlikely.
The report explains that the overwhelming scientific consensus is that Iran managing an EMP attack would be extraordinarily difficult to carry out. An EMP is a powerful burst of energy that is created when a nuclear weapon is detonated high in the atmosphere. In a normal nuclear strike an EMP likely wouldn't kill people the way an actual blast would. The real problem is that it would disable electricity, communications, transportation, banking, water systems and other U.S. infrastructure. In an era run by technology, it would collapse the U.S.
In 2019, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to strengthen U.S. resilience to EMPs after a New York "dairy entrepreneur" sounded the alarm that even a small nuke from Iran could trigger an EMP and collapse the U.S. Henry Schwartz has been on a mission to incite panic among top Republican officials and advisers in the U.S.
That's when conservatives like Frank Gaffney, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, John Bolton, Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe and JD Vance began panicking and promoting the warnings and advocating for military action against Iran’s nuclear program.
According to the experts who spoke with the Times, the freakout is being dramatically overstated.
To have a successful high-altitude EMP attack, Iran would likely need a hydrogen bomb, not a basic atomic weapon. They would also need the exact altitude, orientation, "precise alignment of its gamma rays" and unpredictable space-weather conditions.
According to Stephen M. Younger, a former Los Alamos physicist, even advanced nuclear states would struggle with this and the odds that it could take down the U.S. are worse than even a coin flip.
"In the vacuum of space, however, the gamma rays create no shock waves or mushroom cloud. Instead, they strike the planet’s upper atmosphere, producing a chain reaction that creates something akin to a super-strong radio transmitter," said the report. "The gamma rays hit air molecules and knock out electrons that spin around the Earth’s geomagnetic field lines, creating waves of electromagnetic energy so powerful they can fry circuits thousands of miles away."
Experts have certainly kept an eye on it, but it isn't as likely as Mr. Schwartz seems to believe. Still, his close relationship with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth suggests a Schwartz believer is at the top.
The report closes by making it clear that while nuclear proliferation should always be a concern and grid security is important, an Iranian EMP attack is not a credible near-term existential threat. Schwartz's EMP movement may be politically influential, but among the scientific community, reality reigns. It turns Schwartz's exaggerated campaign into a confrontation with Iran.
-=-=
THOM GOOD RUSSIA SUMMARY
AN 10 26
Clandestine Kremlin meetings just sent tremors through CIA headquarters
THOM
Clandestine Kremlin meetings just sent tremors through CIA headquarters
Thom Hartmann October 13, 2026
Is Putin running America through Trump, is Trump just a “useful idiot” for the Russians, or is he the worst traitor America’s seen since the days of Benedict Arnold?
Yesterday morning, Trump took to his Nazi-infested social media site to announce to the world (and a bit earlier to people who give him $100,000 a month for market-moving information) that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire,” telling the world “Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!”
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy responded that the deal was “news for me,” and the Kremlin spokesman said three days earlier that Russia wasn’t interested in any sort of a limited truce like Trump announced. But Trump made an identical announcement back in September, which was also a lie, and the night of his announcement both countries continued to bomb each other’s refineries and power plants.
I’m guessing that Trump’s announcement was designed to shift the news cycle away from reporting on the most nakedly pro-Russia act by any American president in our nation’s history that happened on Friday.
After one of his regular roughly-every-two-weeks-since-he-was-inaugurated phone calls with Putin, Trump announced that he’d just suspended our worldwide sanctions against any country that buys oil or refined products from Russia so that country could put millions of tons of diesel on the world market.
Every past sanction suspension — there have been a few — have lasted just 30 days, but Trump extended this one for six months, giving Russia billions they’re desperate for to keep up their violent, illegal war against our democratic ally, Ukraine.
As if to give Ukraine, Europe, the free world, and every American who believes in democracy instead of naked autocracy, Trump stood in front of the White House and told reporters:
“I want to thank President Putin.”
This won’t do a thing for American diesel prices, although Trump is hoping that angry truckers and farmers believe it will. Even if every drop of that diesel ended up here — and most of it won’t — it would only cover about nine days of what we burn here.
But in reality this is simply Trump bailing out his mentor, owner, blackmailer, or whatever Putin is. Russia’s diesel output right now is down 30 percent and Putin’s hold on the country is getting shaky, as Terrence Goggin (The West Point History Professor) argues so cogently. With prices this high, this deal will give Putin billions.
Following Trump’s announcement, Putin showed America and the world exactly how seriously he took Trump’s Friday statement: Saturday morning, Russian guided bombs killed at least 20 people, three of them children, in a residential neighborhood in Zaporizhzhia.
Trump’s response that afternoon, instead of calling Putin out, was to blame our diesel prices on Zelenskyy for hitting Russian refineries and to declare:
“I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”
In fact, diesel is high because refinery capacity in the Gulf states has crashed due to being hit over and over again by both Iranian and Houthi missiles. While Ukraine’s strikes are hurting Russian diesel supplies, as Putin noted two weeks ago at his annual Valdai forum in Moscow, that has nothing to do with America; we refine virtually all of our diesel right here at home.
Prices are high here because of scarcity-driven pricing around tight international supplies, and our oil companies are using those international rates to price-gouge American drivers on both diesel and gasoline. The industry that Trump said he’d do anything for if they gave him a billion dollars is now making tens of billions in windfall profits every week.
But this is just the beginning of Trump’s most recent anti-American crime spree.
Remember the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act? It passed and was signed into law a mere three weeks ago and gives the Trump administration until Sunday of this week to begin punishing countries that still buy Putin’s oil.
He’s breaking that law right in front of us all.
And that’s on top of the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act that flat-out banned all imports of any Russian energy products to the United States. If Trump wanted to issue waivers in a way that would comply with that law — which has been on the books for four years now, dating back to the Biden years — he’d first have to give Congress 45 days advance notice, certify in writing that Russia has withdrawn all of its troops from Ukraine and stopped all bombing, and then wait a full 90 days for Congress to give him a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.
As Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen noted, Trump and his lickspittles have totally bypassed every one of those requirements; Republican Senator Thom Tillis said yesterday that the deal is both illegal and will put more American lives at risk.
Which provoked former Illinois Republican Congressman Joe Walsh — a frequent guest on my radio/TV program — to say:
“Trump is a traitor to the free world.”
Walsh used to be a lonely voice in his old party, but now he’s rapidly getting company. Mike Pence called the deal a “betrayal” of Graham’s legacy. Senator Lisa Murkowski and Congressmen Don Bacon and Michael McCaul have all condemned it.
Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick has warned Mike Johnson that he’ll use a discharge petition to force a vote on a bill he’s calling the Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act that would block any purchase of Russian oil (even though two other laws already make it illegal).
Which caused Democratic Senator Mark Kelly to ask out loud the question a lot of Americans are wondering:
“Whose side is Trump on?”
I can think of two possible answers, and both are insane.
The first is that Putin is actually steering Trump’s presidency. First, weaken America and gut our military, and then give Putin whatever he wants:
Put an alcoholic B-list weekend TV guy in charge of the Pentagon, a plumber in charge of DHS, a fracking guy in charge of Energy, a wrestling billionaire in charge of Education, a brain-worm-disabled former heroin- and sex-addicted lawyer in charge of our nation’s health, let a ketamine-addled trillionaire rip apart our federal government and destroy our soft power around the world by taking down USAID, shut down our pro-democracy propaganda operations (VOA, etc.), put a weight-loss “miracle pill” hawker in charge of Medicare and Medicaid, a C-list former reality TV star in charge of our airlines, his own criminal defense lawyer to run the coverup of Epstein at the Department of Justice, etc. The list is virtually endless.
The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee documented that Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was also passing internal campaign data to a Russian intelligence officer while running the campaign and the two of them worked on a plan to hand eastern Ukraine to Moscow. Then there was Helsinki where Trump humiliated our intelligence service while all but shining Putin’s shoes on live TV.
In his first months in office, Trump outed an Israeli spy to the Russian Ambassador in what he thought was going to be a “secret Oval Office meeting” (the Russians released the photo to the press), resulting in MOSAD having to “burn” (relocate, change identity of) that spy.
The undercover agent was apparently working in Syria that year against the Russians, who were embroiled in the midst of Assad’s Civil War and indiscriminately bombing Aleppo into rubble.
That, in turn, prompted the CIA to worry that a longtime American spy buried deep in the Kremlin was similarly vulnerable to Trump handing him over to Putin.
As CNN noted (when the story leaked two years later):
“The source was considered the highest level source for the US inside the Kremlin, high up in the national security infrastructure, according to the source familiar with the matter and a former senior intelligence official.
“According to CNN’s sources, the spy had access to Putin and could even provide images of documents on the Russian leader’s desk.”
The CIA concluded that the risk Trump had burned or was about to burn our spy inside the Kremlin was so great that — at massive loss to US intelligence abilities that may even have otherwise helped forestall the invasion of Ukraine — they pulled our spy out of Russia in the first year of Trump’s first presidency, 2017.
Similarly, when they met in Helsinki on July 16, 2018, Trump and Putin talked in private for several hours and Trump ordered his translators’ notes destroyed; there is also concern that much of their conversation was done out of the hearing of the US’s translator (Putin is fluent in English) who may have been relegated to a distant part of the rather large empty ballroom in which they met.
The Washington Post reported, after a leak six months later, that when Trump met privately for those two hours with Putin the CIA went into “panic mode.” A US intelligence official told the Post:
“There was this gasp’ at the CIA’s Langley, Virginia headquarters. You literally had people in panic mode watching it at Langley. On all floors. Just shock.”
Things were picking up in 2019, as Putin was planning his invasion of Ukraine while Trump was preparing for the 2020 election.
In July 2019, Trump had conversations with five foreign leaders during and just before a presidential visit that month to Mar-a-Lago; they included Putin and the Emir of Qatar.
In one of those conversations, according to a high-level US Intelligence source, Trump “made promises” to a “world leader” that were so alarming it provoked a national security scramble across multiple agencies.
As The Washington Post noted in an article titled “Trump’s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and Congress”:
“Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint [against Trump] was credible and troubling enough to be considered a matter of ‘urgent concern,’ a legal threshold that requires notification of congressional oversight committees.”
On the last day of that month, July 31, Trump had another private conversation with Putin.
The White House spokespeople told Congress and the press that Trump said that he and Putin discussed “wildfires” and “trade between the nations.” No droids in this car…
But the following week, on August 2nd, The Daily Beast’s Betsy Swan reported that Trump had that week asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a list of all its employees (including all our “spies”) who had worked there more than 90 days, and the request had intelligence officials experiencing “disquiet.”
Perhaps just by coincidence, months after Trump left office with cases of classified documents, The New York Times ran a story with the headline Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants:
“Top American counterintelligence officials warned every C.I.A. station and base around the world last week,” the Times’ story’s lede began, “about troubling numbers of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States being captured or killed, people familiar with the matter said. (emphasis added)
Then there was the red carpet in Alaska last year, where Russia’s foreign minister showed up in a sweatshirt reading “CCCP,” as if to announce who’d won the Cold War after all. There’s the invitation to Putin, a man under indictment for war crimes and stealing children from Ukraine, to come to Mar-a-Lago for the G20 in December. Historian Heather Cox Richardson walked through that whole history Saturday night and closed by asking “how much more evidence is necessary” before we conclude that this president is working for Russia.
The second possibility is that nobody’s blackmailing or threatening Trump and he’s doing all of this of his own free will because he thinks it’ll make him richer.
The midterms were 25 days off when he made that call, diesel prices are killing Republican candidates, and Trump desperately needed a positive-sounding headline.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that Putin personally pitched Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner at the Kremlin on the sale of Lukoil’s $20 billion in overseas assets to a group led by a Trump megadonor and including business partners of both the Kushner and Witkoff families.
Selling out your country for money and advantage has a name in American history, Benedict Arnold, who offered to hand West Point to the British for 20,000 pounds because — like with Trump and the Nobel Prize — he felt underappreciated.
But Arnold, at least, had been a real patriot before he turned. He’d been shot in the left leg storming Quebec and then had that same leg shattered leading the charge that won the Battle of Saratoga. There’s a monument on that battlefield today, a single carved boot honoring the leg while pointedly leaving off the name of the man it was attached to.
Unlike Arnold, Donald Trump used a diagnosis of bone spurs to stay out of Vietnam that the podiatrist’s own daughters say was a favor to Fred Trump, who just happened to be the doctor’s landlord and patron.
My dad was a Republican activist in Michigan. The Republican Party he loved defined itself by standing up to the Kremlin.
I can’t imagine what he’d make of a Republican president publicly thanking the man in the Kremlin for suggesting that America bankroll his bloody, unprovoked war, or of the Senate’s number two Republican going on Sunday television to defend this insanity.
US intelligence agencies have determined — and told Trump — that Putin has provided Iran with the satellite data and intelligence that country’s IRGC used to attack our bases and troops in the Gulf, killing at least 21 and sending hundreds of others to the hospital. And now Trump’s handing him billions while cutting off our ally Ukraine from American-made Patriot missile interceptors?
I’ll leave it to the lawyers and the impeachment committees to determine if that fits the definition of treason in the Constitution, which says:
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
But whatever it is, when a president knowingly breaks his own country’s laws to send billions to a hostile nation’s dictator who’s slaughtering the people of a nation we promised — in writing in 1994 — to protect, most Americans know in their gut what to call it.
Whether Putin is giving the orders or Trump is freelancing to hustle more money into his kids Uday and Qusay’s investments, Ukraine’s children end up just as dead and America’s word and reputation ends up just as worthless.
-=-=
random misc an 10 26
Emails expose power play behind Trump's latest Kennedy Center shake-up
Brenda Alexander
-=-=
i can call abdul muhammed i am prez
Trump thinks he can 'magically transform reality' — and it's getting dangerous
Sarah K. Burris
President Donald Trump's mental and emotional decline is now beginning to cause international incidents, and the world is noticing.
In the morning "Daily Blast" on Wednesday, The New Republic's Greg Sargent spoke with journalist Mark Jacob, who writes the "Stop the Presses" newsletter on Substack, about how the right wing has figured out how to exploit weaknesses in the media.
While many online turn to mock press secretary Katie Zacharia's first press briefing, Kimberly Guilfoyle's firing and the upcoming election, the two men dipped into the startling fake ceasefire that Trump announced over the weekend. It has now become clear that while Trump announced a ceasefire, there wasn't one.
"He’s just getting weirder. And he was weird to start with," said Jacob.
"I mean, he announced the other day that there was an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. And of course, unfortunately—you know, my job partly is to criticize the news media, and a lot of them came out with their 'Trump says' headlines, which they should know better than to do," Jacob explained.
Once reporters finally reached President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine, he made it clear that he hadn't heard anythinga bout it. The Russians currently weren't pausing their attacks on Ukraine.
"And then they asked Trump and said, hey, nobody seems to be following this ceasefire, why did you say you had an agreement? And he responded that he told them that they needed to come to an agreement, and that was enough," said Jacob. "So, he has these bizarre delusions of grandeur, where he thinks he can just kind of magically transform reality into what he thinks it should be."
Jacob said that all of this is being caused by Republicans who "set him up" to feel like he was the king of the world and could control anything with the power of his voice.
"His idea of making a deal was just this thought that everyone had a price. And it is gratifying to see that some people don’t have a price. And also just to see that the lies aren’t working anymore," Jacob added.
He warned that this will likely start a cycle of Trump becoming more dangerous.
"Trump’s weakening power is really good for America. But this is when authoritarians are dangerous," Jacob said. "When they see their powers ebbing and they don’t know why, and all these sycophants who were on their side suddenly disappear on them—this is when they’re really dangerous."
Just in the past five days, Trump has weaponized the Justice Department to go after former aide Cassidy Hutchinson and stage a raid on the D.C. home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) over conspiracy theories that invented crimes they can't prove and are long past the statute of limitations, even if they could charge them.
"They may take—and they’ve got ICE showing up near polling places. I mean, we have to really be vigilant about what’s going on here, and insist on a fair election, and not let them do all the crazy stuff they’ve been doing," Jacob continued to warn.
-=-=-
Trump's Social Security promise has a $169 billion problem: report
Frank Yemi
Trump is 'making America little at last' by abdicating global power: experts
Thomas Kika
Warning of a major rupture of the post-WWII global order, two experts who spoke to the New York Times in a new podcast said that President Donald Trump is "abdicating" the country's global influence "at a very, very difficult time," with one claiming that his MAGA promises have actually been "making America little at last."
On Wednesday morning, the Times released a new edition of its podcast, "The Opinions," hosted by Lydia Polgreen, which dug into the state of the post-WWII global order nearly two years into the second Trump administration, which has made unprecedented moves to pull the U.S. back from its spot as de facto world leader. As part of the discussion, she welcomed Rahmane Idrissa, "a political scientist and historian based at Leiden University in the Netherlands," and Kaiser Kuo, the Beijing-based host of a podcast focused on Chinese current affairs.
"The global order that’s been in place since World War II is falling apart, and no one knows exactly what will replace it," Polgreen said. "The United States has been stepping away from its role as a leader, while China has emerged, in many ways, as a peer power."
Providing context for the conversation about "the decline and fall of the American hegemony," Idrissa described a "hegemon" power as akin to the conductor of a symphony, but in this case, one acting to direct the entire global order. Later, she continued that metaphor to describe how the U.S. has retreated from that spot under Trump.
"But Trump has decided that the U.S. is no longer the conductor," Idrissa said. "The U.S. is now a player in the orchestra, a big-bully player. He came to power with this slogan, 'Make America Great Again.' But what he’s doing, basically, is making America little at last. Because the idea is now: We are going to make America a nation-state like others. It’s no longer this kind of top power, this hegemon who is hovering around the world. And since it has this very, very large amount of power, it can pretty much do what it wants. Which, of course, the adventure in Iran is revealing that not to be the case. But this is the route that he has taken."
Idrissa also noted that U.S. allies like Canada and Europe "really wanted the American hegemonic system to continue, because they drew lots of benefits from it — like the security guarantees of the Europeans, trade in the case of Canada." Now, their recent hostile reactions to some of Trump's new global economic and defense policies can be understood as "traumatized."
"[We] are in such a trap right now, I think, where the United States has abdicated its traditional role of provision of public goods, and it’s unclear that China is willing to do all of that. In some areas, it clearly is," Kuo added. "In development, in infrastructure lending, in provision of manufactured goods, in absorbing all the demand for commodities. There are a lot of things in which China has stepped up, but it’s clearly shown no appetite for much of the rest of it. Look at its relative absence of a role in the Iran crisis. It’s not going to step in. And the United States doesn’t want it to. The United States seems hellbent on preventing China from filling that role."
-=-=
Trump’s attacks threaten to backfire in new fight to oust Fed's Lisa Cook
Frank Yemi
Trump's bizarre overnight posting spree paints him as a lion playing with a tiger
Sarah K. Burris
Trump's inner circle is already turning on his new press secretary: report
Matthew Rozsa
'Got to be kidding': Angry MAGA host pounces on GOP's McConnell cover
Adam Lynch
Trump claims to 'not know' Guilfoyle — revealing a disturbing pattern
Matthew Rozsa
'Trump did all of it’: Former aide spills on unprecedented month of offenses
Matthew Rozsa
-=-=
NOTE PROJECTION
AN 10 26
Trump enjoys inciting a crowd with talk, whether or not it has any ground beneath it. Much, of it, say critics, has to do with insulting others. And Trump’s insults came hot and fast in San Antonio, Texas, at a rally with Senate candidate Ken Paxton and House candidate Carlos De La Cruz.
Paxton is running a close race against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in one of the highest-profile matches of the midterms. And Trump lit into Talarico and his fellow Democrats by calling them ‘Dirty.”
But not just dirty — filthy in every sense of the word.
No. 1. Dems Dirty Doorknobs.
“Texas has been the state people flee to escape the economic and social collapse of Democrat run California, New York, and other failing blue states, but if Talarico and the Democrats get their way, all of that squalor and misery, poverty, homelessness [will come to Texas],” Trump told the roaring crowd.
“When the blues get in everything becomes dirty,” said Trump. “The streets become dirty. The doorknobs going into stores are dirty. Sidewalks are filthy dirty. Everything becomes dirty and has a bad smell, but we're going to escape all that lawlessness corruption and dysfunction that's coming to destroy your beloved state of Texas.”
Trump added that “a vote for Talarico” will turn Texas into a “dirty, crime-riddled Third World dumping ground, and a vote for Ken Paxton is a vote to save Texas, defend Texas and defend everything that makes Texas great and makes America great. I want you to know the extreme danger of having someone like this Democrat in charge.”
No. 2. Trump still calls climate change a hoax, despite record heat in Texas.
Trump also saddled up his Texas horse declaring that climate change is still the hoax it was before the state of Texas suffered the record heat that’s been plaguing it multiple years Trump’s been in office.
“Within 12 years everything will be dead from global warming. Remember that?” said Trump, speaking of Democrats (and scientific) arguments. “Global climate change used to be ‘global warming,’ but now it’s climate change.”
Trump accused Democrats of wanting to “completely eliminate your oil and gas industry and kill millions and millions of Texas jobs.”
Dallas News reports, however, that Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport tied the record high for Aug. 22 when the temperature reached 105 degrees at 4:52 p.m. The temperature matched the record set in 1980 and 2010.
This month, the Dallas-Fort Worth region also remained under an elevated wildfire threat, as hot and dry conditions continue.
No. 3: A supporter goes there with Trump’s hair
Marie Vega, a legal immigrant from Mexico, shared her harrowing experience at the rally of two criminal illegal aliens attempting to ambush her and her family in a ploy to steal two four-wheel drive trucks. But before she launched into the story of the attacks, she first said Trump’s hairpiece was okay.
“I’m not very good at speaking,” said Vega, describing herself as retired and 65 years old. “[But] if I we're you I wouldn't worry about your thinning hair,” she said. “You're still handsome.”
No. 4: Trump claims Dems will ‘open the floodgates’ to immigrants if they win.
Critics say Trump likes to sell fear from the podium, and the president heaped up the dread of a brown America in San Antonio.
“If [Democrats] get in Congress — because we have a very close majority, we can't let that happen — but if they get in, they will open your borders and let the entire world pour into your country like they did before [under Biden]”
Survey researcher Ronald L. Hirsch says Trump has “failed to deliver on almost all the promises he made to his white working-class and rural base during the 2016 and 2024 election campaigns.”
“Prices are not lower, they are higher. He has not brought jobs back to the U.S. His tariffs have been a disaster for farmers. He has taken many actions that have helped the rich, but precious few that have benefited the average person,” Hirsch said in the Fulcrum.
But what Trump has done, said Hirsch, is target illegal immigrants and eliminated DEI programs. And many of Trump’s white voters cling to him for that reason. Trump’s core base of 37 percent is sticking with him no matter what, and since they’re not voting with their pocketbooks, Hirsch said they’re really voting for those other things.
No. 5: Trump clings to his $21 trillion “investment” baloney.
Trump’s is fixated on $21 trillion — the sum he claims to have pulled in for the U.S. economy through his policies and deal-making. He repeatedly invokes that $21 million ahead of the midterm elections as an unmatched achievement. It’s creeped up from $1.7 trillion a few weeks ago, and it made a return Wednesday night in Dallas.
Trump called the four years under Biden “the dark ages,” despite the Biden’s economy having lower inflation and fuel prices before Trump entered the White House a second time and oversaw inflation hikes that threaten to derail his party in November.
He also made sure to invoke the $21 trillion claim — despite his own website obliterating that boast.
NBC pointed out on Wednesday that the White House website carries page, entitled “The Trump Effect,” which tallies the U.S. and foreign investments “made possible by President Trump’s leadership.” And the total it claims is just $11.2 trillion.
Voter patience is wearing thin with Trump’s onerous war in Iran and the high fuel prices it causes. Nevertheless, Trump claimed if Democrats take back Congress it will kick off a new Great Depression.
“If Democrats get their way, you will have a 1929 style economic depression in our country,” Trump told the crowd. “That's what's going to happen — because nobody knows numbers better than me.”
He repeated his earlier bribe, however, that if Republicans keep Congress they will “put $5,000 in your pocket and bring economic success for the country like no other country has ever seen before.”
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump team blames lost email for ignoring court halt in mind-boggling stunt
-=-=
an 10 26 lie gaslt immigr crime bs?
Trump caught 'juicing the stats' to fake tough-on-crime claims
-=-=
ILHAN OMAR RAID ACTUALLY HSi
Ex-prosecutor shreds Trump's new 'raid' as blatantly timed 'political stunt'
-=-=
AN 10 26
Clandestine Kremlin meetings just sent tremors through CIA headquarters
-=-=
GUK 10 26
Trump administration
Ilhan Omar says she will not be silenced after federal agents raid her home
Trump and key allies have accused Omar of immigration fraud, and have called to expel her from the country
Matt Shuham
Mon 12 Oct 2026
Federal agents searched Representative Ilhan Omar’s home on Monday morning as part of a criminal investigation, according to the Department of Justice and reports in the Associated Press and Fox News.
In a social media post later on Monday, Omar criticized the raid as an attempt by the Trump administration “to target political enemies and weaponize law enforcement” and said she would “not be silenced”.
A video posted by Fox showed what appeared to be law enforcement in HSI jackets at what Fox News said was Omar’s Washington DC residence.
“Today in the Washington DC area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice. This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” a DoJ spokesperson said.
It was unclear what the nature of the warrant was. Omar’s office did not respond to a request for comment, and the White House and Department of Homeland Security referred comment to DoJ. Citing two unnamed sources “close to the investigation”, Fox News reported that the search was related to a criminal fraud investigation concerning Omar’s immigration paperwork, which her late father filled out when she was a child.
View image in fullscreen
HSI agents outside the residence of Representative Ilhan Omar in Washington DC on Monday. Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/Reuters
Donald Trump and key allies have accused Omar of fraud related to her family’s immigration history, fantasizing openly about denaturalizing her and expelling her from the country.
The congresswoman has consistently denied the accusations, though Trump has repeatedly made them national news with gratuitous attacks against Omar, who along with Representative Rashida Tlaib became the United States’s first Muslim congresswoman in 2019.
But even amid a presidency known for political and legal retribution against his critics, the search of Omar’s DC home just three weeks before a crucial midterm election day will surely lead to new accusations that Trump was using the government for his own political ends.
Administration officials, and the president himself, have long hinted at a federal investigation into Omar. “Let’s see what happens,” Trump said at a rally on Saturday after attacking Omar by name, adding that Vice-President JD Vance “and our people are looking at it very strongly”.
It was just the latest in months of talk about investigating Omar. Trump in December accused her of having “married her brother” and said she “should be thrown the hell out of our country”, a reference to a years-old but unsubstantiated claim that Omar sought to help her ex-husband – who they allege is really her brother – obtain immigration papers via a sham marriage.
Days later, his “border czar” Tom Homan said: “We’re pulling the records now,” referring to Omar, and said a fraud investigator in Homeland Security Investigations, the ICE division that historically has been tasked with investigative work, would look into the matter.
View image in fullscreen
Homeland security officers carry boxes from the Washington residence of Ilhan Omar as yellow cordon tape can be seen in the distance. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
In March , Vance told rightwing media personality Benny Johnson: “We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud” and that he had recently spoken to top Trump aide Stephen Miller about “what the remedies are”. Homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin told Johnson last month that there was an ongoing investigation and “something’s going to happen”.
“We know that she married her brother to try to bring him into the United States,” Mullin said. “We know he lives now in London. We feel that there may be more to this, the whole family migration, and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with. But all of us, we’re investigating.”
Soon after, Homan said he could not “comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.
“We’ll let HSI, Homeland Security Investigations continue to do their investigation,” he added.
Omar’s social media post after the raid on Monday said: “I’m OK. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”
The congresswoman also said Trump had spent years targeting her “with baseless lies and smear campaigns”.
“This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”
Omar has for years denied unsubstantiated rumors from Trump and others about herself and her family, including the accusation that her ex-husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, is in fact her brother, and that the marriage was part of an effort to earn him immigration status. Marriage fraud is a felony, though it has a five-year statute of limitations. Omar and Elmi formally divorced in 2017 after separating in a religious divorce years earlier.
View image in fullscreen
Officers during an investigation at the residence of Ilhan Omar on Monday. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
The New York Post last month also quoted an unnamed “top immigration official” who said “the Trump administration could initiate a denaturalization process” against Omar if there is sufficient evidence that she or her father lied on immigration applications. The story noted accusations that Omar was older than her recorded age of 17 when she was naturalized, which could be relevant because she received citizenship via her parents. The report also raised questions about Omar’s father, who reportedly claimed to be an educator, though his obituary later described a military career.
As the most prominent Somali-American in the United States, Omar has faced years of racist attacks from the president and his supporters.
At his rally Saturday, Trump said of Somalia: “All they have is crime and squalor” and suggested that “our” US constitution did not belong to Omar. Two days earlier, he had written that Minnesota “is being taken over by Somali Immigrants”, even though the vast majority of Somali-Americans in the state are US citizens.
“The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing,” Trump wrote, urging supporters in the state to “fight back!”
Somali-Americans, especially, have borne relentless insult from the White House in Trump’s second term. In December, the president referred to them as “garbage” who “come from hell, and they complain, and do nothing but bitch”.
“Let them go back to where they came from and fix it,” he added.
-=-=
AN 10 26 The toxic link between Trump's corruption and your paycheck
Missing $50 million tracks straight to Mar-a-Lago
Trump-era mortgage shock blasts home sales back to plague years
Warning: A cornered Trump is ready to unleash more havoc
Trump's ultimate 'October Surprise' —and the calculated pattern behind it
-=-=
ALSO HURRIC FLOOD SOCAL?
Officials scramble to appease Trump while hurricane threatens Alabama
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump suffers legal humiliation in new Kennedy Center debacle
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump's major ceasefire boast backfires almost immediately
President Donald Trump's former Chief of Staff Mick Mulveney was ready on Monday with a list of excuses to explain away the fact that Trump fabricates the existence of inter-global ceasefires — even when raging wars are still clearly destroying global supply chains.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of striking a Ukrainian power plant just hours after Trump claimed Russia and Ukraine had agreed to pause attacks on each other’s power infrastructure.
The Times Radio podcast host Darryl Morris invited Mulvaney to explain the phenomenon of purported ceasefires that don’t actually exist in a show posted Monday.
“What’s going on, Mick? Help me understand this,” said Morris.
“This is Donald Trump trying to visualize his way to success,” insisted Mulvaney. “This is what Donald Trump does. It’s the power of positive thinking. If he says there’s a deal enough, he feels this will self-manifest itself.”
“So, the president is self-manifesting?” demanded Morris, looking doubtful.
“Yeah. He does this a lot,” insisted Mulvaney. “He sells optimism. He sells enthusiasm. He sells momentum, and if he thinks he has a deal, he thinks one of the ways to seal that is to say ‘he has a deal.’ He’s done this from the very beginning. How many times have we heard him say he thinks the war will be over in a day?”
Morris responded that it’s one thing “if you're 13 and you want to get a puppy, and you go around saying you've got a puppy and then manifest it.”
“That's relatively low stakes and fairly harmless,” said Morris. “But he is the president of the United States of America. He can't just make up stuff, can he?”
“Well, he’s not making stuff up,” countered Mulveney.
“Well, he appears to have made up the existence of a ceasefire, hasn’t he?” said Morris.
“But if there was the kernel of a ceasefire, this is him trying to get it over the last sort of over the Finish Line,” argued Mulveney. “I've had this conversation when I was in the White House many, many times, and he would always look at me and say, ‘Look, Mick, this always works for me.’
“Do you think that's wise?” demanded Morris.
“I don't get to make that call,” said Mulvaney. “… because I'm not the president
“But is it a wise way of running the most powerful office in the world?” Morris pressed.
“Look, we used to talk about the tax bill in 2017 when nobody thought he could get that done and he got it done. People didn't think he had a snowball's chance to get reelected, including me, by the way. I thought it would lose early in the Republican primaries but he said he was going to win. He said he was going to win, and it worked out for him so many times in his life, both in his business career and politics.”
From there, Morris veered into the dangerous waters of Trump’s comparable denial over upcoming midterm devastation as Democrats are poised to wipe Republicans off the maps. Trump’s fabricated ceasefire, Morris suggested, is the result of a “rattled” president needing “to do something so desperately that he will announce a ceasefire that doesn't exist.”
This, Mulvaney scoffed, suggests that Trump cares nothing about the midterms.
“Donald Trump actually said about 6 or 8 weeks ago that he didn't care about the midterms,” said Mulvaney. “I think he's just decided that his life doesn't change that much if the Democrats take the House or the Senate, and he's unwilling to change anything in the war because of the midterms.”
-=-=
AN 10 26
President Donald Trump is desperate for all-encompassing media attention, while simultaneously punishing the mainstream press for its negative coverage, a mix which, according to a new piece for The i Paper, is starting to blow up in his face.
In his latest column for the outlet on Sunday, veteran D.C. correspondent Simon Marks argued that "There is nothing Donald Trump enjoys more than firing fresh salvos in his battle against the mainstream media." Within the last few days, he added, Trump "has lit the touchpaper in his most aggressive effort yet to demolish" the traditions around how press outlets are permitted to cover the president, with this "pliant" Justice Department launching a probe into the five major news networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox News, for supposedly violating antitrust laws when they suspended press pool coverage. That move came in solidarity with three other outlets Trump banned from the White House over their negative coverage of his presidency.
As a result of that boycott by the typical press pool, Chinese President Xi Jinping's "lavish state visit to Washington received little in the way of trailing US television crews, forcing even Trump-friendly right-wing media to scramble to find usable footage." Trump also suffered an embarrassing coverage snafu when the opening ceremony for the White House helipad he commissioned was broadcast without sound, due to the lack of press pool equipment.
"It’s likely the probe into the networks’ possible breach of federal law will take time to advance," Marks explained. "They will challenge even the requirement for them to submit documents to the investigation, arguing that their communications are covered by free-speech protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution."
He continued: "This creates a problem for the most media-hungry President the U.S. has ever had. Trump craves two things simultaneously: full coverage of his own attention-grabbing activities each day, but also the power to control the language and images used to describe his increasingly unpredictable administration."
White House officials, he added, are known to have scrambled in response to the press pool boycott, making "a series of urgent calls to lower-level broadcasters, in an effort to try to persuade them to join a new-look TV pool, with plans to include several outlets seen as loyal to Trump’s MAGA vision." At least one far-right network, Real America’s Voice TV, volunteered to share footage as part of that proposed initiative, but Marks argued that it was still "a far cry from the resources and expertise that the major networks have at their daily disposal."
"Trump wants publicity to be on him around the clock. But he also aches to punish the major broadcasters when they paint him in an unfavourable light, and to terminate the key role they play in disseminating unvarnished coverage of daily events," Marks concluded. "A fresh confrontation was inevitable, and Trump has now unleashed his Department of Justice Rottweilers in a seeming effort to spark one."
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump has reportedly been in a “foul mood” as his once massive rallies are dwindling and Republicans in tough races distance themselves from his toxic poll numbers.
The Washington Post reported Monday that an insider with knowledge of the president’s behavior said his mood has declined, contradicting an adviser who said he has been enjoying the travels and believes the campaign is going well.
The conflicting accounts on his mental state come as he faces smaller venues during his campaign and the massive rallies he once held appear to be a thing of the past. GOP strategists are tasked with figuring out how a historically unpopular president can help GOP candidates in tough districts without hurting their odds at the midterms.
Trump still has his devoted fans. The report cites Blake Marnell, who is a devoted rally-goer who drives up to 14 hours to make it to his rallies. One MAGA devotee was stunned at how empty one of the rallies was compared to the past, telling WaPO, “I’m surprised we’re still pretty empty right now.”
Mark Mitchell, an independent pollster who previously supported Trump, questioned the logic of his campaign because he is the “most unpopular president.” Mitchell also predicted this will be the last time he will be able to campaign in “full force.”
Trump's advisers believe his rallies can energize loyal supporters and boost Republicans' odds of winning. However, his campaign stops have been in safely red districts rather than competitive seats.
In more competitive areas, some conservatives have begged Trump not to visit. In New York, where gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman is trailing behind by double digits in many polls, a conservative radio host Bob Lonsberry publicly urged Trump to skip the Empire State.
"Stay away, Mr. President," Lonsberry wrote, adding: “The last thing Bruce Blakeman needs is a visit from you.”
The political stakes are very high. Of those who said they were extremely motivated to vote, Democrats led Republicans 59% to 35%, according to a Pew Research Center survey quoted by the Post.
Trump's team hopes the rallies will help close that enthusiasm gap by engaging occasional voters and collecting their contact details to send election reminders later.
But the President's influence is a conundrum for the Republican candidates. In the conservative heartlands, he can draw in the loyalists. In the more competitive districts, he may well turn off the voters that the GOP candidates need.
For Trump, the rallies are all about the crowds and the fun of it. For Republicans facing November, the question is whether those crowds will translate into votes.
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump's desperation for revenge and attention backfiring with new tantrum
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump's 'cringeworthy' YMCA dance linked to Epstein by family insider
-=-=
AN 10 26
Fox News reveals Trump crisis caused wave of bankruptcies
'Food or rent': Families face agonizing choices as health coverage vanishes
-=-=
3 ART SAME DAY
President Donald Trump responds to his latest Nobel Peace Prize snub by amplifying an attack that accuses the Norwegian Nobel Committee of disgracing itself by selecting South African human rights lawyer Navi Pillay.
Shortly after Pillay was announced as the 2026 winner for her contributions to international law, Trump reposted a message from his former attorney David Schoen, who had represented him during his second impeachment trial.
"Today the Nobel Committee shamed itself beyond repair and demeaned the once great Nobel Peace Prize by giving it to the UN's Navi Pillay," Schoen wrote.
Schoen called Pillay "an unabashed hater of America and Israel" and accused her of celebrating terrorists and rewarding Hamas, without providing evidence for those allegations.
He also attacked a United Nations commission Pillay chaired, which concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel has rejected that finding.
"She has no credibility in any normal sphere and has never done a thing to foster peace," Schoen wrote. "Just the opposite."
The attorney then claimed that Trump should have been awarded the prize, giving as reasons his Abraham Accords, his efforts to secure the release of the hostages, and his attempts to end Russia's war in Ukraine.
"President Trump gave us the Abraham Accords, which the world said would be impossible and is now expanding them!" Schoen wrote.
"He brought home the hostages when all seemed hopeless!" he added.
Schoen concluded that Trump's achievements were "the kinds of things the Nobel Peace Prize was intended to recognize and reward[!]"
The attack followed Trump's repeated pleading for his own nomination, arguing that his diplomatic record made him uniquely worthy.
Less than two days before the announcement, Trump said to reporters at the White House that no one in the history of the prize had deserved it more, adding his false claim that he had settled eight wars.
Pillay, who is 85 years old, had earlier held the position of United Nations high commissioner for human rights and that of a judge at both the International Criminal Court and the tribunal which investigated the Rwandan genocide.
The Nobel Committee lauded her many years of work in the promotion of international justice, especially her efforts to secure accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Pillay also seemed to make a joke about Trump's attempt to obtain the honor while celebrating her win with her colleagues in Germany.
"If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump," she joked.
The award will officially be presented in Oslo on December 10th.
AN 10 26
President Donald Trump's disappointment at not winning the Nobel Peace Prize was followed by a major move against the International Court, where this year's winner once served as a judge, with the timing suggesting retaliation.
On Friday, the Trump administration announced it was imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), aiming to weaken its operations by limiting financial transactions and possibly cutting off access to essential services.
The announcement followed the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a South African jurist who was a former judge of the ICC and who has been recognized for her work in promoting international law.
The close timing doesn't prove the sanctions were imposed in response to the Nobel Prize decision. As The New York Times reported, the administration had been planning the measures for months.
Marco Rubio, who is the Secretary of State, made it clear that Washington intended to severely limit the court's activities. Rubio stated, "Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC."
The administration had earlier sanctioned individual judges and prosecutors. On Friday, however, it went much further by targeting the institution itself and could thus force banks, insurers and technology companies to sever ties with the court.
The Nobel Committee's decision gave the growing confrontation a rather unusual turn.
The Nobel winner, now 85, served on the ICC's Appeals Chamber from 2003 to 2008 and earlier led the United Nations' human rights office. She also led a U.N. commission that investigated the conflict in Gaza.
On Truth Social, Trump endorsed his former lawyers' criticism of her record.
When announcing her award, the Nobel Committee specifically pointed out the threats international judicial institutions face.
"The judges – those who guard the thin red line between order and chaos – are therefore highly deserving of our praise," the committee said.
The ICC swiftly denounced the sanctions imposed by Washington, accusing the administration of attempting to obstruct international justice. The court president, Tomoko Akane, said the institution would keep operating on its own even in the face of the restrictions.
The clash comes after Trump has on several occasions stated that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Earlier this week, he said no one in the award's history deserved it more, based on his claim that he had settled eight wars.
The sanctions imposed on Friday also showed Washington's long-standing objections to the International Criminal Court conducting investigations that involve American military personnel and to the issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The court, headquartered in the Netherlands, has 125 member states, including several American allies.
To avoid possible sanctions, its officials have already replaced Microsoft software and arranged alternative financial services.
-=-=
RWW MISC
10/07/2026
byKyle Mantyla
Glenn Thrush @ The New York Times: Justice Dept. Turns to Partisans and Conspiracists to Fill Depleted Ranks
The civil rights unit has recruited people whose questionable work histories and dearth of education and experience might have disqualified them in the past, former officials said.
Malcolm Ferguson @ The New Republic: Trump Declares He Can Do “Very Bad Things” to His Enemies if He Wants
“I can do whatever I want, if I want,” Trump said as he named potential targets.
Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: White House rejects calls for reimbursements on publicly funded campaign ads
Democrats called Team Trump’s gambit the “theft of public resources,” which comes with the expectations that the money must be paid back.
Patrick Svitek @ CNN: ‘We can’t eat road salt’: Jackson rips Sen. Collins in first Maine Senate debate
Collins boasted that she has been the “most outspoken opponent of tariffs with Canada,” noting she has won exemptions for products such as road salt. Jackson suggested that was of little relevance to families who cannot afford groceries right now. “We can’t eat road salt,” Jackson said.
Matt Cohen @ Democracy Docket: Election deniers Cleta Mitchell and Tina Peters want Trump’s commerce secretary to seize voting machines
With Election Day less than a month away, anti-voting lawyer Cleta Mitchell and convicted election denier Tina Peters are pushing a scheme to have Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick seize voting machines, as part of a broader effort for the Trump administration to interfere with the midterm vote.
Media Matters: MAGA “prophet” Julie Green says JD Vance is “the great white wolf” who is “there to stop our president from doing the will of Almighty God”
Green: “Every time I see him, I see a wolf. I cannot unsee it. ... To me, he's still evil.”
-=-=
Trump makes stunning Nobel claim after boasting he saved the world
AN 10 26
Trump issues new threat on Social Security — after promising not to touch it
-=-=
AN 10 26
On Thursday, a new report revealed that President Donald Trump may be preparing a “blame Canada” approach to coping with Republican midterm losses. According to the Canadian outlet the National Post, Trump is expected to “lash out,” and there are already signs that he is teeing up the United States’ northern neighbor as his target.
“Last week, Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro told Canadian lobbyists to ‘get the hell out of our country’ and warned that ‘if you interfere in our elections in Maine and Michigan, you will pay even more dearly,’” writes the Post. “Navarro’s approach? Blame Canada! We heard a similar accusation last year from Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, who equated Canada’s anti-tariff advertising in the U.S. to electoral meddling and warned of consequences.” With actions like this in mind, wonders the Post, “could Canada become a scapegoat for Republican losses?”
“It’s certainly the case that the administration will probably latch onto any sort of external cause to blame bad election results,” said Alfredo Carrillo Obregon, a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington. He explained that while he doesn’t think it would be Trump’s “primary explanation... it’s not off the table that someone like Peter Navarro could go onto whatever news outlet he gets interviewed at these days and say that Canada is at fault.”
According to Christopher Sands, director of the Center for Canadian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Trump and his allies may try to cast hostility toward Canada through a partisan lens. “If Democrats do well but are nonetheless seen as the enemy, and Canada is associated with just one party,” he said, “then it becomes harder to have conversations with Republicans who you’ll need unless the Republicans are completely wiped out. That may be part of what the Trump administration’s hoping — to push Canada into a partisan alliance that it can then condemn Mark Carney with all the Democrats that they don’t like.”
Richard Stern, vice president of the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom, told the Post that Trump and the Republicans have been incentivized to shift blame onto Canada for their own policy failures. The U.S. administration has been frantic to paint the tariffs as a foreign policy tool that foreigners pay for when they are really “an offensive, aggressive tax that’s been levied on the American people,” he said, noting that politicians running for reelection “don’t want to tell voters, ‘I’ve done something terrible to you.’ They want to point the finger overseas and at other people.”
But according to Christopher Hernandez-Roy, acting director and senior fellow at the Americas Program of CSIS in Washington, efforts to blame Canada are unlikely to land with the broader American public. “I think President Trump lashing out in the face of a loss is … almost a certainty,” he said. “They can … try to blame Canada, but … I don’t see how that’s really gonna get much traction.” Stephen Nagy, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, predicts that whatever he targets, “I suspect Trump will do what he always does based on Roy Cohn’s rules of winning, taught to a young Donald Trump: center on relentless aggression, total denial and never admitting defeat.”
-=-=
Trump may be ready to throw his son's ex-wife under the bus
AN 10 26
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump's NSPM-7 could now label you as a terrorist
-=-=
AN 10 26
President Donald Trump attempted to distance himself from two of his long-time political advisers, who cashed in by working for a Russia-aligned government got instant pushback.
After The New York Times reported that James Blair and Chris LaCivita had gone to Republika Srpska, a Serb-majority area in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to advise its government before the elections there, Trump reacted on Truth Social. The report states that the two men were each paid hundreds of thousands of dollars through a Washington-based law firm that had been hired by the government.
“Chris LaCivita and James Blair are outside consultants,” Trump wrote. “They do not work for me, other than as outside consultants.”
CNN anchor Dana Bash mentioned the post a minute later, calling it "pretty wild" and mentioning that Blair and LaCivita are two of Trump's "closest political advisers" and that the former "is literally running MAGA Inc"
While discussing Trump's effort to describe them as outside consultants, CNN White House reporter Alayna Treene gave a more detailed account of the president’s relationship with them, calling the president's denial "astonishing" due to their high profile within his close circle.
“They do work for the president, and they are very close,” Treene said. “They are very much considered part of his inner circle, very close with Susie Wiles.”
Treene said LaCivita and Wiles, the chief of staff to the White House, ran Trump's 2024 campaign together and that Blair was closely connected to both of them.
“And James Blair really is in charge of the president’s entire political operation, even though it’s being run on the outside of the White House,” she said.
Blair was political director of Trump's 2024 campaign and later became a deputy chief of staff in the White House. LaCivita was also one of the campaign managers for Trump in 2024, and both of them are still taking part in the Trump-associated political operation as the November midterms approach.
Treene described Trump’s threat as significant due to his close ties to both advisors, and she linked the president’s move to midterm anxiety.
“That is a huge deal for people who have been loyal to him from the beginning and comes. Of course, this comes less than 30 days away from the midterm elections. A lot of alarm bells, of course, going off across the country for republicans in some of these very vulnerable districts and these tight races.”
She also gave one possible reason why the president took public steps about the report, namely that Trump has in the past disliked his aides earning money in ways that could involve his name; she also pointed out the huge conflict of interest.
His current denial is now drawing focus to the relationship which he had aimed to limit, but CNN reports the pair are still firmly within his political circle, which could lead to some political blowback.
-=-=
RWW MISC
10/06/2026
byKyle Mantyla
Hafiz Rashid @ The New Republic: Trump Suggests Letting Iran “Take Out” Los Angeles and San Diego
California leaders are furious after the president suggested that losing the two cities is a “small price to pay.”
Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Jim Bakker, the godfather of scamvangelism, is dead at 86
The convicted fraudster spent decades exploiting Christians with bogus promises, survival buckets, partisan paranoia, and a fake COVID cure.
Alejandra Jaramillo @ CNN: Trump says he will pay for campaign-style ads himself after backlash over taxpayer-funded effort
President Donald Trump said Monday he will no longer use taxpayer money to fund a series of promotional television ads, announcing that he will instead pay for them with funds raised for MAGA, Inc., the pro-Trump super PAC.
Frank Yemi @ AlterNet: Trump meets with convicted election fraudster to discuss ‘the plans'
President Donald Trump met in the Oval Office with former Colorado election clerk Tina Peters, who is a convicted election fraudster, to discuss election integrity and “the plans” for the midterm elections, according to former Justice Department official Ed Martin.
Zach Buchanan @ Axios: Sheriff's office outsourced investigations to Cyber Ninjas-tied firm
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) failed to properly vet a firm with ties to the Cyber Ninjas audit of the 2020 election before awarding it an investigative contract, per a newly-unsealed report from the court-appointed monitor overseeing the agency.
Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Trump says some journalists ‘should be arrested,’ escalating attack on free press
If the president wants to lie about crowd sizes, that’s pitiful. But when he talks about arresting reporters without cause, don’t look away.
Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: A Small Montana Town Tells Ben Shapiro to F*ck Off
The Daily Wire wanted a backdrop to film an Antifa siege. The filmmakers got a revolt over their own behavior.
-=-=
-=-=
MMA
Trump keeps demanding criminal punishment for reporting he dislikes — including about his crowd sizes
After 13 treason accusations and a demand for an investigation of pollsters, a new low in his war on the press
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 10/06/26
President Donald Trump keeps demanding that journalists face arrest and prosecution for reporting that displeases him, and his purported standards for criminal sanctions are developing in bizarre ways over the course of his second term.
His war on the free press hit a new low on Monday when the president declared that unnamed persons at The New York Times “should be arrested” for reporting there were “empty seats” at his rally in Ohio, when instead, he claimed, the arena was “full to the brim.”
It feels crazy to need to write this, but journalists should not be arrested because the president doesn’t like the way they report on the sizes of his crowds. Trump’s declaration that they should demonstrates yet again his abhorrence of the First Amendment and the basic principles of free speech on which this country was founded.
And Trump’s statement mixes absurdity with its menace — not least because the Times report he cited actually described the president’s appearance in Alabama on Friday, not the event in Ohio on Saturday.
The slipshod authoritarianism of Trump’s Times attack
The New York Times published an article about Trump’s October 2 campaign rally in Mobile under the headline “In Alabama, Trump Relives His Glory Days (This Time With Some Empty Seats).” The report by Times White House correspondent Shawn McCreesh termed Mobile “the birthplace of the MAGA rally,” and contrasted the turnout Trump received at an August 2015 event early in his first presidential run to the lackluster crowd that came to see him that night.
“These days, Mr. Trump is in political trouble, even with members of his famously loyal base,” McCreesh reported. “The indoor arena that he spoke at on Friday was a fraction of the size of the football stadium he once spoke in — security concerns are such that he rarely speaks in outdoor venues anymore — and still the place was not full. Some upper sections were almost completely empty.”
The article featured a photo showing empty seats as Trump addressed the crowd on Friday.
The president lashed out at the Times on Monday, quoting from and denouncing McCreesh’s article — and calling for arrests — while misrepresenting or mixing up which rally that article had detailed.
“The Ohio Arena was already full to the brim — And yet these people were still trying to get in,” Trump claimed in a Truth Social post. “The New York Times said, ‘There were empty seats’ when, in fact, there were none, and thousands of people had to be turned away. The New York Times, and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested for their dishonesty and disservice to our Country.”
“The Fake News New York Times ‘reported’ on my Great, PACKED Rally in Ohio that, ‘the place was not full. Some upper sections were almost completely empty,’” Trump wrote falsely in a second post. “In actuality, thousands of people were unable to get in. The Arena was totally MAXED OUT, including all upper sections.”
The president’s posts featured video and photos from in and outside the Ohio rally in an effort to disprove the Times report, which was about the Alabama rally. Notably, the Times article on the event in Ohio — authored by the Times’ Katie Rogers, who wrote she had been “covering Trump rallies, on and off, for almost a decade” — reported “several areas of an upper deck were empty by the time Mr. Trump finished speaking at a 4,500-capacity high school student activity center” and “attendees close to the stage were seated in neat rows” rather than the “old norm of standing room only.”
Trump positions what he claims are inaccurate statements about his rallies as part of a media conspiracy against the GOP. “My Rally crowds and enthusiasm are unbelievable!” he wrote on Tuesday. “Nobody has ever seen anything like it. We are flipping races all over the place. The Fake News knows it, but they don’t want to be truthful with their viewers. It’s all happening!”
Trump keeps demanding criminal punishment for reporting he dislikes
Trump and his administration have spent his second term engaged in a systematic assault on the free press, one that includes unhinged vitriol directed at journalists; lawsuits directed at news outlets that produce critical reporting; regulatory efforts to punish critical outlets and reward friendly media owners; cutting federal funding to some public media outlets and reducing the editorial independence of others, attempts to curtail the access of outlets that produce unfavorable reporting; and the use of the law enforcement apparatus against reporters.
Over the last two years, journalists have faced federal searches and seizures, investigations, and even arrest and prosecution over their reporting. Trump himself has routinely called for journalists to face such criminal punishment when they produce reporting he doesn’t like.
In April 2025, for instance, Trump called for an investigation into pollsters and the media outlets that employ them after surveys from the Times and Washington Post/ABC showed his actions were unpopular, alleging the outlets had been “looking for a negative result.”
“These people should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD, and add in the FoxNews Pollster while you’re at it,” he wrote. “They are Negative Criminals who apologize to their subscribers and readers after I WIN ELECTIONS BIG, much bigger than their polls showed I would win, loose a lot of credibility, and then go on cheating and lying for the next cycle, only worse.”
Trump has also accused news outlets and journalists of treasonous or nearly treasonous action at least 13 times since December, with the frequency and vehemence of such declarations increasing over time.
He has specifically described as “treasonous” outlets including the Times that reported the Iran war has left Iran in a strengthened position; unnamed “SCUM” reporting that the war reduced U.S. munitions stockpiles to a critical level; and The Washington Post for reporting that he is displeased with the performance of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
-=-=
AN 10 26
CNN analyst unloads damning graph showing futility of Trump’s diesel scheme
-=-=
AN 1026
President Donald Trump said construction had already begun on a $15 billion steel plant in Iowa, which he called the largest in U.S. history; however, local records tell a different story.
On September 28, Trump announced the Mesabi Metallics project from the Oval Office together with officials from Iowa and company executives. The White House described it as "the largest steel plant ever built in the United States", and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters that there was no doubt regarding the project.
“This deal is done,” Lutnick said. “They’ve already worked it out.”
Trump went further, adding that “They’ve already started building."
However, an investigation by Iowa television station KWQC found no major property acquisitions connected with the project in Lee County this year. The county authorities also stated that no permits had been submitted to the supervisors and that they had not obtained detailed plans from the company.
The plant that has been proposed will create approximately 1,750 permanent jobs together with thousands of temporary construction jobs, Mesabi Metallics has stated, and production is expected to start in 2030. There are still a number of steps to go through before construction can start.
Only a few days after Trump made his announcement, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds summoned the lawmakers back for a special session with the aim of extending the tax incentives offered to Mesabi. The Legislature eventually passed legislation that provided more than $1.3 billion in public funds and tax savings over a ten-year period.
That made it difficult for Lutnick to stick to his belief that the deal was already completed.
Debi Durham, who is the director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority, said that the special session would not have been necessary if Mesabi had agreed to construct the plant under Iowa's present incentive scheme.
Some members of the Republican Party also objected to the price.
“Do I believe the Iowa taxpayer received the best deal in this proposition? Absolutely not,” Republican state Sen. Dan Dawson said.
The full application from Mesabi still has to be approved by the Iowa Economic Development Authority before the state enters into a contract, and the chairwoman of the Lee County Board of Supervisors also stated that the company had not yet committed to a project site.
Mesabi said it “looks forward to breaking ground in the near future.”
The company's history has introduced yet another complication. CBS News reported that both Mesabi and Essar have already failed to meet their deadlines and have not fulfilled the job plans they had announced. Although Essar announced in 2008 a $1.6 billion iron mine and steel mill in Minnesota, which was intended to produce more than 700 permanent jobs, the steel mill was never constructed.
As late as July, job advertisements for the Mesabi company listed the proposed steel plant in Kentucky.
At this time, even though Trump had stated that construction had already started, the project in Iowa still does not have a final site and must obtain further approvals from the state before building can begin.
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump jokes about Iran destroying Los Angeles and San Diego
Trump puts US in rare company with Russia and Belarus before midterms
-=-=
RWW MISC
10/05/2026
byKyle Mantyla
Nikki McCann Ramírez @ Rolling Stone: Ken Paxton Makes Excuses for Floundering Campaign in New Leaked Audio
The Republican Senate candidate complained that he doesn’t “have the ability to change anything,” within his campaign.
Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: White House takes radical new steps to wrest the power of the purse from Congress
As one observer put it, Team Trump’s efforts to control federal spending “subvert the basic structure of the American system.”
Annabella Rosciglione @ The Daily Beast: White House Defends New Hire Who Wore Vulgar Biden Shirt
The White House called its latest hire, who wore a shirt reading “F--K JOE BIDEN,” a “trusted voice for the MAGA movement.”
The Trump White House is standing by its latest hire, who wore a “F--K JOE BIDEN” T-shirt for a holiday picture.
Beni Rae Harmony, Trump’s new 24-year-old assistant White House press secretary, posed for a Christmas picture in 2020 wearing the vulgar shirt and holding a rifle.
The picture was posted on Instagram in November 2021 by a far-right Republican House candidate, Jarome Bell, who ran an unsuccessful congressional campaign in 2022.
“My campaign Public Affairs Director @beniraeharmony is a beast. This is how we roll,” he posted.
The new White House press aide liked the post that tagged her.Instagram
Harmony liked the picture, and her LinkedIn profile shows she worked on a Virginia-based congressional campaign at the time.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on Harmony’s vile shirt, but did not receive a direct response. The White House only offered a recycled statement from deputy press secretary Anna Kelly praising Harmony, calling her “a trusted voice for the MAGA movement” during her previous role.
“She will be an outstanding addition to President Trump’s communications team as an Assistant Press Secretary—we look forward to having her on board!” Kelly said.
New White House Assistant Press Secretary Beni Rae Harmony.Instgram/Beni Rae Harmony
Before working for the campaign, Harmony also interned for far-right Republicans such as Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar and the scandal-ridden former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz.
While working for Gosar, who was a prominent figure involved in Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement, she recorded a strange defense of him after he was censured by the House for posting a crazed video that showed him killing Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Joe Biden.
Harmony offered a passionate defense of her boss's crazed video.@RepPaulGosar/YouTube
She joined the White House press team amid a staff exodus, which worsened when former press secretary Karoline Leavitt resigned in August.
Harmony had worked as a White House correspondent for the right-wing network Real America’s Voice before her gig in the Trump White House.
The website is known for playing Steve Bannon’s weekday show and The Charlie Kirk Show. Its parent company, Performance One Media, is also owned by a rather unsavory character, Robert Sigg.
Beni Rae Harmony (head tilted, next to camera lens) in the Oval Office.Instgram/Beni Rae Harmony
Sigg has gotten in trouble with the law for domestic violence, burglary, drug distribution, driving under the influence, and assault, charges that were later dropped. He also has a record of white-collar crime, pleading guilty to one count of bank fraud stemming from his role in a $19 million mortgage-fraud scheme in 2006.
In 2013, his son, Austin, was sentenced to life in prison at age 17 in 2013 for kidnapping and murdering 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway.
Harmony had joined Real America’s Voice after leaving a local news station in Springfield, Illinois. She claimed she was suspended from that role after sharing an unprompted on-air tribute to right-wing activist Charlie Kirk after he was killed last year.
Annabella Rosciglione
Reporter
-=-==
Qasim Rashid @ Let's Address This: The Truth About “Shariah Law?”
As the right wing media and political ecosystem spread fear and disinformation—here’s your easy to digest breakdown of the actual facts about Islamic Shariah.
Hafiz Rashid @ The New Republic: Kristi Noem Has Some Explaining to Do
The former DHS secretary appears to have gotten a sweetheart deal for one of her biggest donors on her way out the door.
Amanda Chu @ Politico: RFK Jr.’s movement is in disarray
Tony Lyons, the leading organizer of the Make America Healthy Again movement, promised to raise $100 million to support Republicans this year. He’s nowhere close.
Ahmad Austin Jr. @ Mediaite: JD Vance Makes Bonkers Claim That Taxpayer-Funded Ads Urging Americans to ‘Love’ Trump ‘Are Not Partisan’
Vice President JD Vance insisted Monday that the taxpayer-funded ads praising the Trump administration actually weren’t partisan.
-=-=
AN 10 26
Top Utah Republican blasts Trump's 'despicable' DOJ
Trump may have destroyed America's beef industry: report
-=-=
an 10 26
Revealed: Officials didn't know Trump raided their budgets to fund his ads
-=-=
RWW 10 26
Jeff Stein @ The Washington Sun: Want Dinner With the President? Buy His Meme Coin.
The $Trump meme coin is offering buyers a new “exclusive” opportunity to meet the president.
-=-=
MMA
Angelo Carusone tells MS NOW's On The Line with Alicia Menendez: Where there used to be a Fox-Trump feedback loop, Trump is now “building his own feedback loop of really intense loyalists and AI slop”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 10/01/26
Video
Citation
From the October 1, 2026, edition of MS NOW's On The Line with Alicia Menendez
ALICIA MENENDEZ (HOST): This is the danger, Angelo. Right? It's not just that he doesn't believe the polling and that he's going to a bunch of red states. It is about the fact that he is inoculating himself from the pain that Americans are feeling, even the pain his own supporters are feeling and articulating to someone like Jason. What is the danger, the substantive danger, not the political danger to Republicans, but the danger to us all of a president who lives in a different reality?
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS): So, we have two more years of him being president. So, you know, I think there's this idea, this to many people, I know my friends and others feel relief. Oh, it's just November. That's the finish line. No. That's not the finish line. That's just the halfway mark. We have two more years.
And why that matters is your question. Because one of the things that he's done is not just insulate himself and sort of, you know, avoid all this stuff, but create this sort of cycle that Ruth Ben-Ghiat describes as autocratic backfire, which is that you actually lean in and intensify all of the most destructive impulses, not just to the politics, and that's the smallest ball, but to all of the larger policy issues. And you — there's nothing to stop you or even to dissuade you or disconnect you from that.
And we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that when he is not using AI to manufacture a visual or video reality for himself, he's surrounding himself— these campaign things, I think of them more like a production schedule than a campaign rally, because what he's basically doing is creating content that he's then going to post on Truth Social and on socials and possibly in these ads and distribute and reinforce the narrative that he's telling himself. And who is with him on this? Not just his own people, but Steve Bannon's production team is following him around for behind the scenes stuff and clipping.
So, he is really creating that own — what used to be the Fox News feedback loop. At least there was some filter. Now he's just building his own feedback loop of really intense loyalists and AI slop, which is going to intensify the autocratic backfire that we're all going to have to suffer over the next two years.
-=-=
AN 10 26
Politico reports a federal judge on Thursday ruled that President Donald Trump doesn’t have the power to fire court-appointed U.S. attorneys, rejecting a core tenet of the Trump administration’s approach to top prosecutorial jobs.
“The president cannot unilaterally fire a United States attorney appointed by the district court,” U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian said in a ruling from the bench. Bastian added that doing so “would upend the framework created by the Constitution and the statutes, which together balance the president’s right to appoint and the Senate’s right to confirm.”
Politico reports that the ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Roger Rogoff, whom Trump allegedly fired from the job of U.S. attorney for the Seattle-area Western District of Washington immediately after the district’s federal judges appointed him to the role a few months ago.
The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to circumvent the Senate confirmation process to appoint loyalists in top positions, said Politico, particularly in instances when district judges have exercised their authority to select someone else as the U.S. attorney whom Trump has fired.
Bastian, an Obama appointee, argued that Rogoff is a U.S. attorney and has legally occupied that role since he took the oath of office July 15. In his ruling, Bastian also stripped Trump appointee Charles Neil Floyd of his power after Trump temporarily installed him in Rogoff’s place, determining that the administration had “improperly granted” authority to Floyd.
What may prove more vexing to Trump is that the judge additionally took steps to thwart any attempts by Trump to undermine the judge’s authority or transfer it to someone else.
Politico reports Bastian ordered that the executive office of the president, Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Justice Department are all barred from “any purported firing” or removal of Rogoff from his post, interference with his service in the role and from treating anyone other than Rogoff as the U.S. attorney.
The Seattle Times reports the district’s 17 sitting federal judges appointed Rogoff after Trump failed to formally nominate his own pick for U.S. attorney. Trump instead appointed Floyd as interim last year and later used a workaround to keep him in the spot as “first assistant” U.S. attorney.
Other judges have taken a similar path, with one judge ruling that Lindsey Halligan, Trump's handpicked interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was also unlawfully serving. That decision complicated cases Halligan’s office had been pursuing.
-=-
AN 10 26
By now, we all probably have seen ciips from of these three Donald Trump television campaign ads “paid for by the U.S. government.”
And while we’ve seen some bipartisan criticism for Trump blatantly violating federal campaign law, what we haven’t seen is anyone acting to stop him.
Indeed, Trump insists that the ads – at least one of which is mostly video imagery from his own 2024 presidential campaign, thundering against “warmongers” and “communists” – are a benign prod to Americans to vote in the Nov. 3 congressional elections.
Using public tax dollars for a campaign commercial is flatly illegal. Moreover, doing so intentionally is government propaganda, the preferred tool of authoritarian regimes that know they can act with impunity. And apparently, they are just getting started, with $2.5 million worth so far, but plans to spend up to $100 million.
But obviously, a Justice Department remade to protect Trump and aggressively prosecute his political foes is not going to bring charges against the White House or even request a legal injunction to stop them. Where are the state attorneys general to demand that courts pull the ads as illegal interference? For that matter, why do the networks allow the sale of commercial time to what clearly are illegal campaign ads?
Why is the Senate passing a bill about straightening a messy system about paying college athletes but ignoring a blatant campaign violation that even Republicans like Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana say is outrageous.
Backed by a largely compliant Supreme Court, Trump has cracked the code on doing whatever he wants in the name of the presidency – despite the tradition that campaigns have been regarded as beyond government behavior. We have Attorney General Todd Blanche and Defense/War Secretary Pete Hegseth openly campaigning – with Hegseth broadly suggesting to military troops to vote Republican – in violation of separate Hatch Act prohibitions.
Apparent Target: Voter Turnout
The Trump push — however late, however desperate – to get Republicans to pretend that he is on the ballot and vote anew for Republican candidates who will not question his presidency is aimed at voter turnout, of course. Turnout is pivotal, even in elections where manipulation seems part of the accepted game.
Apparently, the thinking is that incessant talk of “blue wave” outcomes based on polling that has systematically shown Trump’s backing to be falling and “generic” support for Democratic opponents rising will prove overconfident miscalculation if huge numbers of Trump supporters show up on Election Day.
It is true that national polls don’t accurately predict local elections, particularly in a period of voter anger over high prices and concerns about the war with Iran, tariffs, international isolation, the excesses of the Trump mass deportation policies, and the runaway “corruption” and self-adulation projects from Trump.
Still, it does not answer why, If Trump is sitting on hundreds of millions in Republican contributions, he insists on using millions of our tax money for these ads to promote himself?
The plain fact is that polling is the best tool available to collect people’s transient political ideas, but is no gauge of how many people will turn out to vote – particularly in states where Trump-friendly election officials are closing selective voting precincts and the White House is engaging in wild schemes to limit who can vote, how they can vote and when. Democrats and defending lawyers are working overtime to block each new voter limitation. Poll results are best used as a comparative snapshot rather than a scientific image of the current state of play.
More importantly, serious students of voter behavior, including the influential Cook Political Report, see plenty of evidence in sufficient numbers of local elections that match the national unhappiness with Team Trump. Together with an enthused Democratic voter base and an angered Independents’ reaction, Trump may have reason to rally his would-be supporters.
Trump’s latest ploy – using our tax money to promote himself – seems ludicrously desperate. He wants his base, his backers to “pretend” he is on the ballot, but then defends the use of taxpayer money to pay for them by his absence on the ballot. It’s a reminder to watch what politicians do rather than what they say.
The very presence of these illegal taxpayer-paid ads should be raising questions about the anti-democratic principles driving Trump’s presidency.
Terry H. Schwadron retired as a senior editor at The New York Times, Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times and leadership jobs at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team part of several Pulitzers in New York.
-=-=
10 26
President Donald Trump spoke with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House Thursday ahead of one of his trips to campaign in a red state. Among the comments he made was high praise for Fox News' Peter Doocy.
A reporter asked, "What are you looking for in a new press secretary?"
"We have a lot of people that want that job. I would say many of them are right here," Trump replied. "Would you like that job? Maybe a guy like Peter. But he's making too much money. He's gone. I lost him as soon as he negotiated his last contract."
Trump praised Doocy at one point, saying that he respects the Fox correspondent and that he has “always been very nice to me."
A dust-up in March 2026 stands out as one of the moments that drew anger from the president when Doocy asked Trump if Russia was helping Iran target U.S. forces. It has now been revealed that Russia has been helping Iran in its war with the U.S.
At the time, however, Trump called it a “stupid question,” though he repeated that he respected Doocy.
Trump also mocked Doocy at the White House Correspondents' Dinner for being "tongue-tied."
“They call me [the most transparent president in history]. You know who calls me that? Karoline. That’s about it. Would anybody else call me that? I think Peter would call me that. Am I the most transparent? [Former President Joe] Biden never used to answer your questions. He’d ask Biden 20 questions; he’d never get an answer. Who’s the most transparent president, Peter?”
Doocy didn't answer, so Trump commented, “Look at him, it’s the first time he’s tongue-tied. I cannot believe it. Oh, he’s not going to be happy tomorrow.”
Former press secretary Karoline Leavitt left the White House after returning from maternity leave. She said she would like to spend more time with her young children.
For months, CNN pundit Scott Jennings has been campaigning for the gig, and it has been reported by Politico's "Playbook" that Trump was asking allies whether they thought Jennings would be a good fit. Since that report, however, the president hasn't pulled the trigger on a hire.
When asked about it more specifically, Trump said he had a "mountain" of people to consider. MAGA world doesn't want Jennings, the New York Post reported.
-=-=
PURDUE AMBASS SELL WEAPONS TO CHINA?
-=-=
AN 10 26
Trump’s new plan to put his name on DC landmark hits brick wall in court
-=-=
rww misc
09/30/2026
byKyle Mantyla
Hunter Walker @ Talking Points Memo: New Evidence Shows Just How Badly One Republican Senator Beclowned Himself in the Jack Smith Hearing
TPM has found fairly definitive evidence proving Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) misread text messages when he attempted to corner former special counsel Jack Smith during a congressional hearing on Tuesday.
Lisa Mascaro and Ali Swenson @ The Associated Press: Homeland Security taps $20M in taxpayer funds for pro-Trump ads
The Department of Homeland Security has tapped $20 million to pay for the campaign-style ads glorifying President Donald Trump that have drawn widespread criticism from Republicans and Democrats as a blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars that likely runs afoul of anti-propaganda law.
Theodore Schleifer @ The New York Times: G.O.P. Nominee in Texas Privately Said Trump’s Convention Hurt Him
Ken Paxton, one of the party’s top Senate candidates and a Trump loyalist, said that “everybody’s numbers dropped” after the event, according to audio obtained by The Times.
Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: Trump Reprograms Government AI Chatbot to Stop Fact-Checking His Lies
Trump officials seem to have realized their AI chatbot was correcting the president’s biggest lies.
Federica Cocco and Naema Ahmed @ The Washington Post: The Kennedy Center was solvent when Trump took over. Then its finances collapsed.
The Post examined 15 years of the institution’s financial records to see why it went south after the president took over.
Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Patel boasts about success rate on FBI’s Most Wanted list, but there’s a catch
The more the FBI director talks about the bureau’s recent track record, the more allegations arise that he’s padding the statistics.
Matt Gertz @ Media Matters: Fox News is running its midterms migrant caravan playbook again
President Donald Trump’s extreme unpopularity has the Republican Party seemingly on course for a midterm elections drubbing — which means it’s once again time for Fox News to try to scare its viewers to the polls with frantic coverage of a “caravan” of migrants in Central America headed toward the U.S.-Mexico border.
-=-=
AN 9 26 BOASBERG
Trump sweating as court appears likely to pave the way for criminal charges
-=-=
mma
9 26
The Justice Department sought last week to justify President Donald Trump’s decision to ban three news outlets from the White House by arguing that their reporters had jeopardized national security. But Trump’s own statements show what he actually wants from the press: servile propaganda that parrots what he and his political allies say about his administration.
“‘The United States has the BEST Employment Numbers in HISTORY,’” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform in the 7 a.m. hour Monday morning. Trump attributed the quote to “FoxNews,” then added: “The Fake News Media REFUSES to report this rather significant development, however!!!”
The president, who regularly posts in near-real time about Fox segments that strike his interest, was actually quoting a Fox Business chyron, which attributed the statement to Trump himself during a segment that aired roughly 30 minutes before the post. He went on to tout the “fantastic” performance of Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts during the segment, whose “topic” he said “was Fake Polls and how well the Republicans are going to do in the upcoming Midterms.” (Roberts, echoing Trump, called midterm election polling a “psyop” intended “to depress conservative turnout.”)
In reality, U.S. population growth ensures that every president can boast that more people are employed than ever before (as long as they avoid a recession) and hiring numbers are slack, while Trump’s own policies have triggered higher interest rates and inflation, and Fox’s own poll shows cataclysmic numbers for the president and his party.
Monday’s posts — while a perfect encapsulation of this phenomenon — were just the latest indications that Trump’s press ban has nothing to do with the administration’s stated pretext.
The White House press bans aren’t about ethics in journalism
Trump has feuded with the press for a decade, and in his second term has casually accused outlets of treason while surrounding himself with appointees eager to use state power to punish them. After the president’s September 18 announcement that he had banned CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from the White House due to “their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS,” DOJ tried to argue in court filings last Tuesday that the barred outlets had been stripped of access because they had been “trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues, and publishing sensitive or classified information.”
But the president’s own statements about the press since those filings reveal that his actual concerns have nothing to do with national security or the publication of classified information — he’s mad that news outlets are reporting things he thinks make him look bad and not covering things that make him look good.
On Thursday, for example, Trump griped that CNN and MSNOW had not covered “one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years,” the lavish welcome ceremony he threw at the White House for “the Highly Respected President of China, Xi Jinping, and his beautiful wife, Madam Peng.” The president added: “The event was magnificent — Actually made for Television but, because they’re Fake News, and because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to ‘TRUMP,’ they refused to be there.”
On Saturday, Trump claimed that “Another Fake Story is that a very close friend of mine, a man I endorsed very early, Byron Donalds, is taking me off his website and Campaign materials.” He lashed out at USA Today, which broke the story on September 22 that Donalds’ campaign website had been revamped to deprioritize his relationship with Trump, and a string of other outlets for following up on it, saying, “This was a Fake Story, with no sources, and the only justification for it is they want to stop my ever upward momentum.”
Trump went on to link the story to his press ban, saying, “Fake News Media been doing this for years, I call them out, but they should really be called out by the Courts, and should not be allowed to enter the White House premises, or Press Room, because they are CORRUPT and DISHONEST!” But the story that the Donalds campaign had changed its website to remove references to Trump is true, and Donalds himself has acknowledged as much.
Later on Saturday, the president again lashed out at the “Fake News,” this time for allegedly not reporting about “our incredible results” with regard to the economy.
“If anyone else were President, this would be all the Media would talk about,” he said. “But because no one ever wants to give me credit, no one is talking about these Historic Numbers.”
“The FAKE NEWS and DUMOCRATS hate these reports, and these Record Setting Numbers,” he added. “They hate the TRUTH, and they hate the Great Success that our Country is having. Just look at the Numbers — THE BEST IN HISTORY.”
Comments like these expose the impossible task news outlets would face in trying to appease the president. Trump’s complaints are, at bottom, not actually about the disclosure of classified information, or the use of anonymous sources, or any other question of media ethics that could be plausibly applied in an even-handed fashion.
His actual concern is quite straightforward:
The president does not support free speech that is critical of him or his administration, he wants every outlet to mimic the treatment he receives from his most zealous supporters at Fox, and he has no regard for the First Amendment’s protections for journalists who violate that standard. Any attempt to reckon with his administration’s treatment of reporters that does not reckon with those facts is doomed.
Donald Trump is the greatest threat to our free speech rights
09/24/25 12:02 PM EDT
You can’t celebrate the First Amendment with Donald Trump
03/03/26 11:48 AM EST
Checking in on Trump’s war on the press since his White House Correspondents’ dinner speech
08/25/2
-=-=
-=-=
AN 9 26
The Trump White House 'sycophancy Olympics' and their bizarre 'living diet'
Trump torn apart for 'incredibly illegal' and 'shameless' new ad
PAID FOR BY US GOVT"
-=-=
see recission
9 26 1b$ clawback dei AI bs
-=-=
-=-=
AN 9 26
Food fight: 'Colossal' parasite outbreak is colliding with Trump’s promises
-=-=
RWW MISC
09/24/2026
byKyle Mantyla
Ewan Palmer @ The Daily Beast: Trump’s Insane ‘Love Me’ Ad Comes With Shocking Disclaimer
The ad was aired during primetime on Fox News. PAID BY GOVT
Oliver Darcy @ Status: The Source Behind The Ban
The anonymous source behind one of the stories the White House cited to justify banning POLITICO was none other than Vice President JD Vance.
Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: Bumbling MAGA Media Tries to Launch Their Own White House Pool
With the real networks boycotting, the pro-Trump channels have stepped up—and screwed up.
Neil Mehta, Brian Whitton and Sabrina Rodriguez @ The Wall Street Journal: MAGA Podcasters Are Tuning Out Trump. We Tracked What They Are Talking About Now.
The Wall Street Journal analyzed nearly 70,000 hours of podcasts, using a new AI tool, to find out why conservative creators appear to be losing interest in the president.
Lee Moran @ HuffPost: Conservative Host Says Private GOP Midterm Warning Is So Bad He Almost Kept It Secret
“I slept on whether to share this publicly, because I don’t want to cause anyone to black pill,” said Steve Deace.
Charisma Madarang @ Rolling Stone: GOP Senator Ahead of Midterms: Furry Airline Pilots Are ‘Terrifying’
During his speech at the U.S. Capitol, Sen. Tommy Tuberville attacked transgender people and spread misinformation.
New York Times: ‘They Picked the Wrong Candidate’: 12 Texas Swing Voters on the Paxton-Talarico Race
If Texas does turn blue, this group’s heated and highly negative stance on Mr. Talarico’s opponent — Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, who survived an impeachment effort in the Texas legislature last year over corruption allegations, which he denied — would likely provide a window into that victory.
Alec MacGillis @ ProPublica: How the Smithsonian Became the Latest Front in Trump’s Culture War
Trump tried to fire one Smithsonian official and, after finding “ideological capture,” plans to install anti-woke warning signs outside the history museum.
-=-=
an 9 26
On Friday, a leading national security analyst warned that President Donald Trump’s recent behavior suggests his intention to commit “nuclear genocide.” This is according to former State Department and House Armed Services Committee advisor Joe Cirincione, who argues that as Trump becomes increasingly desperate to break his stalemate with Iran, his willingness to use nuclear weapons has grown.
“For the first time in history, a U.S. leader unambiguously threatened genocide at the United Nations,” writes Cirincione. “It was not a euphemism. When he addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 22, President Donald Trump was absolutely clear that he was threatening to kill every man, woman and child in Iran. All 92 million of them. ‘Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly?’ he asked, posturing as an absolute monarch with the power to destroy a nation on a whim. ‘Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?’”
According to Cirincione, who is one of the world’s leading figures in the anti-nuclear proliferation movement, “The only way to do this ‘quickly’ is by using nuclear weapons. There is simply no other way to kill that many people. Horrifyingly, Trump actually has the ability to do this. As president, he has the sole, unfettered ability to launch nuclear weapons whenever he wants, for whatever reason he wants. In the archaic system established by past presidents during the Cold War, Trump can pick up the phone, issue an order and in five minutes missiles would be flying.” As Cirincione notes, Trump has made this threat before, posting in April, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” And now, with the unpopular war dragging on and hammering the economy, Trump is even more desperate to break the impasse.
“This would be nuclear genocide,” Tara Drozdenko, director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists said about Trump’s latest threats. “Though it may be tempting to write this off as just another bombastic speech, the public must read President Trump’s words, and consider their true meaning and the real human impacts of nuclear war,” she added.
As Cirincione notes, the UN Charter explicitly requires that member states “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Now Trump is “openly, casually, insanely threatening genocide,” which is “in itself, a war crime.” While “many may think that Trump’s threats are empty,” writes Cirincione, “we can’t be sure. He is stuck in a repeating pattern with Iran” and “has blundered into a war for which he has no strategy. He cannot win the war — in fact, it’s clear to most observers that he has lost his war with Iran — but he cannot retreat. Simply walking away would be a huge political humiliation for him. The one thing his father drummed into him all those years ago was: Never be a loser. Or even appear to be a loser. So he’s stuck. And so are we. Trump is still president, still has his finger on the nuclear button, still delivers a daily stream of threats, lies and hallucinations.”
While the American public and even some Republicans have made it clear they don’t support the war, as Trump and the GOP’s polling numbers plunge into “political death sentence” territory, the president is only becoming more frantic for what he considers a win. “With Trump, there is no ambiguity,” asserts Cirincione. “When he threatens genocide, he means it.” Cirincione predicts that “the next few weeks before the elections will likely see an escalation of insane threats, as Trump tries desperately to salvage his sinking political fortunes.” Some may hope that he’s bluffing or that major midterm losses can stop him, “but with Trump,” concludes Cirincione, “nothing is certain. His megalomania, his insatiable lust for power and wealth, his increasingly obvious instability and delusions of imperial grandeur threaten not just the future of this war, or of the United States, but of the entire global order. We cannot ignore the madness Trump increasingly displays.”
-=-=
mbs asked mil aid houti?
an 9 26
Phone call between Trump and billionaire monarchs ends in embarrassment
-=-=
an 9 26
Harrison Ford blasts Trump: 'Among the worst criminals in history'
-=-=
Trump is humiliated in 25th consecutive court case defeat
AN 9 26 VOTER ROLLS
-=-=
elimiNationalist? // fasc?
mma no hilight see traitor
President Trump keeps casually accusing news outlets of treason
He’s accused journalists of almost or actually committing treason at least 13 times since last year
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 09/23/26
President Donald Trump, in a Truth Social post published shortly before midnight on Tuesday, declared reporters at news outlets that produce reporting critical of his administration as “treasonous.”
Trump, in his rambling and confused message, expressed dismay that CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and other unnamed “SLEAZEBAGS” had been present to cover his Tuesday appearance at the United Nations General Assembly after he banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House on Friday. He added of Collins: “She’s got a ‘TRUMP’ addiction, and so does CNN and MSDNC [MSNOW]. They’re all sick, treasonous, and demented!”
The post marked at least the third time this month, and the ninth time since March, that Trump had accused news outlets of “treasonous” reporting, according to a Media Matters review of his statements on social media and transcripts of his public events compiled by Roll Call’s Factba.se. The president also said news outlets had nearly or almost committed treason on four additional occasions during his second term, though since May he has transitioned to making outright accusations.
Treason is “the only crime expressly defined by the Constitution,” which limits such charges to “levying war” against the United States or “in adhering to [its] enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” and the Supreme Court has narrowly interpreted that definition. Trump has nonetheless declared that a slew of figures — from Democratic congressional leaders like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to leakers within his administration to critics of AI to members of the group that filed suit to block his construction of a White House ballroom — have committed treason by defying his will.
But his frequent claims that news outlets are committing treason by publishing reports he doesn’t like are particularly worrisome and fit into a larger war on the press in which his administration has used state power to punish journalists for their work. The Justice Department, for example, argued in a Tuesday night court filing that the president’s banning of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House is justified because the outlets’ reporting on stories related to the Iran war and the ballroom “have threatened national security.”
In December, Trump responded to reporting on his apparent physical decline by calling it “seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.’” That was the first example we found of the president linking reporting with treason since his return to the White House.
But Trump’s treason accusations really picked up after the war he launched against Iran on February 28 began to falter. Since then, Trump has accused CNN, MS NOW, ABC, NBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times of treason, singling out CNN’s Collins and Times reporter David Sanger in particular. He has specifically described it as “treasonous” to report that the Iran war has left Iran in a strengthened position, that it has reduced U.S. munitions stockpiles to a critical level, and that he is displeased with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The best case scenario is that the president of the United States is an addled old man who is impotently lashing out at his critics as his administration collapses around him. Possible alternative explanations — that Trump is encouraging his pliant Justice Department appointees to actually file charges against reporters, or his followers to take matters into their own hands — are more sinister.
Here’s a list of examples of the president’s treason rhetoric.
September 22, 2026: CNN, MS NOW are “sick, treasonous, and demented!” [Truth Social]
September 3, 2026: “For the treasonous SCUM that refuses to accurately report on our Military Operation in Iran…” [Truth Social]
....
-=-=
AN 9 26
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) cast a tie-breaking vote that will allow President Donald Trump's war with Iran to continue.
The House has left Washington, but the Senate has remained throughout the week, and in a vote on Thursday afternoon, Democrats pushed for a count on House Concurrent Resolution 89, War Powers Resolution (Iran).
CSPAN showed the votes as they ticked by, standing still at 49-49. It was unclear who may have been out of town or unable to vote. If it was a tie, it would have put Vice President JD Vance in the difficult position to support a war he disagrees with or vote against Trump.
Semafor reporter Burgess Everett was watching, recording which lawmakers voted for and against.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Thom Tillis (N.C.) voted with Democrats.
Fetterman jumped in, he said, casting his vote with the Republicans.
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), who was on Capitol Hill for an earlier vote, did not cast one for this count, Punchbowl confirmed. She was the only senator listed as not voting on the resolution.
Fetterman's larger concern is not with the Iran war specifically. His stated position is that Congress should not limit Trump’s ability to continue the military operation in Iran while U.S. forces are pursuing its objectives.
He told Fox News' Sean Hannity in April: “We have to stand [with] our military to allow them to accomplish the goals of Epic Fury.”
H.Con.Res. 89 was introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) would direct the president to remove U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress passes a declaration of war or specific authorization for force. It expressly preserves the ability to defend the United States, U.S. forces, diplomatic facilities, and allies from an imminent attack, as well as defensive troop deployments and intelligence activities.
Alsobrooks has strongly stood in opposition to the Iran war, repeatedly voting for all Senate war-powers resolutions that would require U.S. forces to leave hostilities with Iran absent specific congressional authorization. Had she been there, she would have sent the bill into a 50-50 split, requiring Vance to cast the tie-breaker.
As news spread across social media, Fetterman was blasted for his vote.
"Thank you for proving our point that he just wants power just like Fetterman. You’re a sucker," said one person.
Republican Eric Daugherty sang Fetterman's praises, "Thankfully, despite being a Democrat, Fetterman knows being an IRGC apologist is NOT good for America! Now stop wasting time on these useless votes that don't actually accomplish anything even if they pass. PUT SAVE AMERICA ACT ON THE FLOOR!"
-=-=
AN ATL MO 9 26 EMERGENCY MART LAW
On Wednesday, new reporting revealed that many in President Donald Trump's orbit believe he will declare "martial law" to seize control of the midterms. This is according to the Atlantic, which spoke with several people close to Trump who asserted he is likely to claim a "national security emergency" to justify efforts to "seize control of the federal elections."
For example, attorney Peter Ticktin -- who went to school with Trump when they were teenagers, helped Trump sue Hillary Clinton, and pushed the president to pardon convicted election equipment tamperer Tina Peters — said there are three possible outcomes in November. As the Atlantic writes, he asserts that, "The first — a smooth election — won’t happen in his view because, he claims without evidence, Democrats already cheated in the primaries. The second is that Trump takes action before the election to prevent cheating. The last option is that Trump tries to declare martial law on or around November 3." Or in Ticktin's words, "Either martial law, or step aside." When the Atlantic raised the possibility of riots if Trump were to overturn the election results, Ticken said he was not concerned, asserting, "Believe me, our armed forces are a lot bigger than they are."
Trump has not been shy about signaling his intention to meddle in the midterms. As the Atlantic explains, "In August, when the television and radio host Wayne Allyn Root pushed Trump to declare a 'national-security emergency' to require proof of citizenship, voter ID, and other measures, Trump played coy: 'Let me just say that stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that.' Later that month, Trump posted a Root column on the topic, with a headline that described the plan as 'foolproof.' Peters announced after meeting with Trump in June that the president 'basically said to his lead counsel to do what I was asking.' In a prime-time address at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump again repeated the false claim that he had won the 2020 election, and sarcastically encouraged his supporters to 'cheat like hell' in the upcoming elections."
And MAGA literally applauds such plans. Speaking at a recent conference for election deniers, Root described a "nightmare scenario" in which Democrats won, flipped Congress, then impeached the president. He received a standing ovation after assuring attendees that, according to research done by a friend, the election would be upended if Trump were to declare a national-security emergency."
Trump is so adamant about these efforts that, according to the Atlantic, "Trump’s White House and Cabinet advisers have been working for months to move Trump’s focus away from baseless theories of election fraud peddled by people like Ticktin, Root and Peters ... But the prospect of Trump deciding to act on the demands of his most fervent election-denying supporters has remained a constant threat, one that even Trump’s inner circle admits remains possible."
-=-==
AN 9 26
Retired general accuses Trump of committing a war crime
-=-=
AN 9 26
Republican demands answers after Trump taps Secret Service funds for ballroom
-=-=
PRESS SUPPR AN 9 26
President Donald Trump recently banned three media outlets that he claims were unfairly critical of him — Politico, CNN and MS NOW — from covering him at the White House. Now it has been revealed that he openly admitted that he did so based on their viewpoints, in violation of the First Amendment.
"After MS NOW, CNN and Politico sued the Trump administration on Monday over the president banning their reporters from White House grounds, Trump’s communications team sent congressional Republicans talking points Monday night in defense of the president’s decision," reported MS NOW's Mychael Schnell on Tuesday. "According to the document obtained by MS NOW, the White House wants Republicans to argue that “no president has been more transparent or offered more of his time to the press” and that the First Amendment does not grant reporters access to the White House."
The talking points claimed that the reporters are not protected by the First Amendment to engage in "fabricating facts or reporting verifiable falsehoods from inside the White House complex is an intentional breach of professional decorum and it is severely disruptive to the mission and purpose of the White House.”
The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Despite claiming he has the legal authority to ban those media outlets, early signs from the courts suggest otherwise.
"A federal appeals court ruling Tuesday on demonstrators’ access to the steps of the Capitol could bode poorly for President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban three media organizations from the White House," Politico's Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein reported on Tuesday. "The majority opinion, written by Trump appointee Neomi Rao, concluded that the East Steps of the Capitol are a 'nonpublic forum' — just like most areas of the White House grounds, including the press facilities."
Politico continued, "While the government may impose restrictions on access to those nonpublic areas, the limits must be 'viewpoint neutral,' apply 'objective, workable standards' and not permit officials to exercise 'unbridled discretion over a forum’s use,' the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel concluded."
One of those networks may soon regain Trump's favor. After Trump's billionaire ally David Ellison officially purchased Warner Bros., which owns CNN, media watchdogs expressed alarm that Ellison would gut CNN of journalists who are critical of Trump and replace them with pro-Trump alternatives, much as Ellison did when he took over CBS News.
Trump himself has admitted that he wants Ellison to capture CNN for this reason, despite often denying his involvement in helping them take it over. Trump told CNN's Jake Tapper in July that "we're trying to have CNN go on a normal path." Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has similarly commented that he wants CNN to be taken over by the Ellisons so that the Trump administration will receive more flattering press coverage.
-=-=
AN 9 26
Conservative National Review tears up Trump for tanking US 'reputation'
-=-=
RWW
09/22/2026
byKyle Mantyla
Chad de Guzman @ Time: White House Launches ‘Trump TV’ Amid Feud With Press
As major networks boycotted pool coverage of the President over his ban on multiple news outlets, the White House promoted a new 24/7 video feed focusing on Trump and his achievements.
Phil Williams @ Confront The Hate: As CNN, MS NOW, Politico Booted, White Nationalist Outlet Snags White House Press Slot
The White House moves to silence critical reporting—while handing access to a fringe outlet with explicit white nationalist ties.
William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Molly Redden and Kirsten Berg @ ProPublica: The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way
In 2024, the FBI sought to launch a sweeping pay-to-play investigation examining interactions between Sen. Susan Collins and a top donor, records and emails show.
Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Trump’s “Top 250 Victories for People of Faith” collapse under scrutiny
The White House padded its list with exaggerations, repeated claims, and policies benefiting conservative Christians at everyone else’s expense
Stephanie Kirchgaessner @ The Guardian: Brendan Carr was a member of a rogue Alcoholics Anonymous group some labeled a ‘cult’
Carr was a member of the group in his teens and 20s. There is no evidence Trump’s powerful FCC chair participated in any inappropriate conduct
Malcolm Ferguson @ The New Republic: MAGA Festival With Kid Rock Canceled After No One Wanted to Go
The “Freedom Fest” is no longer happening after dismal ticket sales.
Sarah Ewall-Wice @ The Daily Beast: Top MAGA Ally Delivers Jaw-Dropping Snub to Trump in Home State
The president’s pick for governor in Florida is giving himself a clean slate.
Top Donald Trump ally Byron Donalds has revamped his campaign website to scrub any clues of his support for the president from the homepage.
The ultra-MAGA congressman who is running for governor in Trump’s adopted home state of Florida once had “Trump-endorsed” prominently displayed multiple times at the top of his website.
However, the new version of the Republican candidate’s campaign page doesn’t mention the president at all. There are also noticeably fewer photos of Donalds with the increasingly unpopular president.
Trump backed Donalds for governor early last year, but the Florida congressman is just the latest in a series of GOP candidates to wipe mentions of Trump from their websites.
...
Matt Lavietes @ NBC: ‘Looksmaxxing’ influencer Clavicular charged with rape of teen girl
A Florida teenager accused Clavicular, whose real name is Braden Peters, of raping her in his family’s Massachusetts home in May 2025.
William Kristol, Andrew Egger, and Jim Swift @ The Bulwark: Trump’s Quadrangle of Doom
The good news is that the Triangle of Doom is now fraying, perhaps even coming apart, because reality has (finally) pierced the cycle.
-=-=
rww misc
09/18/2026
byKyle Mantyla
Erik De La Garza @ Raw Story: Trump expels CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House in fit of rage — with more to come
President Donald Trump announced Friday that he is barring three major news organizations from the White House, effective immediately.
Paige Winfield Cunningham @ The Washington Sun: RFK Jr. Headlines Anti-Vaccine Group’s Conference, Discusses Chemtrails
The health secretary told Children’s Health Defense that it has a “strong and steadfast friend at the White House” in President Donald Trump.
Phil Williams @ Confront The Hate: Don’t Have the Right Blood? You’re Not a Real American, Far-Right Influencer Argues
C.Jay Engel helped popularize the term “Heritage American.” Now, he’s pushing the discredited theory of “blood memory.”
The Throckmorton Initiative: Tim Barton Promotes Information His Own Organization Says Is False
Quote attributed to Madison refuses to die.
Tom Joscelyn @ Civil Defense: How the Heritage Foundation Promotes Christian Nationalist Schooling
Tracing Heritage and Kevin Roberts’s ties to a growing network of classical Christian schools—and the policies steering public money their way.
Sean Kitchen @ The Keystone: Right-wing operative brags that this Big Tech billionaire controls Pa. Republicans
A political operative funded by Jeffrey Yass bragged about the influence the Big Tech billionaire has over the Pa. Republican Party.
Kathryn Wilkens @ Mediaite: Ted Cruz Credits Trump’s ‘Instinctual Genius’ for Calling Him ‘Lyin’ Ted’
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) praised President Donald Trump’s “instinctual genius” for branding him “Lyin’ Ted” during their bitter 2016 Republican presidential primary battle.
Hunter Walker @ Talking Points Memo: Trump’s ‘Willie Horton’ Moment Featured a Story White Nationalists Are Obsessed With
President Donald Trump painted a terrifying picture during his rally in North Carolina on Wednesday night. Standing on stage at Gastonia Municipal Airport, Trump offered a dramatic retelling of a brutal murder that took place in the state last August. Iryna Zarutska’s death made headlines around the country, but the killing that Trump weaved into the Republican Party’s midterm pitch has also emerged as a persistent fixation and rallying cry for racist extremists on the far right.
-=-=
-=-=
RWW 9 26 -->
David Gilbert @ Wired: Hundreds of Election Deniers Will Be on the Ballot This November
197 election deniers are running for Congress or statewide office in 43 states. Many of them are seeking roles that would put them in charge of voting for the 2028 presidential election.
Hafiz Rashid @ The New Republic: Trump Tells North Carolina Hurricane Relief Depends on Midterm Outcome
Donald Trump threatened to withhold FEMA funds unless his chosen candidate wins.
5K BRIBE CHECK
-=-=-
-=-=
~ COMMIE 148X
MCCLAIN DALLAS CONF
:00:00 GOP's Anti-Communist Convention Backfires on Trump 00:00:55 Bessent Warns of Socialism, Trump Announces $5,000 Checks 00:03:29 Trump's Unconstitutional Plan to Fund Checks With Tariffs 00:07:16 Trump's Old "Greatest Communist" Clips Resurface 00:08:42 Ted Cruz Slams Socialism as Trump Seizes Intel Stake 00:10:35 Trump's China Envy and 2020 Election
1:38
1 minute, 38 seconds
convention, Scott Bessant, the Treasury Secretary, gave a speech about the dangers of socialism. The radical left
1:47
1 minute, 47 seconds
is relentless in their pursuit to remake America in the image of every socialist hellscape of the last century.
1:57
1 minute, 57 seconds
Their big government giveaways would end as they always do always do in food shortages, deadly delays in medical care
2:06
2 minutes, 6 seconds
and squalid housing. Okay, so according to Bessant, socialism means big
2:14
2 minutes, 14 seconds
government giveaways. But here's the punch line. The punch line is what happened right there on that same stage
2:24
2 minutes, 24 seconds
an hour and a half later. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our
2:33
2 minutes, 33 seconds
economic tremendous economic success, like in in history, we've never had anything like
2:40
2 minutes, 40 seconds
what's happening, but because of our tremendous strength and success economically,
2:47
2 minutes, 47 seconds
I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America
2:52
2 minutes, 52 seconds
for $5,000. and $5,000. Their own president, Donald
3:00
3 minutes
Trump, gets up on stage and says he's going to give everybody $5,000. = I TRILLION $
-=-=
AN 9 26
While liberal-leaning MS NOW regularly features a who's-who of Never Trump conservatives — including George Conway, The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson, The Bulwark's Bill Kristol, and hosts Joe Scarborugh, Nicolle Wallace and Michael Steele — Fox News and Fox Business are much more favorable to President Donald Trump. But according to Guardian opinion columnist Margaret Sullivan, Trump is becoming a "problem" for Fox News as the right-wing cable news outlet goes out of its way to cut off viewers from negative information about him.
"No Fox, no President Trump, one might argue," Sullivan writes in a column for The Guardian. "But now, Trump, with his bottom-dwelling approval ratings and waning power, looks more and more like a problem for the network. So far, though, he's one problem that Fox refuses to ignore."
Sullivan cites recent examples of Fox News going out of its way to avoid negative coverage of Trump.
"Two breaking stories roiled U.S. politics this week and immediately got big play on most news sites," Sullivan explains. "The Supreme Court surprisingly rejected — for now — Donald Trump's attempted restrictions on mail-in ballots, a blow to Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. And the investigative site ProPublica revealed that a Russian oligarch had helped to bankroll the Bahamas wedding of Trump's son Donald Jr., to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The blockbuster story quickly became ProPublica's most-read article this year and was covered heavily elsewhere."
Sullivan continues, "'There's no looking away from this Trump scoop,' wrote CNN's Brian Stelter. Unless you watched Fox News, of course. There, it was business as usual. The wedding blockbuster got barely a nod on Monday night: a mere minute on the right-wing network's evening programming, as the progressive non-profit watchdog Media Matters reported."
Sullivan notes that Fox News also downplayed the "vote-by-mail story."
According to Sullivan, "'The news broke during the 7 p.m. hour, but Laura Ingraham, a law school grad, didn't bother to tell viewers,' Stelter noted. Neither did the other big-name Fox opinion hosts, Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity. You would have had to wait until 11.30pm for that 45-second report, Stelter wrote, even as it was a leading story in many other places."
Media Matters' Matt Gertz, in an interview, described the lengths that Fox News goes to when it comes to protecting Trump.
Gertz told Sullivan, "This is the 'negative space' of Fox News coverage, in which they pretend something is simply not happening. Trumpian corruption is the biggest part of this … They are concerned with coddling their audience and maintaining the GOP's political power."
-=-=
-=-=
RR AN 9 26
Yesterday (September 14) — just two days after Dario Amodei, the chief executive officer of leading AI firm Anthropic, called for “slowing down” the pace of AI development so guardrails could be put in place that would “greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong” — Trump threw a tantrum:
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!
In the same post, Trump even hinted that the government might pursue criminal or regulatory penalties against AI companies, such as Amodei’s Anthropic.
“The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ — and we will continue to do so!”
Then Trump interrupted a speech being given by Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, at a conference in Los Angeles to say — over a speaker — that worries about AI were “a hoax …. Robots are not going to be taking over the world. That’s not going to happen.”
Trump has called AI data centers “the oil of the next 50 years” and says they are delivering wealth and investment to communities in the U.S. In July he insisted that data centers are “Cash Cows,” creating taxes and jobs that “amount to LIQUID GOLD!”
Trump’s rejection of any regulation of AI or its data centers contrasts with the views of many voters. A March Gallup poll showed that nearly half of those surveyed “strongly oppose” the construction of local AI data centers, including almost 40 percent of Republicans.
Yet Trump remains adamant that nothing should be done. “We can put up guardrails, and we can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up,” Trump told reporters Sunday while traveling in Ireland. “And they’re bringing up things that won’t happen.”
Why would Trump be so opposed to regulating AI — even in the face of growing public concern, even with midterm elections just around the corner?
It can’t be that he knows very much about AI.
And it can’t be that Trump loves AI because of what it can do. Yes, he’s used it to make fake photos and videos of himself, but that doesn’t explain his adamant refusal to regulate it.
It can’t be that he’s worried about China catching up to or surpassing the U.S. in AI. China has a small fraction of the data centers America has, and China isn’t poised to leapfrog our technological advantage. Besides, even China is considering imposing guardrails on its AI.
So what explains Trump’s absolute refusal to regulate AI? Could it possibly be that he and his family have personal financial stakes in it?
Indeed, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump have invested substantially in American Data Centers, a firm created to support AI cloud computing and AI infrastructure.
They made these investments soon after their father announced a $40 billion investment pledge in U.S.-based data centers from his business partner Hussain Sajwani, unveiled another $500 billion in planned investments in private-sector AI infrastructure, and signed an executive order rolling back Biden-era policies that took a more cautious approach to AI and directed “the development of an AI Action Plan to sustain and enhance America’s AI dominance.”
The Trump sons also hold advisory roles and ownership stakes tied to Dominari Holdings’s American Ventures fund, which targets AI infrastructure, data centers, and cryptocurrency. American Ventures has reportedly raised more than $1 billion across 21 investment vehicles backing companies tied to AI, crypto, drones, nuclear energy, and data centers.
Donald Jr.’s own investment firm, 1789 Capital, is backing emerging technology companies working in AI and defense. The firm has bought shares in some of the most coveted private companies before many went public, including SpaceX, Anduril, Cerebras, and Reflection AI, often by leveraging their political and business connections to secure a stake or help boost the companies’ sales.
The growth of Donald Jr.’s investment firm has been astonishing. Two years ago it managed a few hundred million dollars. It now oversees more than $3 billion. As of June 30, its main investment fund generated returns of roughly 200 percent, according to a person familiar with the firm’s performance. While still early in its investment cycle, those returns eclipse the average returns of about 21 percent from venture capital firms started in 2023, according to PitchBook, a provider of financial data.
Donald Jr. and Eric’s father seems to be turning his attention away from being president — “I’m getting a little bit tired of politics now,” he said a few days ago — toward things that excite him more, such as his ballroom and triumphant arch, as well as making even more money for his family off his presidency.
But as he focuses on making himself and his family wealthier, he’s leaving the rest of us more vulnerable to AI.
One of the first responsibilities of a new Congress, come January, will be to establish guardrails around AI — assuming that by then Trump can no longer control what Congress does, and that January isn’t too late.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
=-=-=
-=-=
an 9? 26
National Weather Service defies Trump
-=-=
AN 9 26
Earthquake as Canada negotiates with the EU to join as associate member
-=-=
AN 9 26
Trump just activated a secret 1990s court
Trump just activated a secret 1990s court
Thom Hartmann September 16, 2026
Last Friday, for the first time in American history, a brand new court in America deported to Afghanistan Nazira Haji Zada, a 47-year-old lawful permanent resident living in Fort Worth. She was never charged with a crime, and wasn’t allowed to see the evidence against her (and neither were her lawyers). Attorney General Todd Blanche called the whole thing “a win for national security and the rule of law.”
This was possible because, in a moment of national hysteria following the Tim McVeigh bombing in Oklahoma City in the 1990s, Congress authorized the creation of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, something so counter to normal American concepts of the rule of law and fair play that no president before now had been willing to use it.
Until, of course, Trump.
When I was around twelve, my dad gave me his tattered copy of a paperback of Franz Kafka’s short novel The Trial and told me he wanted to discuss it after I’d read it. The book gave me nightmares for weeks, which was clearly his goal.
He was a tool-and-die maker in Lansing, a WWII vet, and a man who’d volunteered in 1945 to go fight and even die to defeat fascism and defend the rule of law. He saw The Trial as the essence of why he’d joined the Army straight out of high school.
The Trial opens with a bank clerk named Josef K. being dragged out of his bed one morning by two officers who won’t tell him what he’s being charged with. They made clear that even they didn’t know what his crime was.
Over the following year he’s pulled deeper and deeper into a dark court that’s never held in public or official buildings, whose judges he never sees, and whose files are “secret” and thus not available to him or his lawyer. Nobody ever sees or says what Joseph K. was accused of, and his attorneys advise him it’s best to stop asking because the fact that he was arrested in the first place will be considered by the court as all the proof they’ll need of his guilt.
The story ends when two men in frock coats drag him out to a quarry at night and carry out his execution as mandated by the secret court:
“Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the high court he had never reached? He raised his hands and spread all his fingers.
“But the hands of one of the men closed around K.’s throat, while the other drove the knife deep into his heart and turned it there twice. With failing eyes K. could still see the two men close in front of his face, cheek pressed to cheek, watching the outcome. ‘Like a dog!’ he said…”
When Kafka wrote that in 1914, he was a Jew living in Prague inside a dying empire. He never lived to see Hitler or the Gestapo or Putin build the very thing he’d imagined, but my dad did which is why he’d given me that book so I could understand what a police state would feel like from the inside. He told me repeatedly throughout my life that “only the rule of law” and the Constitution protected us from the tyranny he’d volunteered to fight as a teenager.
I got a glimpse into that world myself twenty-some years later, in the winter of 1986, when my teenage daughter and I crossed through Checkpoint Charlie and were picked up in East Berlin by a young gypsy cab driver named Torsten. Before we’d traveled even a full block he had us rehearsing a cover story, that we were his cousins from the West, in case the Volkspolizei or the Stasi pulled us over.
That’s because in East Germany — where the secret police were then largely run by a guy named Vladimir Putin — Torsten knew that anybody could be hauled into jail at any time for any reason and nobody would ever have to explain why.
What happened Friday here in America is the Trump administration’s version of the same thing:
— Under this bizarre law in these secret courts, 8 U.S.C. § 1534, the judge reviews the government’s classified evidence alone, in chambers, and neither the accused nor the public may learn what it is or where it came from beyond an unclassified summary.
— The Federal Rules of Evidence don’t apply.
— The government may use the fruits of FISA wiretaps and warrantless physical searches, and the accused is specifically denied the right to suppress evidence she claims was gathered illegally.
— You get a court-appointed “special attorney” with a security clearance who can look at the secret file on your behalf, but that lawyer is forbidden by law from telling you or other lawyers what’s in it, and if he does he faces ten to twenty-five years in federal prison.
Kafka gave Josef K. a lawyer who couldn’t see the file with the charges against him. Now Trump mandates a lawyer who can see the file, but goes to prison if he talks about it to any other living being.
Zada’s public defenders put it plainly before she was chained and thrown onto the plane to Afghanistan:
“Dragging lawful permanent residents into court but refusing to show them or their attorneys the evidence that will be used against them is a plain violation of due process,” they said in a statement, adding that her consent to removal “should not be seen as an endorsement of this court’s legitimacy.”
This secret court is only the most recent brick in the fascist wall Trump, his tech bro billionaire supporters, and his fascist lickspittles are building around what used to be American law. Last year he sent 238 men to life sentences in to a torture prison in El Salvador — most with no criminal record whatsoever — without even bothering with a hearing for them.
One of them — a gay makeup artist named Andry Hernández Romero who was snatched by masked, armed men at the asylum appointment the government had set up for him — was shipped off to his life sentence in a foreign hellhole on the strength of crowns tattooed above the words “mom” and “dad”; he spent 125 days incommunicado before a prisoner swap got him out.
Shades of Joseph K. 109 years later.
ICE today is holding roughly 65,000 people in detention, most of them never convicted of even any minor crime (being in the country without papers is a civil infraction, not a crime) and never having seen a real judge or courtroom. Most will wait months for a hearing that may never come, a clear violation of their Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
In their frantic efforts to purge America of nonwhite people, Trump’s racist toadies have frozen our refugee program since he was sworn in a year ago January, with more than 100,000 fully vetted people stranded abroad. We’ve only admitted 6,069 refugees, and all but three were lily-white South Africans.
These misogynist white supracist fascists are also purging our government’s own institutions of women and people of color. Whiskey Pete Hegseth has fired or forced out at least twenty generals, admirals, and senior civilian leaders; when he removed the Army’s chief of staff in April, in the middle of a war, the Pentagon announced it in true Kafkaesque fashion without even bothering to give a reason.
White South African immigrant Elon Musk’s DOGE and the OPM drove out more than 300,000 federal workers in a single year, with Black women losing roughly a third of those jobs. (I can no longer link to this because the administration deleted their workforce demographic data in March, 2025.) Many were fired with Joseph K.-style form letters that cited nonspecific “performance” issues, often sent to people who’d gotten glowing reviews just weeks previously.
One NIH analyst’s supervisor told her that management had been ordered to pick either misconduct or performance as the reason and so had simply randomly picked one. A federal judge correctly called the entire process a “sham” and when ProPublica dug into what ICE has been up to they found more than 170 US citizens who’d been dragged off and imprisoned, often for days with no access to either a phone or a lawyer, all in clear violation of the law and our Constitution.
Each of these examples of overreach and lawbreaking by Trump, ICE, and the DOJ are grounded in the same basic logic Kafka described: you are powerless before the all-knowing all-seeing state. Instead of being judged, you’re processed through an impersonal, uncaring, brutal machine.
If you’re arrested it must be because you’re guilty, even if nobody knows for sure of what. And when you ask why this is happening to you, the answer is a variation on, “You don’t need to know and, besides, we won’t tell you in any case.”
My father’s generation understood something we’ve lost track of in the years of rightwing hysteria since McVeigh and 9/11.
Our Sixth Amendment guarantees that every accused person — citizen or not — must be told the nature and cause of the accusation they’re charged with, have a public trial, and be confronted with the witnesses against them. The Fourteenth Amendment requires and guarantees due process for everybody confronted by the government, citizen or not.
When a government stops honoring the rule of law, due process, and fundamental human rights it cease to be a legitimate republic and has demonstrably slid into the early stages of being reinvented as a full-blown fascist state.
Zada may well have been involved in potential terrorist activity, although none of us will ever know because of the secretive nature of this case. If she was guilty, it should have been established in public; we have plenty of ways to protect sources and methods, when necessary, that are consistent with our Constitution.
Torsten knew what a country that doesn’t respect the rule of law and civil rights felt like. So did my dad, which is why he asked me to read The Trial when I was twelve. We’re not East Germany yet, but Trump’s clearly learned from his mentor/owner who used to run that country’s secret police, and this new terrorist court is now established as a legal precedent. Which means this is just beginning.
Call your senators and representative at the Capitol Switchboard, 202-224-3121, and tell them the Alien Terrorist Removal Court should be repealed and that not one more person, citizen or not, should be deported, detained, or fired by this government without being told why.
And if this piece was useful to you, please share it and support my daily work here, because the only real answer to a government that won’t explain itself is a public that never stops demanding it does.
-=-=
an 9 26
Morning Joe aghast Trump is trading more stocks than all of Congress
-=-=
SCOTUS MAIN VOTE FAIL 6-3 ALITO CLAR
AN 9 26
The real reason the Supreme Court blocked Trump and the Postal Service
-=-=
MMA 9 26
On MS NOW's The 11th Hour, Angelo Carusone discusses Supreme Court ruling on mail-in ballots: "They lost the case, but they got to keep a lot of the doubt and damage that they've sown as a part of that process"
//
Heritage Foundation’s Ken Cuccinelli on Trump’s mail-in voting executive order: “Depositing so much responsibility for our elections in the Postal Service strikes me as very unwise”
-=-=
AN 9 26
Whistleblower warns Trump’s secret voter program violated state laws
-=-=
VID] AN 26
President Donald Trump's authoritarian rampage over the U.S. in his second term has been enabled by numerous cowards in high places, but as author Jacob Weisberg told The Daily Beast, there are at least eight of the "very worst" cowards who have gone above and beyond in their capitulations.
Weisberg is a reporter and author who appeared as a guest on the latest episode of The Daily Beast Podcast on Sunday, promoting his new book, Profiles in Cowardice. As host Joanna Coles explained, the book explores the "Great Capitulation" across American society in 2025, as numerous powerful individuals and entities caved to Trump's new demands, falling in line and lining his pockets all at once. Weisberg explained that he sought to drill down past "the flacks and flunkies" around the president, finding eight of the worst cowards, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, Chief Justice John Roberts, former Fox host Megyn Kelly, lawyer Brad Karp, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, former President George W. Bush, and Dartmouth president Sian Beilock.
Chief among these names, he explained, has been Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos.
"I think they all deserve shame, and they're all different stories and interesting stories," Weisberg explained. "But Bezos, in a way, is the paradigmatic example because he was so good in [Trump's first term] as owner of the Washington Post. Trump threatened him, bullied him, pressured him to have the Washington Post be less critical and less aggressive. And Bezos didn't yield an inch. Marty Barron, who was editor of The Washington Post in those years, really paid tribute to him and said, we couldn't have had a better owner... [In Trump's second term] it's a different person. He's on bended knee at Mar-a-Lago, paying $40 million for the Melania Trump documentary from Amazon Prime. You know, Amazon Prime is, like, known for being stingy. This is an absolutely ridiculous price. It's effectively a kind of bribe, a personal bribe, to the president and his wife."
Weisberg further suggested that Bezos's desire to gain government contracts for his space company, Blue Origin, and his ultimate goal of helping colonize space have been one of the main factors driving his capitulation to Trump.
In digging in against Roberts, meanwhile, Weisberg highlighted the 2020 ruling that gave Trump and other presidents sweeping immunities for "official acts" while in office, making it "essentially impossible" to prosecute them once they leave office. He also argued that, in many ways, Roberts probably dislikes Trump immensely, but has been willing to give him favorable rulings because of a deep and genuine belief in unrestricted executive power.
On McConnell, Weisberg argued that the former Senate Majority Leader was "afraid of losing his position inside the party" when he refused to back Trump's second impeachment, for which a conviction in the Senate would have barred him from ever hold office again.
"But if he had held firm to what he had said just after January 6th, he could have had Trump convicted," Weisberg said. "Trump was already out of office or would soon be out of office, and it would have been an easy matter to pass this subsequent vote that would have banned Trump from ever holding public office again, and we would have no second term. And that is on Mitch McConnell."
MISC RWW
09/11/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla
Patrick Svitek @ CNN: Shouts of ‘he should be shot’ heard during GOP midterm convention speech criticizing Democratic candidates
Shouts of “he should be shot” could be heard multiple times Thursday night at the Republican midterm convention as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was criticizing prominent Democratic politicians by name.
Ewan Palmer @ The Daily Beast: Desperate Trump Makes Supporters Vow to ‘Cheat Like Hell’ to Save Him
The president is now a fan of voter fraud.
Hafiz Rashid @ The New Republic: Trump Whines About How He Can’t Give Himself Medal of Honor
He said this in front of an audience full of medal of honor recipients.
Astead Herndon @ Vox: The GOP midterms strategy is Trump and a prayer
What we learned from the first day of the Republican convention in Dallas.
Alex Nguyen @ Mother Jones: What Does FBI Director Kash Patel Actually Do?
He spends his time complaining about online posts.
David A. Fahrenthold and Maxine Joselow @ The New York Times: Contractor Blames Its Own Repairs, Not Vandals, for Reflecting Pool Failure
The contractor said the pool’s new blue liner peeled and tore because of “human oversight” and a flawed plan that involved layering two incompatible chemicals, documents show.
-=-=
CATER TRUCK HIDE
Former staffer mocks 'coward' Trump with photo of him hiding in a catering cart
-=-=
AN 9 26
President Donald Trump's economic policies, especially tariffs, are drawing strong criticism on both the left and the right, from liberal economists like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich to conservative and libertarian economists known for their admiration for the late Milton Friedman (who viewed steep tariffs as terrible for both businesses and consumers). But according to The New Republic's Michael Tomasky, the GOP's problems with economics go way beyond Trump himself.
Tomasky, in a Monday morning article, argues that Republicans in general are failing to understand key economic concepts.
Tomasky recalls that during his 2024 campaign, Trump promised, "Under the Trump economic plan, we will cut your energy prices in half … We are going to bring energy down by 50 percent, 50 percent, 50 percent within 12 months from January 20, which is the day we go into office."
According to Tomasky, those promises are "relevant to us today on two levels."
"The first is the more obvious: He was lying out his know-you-what without any regard for whether these words would end up being true," Tomasky writes. "They just sounded good at the time, so he said them. Fifty percent in a year … The second level is more interesting — and more damning not only of Trump, but of the entire Republican Party and of conservatism generally, in this country and across the world, and not just in Trump's second term, but for all time.
And that is this: There is probably some way in which Trump actually believed he could lower energy prices — maybe not by 50 percent in a year, but lower them substantially and noticeably. Why would he believe this? He believed it because conservatives believe stupid, simplistic things about how the capitalist economy works."
Tomasky continues, "They believe that if you just let the free market do its thing, wonders will arise and all will be well. They believe this first and foremost because their big-money donors believe it. But they also believe it because the economists — or more precisely, the economists they prefer to listen to — say so, and they must know what they're talking about."
According to Tomasky, a "new generation of economists … have seen with their own two eyes that markets do not always self-correct" and now realize that "sometimes, government intervention is required to achieve good ends."
"In the midterm campaign," Tomasky writes, "Democrats are understandably focused on attacking Trump for his lies and making these higher prices we're paying all about him. That makes political sense … But longer term, the Democrats need to do much more. It would be great if they nominated a presidential candidate in 2028 who had the guts and the rhetorical skill to indict not just Trump, but conservatism and traditional economics more generally. It's not an accident that the last three, now four, GOP presidents have wrecked the economy: Bush, Bush, Trump, and Trump."
//
White House panic skyrockets as Trump triggers death spiral economy
Republicans fume as Trump breaks his own abysmal economic record
-=-=
SEE CRM 5
5K CHECK BS MMA 9 26
Others in right-wing media praised Trump’s dubious promise as “bold,” “creative,” and “outside the box” thinking
Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy said the midterm payment plan “shows just how creative and rule-breaking and out of the box President Trump is,” adding, “I'm surprised no one has thought of this before.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 9/10/26]
On Newsmax, former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) said Trump is “thinking outside the box and coming up with new and bold ideas.” [Newsmax, Wake Up America Early, 9/10/26]
On Fox, former Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus called Trump's pledge “a bet on the future.” Priebus said, “Obviously they're going to have to make sure that they've got congressional support but I think what it is is a bet on the future. … I think everyone's hoping that the issues in Iran come to an end, and oil goes down, and the economy will tick up like a rocket ship. But in the meantime, you know, that is the one thing that is slowing down the economy. I think the president is going to take care of that. I think he gets it completely, and he’s just making a bet on the future.” [Fox News, America's Newsroom, 9/10/26]
On Newsmax, podcaster Alec Lace said the payments “would be a blessing” and “help hard-working American families.” Lace stated, “This is going to help hard-working American families that can use the money right now, because we've all had a tough year with the Iran war going on and stuff. We’ve all suffered at the gas pump, we’ve suffered in the purse a little bit. A little rebate would be a blessing for President Donald Trump. We’d love to see it.” [Newsmax, National Report, 9/10/26]
On Fox, former California GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson said Trump’s promise is “pretty exciting.” Patterson went on to say that Trump “understands what excites people, he understands what turns people out, and this is something that he is doing for the American people. Let me help you get ahead.” [Fox News, Fox News @ Night, 9/9/26]
RWW MISC
09/10/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla
Hunter Walker @ Talking Points Memo: Donald Trump Just Basically Bribed Americans to Vote for Republicans
With his poll numbers at record lows, gas prices at record highs, and mounting signs of momentum for the Democrats, President Donald Trump just debuted a novel strategy to secure votes: bribery. Speaking at the Republican National Committee’s historically unheard of midterms convention on Wednesday evening, Trump offered to pay Americans $5,000 each if — and only if — the GOP is victorious in the upcoming elections.
Jennifer Bowers Bahney @ Mediaite: GOP Congressman Who Argued Against Biden Covid Checks Grilled Over Trump $5K Proposal
CNN’s Boris Sanchez grilled Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) over his logic supporting $5,000 checks for Americans when he vehemently opposed Covid stimulus checks under Joe Biden.
Hafiz Rashid @ The New Republic: Jimmy Kimmel Exposes Trump’s Latest Censorship Attack Over Talarico
The late-night talk show host says the Federal Communications Commission is threatening him over an interview with Texas’s James Talarico.
Vittoria Elliott and David Gilbert @ Wired: A US Census Report on Noncitizen Voting Used Bad Data to Reach Faulty Conclusions
Trump has touted a recent Census report. WIRED found grave flaws in its analysis and the process behind it, and confirmed the identity of several of its authors—among them a one-time DOGE affiliate.
Zachary Small @ The New York Times: Ambassador Who Removed Kehinde Wiley Work Described It as a Lesbian Picnic
Trump officials recently removed a painting from the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic without explaining why. An interview by Ambassador Leah Campos shed some light.
Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: MAGA Influencer’s Defense: Antifa Got Me High
When a pro-Trump streamer was caught on camera coercing and harassing a woman, he blamed a suspicious joint.
-=-=
AN 9 14 26
For decades, the towering influence on the Republican Party was President Ronald Reagan. The GOP, however, underwent a huge makeover when President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement become its dominant ideology. MAGA prevailed when Trump won the 2016 and 2024 elections. But according to The New Republic "Trump/MAGA psychology" is now setting Republicans up for an "electoral catastrophe" in November.
New Republic journalists Greg Sargent and Alex Shepard examine the challenges Republicans are facing in a conversation for the publication's podcast, "The Daily Blast."
During the recent GOP Midterms Convention in Dallas, Trump promised to pay voters $5000 each if Republicans hold both branches of Congress in the midterms — a promise that, podcast host Sargent stressed, shows weakness, not strength.
According to Sargent, "Donald Trump's effort to salvage the midterms for the GOP doesn't seem to be going well. His make-believe proposal to send $5000 checks to everyone has been widely panned, and even Republicans are leaking that they think it's an act of desperation. Tellingly, Trump raged wildly at a reporter who asked a simple question: If your policies are succeeding, why pay people to vote Republican? It all highlights a deep contradiction in Trump-MAGA psychology right now: Republicans are all required to pretend Trump has been a stupendous success, yet that very posture is dragging them toward electoral catastrophe."
On the podcast, guest Shephard, a New Republic senior editor, agreed with Sargent's argument that Trump is looking increasingly desperate.
Shephard told Sargent, "I think the question about this entire farce of a midterm convention was: What is Trump going to talk about, since his entire second term is up in flames right now? And what they've done is concocted, you know, I think a plan that's a complete sham in a couple of ways, right? One is just that Trump has said he does not need Congress to send these checks … But I think the other thing about it, to get to the point about losing the culture, is that Trump's rise came from this idea that he was a different type of politician, right?"
Shephard continued, "He was not somebody who would say something just to get elected and then not do it. And of course, he's governed in a completely different way. But to me, this is like the biggest possible version of that exact problem — that this is someone who's just doing shameless electioneering."
Shephard argued that when Trump "generated enthusiasm" in the past, it "to some extent" was "organic."
Shephard told Sargent, "It emerged from him running for president on a message. Whatever you think of that message, that's where it's come from … I mean, I think the other thing with that convention that you saw was, I thought, a really concerted, if somewhat marginal, effort to win over three groups that were instrumental to Trump winning in 2024: Black voters, Latino voters, and young voters … And I think it's just not convincing, right? Because they just don't have the sauce anymore."
-=-=
AN 9 26
When the GOP is taking a beating like this the party’s default response always comes down to one tactic, says New York Times columnist Lisa Lerer.
“As they took the stage at the party’s unusual midterm gathering in Dallas on Wednesday night, amid growing Republican anxiety about the midterm elections, speaker after speaker focused on what they characterized as an urgent threat to American life: a Democratic Party they claimed had veered beyond its traditional liberal principles into a dangerous, un-American ideology,” reports Lerer.
Democrats running for Congress were characterized as “evil,” or “communists and anarchists.” Speakers also claimed Democrats wanted to turn the nation into “a socialist hellscape.”
“I call it the Bolshevik Revolution in the Democratic Party,” said House majority leader Rep. Steve Scalise. “Let’s make sure that when we wake up the morning after Election Day we know we did everything we could to defeat socialism.”
Lerer said President Donald Trump has “long been a master of the politics of fear, regularly stoking anxiety about immigration and crime.”
“Now, as his party faces its most difficult political environment in years, the president and his supporters are attempting — once more — to channel fear into electoral victory,” Lerer said. “It’s a strategy that is both old and new, playing off the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America to stoke Cold War-era fears of communism and socialism.”
She added that by the time Trump took the stage Democratic extremism had been woven into “nearly every aspect of the six-hour program.”
Trump boasted about his tariff policy, lauded his work on the White House ballroom and vowed he would soon win the Iran war he started, but Lerer said Republican candidates appeared to have little to brag about and instead “made little mention of those issues.”
This comes at a time when the party appears to have veery little to talk about beyond the passage of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which has received mixed reviews from critics, and has left even red state legislatures fighting to fill holes Trump’s new budget gouged into safety net programs.
“Historically, the president’s party loses seats in the midterm elections. But for Mr. Trump, the political landscape looks bleaker than most,” reports Lerer. “Surveys indicate that, with the exception of Richard Nixon, Mr. Trump is the most unpopular second-term president at this stage in his tenure in the history of polling going back to the 1940s. On issues where he once was strong — like the economy, national security and immigration — Mr. Trump is now underwater. The wound has been largely self-inflicted, with his support weakened by the unpopularity of several of his signature policies, including tariffs, the war in Iran, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and various legacy renovation projects in Washington.”
-=-=
Awkward silence: Trump-a-Palooza a ratings flop for Fox News //
The chaos-inducing illusion behind Trump’s new bribe //
TRUMP PROMISE TARIFF REBATE IVF DOGE ETC
Fox & Friends fawns over Trump's $5,000 midterm pledge: “This shows just how creative and rule-breaking and out of the box President Trump is”
09/10/26
-=-=
AN 9 26
On Thursday, a former federal judge detailed what he deemed “the final battle for America’s democracy,” laying out President Donald Trump’s plan to seize power on January 3, 2027. This is according to attorney and former U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Luttig, who warns that “Trump and his MAGA Republicans might bury our democracy once and for all.”
“Trump instigated a war against America’s democracy on January 6, 2021,” asserts Luttig. “Today, almost six years later, Donald Trump and his Republican congressional allies are even more determined to prosecute the president’s war against American democracy to its catastrophic end than they were on January 6, 2021. That catastrophic end could well come on January 3, 2027, when Trump and his Republican congressional allies wage the final battle in Trump’s determined war to corrupt America’s democracy and deliver a lasting political victory over the Democrats for his MAGA Republican Party.”
Over the course of his second term, says Luttig, Trump has taken steps to “seize control of the midterms” to ensure that Republicans retain a majority in the 120th Congress. As Trump himself declared in February, “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting.’ ... The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.” And the Republicans, notes Luttig, “have dutifully fallen in line … So unalterably subjugated to Trump is today’s Republican House that even a decisive victory for Democrats and a resounding repudiation of Trump and the MAGA Republicans at the polls in November will not guarantee that a Democratic majority-elect will be seated in the 120th Congress on January 3.”
The core of the plan involves a Republican plot to claim the election was rigged after they lose. According to Luttig, “This is how the crisis would unfold. The precursor of the crisis will come sometime before noon on January 3, when Speaker [Mike] Johnson (R-LA) removes current House Clerk Kevin McCumber and replaces him with a person loyal to Johnson and House Republicans who they know will refuse to list on the statutory roll of representatives-elect to the 120th Congress any Democrat-elect whom Johnson and the Republicans direct him or her not to list. Under Rule II, Clause 1 of the Rules of the House, the Speaker of the House has the unilateral power to remove the incumbent clerk, and then the power under Title 2 U.S.C. § 5501(a) to replace him temporarily with whomever he wishes until the House elects a successor.
McCumber is a Republican appointed by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He is widely respected for his integrity and faithful adherence to the Constitution and is reputed to be unwilling to carry out orders he considers to be unconstitutional.”
“The constitutional crisis will begin, warns Luttig, when “sometime before the 120th Congress has been gaveled into session, the loyal temporary clerk refuses to list Democrat representatives-elect on the clerk’s roll of representatives-elect that determines who may participate in organizing the new Congress.” Such action will be met with lawsuits arguing that the clerk must perform its mandated action, which will work their way through appeals. “The next moment of constitutional crisis will come if and when,” says Luttig, the court orders the elected Democratic representatives be seated and the clerk refuses. “Judicial review of the House’s decision not to seat Democratic representatives-elect in the 120th Congress would take weeks, if not months, during which time the United States would be in the throes of a paralyzing constitutional crisis.”
From there, the matter would end up before the Supreme Court, which would be forced to answer “perhaps the most fundamental question under the Constitution: Is the United States of America a democracy, in which ‘We the People’ elect our representatives to the Congress and to the presidency, or is it not?” Should the Court decide to side with Republican claims of fraud, Luttig concludes, “two hundred and fifty years into the greatest experiment in self-government in the history of the world, the Republican Party would finally meet the fate to which it has been destined since January 6, 2021, and cement its place in history as the most corrupt political party ever to emerge in the United States of America.”
-=-=
RWW MISC
09/08/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla
Farrah Tomazin @ The Daily Beast: Trump Tells Jaw-Dropping Lie About Being ‘Rescued’ on 9/11
Donald Trump took his years of embellishing his role in the aftermath of 9/11 to another level Tuesday by suggesting firefighters pulled him from Ground Zero.
Dan Alexander @ Forbes: Hot-Dog Heaven: Inside Trump’s Golf Getaways
At his private golf courses, the president barrels through foursomes, knocks away putts and generally has the time of his life—with the government picking up the Secret Service’s hot-dog tab.
Protestia: ‘Prophet ‘Jonathan Cahn Identified As Passenger Attacked by ‘Duct-Taped Man’ on Viral Flight
Christian author Jonathan Cahn has revealed himself as the man who was attacked during a recent incident on American Airlines Flight 618, resulting in the assailant being secured to his seat with duct tape in a now-viral incident.
Jennifer Bowers Bahney @ Mediaite: House Republican Grilled About Support for Embattled Rep. Accused of Domestic Abuse — Supports ‘Anybody With an R By Their Name’
Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) told Face The Nation’s Margaret Brennan on Sunday that she supports embattled congressman Max Miller (R-OH) despite domestic abuse allegations against him because he has an “R” by his name.
Sarah Kliff @ The New York Times: A Doctor Sued 700 Patients for Debts; 81 Were Arrested. Now He’s a Senator.
Patients sued by Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas were routinely charged 18 percent interest, The Times found. Some had bank accounts garnished.
-=-=
AN 9 26
Trump targets the 60-year 'Star Trek' legacy that built modern NASA
-=-=
AN 9 26
Revealed: The shocking reason Trump is dismantling America’s spy agencies
-=-=
an
Europe unites behind Greenland — 'stands firm' against Trump annexation push
-=-=
finally spend som $ maga inc an 9 26 400m$ 800?
MAGA Inc rides in to Texas with another $10 million to save Ken Paxton
-=-=
mil fed deficit?
9 26 an
Trump’s stunning 'dereliction of duty' pummeled by Washington Post
an 9 26
Trump dirties up 8-bit classics with cringe revamp
-=-=-=
an 9 26
putin cont helps iran econ and militaty, target info?!
invite g20 designed to punish iran?
-=-=
AN 9 26
Twofer: Trump begs Supreme Court to nuke mail-in voting — again
Matthew Rozsa
Conservative justice just ruled against Trump on major Michigan case
Matthew Rozsa
'You are a waste': Inside Trump’s ghost plot to end Social Security
Matthew Rozsa
Trump’s own voters are sounding the alarm on his government corruption
Sarah K. Burris
Trump gives cryptic answer about 'holing up' in ballroom bunker after 2028
Nick Hilden
-=-=
AN 9 26
Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s unilateral war with Iran, some advisors — and the MAGA community in particular — has speculated how much wealth and lives Trump and his Secretary of Defense are willing to throw at his futile campaign.
Christopher Lee, veteran campaign operative and Foresight Strategic Advisors founder, said any proposal for a draft and ground invasion had best be off the table unless Trump wants to get his Republican Party curb stomped for the foreseeable future.
“The reason is simple: invading Iran with ground forces has the same practical military sense as would building a house on top of an active volcano,” Lee told the Mirror.
Lee’s comments come days after Trump threatened Iran yet again and warned Americans in the region to prepare as he said that “the biggest attack of them all is waiting in the wings” in a Truth Social post.
The Mirror reports speculation of a draft really took off earlier this year with the news of changes proposed by the Selective Service System, transforming the draft from a self-registration system to an automatic registration system. This could come into effect as early as December of this year.
For now, Lee pointed out that Trump’s Iran conflict has largely been fought in Gulf waters by air by either carrier-based aircraft or land-based heavy bombers, making the draft and a U.S. ground invasion unnecessary. But Trump is not making progress with “death from above” tactics — and he and his secretary of defense have rapidly depleted U.S. ammunition stockpiles. They’ve also ballooned U.S. debt with Trump’s unnecessary military invasion. Add to that the resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz and subsequent price increases on fuel and fertilizer for Americans and farmers and Trump is feeling the heat to end the war before the November midterms.
Declaring defeat could be one option, but it will leave a stain of impotence on both the 80-year-old president and the Republican Party that enabled and allowed his war. The only other real option is escalation — but that would involve ground forces, and likely blood and U.S. casualties. The Iran War has already caused the death of U.S. servicemembers. More coffins piling up at military airports would look bad on a president who himself repeatedly avoided the military draft in the Vietnam War.
Worse, if Trump activated the draft, Lee said the president will find that he has deported a sizable portion of the draft’s most eligible young people.
“As is the case within any draft, it will be solely men ages 18-26. Again, the irony bites Trump hard here. The law passed in 2025 would require every male citizen to register. But, interestingly enough, the very people the Trump Administration wants to deport from this country could also be subject to any draft. This includes refugees, people seeking/granted asylum and green card holders,” said Lee.
-=-=
AN 9 26
President Donald Trump's new scheme to try and reduce fuel costs ahead of the election was to announce that he'd be taking some of the Venezuelan oil. But, Congress told the Pentagon it's not legal, Semafor reported Thursday.
Experts have made it clear that the thick, tar-like oil in Venezuela's fields requires a specialized refineries to process the oil into usable fuel. There's also a major infrastructure issue. The country lacks the necessary upgrades to get it out of the oil fields. Infrastructure has suffered years of under-investment and deterioration, CNBC reported. Repairing pipelines, power systems, drilling equipment and upgrades could take years.
But oil reserves aren't the same as barrels currently being produced. Experts agree that, at most, Trump's plot could put modest downward pressure on prices over the longer term, but it likely wouldn't impact fuel prices for 10-15 years, the report said.
Semafor cited a person familiar with the matter who said that Congress told the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital that it doesn't have the authority to take an equity stake in a private company. Trump used the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital to take an equity stake in the second-largest oil firm in Venezuela.
"It did so by declining to pass legislative proposals that would have granted the office the legal authority to seek equity stakes that were submitted by the Pentagon in recent years," the person told Semafor.
Skeptical lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are asking the Trump administration to give information about the effort and how it would work.
The more immediate problem is accessing oil elsewhere, like Iran. Analysts made it clear that the Iran conflict and disruptions in global oil routes are exerting a much greater short-term influence on prices than Trump's Venezuela scheme.
U.S. pump prices respond to worldwide crude prices, refinery capacity, transportation costs, seasonal demand and geopolitical disruptions. It trades on the global market. So, even Trump flooding the U.S. market with oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) can only go on so long. The Reserve continues to blow through its nearly 290 million barrels left in an effort to soften the blow of soaring gas prices.
Currently, U.S. refineries are operating at near capacity (97 percent), the Wall Street Journal reported this week. More oil doesn't automatically mean more gasoline if there isn't enough refinery capacity to process it.
Venezuelan oil would be only one additional source of supply and could not control the global market on its own.
-=-=
odd to join sinking ship?
rww 9 26
Finally, even though it was entirely predictable, it's nonetheless amazing to watch Glenn Beck's transformation into an obsequious mouthpiece for Trump, especially since he spent all of 2016 warning, among other things, that "there's pretty strong evidence that he's a psychopath."
-=-=
-=-=
AN 9 26
HEGS FAIL
In the aftermath of President Donald Trump's Secretary of the Army resigning on Monday — amidst a purge of military personnel equating to more than nine centuries of experience — a new report reveals that the outgoing officer was deeply alarmed at Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's gutting of America's armed forces.
"During a White House meeting last week, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll brought his concerns about the future of the Army under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directly to President Trump — a sign of how far tensions between the two Pentagon leaders had escalated, and of the dysfunction inside the building, four people familiar with the conversation told us," reported The Atlantic's Nancy A. Youssef, Missy Ryan and Michael Scherer on Monday.
"Trump was surprised when Driscoll told him how many generals and other top officers had been fired, pushed out, or passed over for promotion under Hegseth, one of the people said. Driscoll argued that the Army could not transform itself the way it needs to because of the departure of so many leaders, this person said, adding that Trump expressed concern about the deep cuts to the Army’s senior leadership. Driscoll informed the president of his intention to resign — and by today, Driscoll was on his way out."
The journalists added, "Hegseth’s purge of the military has been so dramatic that with Driscoll gone, the military’s largest service is left without a top civilian leader, a Senate-confirmed top general, a confirmed Army general in charge of operations, or a confirmed commander of Army troops in Europe. Because of all the firings across the service over the past year, the Army, with more than 450,000 active-duty soldiers positioned across the globe, has fewer generals than at any point in recent history. Driscoll’s personal appeal to Trump just days before his exit was the most direct articulation of high-level concerns among Pentagon leaders about the strains facing the force — including Hegseth’s intervention in Army personnel decisions and the mounting demands of the Iran war."
They also observed that Hegseth's rationales for firing people and withholding promotions have demoralized the ranks.
"The Army has long prided itself on representing the diversity of the country, but under Hegseth, minorities and women have been pushed out or barred from promotion," Youssef, Ryan and Scherer wrote. "The military has long sought to be apolitical, but under Hegseth, troops are measured not by combat experience but by their perceived loyalty to the administration. Among the generals fired have been some of the most experienced and decorated in the service. Each departure marks the loss of decades of investment in that soldier and raises questions about how future troops can rise through the ranks."
Driscoll left his position after months of clashing with Hegseth. According to a report by The Washington Post in April, “Hegseth and Driscoll have disagreed on numerous issues, including Hegseth’s moves to block the promotions of several Army officers." They added that if Driscoll stepped down, Trump might replace him with Hegseth's top spokesman Sean Parnell, which alarms observers as Parnell is perceived as being just as political and interested in culture war battles as Hegseth himself.
-=-=
9 26
President Donald Trump's ongoing trade war with Canada just took a major turn — and it was not in the president's interests.
"In Texas and New York, big oil and big money are placing their bets on the future of the energy industry," reported The Globe and Mail's Andrew Willis on Monday. "Major American oil companies and asset managers are lining up to invest in Canadian infrastructure. They seem to have missed U.S. President Donald Trump’s weekend Truth Social post declaring 'I don’t want Canadian anything.'"
Describing the companies in question as ExxonMobil Holdings Corp., ConocoPhillips, KKR & Co. Inc. and Apollo Global Management Inc., The Globe and Mail added that they are also steering clear of Venezuela, which Trump set his sights on earlier this year.
"The American economy runs on Canadian energy," Willis pointed out. "Last year, the U.S. imported $160-billion of oil, gas and electricity from its northern neighbour. Mr. Trump’s attempt to position Venezuela as a counter to Canada’s strongest suits is a bad bluff."
He continued, "The President’s anti-Canada policies are undermined by the actions of the largest U.S. oil companies and biggest asset managers. They are all investing in a robust long-term Canadian relationship. The larger lesson from Mr. Trump’s recent Truth Social postings on Venezuela and Canada is what they say about the President’s declining relevance."
This is not the first report to indicate that Trump's attempt to bully Canada into winning a trade war against the United States has spectacularly failed.
“As Carney prepared to walk away — a rare example of a foreign leader telling the president ‘enough’ — Trump was retreating on another trade front,” reported The Washington Post's David J. Lynch earlier in August. “On Friday, after insisting for more than a year that tariffs do not affect consumer prices, he lifted tariffs on beef imports, saying the move would lead to lower grocery prices.”
Lynch added, “The two developments, coupled with legal challenges to Trump’s tariffs, leave the president’s signature economic policy in a state of flux.”
Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator and currently senior vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, also told the Post that Trump's Canada trade war has reached “a juncture where other countries may be very closely watching how this plays out as they also are becoming increasingly frustrated with the demands the U.S. is placing on them in these largely one-sided trade agreements.”
Trump is also failing on the PR front in his trade war against Canada, most recently in trying to retaliate against Canada by renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.
"Throughout his political career, Trump’s signature skill has been to drive the conversation where he wanted it to go. He declares victory when things have not been won," wrote Slate's Ben Jacobs on Monday. "He ducks attribution with the rhetorical tic 'many people are saying,' frequently followed by things that people are decidedly not saying. He posts outrageous graphics on social media. And, of course, he renames things: Political opponents get nicknames, buildings get Trump’s name, and bodies of water get America’s name."
Yet that has not worked with the Lake Ontario gambit, indicating that Trump's "superpower" with PR may be waning.
-=-=
AN 9 26
Critics of President Donald Trump often accuse him of blatantly violating federal and state laws in an effort to increase his power. But according to The New Republic's Matt Ford, a major part of Trump's ongoing power grab is using a different tactic: unearthing "moribund" laws and looking for ways to weaponize them.
The "moribund" laws that Trump and his legal team are digging up, Ford reports in The New Republic, are still on the books — and they are finding ways to exploit them.
"Congress has spent the last two centuries passing laws," Ford explains. "These laws often remain on the books, so to speak, long after their purpose has been fulfilled until lawmakers repeal them. Occasionally, the Trump administration finds something buried within this back catalogue that it can wield for its own purposes — and to no good end."
Ford continues, "This summer, for example, the Trump administration has moved to revive two different courts that are authorized by Congress but have laid moribund for decades or even centuries.
One of them is the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, or ATRC, which the Justice Department plans to use to deport certain applicable immigrants in classified settings…. Earlier this week, the department also began moving towards reviving prize courts, which allow the U.S. government to seize foreign vessels captured during war — more specifically, any Iranian oil tankers captured during the ongoing illegal war with Iran. Under federal law, these prize courts operate within the existing federal district courts to hear cases on the legality of a ship's capture and pave the way for the vessel's eventual sale, as well as the sale of any goods on board."
Ford argues that Congress should respond to the Trump administration's "enthusiasm for reviving moribund laws to accomplish its policy goals" by "repealing or revising them."
"Trump and his allies have inflicted plenty of harm through violating federal laws during his second term," Ford warns. "Another important problem is when he abuses and misuses existing laws…. It is telling that the federal government had never before used the ATRC to deport someone, even at the height of the War on Terror under the George W. Bush administration."
According to Ford, Congress "has a pernicious habit of leaving loaded guns lying around in the United States Code" — and the Trump administration is taking advantage of these "moribund" laws.
"Just because past presidents haven't picked them up and abused them doesn't mean Trump and his successors should be able to do so," Ford observes. "One of Trump's first experiments with moribund laws this time was to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 last year against Venezuelan nationals living inside the United States who it claims are members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. History students may remember the law as one component of the Alien and Sedition Acts, a package of controversial and constitutionally dubious laws enacted by the John Adams administration in the late 1790s. The Alien Enemies Act was the only one that wasn't repealed, though it remained largely unused until recently."
-=-=
RWW
'This Is What Authority Looks Like': Brigitte Gabriel Gushes Over Trump Renaming Lake Ontario
MAGA activist Brigitte Gabriel positively gushes over Trump changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America: "He is setting the standard of what leadership, what American leadership should be like, and this is the standard that we should measure."
-=-=
AN 8 26
President Donald Trump's list of failures continues to grow, and as a new analysis from MS NOW argued, he has now resorted to seeking punishments for those who tell the truth about his unpopularity.
In a piece published Monday morning, Steven Benen, a longtime contributor to the network and producer for host Rachel Maddow, discussed Trump's recent demand that his FCC Chair, Brendan Carr, investigate NBC and anchor Kristin Welker after comments she made about him having a "mixed" endorsement record in the midterms so far. Trump accused this of being "purposeful inaccuracy" that ought to be investigated.
“How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves?” Trump posted to Truth Social on Friday. “Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment... The Press is a Disgrace to our Nation, and I hope that Chairman Brendan Carr, and the fine people of his Commission, will take this Threat to our Country very seriously.”
Benen called this demand from Trump "brazen nonsense," and highlighted how ridiculous the anger seemed given that Welker's comment only came "in passing during a live shot on NBC’s local D.C. affiliate." He further argued that the post from the president "reflects an inherently authoritarian worldview — one in which media professionals are supposed to fear federal investigations for telling the public the truth."
He also highlighted a follow-up post Trump made on Sunday, accusing the media of using "fake polls," which just so happen to be the ones in which his approval and popularity are faltering.
"The missive came five days after the Republican concocted a deeply weird conspiracy theory alleging that the national surveys conducted by major independent news organizations, universities and research institutions have been secretly being coordinated by Democratic officials, as part of a fiendish and undisclosed plot to make GOP voters feel discouraged," Benen detailed. "There are, according to the president’s same pitch, a series of undisclosed polls that paint an entirely different picture about public attitudes, but that we’re apparently not allowed to see for reasons Trump hasn’t explained."
He added later: "Time will tell whether Carr and his colleagues take the president’s directives seriously, but let’s not miss the forest for the trees: Confronted with data showing his broad unpopularity, Trump can either (a) change course; (b) accept the fact that his presidency lacks public support; or (c) pursue investigations into journalists and independent entities that have dared to present him with information he doesn’t want to see or hear. The fact that he’s choosing door No. 3 isn’t surprising, but it does offer a timely reminder about his twisted perspective."
-=-=
an 8 26
dod non concurraNCW LEk parnell rant
Classified leak reveals 'growing turmoil' among senior Trump officials
-=-=
EARTH2 // AI SLOP DAY BEF TRUMP TWT MISSION ACOMPL 2026
MMA
The delusional right-wing media figures declaring victory in Iran
The Trump administration’s war of aggression against Iran has failed to achieve its stated objectives. Just don’t tell that to its most die-hard sycophants.
Written by John Knefel
Published 08/28/26
By any objective metric, the Trump administration has failed in its war of aggression against Iran. Once maximalist goals of destroying Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons program have been tabled. In the United States, energy costs — especially diesel fuel — are skyrocketing, while missile stockpiles are dwindling. Iran has exerted control over the Strait of Hormuz, an outcome U.S. war planners had long predicted in the event of an extended conflict. Reports that the U.S. military has wrested control of the waterway should be taken with a shipping-freighter-sized grain of salt, as recent data shows that traffic through the strait dwindled on Thursday, and even days with the most activity only reached to about half of pre-war levels.
But what if all of that wasn’t the case? What if President Donald Trump had already won the war, and the only thing that was missing, geopolitically speaking, was the recognition of that fact? That would really be something. And, thanks to a set of especially sycophantic pundits aligned with the White House, that alternate reality is just one livestream or TV show away.
Fox News’ Sean Hannity, as reliable a hack for the Trump administration as you can find on cable news, argued on August 19 that the president hadn’t gotten enough “credit” for stopping Iran’s ability to build a nuclear bomb. (Of course, an obvious consequence of bombing a country, assassinating its leadership, and threatening to destroy its entire civilization is that the new government, entirely rationally, is more interested than ever in developing a nuclear deterrent to avoid such attacks being repeated.)
Hannity also claimed that Iran was “breaking financially,” though close observers believe it is well-positioned to withstand even escalated U.S. sanctions.
The next day, CNN contributor Scott Jennings — currently auditioning for the role of White House press secretary — was even more obsequious.
“It may be time for the president to declare victory in this war because it's obvious that we've won,” Jennings said on his YouTube show.
Video
Citation
From the August 19, 2026, edition of The Scott Jennings Show, streamed on YouTube
MAGA media influencer Benny Johnson was similarly shameless, titling an August 21 segment: “Iran's President SURRENDERS | Calls To 'End The War' With America Immediately As US CONQUERS Hormuz.” Then, on August 22: “Iran Thought They Won…Now It’s All OVER | How Trump Secretly DESTROYED Them Without a Single Bomb.”
Citation
From BennyJohnson.com, posted on August 21, 2026.
On August 24, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a series of punishing sanctions on Iran — a so-called “economic D-Day” — and much of the right-wing media coverage framed it as the latest sign of victory.
That morning, Fox News’ Lawrence Jones, echoing a recurring theme in right-wing media, argued, “You know what’s worse that no new wars — and this is not a new war, this has been going on 47-plus years — is losing. And we're winning right now."
The chyron referenced a New York Post editorial headlined: “Trump is winning the Iran war— stay the course.”
Citation
From the official website of the New York Post, published August 23, 2026.
Citing Bessent’s comments, Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty claimed, “Despite what they’re saying about this war on CNN or MS NOW or in The New York Times, this war's about to end and America is about to win.”
Back on his YouTube show, Jennings offered a list of accomplishments the United States had not in fact accomplished.
“The United States has won the war against Iran,” Jennings said, arguing that “many in our political class refuse to acknowledge” this fact.
“Iran entered this war with four great pillars of strength: its nuclear program, its missiles and drones, its regional terror network, and its ability to hold the world economy hostage through the Strait of Hormuz,” Jennings said. “Every one of those pillars has been severely damaged or outright destroyed.”
Video
Citation
From the August 24, 2026, edition of The Scott Jennings Show, streamed on YouTube
On August 26, Trump posted an image on Truth Social reading, in part, “Mission Accomplished 2026.”
Like with Bessent’s announcement, the administration’s media allies ran with it.
Johnson once again painted a rosy picture of the conflict. “Iran is effectively admitting defeat,” he said. “The Iranian leadership is saying what we all know to be true, which is that you cannot fight a war if you cannot feed your army.”
Hannity boasted that “we have a nuclear-free Iran” among a list of Trump’s supposed successes — a thin accomplishment given that Iran has never had a nuclear weapon and U.S. intelligence agencies determined as recently as last summer it was not pursuing one.
Within the first few days after the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February, right-wing media figures were eager to declare victory. Half a year later, that outcome remains easier said than done.
-=-=
-=-=
AHA DOH SANCTIONS // TARIFFS TOLL FOR EXTORTION
AN 8 26
President Donald Trump announced that his new strategy for the Iran war returns to his old strategy of deploying sanctions on the country and attempting to isolate it economically. But Trump is giving his friends a pass when it comes to following his new sanctions rules.
MS NOW Rachel Maddow producer Steve Benen argued in a Friday column that Trump has weakened his own policy with sweeping threats against countries that assist Tehran, but then signaled that he may not enforce those threats against Russia or China. The contradiction ultimately undermines the credibility of Trump’s strength at a time when the United States is already struggling to bring its six-month war with Iran to an end.
"It quickly became obvious that the president’s threat was largely meaningless, and the administration’s new policy amounted to little more than another underwhelming threat," wrote Benen.
During an Oval Office signing on Thursday, Trump was asked whether he intends to enforce the sanctions for all countries, including Russia and China. Given that the two countries have been aiding Iran, there was a question about whether Trump would be willing to enforce his rules for his favorite world leaders.
"Well, it depends, it depends,” Trump replied. “So far, I think Russia’s behaved quite well having to do with the Strait of Hormuz. And you have to understand, for everything they do, we do also, you know. Somebody was saying about China, ‘What about China? We hear they’re spying.’ We spy on them too; that’s the way it goes.”
Trump added that it's not as if the U.S. doesn't do the same kind of things, breaking sanctions.
Benen called it "pitiful."
Russia has been shipping drone components to Iran, NBC News reported last week. Another report revealed that Russia has also been sending cash to Iran.
"Instead of acting on this, Trump has largely defended Russia, accepted Putin’s denials at face value, and as recently as Thursday, praised Russia for having “behaved quite well,'" Benen said.
Essentially, Benen wrote, the president drew a red line and then gave his pals a pass once they stepped over it.
Meanwhile, he cited the report The Washington Post, indicating “fresh U.S. intelligence indicating that the Kremlin sees the United States as weakened by the Iran war.”
"Trump’s willingness to signal abject weakness isn’t likely to help," he closed.
AN 8 26
WaPo catches Trump red-handed: White House faked ballroom progress
-=-=
AN 8 26
TARIFF MIZZOU
At a time when the Republican Party is fighting for life under an unpopular president, an economic analysis reveals the red state of Missouri is looking at serious problems as President Donald Trump escalates his prolonged trade war between the U.S. and Canada, according to the Kansas City Star.
Trump may have tried to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” in his latest sleight to Canada, but there’s nothing symbolic about the impact of the 50 percent tariffs the Trump administration levied on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. There’s also nothing symbolic about the pain of the retaliatory tariffs Canada plans to impose on roughly 700 American products beginning Sept. 8.
“The Kansas City metro area exports about $4 billion in goods to Canada annually, including vehicles, plastics, chemicals and agricultural products," according to a 2025 study by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
“Any variation in tariffs may be sensitive,” said Ariel Dvoskin, who studies trade theory and teaches economics at the University of Missouri Kansas City, “and the [50 percent] variation that we are talking about right now … would substantially affect the exports from KC.”
Dvoskin pointed out that a whopping 37 percent of Kansas City’s exported goods go to Canada, which puts this Trump-voting state in a nasty bullseye. “When you increase tariffs, of course, those who suffer first are workers because prices go up and their real wages go down," Dvoskin said.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce study identified Kansas City as one of the U.S. cities that would take the hardest hit in a trade war between the North American allies, with Kansas City the third-most vulnerable city in a prolonged trade dispute because of its dependence on Canadian demand.
The info was based on 2023 data, but Andrew DiCapua, the chamber’s principal economist and the study’s author, told the Star that the results still apply today.
“Kansas City really is at the center of this trade war,” DiCapua said. “ … It raises costs for businesses. I mean, someone needs to pay for this. Even if it’s not passed on to consumers right away, someone still needs to pay for the tariffs. So smaller businesses that rely on these supply chains are going to have to eat those costs.”
Frank Lenk, director of economic research at the Mid-America Regional Council, told the Star that Kansas City’s auto industry is among the clearest targets because vehicles are one of the region’s largest exports and much of that trade is tied to Canada. Lenk added that Trump’s trade war can also hike manufacturing costs for companies like Ford and General Motors because parts and materials move back and forth across the border before final assembly.
They can either absorb those costs and threaten their financial integrity and workers or pass the costs down to customers in a colossal wallop.
-=-=
AN 8 26
Trump cuts down oldest cherry blossoms in DC for his golf course
AN 8 26
Conservative goes ballistic as Trump paves the way for an attack on NATO
-=-=
AN 8 26
Three-time Republican speechwriter Peter Wehner says he knows what fuels the fury that sent President Donald Trump and MAGA into a frenzy over the Natalie Harp debacle.
“In 2016, Trump found a constituency already primed for grievance, and taught it to want more. His supporters have kept themselves in a state of frenzy ever since. They need to be perpetually outraged, aggrieved, and insulted. MAGA world has become addicted to the feeling. It delivers a jolt of adrenaline, it provides a feeling of social belonging, and it gives people a sharpened sense of purpose,” said Wehner, describing the unique rage-fit that seized MAGA social media accounts and the White House media room after a Georgia Democrat made a sneering reference to Trump’s fawning dependence on a young blonde helper.
“They see themselves as warriors in a drama of their own construction. They view their opponents — Democrats, progressives, critics of Trump — as personifications of evil. Inflicting pain on their enemies feels good, really good, and it feels just.”
Wehner said Trump is aware of the rage he kindles in MAGA-world, of course. It’s why he once told his supporters: “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”
The Georgia senator’s snipe was “a response to Trump’s collapsing support and the fracturing MAGA movement,” Wehner said, and it came at a time when Trump supporters desperately need common ground and a common enemy. The senator’s comments gave them “a chance to lash out, to go on the offensive, and to shake feelings of powerlessness and impending doom. At a time when defending Trump is nearly impossible, attacking his opponents becomes imperative.”
“But there’s something else going on as well, at least with one subgroup of Trump supporters,” Wehner added, “… many radio and television commentators, podcasters, and members of Congress among them — who were dedicated conservatives before Trump came along. They believed character was destiny and virtue mattered; they revered the rule of law, institutions, and norms; they championed free trade and free markets, fiscal responsibility, and a strong Western alliance; and they opposed patrimonialism, corruption, and lawlessness in the presidency.”
These same people had to surrender all those commitments and much more to support a cad like Trump, and they know it.
“The cost of speaking out against him, even when they knew better, was simply too high. They wanted to stay in the good graces of those in power. So they broke. And they know they broke,” said Wehner. “This has caused a painful degree of cognitive dissonance within many of them. They want to think better of themselves — and others to think better of them — than their actions warrant. What they see in Ossoff’s comments is a chance to signal that they are still who they once were, or at least seemed to be. In this case, they are portraying themselves as enraged at Ossoff’s ‘misogynistic lies.’ His comments are ‘repulsive’ and ‘guttersnipe statements.’”
They adore finally getting to call a Democrat a “disgusting coward” and a “disgusting pig,” said Wehner. It soothes the rotten spot created by their own cowardly pig in the White House.
“One can almost hear, from the distant past, their words of moral outrage at Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Of course, in this case, Trump supporters have aligned themselves with a man who was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming a woman. Who falsified business records to conceal a sex scandal with a porn star shortly after the birth of his child. Who celebrated his affairs through tabloids. Who said if you have power, you can “grab ’em by the [privates].” Who has called women ‘fat pigs’ and ‘piggy,’ ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals,’ and ‘horseface.’”
Trump had even suggested that tough questioning by a woman was due to her monthly period, Wehner said. And he’s said that “it doesn’t really matter” what the media write “as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of [body].”
But nobody flew into a rage over Harp like Trump, Wehner believes, because the Ossoff sting made clear that Trump is a sundowning president with emerging mental decline who requires a “diaper nurse” to keep him walking in a straight line at public events.
“Gabriel García Márquez’s novel The Autumn of the Patriarch is about an unnamed dictator, an illiterate who rises to power and brutally takes control of a country. … The ‘autumn’ in the title refers to the corrupt patriarch’s physical and mental decay, his growing paranoia, his psychological isolation, and his inability to form genuine human connections. He surrounds himself with sycophants, creating a false reality, complete with fake news and newspapers, including a single copy of the national daily newspaper — the news rewritten to please him, created only for the dictator. He needs it to maintain his ‘throne of illusions.’”
“Ultimately, we know, thrones of illusion do collapse,” Wehner added, “and not only in novels.”
-=-=
an 8 26
Federal judge issues huge slap to Trump’s domestic spying attempt
//
President Donald Trump’s revenge scheme against various individuals he has publicly deemed political enemies is officially defunct -- at least according to several sources, in no small part because of his failure to successfully prosecute a man he wrongly accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool. Indeed, that trend is even extending to cases that would normally be considered airtight.
The Daily Mail's Charlie Spiering reported on Thursday that the citizens of Washington DC are treating Trump’s Justice Department like an organization which deliberately targets innocent people rather than a good faith actor, and they are responding accordingly. When they targeted Olympic canoeist David Hearn by incorrectly saying he vandalized the Reflecting Pool, for example, the case was seemingly rejected for that reason.
“The bigger problem now is that [USAG Jeanine Pirro's] office has struggled to land seemingly airtight cases, with Washington's jury pool deeply skeptical of the administration's prosecutions, say sources,” Spiering wrote. “Juries have twice deadlocked over two suspected MS-13 ringleaders, sending both trials to mistrials this week. The deadlocked juries are a sign that there is deep skepticism surrounding Pirro and the Trump administration among DC citizens.”
Those defeats seem bound to continue unabated, sources tell the Daily Mail, despite Pirro's demonstrated willingness to take controversial or outright false cases to trial.
“Jury nullification is a serious problem in DC,' a legal source following proceedings in the city said,” Spiering observed. “Jury nullification is when jurors deliver a not guilty verdict even though they believe the defendant has broken the law.”
He added that this is indicative of a deeper systemic issue.
“The deadlocked juries are a sign that there is deep skepticism surrounding Pirro and the Trump administration among DC citizens,” Spiering said. “Those defeats will likely continue, sources tell the Daily Mail, despite her willingness to take cases to trial.”
He added, “'Jury nullification is a serious problem in DC,' a legal source following proceedings in the city said. Jury nullification is when jurors deliver a not guilty verdict even though they believe the defendant has broken the law.”
The Daily Mail explained that Pirro ultimately kept her job despite her recent failures by convincing Trump of the uphill battle involved in prosecuting these thin cases.
“During the closed-door Oval Office meeting, she personally detailed the Reflecting Pool case evidence to him,” Spiering stated. “The President was angry but understanding, a source familiar with the meeting previously told the Daily Mail.”
Apparently Trump has cooled off toward Pirro, perhaps recognizing on some level that the Justice Department has undermined its own credibility by pursuing weak and blatantly political cases.
“'I don't think that she's on thin ice now, I just think Trump was [furious] about the case,' another source told the Daily Mail. 'It was kind of a dumb case. It wasn't going to go anywhere and she was fully honest with the President about it,’” Spiering reported.
The Washington Examiner reported earlier this week that DC residents are so outraged at Trump’s political warfare that they are deliberately joining grand juries and receiving instructions on how to refuse to pursue cases the president is clearly trying to prosecute for political reasons. Similarly, people throughout America are joining forces to revolt against Trump’s attempts to rig the upcoming midterm elections.
-=-=
AN 8 26
Trump trapped in an ultra-wealthy 'bubble' as signs of 'doom' encroach
-=-=
AN 8 26
The Republican Party is supposed to be hosting its first-ever midterm convention next month, but according to Puck News, party members are now fuming as President Donald Trump turns the event into his latest messy "grift."
Ahead of what are expected to be a bruising set of midterm elections, the GOP is poised to put on an unprecedented convention, the sort usually reserved for crowning a top-of-the-ticket nominee during presidential election years. While Trump himself touted the event as having “lots of Great Entertainment” and “a RALLY like none other," strategists within the party told Puck that his influence has turned it into a "s——" show that "few lawmakers want to go" to.
As ever, Trump's money-grubbing tendencies appear to be driving frustrations the most.
"For starters, the National Republican Campaign Committee is asking House members to cough up $25,000 for themselves and a guest to attend the two-day convention in Dallas, according to three people who have reviewed the invitation," the Tuesday report detailed. "And that’s the cheap rate, with the highest tier asking for $100,000 from lawmakers."
The outlet continued: "The R.N.C., which is hosting the convention, is also taking sponsorship money from corporate donors, which is being funneled into a nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors. But with no party business being conducted (as would be typical at a presidential nominating convention) and poor planning (invitations were sent in the last several weeks, way after lawmakers had already committed to other events), campaign strategists are seething that it’s little more than a fundraiser for an unnecessary Trump production, at a time when some swing-district lawmakers aren’t exactly clamoring to be associated with the president."
“It’s yet another opportunity to shake down corporate America,” one Republican campaign strategist vented to Puck. “Nobody understands why we’re doing a midterm convention. It’s just another show that Trump is going to put on to remind the voters that he is sitting there, and maybe they don’t want to be reminded of that.”
The report further noted that the potential optics of the event are also stirring up concerns, given its unfortunate timing.
"Then there are the optics. The convention will take place just two days before the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks," Puck added. "Imperfect timing, perhaps, for lawmakers to be photographed carousing in elephant hats with the party’s wealthy elite."
Following the announcement of the convention, Politics USA founder Jasone Easley argued that the convention was a political gift for Democrats heading into the midterms, as Trump sought to "rub his stink of failure all over" the GOP at a time when voters are increasingly sick of him.
"Trump is going to hold a convention so that he can be the center of attention,” Easley said. “Trump is apparently also going to try to play concert promoter again after the Great American State Fair debacle, so prepare yourself for multiple performances of Proud To Be An American by Lee Greenwood. … Just in case you were curious, Trump is dedicating two nights to sinking Republican chances in the midterm election”
-=-=
an 8 26
With the midterms right around the corner and President Donald Trump relentlessly pressing his conspiracies about voter fraud, an insider and whistleblower from his first term has revealed that his “tin-foil hat” plan to “interfere in the democratic process” is underway. This is according to Miles Taylor, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Department of Homeland Security during Trump’s first administration and exposed a number of its secrets. On Wednesday, he sounded the alarm that a plot Trump began nearly a decade ago is coming to its most dangerous phase.
Over the course of the past year, Trump and his allies have been asked repeatedly whether federal troops will be stationed at polling places during the midterms. They have tended to dodge the question, saying there are “no plans” to do so without ruling it out. But “evidently,” writes Taylor, “all of that controversy was aimed at the wrong place. While Washington officials debated Election Day polling sites, the administration was quietly reassigning battalions of officers to start homing in on the election from their cubicles, combing through voter rolls in a secret operation without precedent.”
Taylor is referencing new bombshell reporting by the Washington Post, which revealed on Tuesday, writes Taylor, “that hundreds of federal immigration officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, including the specialists who vet immigration applications for fraud and security threats, have been pulled off their day jobs and reassigned to monitor voting lists for supposed noncitizen voters. This places DHS agents directly into a role that was never envisioned when the Department was created and which has ominous implications for the midterms and future elections.” Despite the fact that they are being intentionally obscure about this, says Taylor, “the Trump administration expects Americans to trust that they are merely hunting for ‘illegal’ registrants. Yet the operation raises urgent questions about potential abuse, oversight, and whether DHS agents will play a larger role in unlawfully purging American citizens from voter rolls.”
It’s all part of a wider effort, asserts Taylor, to convert “the Justice Department’s Voting Section from a shield for voters into a weapon against them. His administration has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia to extract voter roll data, ordered federal agencies to build ‘approved’ lists of voters, and as we speak, is still moving ahead with plans to control the delivery of ballots in the mail.”
All of this began under Trump’s first term, according to Taylor, who writes, “I dealt with this in the first Trump administration, when the White House sent us on a foolish odyssey at DHS to expose this (non-existent) nationwide voter fraud conspiracy it keeps talking about. There wasn’t any evidence of such a conspiracy. It was tin-foil hat stuff. But I realize now the point was never to find the fraud. The point was to manufacture a number big enough to justify voter purges, prosecutions of election officials, and federal interference in states where the White House expects to lose. That’s what they’re doing now.”
He notes that thousands of DHS agents and federal prosecutors have been reassigned from their actual responsibilities and directed to help the president “seize control over who is allowed to cast a ballot.” For example, “the Trump administration continues to assert that all of its efforts are focused on the phantom menace of ‘noncitizen voters.’ But the pretext is collapsing under its own weight. Trump and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin claim they’ve found roughly 278,000 noncitizens are unlawfully registered to vote in the United States. But when Nevada pressed the department on Mullin’s claim of 16,000 in their state, DHS admitted it had confirmed just 185, then refused to hand over the names so the state could investigate.”
According to Taylor, “Nothing in American history looks like this. At all. Yet there are plenty of examples of regimes around the world mounting election takeovers that look very similar. Students of history would call it authoritarianism.”
-=-=
A Fox News host sent a dire warning to President Donald Trump and the rest of the Republican Party, saying that time is running out to avert disastrous losses in the forthcoming midterms.
During the Tuesday evening edition of her show, The Ingraham Angle, Fox host Laura Ingraham sent a "blunt" message to the president, as noted by The Daily Beast, warning him that the GOP's majorities in both the House and the Senate are at risk in November. This came during a discussion with her guest, American Majority PAC CEO Ned Ryun, who worried that the party was "whistling past the graveyard" as it disregarded the potential for certain red stronghold states to flip Democratic in the midterms.
"I think Republicans are kind of whistling past the graveyard on some of these Senate seats that they thought were safe,” Ryun said. “We got to kick it into gear over these next 10 weeks, or we are looking at not only the House but also the Senate as well."
Among the at-risk red states, according to Ryun, are South Carolina, Alaska, Nebraska and Ohio, with surprise losses in just a few of those states putting the Senate majority in serious jeopardy for the GOP. Ingraham added that she is also worried about the race in Iowa for retiring Sen. Joni Ernst's seat, set to be contested between Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson and Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek.
"I think there are a number of states that Republicans better get their act together. Iowa is one of them," she said.
"The Senate is thumbing their nose at the base over the SAVE America Act," Ryun added. "Gas is $4.10 a gallon. You know, they’re not seeing a lot of the things they voted for. The Iran war is killing us."
"Trump still considers himself an electoral asset and according to a report in The Atlantic, intends to put himself front and center in last-minute midterm campaigning," The Daily Beast added in its report about Ingraham's warning. "But Trump’s approval ratings are at historically low levels, with a Reuters/Ipsos poll putting him at 33 percent as his unpopular war on Iran sends gas prices higher at the pumps."
This cratering approval has some Republicans scrambling to get some distance between themselves and the president, especially on issues of deeper importance to their particular states. Hinson, for example, recently broke with Trump on the announcement that he would be allowing 300,000 of imported beef into the U.S. without a tariff to try and address soaring costs, causing much frustration among American cattle farmers.
"We need to focus on affordability, but I think this isn’t the way to do that," Hinson said during a recent appearance on Fox's Sunday Morning Futures.
-=-=
mma
Checking in on Trump’s war on the press since his White House Correspondents’ dinner speech
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 08/25/26
One month ago, the White House Correspondents Association gathered for its annual “dinner that celebrates the First Amendment” with President Donald Trump.
Journalists assembled in Washington, D.C., sat impotently as the president delivered remarks that mixed empty platitudes about his “respect for your profession” with withering insults directed at individual reporters. The evening “was a public humiliation for the White House Correspondents’ Association” that “left the association looking naïve about its decision to invite the man who has spent years using both his personal and government means to wage war against the free press and its ability to report on his actions,” Status’ Jon Passantino wrote.
Trump’s behavior was extremely predictable given his long record of vitriolic attacks on journalists and news outlets — not to mention his administration’s frequent use of state power to try to cudgel them into line. And the president’s long war on free speech and the free press has continued without pause since he broke bread with reporters at the Waldorf Astoria on July 24.
Since then:
The Washington Post reported that Trump secretly left the old Air Force One jumbo jet on the tarmac in Turkey last month and used an alternate military transport to fly to Britain in response to an Iranian assassination threat, effectively turning into a “decoy” the plane that carried top aides — and the unwitting press corps. The WHCA subsequently asked the Trump administration to “work with us on a protocol for handling extraordinary security circumstances in the future.”
Disney and ABC sued the Federal Communications Commission, saying it violated the First Amendment with its pretextual and retaliatory decision to order an unprecedented early review of Disney’s eight ABC station licenses. The FCC’s move came the day after Trump, who has frequently called for networks to lose their stations over coverage he dislikes, demanded that Disney and ABC “immediately fire” Jimmy Kimmel over a joke the late night host told on his ABC show.
Trump’s personal lawyers threatened a $5 billion lawsuit against the Center for American Progress if the progressive think tank did not withdraw its report which found “no evidence that National Guard deployments have reduced violent crime.”
The Defense Department fired the editor in chief and publisher of Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that covers the U.S. military and is partially funded by the Pentagon but whose editorial independence is enshrined by statute. Erik Slavin, the editor in chief, said in a statement that according to the termination notice he received, “I am being fired for stating in a CBS interview that censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line.”
None of this seems likely to convince the WHCA to change course, and it’s unclear what if anything Trump could do to the press that would result in the rescission of his invitation for next year’s dinner.
The organization’s leadership has moved from an employee of one pro-Trump media oligarch to another, with Weijia Jiang, senior White House correspondent for David Ellison’s CBS News, succeeded by Jacqui Heinrich, White House correspondent for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. And Heinrich told New York magazine earlier this month: “This dinner precedes President Trump. It will continue after President Trump. And we will invite the president no matter who the president is every year.”
“I thought it was valuable to have him taking part in a tradition that recognizes the importance of the free press,” Heinrich later added, without addressing who it might benefit or how. “And he’s already said he’s going to come next year. It’s going to be at the Hilton. If they want to complain about it, that’s fine, but it’s happening.”
26
//
You can’t celebrate the First Amendment with Donald Trump
03/03/26 11:48 AM EST
The White House Correspondents’ Association takes another futile crack at celebrating the First Amendment with Donald Trump
07/22/26 1:16 PM EDT
Donald Trump is the greatest threat to our free speech rights
09/24/25
-=-=
an 8 26
In spite of President Donald Trump's insistence that he still knows what MAGA wants, a new piece from The i Paper argued that he is now facing an "insurgency" from the movement he created as he continues to sow divisions.
"With just over two months to go before voters are set to seal his fate in America’s midterm elections, President Donald Trump is once again bucking tradition: instead of uniting his party around him and leading from the front, he has spent days stoking divisions among Republicans that could advance the day when the GOP splits asunder," reporter Simon Marks wrote in the Tuesday piece,
He later added, "last Friday night, the President fired the latest, dramatic salvo in his efforts to retain the leadership of a movement that shows every sign of fracturing beneath him. Amid collapsing trade talks with Canada, fresh revelations of the damage Iran has done to America’s military infrastructure, and several days of primary contest losses for a host of Trump-backed Republican candidates, the President turned his social media blowtorch on 'traitors' around him."
Marks further argued that "Ground Zero" for the MAGA pushback against Trump could be traced back to Wyoming, "America's reddest state," earlier this year, when "five [GOP] lawmakers broke ranks and condemned the President for a social media post in which he compared himself to Jesus." More recently, his endorsed candidate for governor in Wyoming "went down to a crushing defeat" against another Republican candidate "who pledged to lower the temperature of extremist debate in the state."
Marks also highlighted the Florida House race in which "antisemitic influencer Dan Bilzerian" sought to unseat incumbent Rep. Randy Fine, calling him a "Jewish supremacist" and attacking Trump as "nothing but a tool for Israeli hegemony." While Bilzerian did not win the primary, Marks argued that his ability to secure 19 percent of the final vote offered "a fresh indication that Trump and his approved candidates are vulnerable to accusations that the President has betrayed MAGA and sold the movement out."
Elsewhere, three spurned former Trump supporters — Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie and Tucker Carlson — shared a photo of a meeting together, amid rumors that they might be plotting the creation of a new political party to take on Trump and his remaining GOP elite backers. Trump himself was dismissive of this idea, lambasting the group as a bunch of "losers."
"Trump now finds himself confronting a paradox. In many ways, MAGA’s greatest strength since he announced his presidential candidacy in 2015 has been the movement’s ability to portray Republicans as a single insurgency seeking to overthrow an elitist radical-left establishment and the so-called 'deep state,'" Marks concluded. "But today, Trump’s control of MAGA is threatened by a fresh insurgency vowing to overturn the very Republican elite that he now leads. Containing those threats will be no small matter, as Carlson, Massie, Greene and others build support for their version of Trump’s handmade political universe.
-=-=
-=-=
an 8 26
Before Miles Taylor became an outspoken Never Trump conservative, he was a high-ranking official in President Donald Trump's first administration — where he served as chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Taylor, in an article for the UK-based i Paper, remembers Trump describing his core philosophy on dealing with others. And that mindset, Taylor warns, is leading to "one catastrophe after another" during Trump's second presidency.
"One spring afternoon in 2019," Taylor recalls in his i Paper article, "I sat on a couch in the Oval Office as Donald Trump raged about the southern border and demanded we seal it entirely. His son-in-law Jared Kushner gently explained that closing a port of entry wouldn't stop migrant crossings — people would simply go around it — and that the only real casualties would be American businesses. 'Jared, I don't care,' the U.S. president snapped. 'That's not the point! The point is, it will make Mexico hurt.'"
The ex-Trump official continues, "Trump has a theory about leverage. His leadership philosophy — in a nutshell — is that threats are worthless and that you must damage someone else first if you want to get them to come to the negotiating table. Whether the damage accomplishes anything is irrelevant. Whether the target is an enemy or a neighbor is irrelevant. The pain is the point."
Trump, Taylor warns, "has brought all of the aggression of a hothead negotiator onto the world stage, secured nothing, and put the costs onto billions of innocent people while doing irreparable damage to his own side."
Trump's "philosophy" of "leverage," according to Taylor, is creating problems worldwide — from threatening longtime ally Canada with steep tariffs to going to war against Iran.
"Trump's settlement logic assumes his opponents have no alternatives," the former DHS chief of staff explains. "Once again, perhaps that was the case when he was building casinos. But countries do have alternatives…. Trump once explained to me and several other aides sitting in the Oval Office the lesson that he said had made him rich. In fact, he said it was the most important lesson he'd learned in business. 'When you threaten to sue somebody, they don't do anything,' he told us. 'They say: Pshhhh!' He waved a hand in the air, dismissively. 'And they keep doing what they want. But when you sue them, they go Ooooh, and they settle. It's as easy as that.'"
Taylor continues, "Maybe it worked in the real estate business. But right now, in U.S. foreign policy, the approach is leading to one catastrophe after another."
-=-=
an
Trump loses nearly $2 billion in net worth after Truth Social stock closes at new low
-=-=
an 8? 26
Trump puts Supreme Court in massive bind as court threatens beloved ballroom
-=-=
Trump torn apart for passing the buck on manufacturing losses
an 8 26
rollins blames dem gnd for beef $
-=-=
AN 826
The New Republic's Virginia Heffernan has followed the MAGA breakup closely over the past year as President Donald Trump's broken promises has left the movement feeling "betrayed."
While speaking to Greg Sargent for his "Daily Blast" podcast, the two discussed the recent warning issued by former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), who abandoned the president over the Jeffrey Epstein files. In a TikTok video, Greene warned that the era of MAGA success is done.
"The coalition came in. You want to know why ‘26 and ‘28 is going to be different? Because Donald Trump broke his big, big campaign promise of no more foreign wars, and actually has got us embroiled in a war with Iran, a war that should not be happening, and he’s not backing off of it. And it will probably get worse. So, that has the affordability crisis. That’s why people can’t afford gasoline. That’s why people’s bills keep going up. Food prices are still going up. Beef is at all-time high. It’s ridiculous. You know what you should have done? You should have stuck to your campaign promises, and you should have delivered for the people that put you in office, not the ones writing you the big fat checks," said Greene.
It comes after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confessed to the press, "I don't really understand" the spike in oil prices.
Sargent called Greene a kind of "oracle" when it comes to predicting that this would happen when she left Congress.
"When Marjorie Taylor Greene says the coalition is falling apart, all these voters feel betrayed by you, Mr. President, she isn’t just making a prediction. She’s essentially saying to these voters, you know, you shouldn’t show up for this guy because he f—— you, right? That’s what she’s really saying. And it’s true. She’s right about it," said Sargent.
Trump is quoted as saying he doesn’t care about his old voters. And she and lots of people took that very personally," she said.
Now, they argued, Trump is repeating the kind of foreign-policy overreach he once blasted. It comes as he's issuing threats of economic punishment against countries that trade with Iran. It's not something easily enforced and is designed largely to create the appearance of action while lacking a clear strategy for ending the conflict, they said.
Now MAGA is stuck in a messaging crisis where even Fox News personalities like Sean Hannity are avoiding most discussions about the war. The two think it's likely because audiences don't want to hear pro-war rhetoric. So, pro-Trump media is falling back on the same message that Trump is being unfairly persecuted.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was finally forced to say that the affordability crisis isn't a "hoax," as Trump claimed. On Thursday, Johnson acknowledged that the war has pushed gas prices higher. It has finally become a problem impossible for Republicans to ignore.
-=-=
an 8 26
After the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, Congress carried out a series of reforms that included strengthening federal watchdogs and creating new agencies like the Office of Inspector General (OIG), the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. But according to NOTUS, President Donald Trump is greatly undermining that post-Watergate system during his second presidency.
Reporting for NOTUS, journalists Natalie Alms and Eric Katz explain, "The once-independent system that Congress established after Watergate has radically transformed in Trump's second term. Trump's unprecedented firing of nearly 20 inspectors general has unraveled the firewalls government's ombudsmen have operated under for decades.
The new watchdogs are erasing the lines between agency leadership and their own watchdog offices, Office of Inspector General employees told NOTUS, openly suggesting they should work hand-in-glove with the Trump administration to advance its goals…. Trump has installed former political appointees from the same agencies they're now overseeing, a co-author of Project 2025, and a Republican congressman into watchdog roles across the government."
Alms and Katz add, "Those IGs have boosted the president and his appointees in ways that directly contravene the statutory independence of their offices, 11 current and former staffers told NOTUS."
One of the interviewees for their article was a senior OIG official.
Interviewed on condition of anonymity, the official told NOTUS, "All the adults have left the room. All these new IGs are lining up behind political leadership as if they're lapdogs."
The official noted that remaining officials in watchdog agencies are "scared to death to do anything," adding, "So for the most part, they're just sitting on their hands trying to lay low."
Alms and Katz point to recent events with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as an example of how much the federal watchdog system is changing under Trump. VA Inspector General Cheryl L. Mason, according to NOTUS sources, held up a move to new office space so that she could have a private bathroom in her office — which, Alms and Katz note, is the "kind of potentially pricey request that government watchdogs typically investigate."
An employee of the VA IG's office, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told NOTUS, "It's been incredibly challenging to continue doing the work we're doing." And another employee, also quoted anonymously, said, "She wanted to make sure the message of everything we did was part of every agreement, promise or whatever she had with the secretary. If you believe in independent oversight, that's not what we were doing."
-=-=
an 8 26
The staffer pulling Trump’s strings while the press just laughs
John StoehrAugust 20, 2026
The Washington press corps is Donald Trump's true constituency. He speaks for them, brings attention to them, enlarges their standing, enriches their bosses, even when, or especially when, he attacks them. They are not going to tell an "old-man narrative" about him the way they told an "old-man narrative" about Joe Biden. If they can avoid it, they will.
Yes, I know. The over-the-top backlash against Jon Ossoff has been suggestive. Mere hours after his joke, about Trump preferring "travel with Natalie" over doing the hard work of being president, there was a coordinated effort to attack the Georgia senator. The collective freak-out suggested that Trump is sensitive to the appearance of needing a full-time babysitter (from White House aide Natalie Harp). Some liberals believe the right is trying to stop old-man narratives from forming, even at the risk of bringing more attention to Trump's age. Indeed, according to Brian Stelter, "Google searches for Trump’s executive assistant Natalie Harp spiked by 5,000 percent. News outlets hurried to meet the demand for information."
I think they're wrong. Just because people are talking about something does not mean the press corps will talk about it, too. Remember, these "professionals" choose to be humiliated by the president on live TV. He calls them pigs. He calls them traitors. He calls them scum. Yet they don't defend themselves and they don't defend each other, because politics is just a cynical game. For them, there are no consequences. All that matters is attention, and for that reason, every deviation from the norm can be rationalized in terms of Trump being Trump.
Last month, Times podcaster Ezra Klein asked "the Trump whisperer" if she felt he has "changed with age or that age is slowing him in meaningful ways." Maggie Haberman said she "didn’t notice anything meaningfully different." But in an interview she did with the president in preparation for her book, what leaped to her attention was that Trump was "pure Trump."
He was focused on revenge and was "very obsessed with the renovation projects," she said. "It’s Day 17 of the war, and he’s telling us: Here’s my models of the ballroom," she said, adding that he "didn’t have a care in the world." She said she didn't "subscribe to this dementia conversation" but also that Trump isn't "some fundamentally different human being."
"I think he is much more himself, which is a product of age in general."
Maggie Haberman can find a thousand ways of saying "dementia" without saying it. That's why they call her the "Trump whisperer." And her word games are a reminder of the fact that the older Joe Biden got, the more justified the press corps was in telling "an old-man narrative" about him. However, the older Donald Trump gets, the more justified the press corps is in telling an "old-man narrative" about Trump becoming more purely himself.
Some believe the media might finally be turning against Trump. They point to Haberman's book, Regime Change (with Jonathan Swan). In it, they characterize Harp as Trump's nanny. She reassures the president, encourages him and comforts him. She apparently leaves him "love letters." She stands ready to present him with glowing praise that has been posted to social media whenever Trump is melting down, like a toddler. She helps write some of his Truth Social posts. During an interview, Haberman described Harp as Trump's "binky."
But "binky," or security blanket, is not a sign of a turning tide. Haberman's casual use of the word is the tell. It suggests the degree to which she and others have internalized Trump's deterioration. It's so normal as to be invisible. When it does come to the fore, as it did this week, it's set in the context of politics as usual. Short of a game-changing event, and I have no idea what that might be, the press corps won't make his age an issue. He is a Republican. The press corps is his true constituency. If he were a Democrat, that would be different.
It should be a scandal, though
From yesterday morning's Times: "She never takes a day off, not even on Sunday. She works out of the Oval Office and she’s got a regular seat on Marine One. She texts with world leaders on the president’s behalf. She stays up late with him drafting social media posts."
Here, the "she" is White House executive assistant Natalie Harp. If it's true that she's involved in drafting Trump's posts, late into the night, when no one else is around, that would make her one of the most powerful people in the world. Unelected, unvetted, unchecked.
And unhinged.
She got into a screaming match one time with the Secret Service when there was no more room in the car. So she got into the trunk. Officials from Trump's 2024 campaign tried to keep her away from the president, but she spent the summer sleeping in the women's locker room at his golf resort. She leaves him notes saying "you are all that matters to me” and “I don’t ever want to let you down” and “I want to bring you joy [and] feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’” She says Trump cured her bone cancer. (He didn't.) She quotes him like she's quoting scripture. Her brother suggested that crushing on powerful men is a habit going back to her teens when George W Bush was in office. "Since she was like 16, she's had an obsession," Preston Harp said. "Her dream came true finally."
With his social media posts, the president moves markets. He influences the global order. He negotiates terms of war and peace. He defines the national conversation. And he issues threats, as he did when he promised Iran that "a whole civilization will die tonight."
But who's writing them? Is it a deranged 35-year-old woman who bears a striking resemblance to Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and who, according to the Times, "is never not there, ever-present with a wide smile and her eyes fixed on the president"? Harp shows Trump drafts for Truth Social, then logs into his account to publish them, The Guardian said. These have included AI-generated content of the Obamas as apes, of Trump as a pilot dropping shit on No Kings protesters, and of Trump as the pope and Jesus Christ.
How much is she shaping world events?
If Trump's "binky" were a scandal, we might know.
Report typos and corrections to: feedback@alternet.org.
Did Trump just betray his own voters by pardoning someone who scammed them?
Read Comments - Join the Discussion
White House insiders fear Trump’s approval could hit the 'scary 20s'
Melania delivered a not-so-subtle message to Trump and his favorite aide
MAGA meltdown leaves right-wing media scrambling to explain Trump failures
Trump caught literally selling off America piece by piece to donors
Trump's real target isn't who you think it is
Trump throws 'friend' under the bus after humiliating home state defeat
Trump biographer exposes his habit of hiring 'young women' he can 'yell at'
Haberman reveals the priorities that Trump’s Air Force One ruse exposed
'Doddering octogenarian' Trump 'fooled' into new disaster: conservative
White House insiders 'irked and trying to box out' Trump’s favorite aide
Melania vs. Natalie: Power struggle for Trump's affections revealed
'These women': Republican bemoans young female voters 'stealing' elections
MAGA struggles to explain away Trump's 'human binkie'
MOST POPULAR
-=-=
an 8 26
Trump caught using taxpayer cash for bizarre paving obsession
-=-=-=
On Thursday, Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf laid out the true breadth of President Donald Trump's "epidemic" of lies, and detailed the "grim" consequences if they go unchecked. According to Rothkopf, under Trump's leadership, the government has gone "braindead," and if he and his allies have their way, the American people will be next.
"This administration has waged war on the First Amendment and is the least transparent in history, while it is erratic and chaotic and the goat rodeo to end all clusterf–ks, there is one thing about which we can be absolutely certain," writes Rothkopf. "It lies. The president lies. His soon-to-depart press secretary lies… and so will her replacement, no matter who that is. His director of communications lies. His Cabinet secretaries lie."
The harms caused by these lies, asserts Rothkopf, have touched nearly every aspect of American life. As he explains, "When economic data is released, it is no longer reliable. When casualty counts for military actions are announced, they are wrong. When new policy initiatives are announced, what we’re sure of is that the ones that might help us will never happen and the ones that appear crazy or ill-conceived will surely turn out worse than we can imagine. When big deals are announced, we know that there are side deals we will never hear of."
Rothkopf argues that we can't believe any benefit or information the administration claims to offer, writing, "Did DOGE save us money or enhance government efficiency? No. Will the Make America Healthy Movement make us healthier? The opposite. When the insanity of RFK Jr. and his quack clack leads to disease outbreaks, contaminated food and viral misinformation, the only thing we know for sure is that these unqualified nutcases are lacing their announcements with science they read off a tile over a urinal at an 1-95 rest stop.
Wherever possible, mendacious goons kill or pervert or attempt to coopt reliable sources of government data, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to the National Weather Bureau. Look out your window; do you see a baked landscape? Shriveling crops? Europe in flames from wildfires? Well, try to find information about climate change on a government website — it’s not there. There is no climate change, folks."
Trump's allies, says Rothkopf, feed into the lies. For example, while hard data shows that the Republicans are poised to take major losses in the upcoming midterms, "what kind of predictions do you hear from the White House, the Keebler Elf serving as Speaker of the House, or the confederacy of dunces in the GOP caucuses? That it’s all gonna be great!
Prosperity is around the corner. (It must be. Scott Bessent said it would be.) Peace is around the corner. (It must be. Marco Rubio said it would be.) Big victories are coming. (They must be. Because Dear Leader says so and he is never wrong.)"
What's more, writes Rothkopf, the American people not only know they're being lied to, but "we also know that behind their lies are malevolent intentions, incompetence, pathological personalities, ignorance and corruption. They are not just unleashing a never-ending torrent of falsehoods, but they are doing it to hide a destructive agenda in which the people of the United States are very often the intended victims." And other nations know Trump is lying to them too.
Rothkopf says the situation arose "because we stopped giving proper value to the character of our leaders, and like a virulent epidemic, the flaws of those we elevated then spread so rapidly that they now threaten the very life of our republic. That’s no exaggeration." He argues, "The only path out is that each of us, individually, makes seeking the truth our top priority, and skepticism our constant ally. We must seek out reliable sources of information and reject those who deliver anything less. For voters, it is also essential we become intolerant of liars in government, media, the corporate world, academia — anywhere...Demand proof. Demand evidence. Make people work for your trust."
He concludes on a dire note, warning, "In the best case, if we reject lies and demand truth again — starting with November’s elections — it will still take many years to restore trust in the U.S. government at home and abroad. But if we fail to, if we allow the lies to triumph yet again, we may well live the rest of our lives in this new grim, unnecessarily, tragically dark age, and with the fear that must carry with it."
-=-=
an 8 26 hilden
After President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran failed to achieve any of his stated goals, his strategy shifted to emphasize economic pressure that he hopes will force capitulation. But according to new reporting from Politico, his plan has resulted in little more than mockery from the Iranian regime, and it’s unlikely to achieve anything more.
“Trump is waiting for Iran to cave to his economic pressure,” Politico explains. “Tehran may be willing to wait even longer. Even as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promises a level of economic isolation ‘never seen before,’ former Trump administration officials, U.S. ambassadors and other Middle East experts are skeptical that tightening the economic vise will force Iran to relinquish its desire to toll ships passing through the State of Hormuz and make the other concessions Trump is demanding to bring an end to the war.”
“It’s an attrition campaign, and I am sure Treasury tweaks this or that to fill gaps or expand coverage of sanctions,” former ambassador James Jeffrey – who served in the Middle East during three presidential administrations, including Trump’s first term – told Politico. “But, it’s hard to believe [there will be] something decisive after 20 years of U.S. sanctions and Iranian experience of going around them.”
His statement highlights the asymmetry of the stand-off. As Politico explains, “The Trump administration is staring down a consequential midterm election amid an unpopular war that has sent oil prices back up to roughly $90 a barrel and helped push long-term borrowing costs to their highest level in nearly two decades as hope dims that a peace deal is near. Iran’s leaders, meanwhile, see the conflict as existential, giving Tehran reason to absorb the extraordinary economic pain rather than accept terms it believes could imperil the regime — especially as U.S. inflation remains elevated.”
According to Politico, former administration officials warn that Iran has an outsized incentive to muscle through the pain, making the success of Trump’s blockage strategy dubious. “I think the economic pressure would need to hit them in new ways we haven’t seen so far to change the mindset of the regime,” one former Trump administration official told Politico.
What’s more, Iranian leadership has been bluntly dismissive of Trump’s plan, and publicly mocked U.S. efforts to sanction them into submission. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, posted, “Americans think squeezing Iran harder will win concessions that were never part of the agreement.” He added, “Bessent and [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth are way out of their league. Stop waiting for the clown crew to pull a rabbit out of their hat and clean up the mess you made.”
While the Iranian economy has undoubtedly taken a severe hit, according to Politico, “those who have worked on previous Iran negotiations say that’s far from enough to get the regime to cave, especially after six months of U.S. bombing that has killed, by Tehran’s own measure, more than 3,000 Iranians.” As Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group’s Iran project director, who helped work to bridge differences between Iran and world powers during negotiations over the 2015 nuclear agreement, explained, “It’s undeniable that there is economic pressure. The question is whether there is a breaking point, and I would say for a regime that is fighting for its life and has never hesitated to transfer economic pain to its population, there is no breaking point.”
-=-=
RWW 8 26
Leigh Kimmins @ The Daily Beast: Eyebrow-Raising Letter From Trump’s Blonde Aide, 35, Exposed
The whole world is watching the relationship between the president and his favorite assistant.
=-=-=
an 8 26
President Donald Trump’s latest effort to seemingly profit off of his office is, according to some online conservative commenters, not merely unethical — it could seriously harm the US economy.
“The most corrupt family in American history,” former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) wrote on X on Sunday. He cited a recent Wall Street Journal report on how a Trump appointee smoothed the path for his family-owned cryptocurrency firm to become an official bank. “And they can be so openly, so obscenely, corrupt because we don’t have a Congress, and because way too many Americans just don’t care. What a damn shame.”
Another conservative, The Bulwark founder Sarah Longwell, posted on X that this demonstrates how they are “the Trump crime family.”
The pair of conservatives were referring to a recent report by The Wall Street Journal's Vicky Ge Huang on how the Trump-controlled government body the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted preliminary conditional approval to turn World Liberty Financial into a bank.
“Upon final approval, World Liberty Trust will operate as a federally chartered national trust bank,” Huang wrote. “The charter will allow World Liberty to issue, redeem and safeguard USD1, the dollar-backed stablecoin that World Liberty launched last year. The stablecoin, whose reserves are currently custodied with BitGo, has a market value of about $4 billion.”
Because Trump has already profited immensely from cryptocurrency since starting his second term, the timing of the announcement exacerbates the prevailing impression that he operates with no regard for his myriad conflicts of interest.
“The approval comes as President Trump’s $1.4 billion earnings from his memecoin and crypto ventures have become the biggest roadblock for passing a landmark bill that would create a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets,” Huang explained. “The Clarity Act has stalled, driven in part by disagreements over ethics language that would prohibit government officials from profiting off digital assets. The bill is scheduled for a procedural vote on Sept. 15.”
The journalist added, “President Trump and his two sons helped launch World Liberty in late 2024 as a decentralized finance, or DeFi, project that would offer borrowing, lending and trading services. Those features still haven’t become available, but World Liberty now offers borrowing and lending through a partnership with Dolomite.”
Huang continued, “The crypto empire has created a huge chunk of his family’s recent windfalls. In 2025, he earned more than $500 million in proceeds from selling World Liberty’s token, WLFI, and an additional $263 million connected to the sale of equity in World Liberty to a group of investors led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, a United Arab Emirates royal.”
Conservatives are not alone in denouncing Trump’s new band. Left-wing commentator Hasan Piker posted on X that “even [Turkish dictator Recep] Erdoğan and [Russian dictator Vladimir] Putin have to hide their corruption,” while Trump and his family “are doing it out in the open and there are still cattle that think he’s the second coming
More succinctly, Mother Jones journalist David Corn wrote that “suckers await.”
-=-=
AN 8 26
In August 2025 — roughly seven months into his second presidency — Donald Trump threatened Colorado officials with "harsh measures" if they didn't release former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from prison, where she was serving time for criminal charges related to her efforts to overturn 2020's presidential election results. Now, newly revealed e-mails, according to MS NOW's Steve Benen, shed light on the steps Trump took to punish the State of Colorado for Peters' incarceration.
Highlighting one of Benen's August 17 opinion columns in a post on X, formerly Twitter, journalist Kyle Griffin notes, "Emails revealed in court: As Trump publicly condemned Colorado for incarcerating convicted felon and election denier Tina Peters, the White House organized an urgent 'brainstorm call' with five federal agencies — with the goal of exploring ways to curtail federal support to Colorado. The next day, federal agencies announced they were canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants for Colorado projects."
Benen, in his column, points out that the "degree to which" Trump "was serious" about punishing Colorado because of Peters "is still coming into focus."
"The New York Times reported, late last week, for example, that as Trump publicly condemned the Rocky Mountain State for incarcerating a convicted felon, the White House organized an urgent 'brainstorm call' with five federal agencies, with the goal of exploring ways to curtail federal support to Colorado," Benen explains. "The meeting, evidently, was a success — at least as far as the administration was concerned."
Trump's "assault against the Democratic-run state," Benen observes, ranged from cutting off transportation funds to taking "steps to dismantle a renowned science lab in Colorado."
"But while the pattern is not new, what is new is the newly disclosed document: We're now aware of an e-mail, sent by White House special assistant Emily Underwood just days after the president published a series of messages related to Peters, which reinforces rather obvious suspicions that the administration's campaign against Colorado was not a mere coincidence: Team Trump set out to punish the state, and then took a variety of steps to execute that plan ... It's worth emphasizing that the gambit — what was effectively an extortion plot, hatched by the White House against an American state — proved effective."
Benen continues, "In mid-May, Polis succumbed to pressure and announced his commutation for Peters, a convicted felon who illegally tried to use her office in pursuit of pro-Trump election conspiracy theories. But the fact that the scheme worked doesn't make it any more defensible."
-=-=
AN 8 26
While President Donald Trump has repeatedly upended U.S. foreign policy over the course of his second term, a whistleblower from his first administration warns that over the past few days, the commander-in-chief may have “sold us out to our enemies” once and for all. This is according to Miles Taylor, who during Trump’s first term served as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Department of Homeland Security and famously revealed the existence of a resistance group within the administration. “The president,” wrote Taylor on Monday, “is abandoning our friends in all the places where we are needed most, and he is leaving behind vacuums to be filled by his dictator buddies.”
“Start with Korea,” said Taylor. “On Sunday, Trump ordered the Pentagon to ‘substantially reduce’ our joint military exercises with South Korea, complaining that our ally wouldn’t join his war with Iran and insisting the drills send a signal that is ‘inappropriate and hostile’ to our friends in North Korea, which he called ‘unthreatening and respectful.’ Ah yes, Mr. President, they are so ‘unthreatening’ that during your first term we had to urgently plan for the possibility that the hermit kingdom might launch a nuclear attack on the continental United States because Kim Jong Un was so ‘respectful.’ By the way, Trump announced America’s pull-back from its longtime ally days after North Korea launched a ballistic missile in a show of force against the South.”
“Then look at what else is happening in the Pacific,” wrote Taylor. “This weekend, the Navy pulled the USS George Washington out of Asia to relieve the exhausted USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, leaving the western Pacific without a single American aircraft carrier, while China grows more aggressive toward Taiwan by the month. In fact, Taiwan has been holding emergency drills practicing what to do if Beijing orders an invasion. So why is America pulling back vital resources? Because Trump has no real interest in deterring China, where he has marveled enviously at Xi Jinping’s power and toyed with the idea of a ‘grand bargain.'"
Instead of opposing China, warns Taylor, “his ego has America mired in an open-ended war with Iran that is grinding down our ships, draining our missile stockpiles, and running our sailors ragged. So he’s sending more ships into that quagmire.”
“Finally,” says Taylor, “take a look at what’s happening in Europe. Satellite imagery revealed this weekend that Russia is building a network of secret drone bases within striking distance of NATO, with storage for a thousand attack drones at a single site. German authorities just found a suspected Russian drone rigged with explosives at the Leipzig airport. And Western planners are quietly admitting they have no real plan for NATO’s nightmare scenario, a coordinated Russian and Chinese strike on two fronts, at the very moment Trump has hollowed out the alliance that exists to prevent such a surprise attack.”
“Our enemies are gobsmacked by what’s happening,” Taylor predicts. “Under Donald Trump, we’ve walked out onto thin ice and handed our foes a sledgehammer. They must be fist-pumping in foreign briefing rooms.”
With all this in mind, Taylor arrives at a grim conclusion, writing, “Strategically, I believe we are in the most perilous hour of the modern era, and it is peril of our own president’s making. Donald Trump’s real National Security Strategy has been to get revenge against countries that criticize him, to advance his own self interests, and to build bridges to dictators with whom he can work once he leaves office. The great dealmaker has sold us out to the most dangerous nations on earth.”
-=-=
AN 8 26
Trump's desperate Supreme Court bid goes down in flames
-=-=
AN 8 26 Trump graduates from petty grift to 'institutional graft': expert
U.S. President Donald Trump's net worth has continued to increase during his second presidency, reaching an estimated $6.5 billion in July (according to Forbes). The Trump-associated, cryptocurrency-oriented World Liberty Financial, which is playing a major role in Trump's profitability, became even more powerful when, on August 15, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, approved a back charter for the outfit. And journalist Rick Newman believes that Trump's "grifting" is soaring to a whole new level.
According to ABC News, "The decision marks the first time in U.S. history that a company owned by the sitting president's family has been granted bank status, as Democratic lawmakers express concerns over potential conflicts of interest."
During a Monday morning, August 17 appearance on MS NOW, Pinpoint Press founder Newman — known for his long history of financial reporting for U.S. News & World Report as well as Yahoo Finance — laid out some reasons why he finds it so troubling that World Liberty is being granted bank status.
When MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle, sounding incredulous, commented, "This is crazy," she got no argument from Newman.
The Pinpoint Press founder told Ruhle and fellow journalist John Harwood (Ruhle's other guest during the segment), "World Bribery Financial, let's call it that. I mean, this is just the next step in Trump's self-enrichment scheme. This is not going to be a bank that holds customer deposits. So, if you're a Trump lover and you really want to put your savings in Trump's bank, you can't do that. Sorry. But what it's going to be able to allow them to do, I think, is sort of graduate from petty graft to institutional graft."
Newman continued, "So, one of the things they will be able to do with this bank is handle deposits for institutions — hedge funds or money firms or anybody else. Foreign institutions, things like that, where they have a lot of connections. They will make more money handling that stuff under the guise of: this is all part of a crypto company. So, here we go."
When Ruhle asked Harwood why major Wall Street CEOs like JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon aren't commenting on Liberty Financial being grated bank status, he responded, "They're all hiding and cowering in the corner because they know Trump is likely to go after them…. He doesn't just make crypto deals to enrich himself, he starts a bank — and he gets himself deeper into the industry."
YouTube Ruhle
www.youtube.com
--=-=
AN 8 26
Trump asks Supreme Court to let him build ballroom
-=-=
an 8 26
Ex-Trump aide exposes his 'weird' and demeaning treatment of MAGA women
-=-=
'0 for 21': Trump’s 'losing streak' proves the limits of his authority
AN 8 26
-=-=
AN 8 26
MILLER FILL PWR VAC?
National security analyst David Rothkopf tells the Daily Beast that President Donald Trump is a decaying husk of a man these days, but his gooey meat is delicious to the right kind of vulture.
“We are watching the president ripen and rot before our very eyes,” said Rothkopf. “If he were a banana, he’d be in the trash right now — or, at best, on his way into a recipe for banana bread.
From swollen ankles and bruised hands, we’ve watched this deterioration progress with each passing day. This week saw a progression of bruises up his arms. He is barely able to stay awake at virtually any public function he attends. His behavior is erratic. His already limited vocabulary is increasingly beyond his recall. He needs to be propped up when he walks any distance at all. According to reports, he emits strange odors.”
“It’s not pretty,” Rothkopf adds. And given Trump’s power and responsibilities, this brand of high-speed decay should be a source of alarm and action. It’s not enough for Trump’s handlers to simply restrict his schedule.
“There are reasons why the White House promotes the myth that flaccid, slumped, shuffling, mentally crumbling Donald Trump is healthy and capable enough to be president. They all tie to the fact that Trump is not the only person who stands to benefit from his being president,” Rothkopf said. “His family profits from it. His senior staff has influence and even power they would never otherwise have.”
In his addled state, Rothkopf said Trump is a “cash cow” for his own corrupt enterprises as well as a “meal ticket” for a slew of carrion eaters.
“That is why it is likely that, even as he continues his slow, sad collapse, it will be covered up and lied about, possibly long after he is effectively non compos mentis.
Rothkopf said this has happened before. James A. Garfield spent weeks between being shot and dying, with the nation led by an informal committee while his wife Lucretia pumped out lies about how well he was doing. Chester Arthur and Grover Cleveland both concealed serious illnesses that their administrations denied. Woodrow Wilson suffered a massive stroke, which his doctor covered up with claims of “digestive upset” or “exhaustion.” Franklin Roosevelt suffered a serious case of cardiovascular collapse that made him malfunctional for more than a year before his death. Again, a committee stepped in to fill the void. His vice president, Truman, wasn’t even told.
“In many of these cases, … power [often] flowed to those with proximity to the stricken leader — not necessarily to those who were in any legal line of succession,” argued Rothkopf. “… On multiple occasions have presidents become incapacitated or weakened, with their conditions hidden and their responsibilities and prerogatives farmed out to or seized by close associates. … I spoke with numerous government officials who, in past decades and administrations, have been in the room when these decisions and power plays have been made.”
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, or Trump’s sons, or other power-hungry Trump inner circle scavenger could make up the difference when Trump goes completely stupid, said Rothkopf. And, in so doing, benefit themselves.
“What we see happening in and around Trump right now suggests it may already have begun,” Rothkopf said. “Trump can’t keep a thought in his head for five minutes straight. He barely understands the key decisions he makes. Who is currently saying, ‘I’ve got this, boss? Trust me.’”
“Are you comfortable with the prospect of Shadow President Stephen Miller? It’s something we all might want to consider sooner rather than later,” Rothkopf said.
-=-=
AN 8 26
Trump just lost another big elections case in a key swing state
-=-=
AN 8 26
Just days after Senate Republicans confirmed US Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Department of Justice this week issued a legal opinion on executive privilege that was swiftly condemned as an attempt to unfairly protect some of President Donald Trump’s top advisers from any accountability.
Historically, the president has been allowed to assert executive privilege over communications with executive branch staff, protecting them from disclosure.
However, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) said in a Monday memo that “presidential communications with private advisers can fall within the scope of executive privilege so long as they relate to official presidential decisionmaking, involve or reflect communications with the president or his direct advisers, and are confidential.”
The memo is signed by Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser. HuffPost reported that a DOJ official “argued its veracity by comparing it to a similar one made by President George W. Bush’s attorney general in 2007.”
“While the issue has not been litigated frequently, the opinion reaffirms the long-standing position of the office going back at least as far as Paul Clement in 2007 and arguably as far back as 1972,” the unnamed official said.
Jonathan Shaub, a University of Kentucky School of Law professor who served in the Obama administration’s OLC, told CNN: “I would say it’s not inconsistent with past positions... But it’s never been stated publicly.”
Shaub also told Axios that “it really could be a pretty significant weapon” for the second Trump administration “to deflect a lot of that congressional investigation of private parties.”
Republicans are at risk of losing control of both chambers of Congress in the November midterm elections, and if they do, Democratic majorities could move to impeach Trump a historic third time—for everything from the Trump family’s profiteering off of the presidency to his illegal war on Iran.
The Not Above the Law coalition’s co-chairs—Brett Edkins of Stand Up America, Praveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, and Kelsey Herbert of MoveOn—said Tuesday that “Todd Blanche’s Justice Department is doing what it always does: attempting to shield Donald Trump and the people around him before anyone can hold them accountable.”
“This opinion is about protecting Trump and his allies from any real accountability, no matter where the questions come from—Congress, the courts, or investigators of any kind,” they argued. “Every senator who voted to confirm Blanche knew exactly what kind of Justice Department they were signing off on. They own it now.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)—who may not have enough support to lead Democrats even if they reclaim the upper chamber in November—was similarly critical, concluding: “Donald Trump is scared. He knows accountability is coming.”
“He’s using his newly installed attorney general/personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, to cover up his communications with private advisers and special interest cronies,” Schumer said on Facebook. “These are the actions of someone with something to hide. And it shows he is petrified of the questions a Democratic Congress will demand answers to. We will not let Trump escape the accountability he deserves.”
-=-=
AN 8 26
Trump is flagging in polls, suggesting that he and the Republican Party are in peril for the upcoming midterm elections. Yet according to a recent report, Trump's plan for dealing with his poor approval rating is not to provide economic relief to ordinary Americans suffering from high prices and a weak job market, but to give even more benefits to the wealthy.
"President Donald Trump is looking for new policy pledges he can present to voters ahead of the midterm election, according to a top economic aide and a former administration official, including potentially calling on Congress to cut capital gains taxes and create an exemption for certain home sales," reported Bloomberg's Josh Wingrove on Tuesday. "National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Tuesday in an interview with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow that Trump wants to offer voters more incentives to back Republicans in November’s election."
Even as Trump proposes an economic program that would mainly benefit the rich, he continues to pursue his war against Iran and his tariffs, both of which are causing prices to rise for ordinary Americans. Indeed, while speaking to a group of supporters in Las Vegas earlier this month, the president admitted that he was going to raise gas prices through his war in Iran, and took a casual approach to the subject.
“When oil goes down, and it's going to go down very rapidly and is already happening, we may have to send it up again, we may have to -- you know what happens when we send it up,” Trump said. “But we don't have to. But when that oil and gasoline go down, everything else follows. But we have done a great job at reducing prices and we have done an unbelievable job in making our country really, really respected and successful again.”
President Donald Trump and the Republican Party face a difficult political environment ahead of the November midterms, driven by voter frustration over inflation, high living costs, and foreign policy. Recent national polls show Trump's approval ratings dropping below 40 percent, with Democrats leading on key economic metrics.
To reverse these numbers, administration officials like National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett have floated supply-side proposals, including capital gains tax cuts, aimed at rallying conservative voters. However, critics argue these measures favor the wealthy while ongoing conflicts and tariffs continue to squeeze ordinary household budgets.
-=-=
an 826
The 14 massive Trump scandals Democrats are totally ignoring
-=-=
HUMAN PRINTER CATER TRUCK
AN 8 26
President Donald Trump’s elaborate switcheroo to avoid getting blown up by Iranians appears to have included his favorite blonde flatterer.
The Mirror reports sleuths believe the president cherry-picked his personal staff favorites to sneak off with him after threats from Iran put his luxurious Qatari plane at deadly risk. He then abandoned the leftovers to the Qatari “bait plane” to draw attack.
“Those included his aides Natalie Harp and Walt Nauta,” reports the Mirror — but that short list did not include top cabinet members like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as well as members of the media.
Harp, sometimes referred to as President Donald Trump's "most beautiful aide," has been blistered social media as the aging president progressively mumbles, rambles and nods off throughout his day.
“Users on social media dubbed Harp the president's "diaper nurse," a dig at his age, 80, as he is one of the oldest presidents in American history,” reported the Irish Star. “The accusations of Trump wearing a diaper were lobbed when Trump was seen standing alongside Spain Sunday as they lifted the World Cup trophy.
The relationship has become so “nursey” that Snopes had to try to debunk claims that Harp is actually Trump’s “hospice nurse,” based upon the fact that Harp has no record of being a licensed nurse in Washington, D.C. or in Florida.
Nevertheless, Harp is gaining attention after reports came out about her fawning relationship with the commander-in-chief. As Trump continues to decline, critics are taking to social media with conspiracy theories to explain their relationship. The jabs came fast after explosive new claims emerged about the pair's proximity. The latest disclosures from Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, painted a picture of Harp as one of the most influential figures in Trump's administration. The book -- by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan -- claims Harp even leaves deeply personal letters for the aging president to discover in his private spaces. In one, she reportedly wrote, "You are all that matters to me."
A former television presenter for the One American Network, Harp earned the colorful nickname "The Human Printer" for her habit of printing out social media posts and news articles for President Trump.
She is even frequently seen trailing after Trump with a portable printer, ensuring he has easy access to favorable media coverage and praise about himself.
-=-=
RUBIO MILLER CUBA TERROR BS HYPE FEAR FOREIGN INTERFERENCE EMERGENCY COVER
NOTE AHA MIDTERMS COMING UP FAST, IRAN WAR DISASTER CONTINES NO END, TANKED HOUSING BILL TO GET BS SAVE ACT, REB BAIT LAST CHANCE? HELPED BY DSA WINS 726
wH CORRESP DINNER BS
Trump expert exposes how his team shields him after latest 'bombed' speech
//
AN 726
On Sunday, President Donald Trump spent the day posting such a steady stream of “deranged” AI memes to social media that many have suggested he was having some form of mental health episode. This latest eruption comes amidst growing warnings that the Commander in Chief is experiencing severe cognitive decline.
“Trump spent his entire Sunday on a bender, posting nonstop AI images to his Truth Social page for more than six hours,” explained the New Republic political commentator Hafiz Rashid. “It started at 11:16 a.m. with an AI image of CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins as transgender model Dylan Mulvaney holding cans of Bud Light, and escalated from there.
Bruce Springsteen, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Representative Jerry Nadler, and Trump’s longtime nemesis Rosie O’Donnell were among those targeted in his posting binge. He also posted several flattering photos of himself in mock-up movie posters and, in one instance, standing next to former President John F. Kennedy.” There were many others.
As Rashid noted, “None of the images had any text attached to them, and were interspersed with some of his campaign photos and pro-Iran war propaganda. At one point, he posted nine Iran war memes three times in a row in the span of just over an hour.”
According to political commentator Heather Delaney Reese, who has spent the past decade documenting Trump’s behavior, “There didn’t appear to be any thought to how these posts would make him look to the world, beyond trying to make himself look powerful and in control. He failed at both.” She emphasized that, “This is the President of the United States. Not a troll account, a child who got their hands on a phone, or some random unidentifiable account. These all came from the verified account of the man who holds the most powerful office on earth.”
What’s more, she noted the timing of Trump’s post eruption, writing, “While we were all learning about the grave threat our military and country is facing, with the shrinking munition resources, he was posting images of himself conquering Iran and winning the war.” She detailed a flood of bad news regarding the war that came over the weekend, from reports that the conflict has burned through weapon stockpiles, to top officials admitting failure, to accusations that the administration is lying about the American death toll. According to Delaney Reese, “That is the real reason for all the fake war posts and the desperate attempts to distract from what is really happening. We are involved in a war we cannot sustain or win in any real sense of the word.”
“It’s pretty clear that the octogenarian president is experiencing cognitive decline and had some kind of episode Sunday,” Rashid concluded. “It’s been evident throughout his second term as president, but as of late, he’s thrown a tablet across a room after a bad phone call with world leaders, rambled about the history of paper clips in the middle of a speech, and zoned out in the middle of a photo op. It’s a terrifying thought to realize that we still have two years of Trump occupying the Oval Office with his mental state only growing worse.”
-=-=-=
rww misc
08/11/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla
Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: ‘Stranger things have happened’: Trump hedges when pressed on declaring election emergency
The fact that the president left the door open to a constitutional crisis ahead of the midterms is, to understate matters, profoundly unsettling.
Dan Lamothe, John Hudson, Andrew Ba Tran, and Joyce Sohyun Lee @ The Washington Post: Contradicting public statements, Trump took secret flight from Turkey amid Iranian threat
The White House said the president was aboard Air Force One as he left a NATO summit. Instead, his departure included an elaborate ruse that concealed his travel.
Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: Trump Goes Over Jeanine Pirro’s Head on Reflecting Pool Lawsuit
Donald Trump simply cannot accept that his Reflecting Pool lawsuits were a total bust.
Margaret Talbot @ The New Yorker: The Delusions of John Roberts
The Chief Justice insists that his Supreme Court isn’t biased even as it keeps making dramatic leaps rightward.
Seth Klamann and Shelly Bradbury @ The Denver Post: Lauren Boebert’s son faces felony charges over sex tape with 17-year-old, court records show
Tyler Boebert, who was 18 at the time, arrested on charges related to sexual exploitation of a child.
Whitney Curry Wimbish @ The American Prospect: Disgraced Anti-Sex-Trafficking NGO Gets $244 Million to Rep Migrant Kids
The founder and CEO of Our Rescue resigned in 2023 amid allegations that he had sexually abused and trafficked women himself.
Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: James Fishback Wanted a Scandal. He Got One.
Florida’s seemingly never-ending Republican primary race for governor will finally be settled next Tuesday. With Trump pick Rep. Byron Donalds far ahead in the polls, it looks like groyper favorite James Fishback’s political ambitions are doomed—for now.
Patrica Calhoun @ Westworld: The hand that rocks the cradle of birthright citizenship
John Eastman's name doesn't appear in Donald Trump's latest executive orders, but his fingerprints are all over them.
Michelle Goldberg @ The New York Times: He Says Obscene Things About Mothers and Children. Mike Johnson Is Raising Money for Him.
Because this is a family newspaper, I cannot quote the piquant term that Brandon Herrera, a Republican House candidate in Texas, used to refer to children in a 2023 video. I can only report that he called them “trophies” for getting a man to ejaculate. Nor, alas, am I allowed to repeat the obscenities that Herrera, a gun influencer, used to explain why the opinions of mothers are without value. I can only say that he argued, essentially, that getting pregnant requires no special skill. Two weeks ago, ahead of a fund-raiser that Mike Johnson, the House speaker, was holding for Herrera, The Austin American-Statesman reached out to Herrera’s campaign about these resurfaced comments. Herrera’s team responded with a crude visual pun that, once again, is too vulgar for me to describe here.
-=-=
mma
Trump says “stranger things have happened” after Wayne Allyn Root pitches his national security emergency idea on elections directly to him
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 08/11/26
In an interview with Wayne Allyn Root, a host for Real America's Voice and longtime supporter of the president, Donald Trump appeared to give credence to the emerging far-right notion that he could declare a national emergency regarding elections. Trump previously distanced himself from the notion. Media Matters has been documenting this for months.
Media figures who've pushed claims of widespread election fraud — some of whom say they have been involved with drafting such an order that is “sitting on his [Trump’s] desk” — have urged Trump to give himself “king-like powers” by implementing the proposal, as it would supposedly empower Trump to “be able to make the rules” and use the National Guard to oversee midterm elections.
John Solomon, Steve Bannon, Cleta Mitchell, and others have appeared to signal that Trump could attempt to severely curtail voting rights under the pretext of declaring a national security emergency posed by China.
Media Matters has been covering the right-wing media personalities converging on the idea of an executive order for Trump to sign regarding elections for nearly a year. In fact, Wayne Allyn Root laid out the same plan to Steve Bannon weeks ago.
Update (8/11/26, 3:30 pm ET): At Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen lays out a case for vigilance but against panic:
This is ridiculous and people should not panic over it. The President has no role to play in running elections, a points courts have repeatedly raised in challenges to his two executive orders on elections. Calling it a “national emergency” doesn’t change things. There’s no part of the Constitution or federal law that would give the President power to say how states run their mail ballot programs, voter id, etc.
Now Trump could do a lot of things bad by declaring an emergency (Just Security has a good primer). Perhaps under the Insurrection Act he could try to mess with posting by sending troops into the streets. For many reasons that I’ve talked about elsewhere, it’s very unlikely he’s going to do that for political reasons. But even that is not a power over elections. (I’m also much more worried he will try to illegally mess with the tabulation and certification of votes if there is a close election for control of the House or Senate.)
This CAP report does a good job showing that a president’s declaration of a national emergency would not give him power over elections. But this has been the fever dream of the conspiratorial right for quite some time, going back to Cleta Mitchell floating this idea a couple of years ago.
Video
Citation
From the August 10, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's America's Top Ten Countdown
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT (HOST): Let's segue way to the midterm. Listen. This is the whole ball of wax, the whole kit and kaboodle, the whole kitchen sink. We got to win the midterm because, otherwise, the last two years of your presidency, you and I both know you're not going to be able to pass anything. We got to win. So what's the strategy to win the midterm?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP (GUEST): Well, one thing is the Senate has to get going on SAVE America. I really believe that because people expect that to happen, and it has to happen. And you have a couple of Republicans who are voting for it, a few. You know, it's about an 89% issue with the overall population, including Democrats. SAVE America's voter ID — with photo, by the way. You know? It's nice to have them. They're fighting on the photo. We don't want a photo. Now why don't they want? Because they want to cheat. You know? It's very simple. There's only one reason. But we want to have that.
We want to have proof of citizenship. So it'd be nice to say, yes. I'm a citizen. Here's my citizenship. Proof of citizenship. And ideally, but we're not even stressing this because it's — that's only a 79% issue. You know, that's not in the 90s. The mail-in ballots are so corrupt. You know that.
ROOT: Right.
TRUMP: They're so corrupt. You saw it in California the other, a couple weeks ago when Spencer Pratt had a very substantial lead. And the election kept going on and on. You know, going on for weeks. It's — it might still be going on, actually. But, all of a sudden, you hear a report that the woman that nobody ever heard of is surging. Nobody ever heard of her. She's surging.
...
ROOT: So, let me put an idea in your head. OK? Because it's so hard to get the Senate to do anything, now they're on recess. They don't get anything done, if they never get the SAVE America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections and the Supreme Court ruled in 1983, under Reagan, that INS v. Chadha, that if you declare a national security emergency as the President of the United States, they can't challenge it. It can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress. So if you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship, and a limit to mail-in ballots and you don't even need the Senate's vote.
TRUMP: Let me just say that stranger things have happened OK? I'll leave it at that.
-=-=-=
an 8 26
Trump has already said that he is considering seizing ballot boxes during the 2026 midterm elections, most recently during a radio appearance with far right host Wayne Allyn Root. Even though his attempts to gain access to state voter rolls have overwhelmingly lost in court, there are still concerns that his efforts could spread chaos and sow doubt as to the legitimacy of the results if Democrats win key races.
Now a former Trump official is getting into specifics about exactly what Trump plans on doing — and who should be worried.
“If you overlay the refusers (the states that declined to hand over their voter rolls to Trump’s DOJ) with this fall’s top battleground races, then thirteen light up as high risk: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin,” wrote former Trump Homeland Security adviser Miles Taylor on Tuesday. “These states are home to some of the most important House and Senate toss-up races. Depending on how the results look after Election Day, the Fulton scheme could hypothetically be carried out in any of them.”
He added, “These thirteen are the likeliest targets, but they aren’t the only states at risk. There are battleground states that actually cooperated with the DOJ’s voter roll demands — including Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Florida, Nebraska, and North Carolina — that could be hit, too. Here the pretext would simply be flipped around: We ran the voter lists they gave us, and we found anomalies. So we have to go investigate.”
Even though Trump’s ballot box seizures are unlikely to hold up in court, Taylor added, he could still tamper with the results. Similarly, all it takes is a single magistrate judge to grant Trump access to the boxes in the first place, which is enough to create distrust in the result.
“In the end, Trump’s team doesn’t care about losing in court,” Taylor wrote. “All they care about is fighting the battle in the court of public opinion for two months — between the election on November 3, 2026, and January 3, 2027, when the next Congress is supposed to be seated. That’s long enough to diminish confidence in the results and to create enough justification for Speaker Mike Johnson to secure support from his caucus not to hand over power. Indeed, under the law, the House majority has the final say over who gets seated in the chamber.”
Taylor offered specific suggestions as to what advocates of democracy can do to stop this from happening.
“Attorneys general should consider sending public letters to the chief judges of every federal district in their states putting them on alert,” Taylor said. “The letters should ask that any warrant application having to do with ballots or election equipment be heavily scrutinized and challenged, or elevated to a district judge. These frontline judges are the last check before the FBI trucks roll in, and after what happened in Fulton County, all of them need to know that they might be served bogus claims from the FBI for seizing America’s votes.”
He added, “In the meantime, every at-risk state must have their emergency motions pre-drafted and ready to file within hours (fortunately, many already do). Secretaries of state should harden the chain of custody for ballots so an FBI seizure can’t feed on ambiguity. Local prosecutors must know their election-interference statutes front and back and be ready to prosecute lawbreaking feds (at DEFIANCE.org, we’ve helped many of them gear up to do precisely that). Finally, states should keep coordinating as a bloc, pre-bunking the ‘uncertainty’ narrative before the Trump administration decides which races it wants to contest.”
Speaking to AlterNet about this issue, Rutgers University political scientist Saladin Ambar — who specializes in the history of race in America — elucidated how the president is likely to play on racist sentiments to validate his actions with the public.
“Without any involvement of, or connection to race, Trump, I think, because of his ego, his obsessive will to power, is more than capable of finding other rationales and/or building blocks to make a ‘case for a national emergency’ to call off or delay the midterm,” Ambar told AlterNet.
He added, “What I will say is that going back, frankly, to our Declaration of Independence, which accused King George of fomenting insurrection and by that [Thomas] Jefferson was alluding to British support for some African Americans who were obviously enslaved to join the rebellion and to take up arms against the colonies at the time, going all the way back to the Declaration, presidents have and/or statesmen in America have used the fear of black uprisings, racial uprisings, riots and so forth as a pretext for declaring states of emergency for engaging in all kinds of unconstitutional acts, perhaps the greatest in the last 100 years being [Franklin Roosevelt's] removal of Japanese Americans to imprisonment camps.”
Speaking to AlterNet in June, Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation at the nonprofit Common Cause Dan Vicuña provided more detail about the various ways Trump could steal the midterms.
“What they all add up to is a desire to avoid any accountability to the voters in the midterm elections — to ensure, to preordain the outcome of a midterm that he thinks is going to go badly for him,” Vicuña explained to AlterNet. “We know, from the Big Lie of the 2020 election to spurring on a violent revolt to overthrow a free and fair election, that he has no respect for democratic norms, for the voice of the people. This is entirely about his own power and his own ego. He will even invest in protecting that ego and protecting his power at the expense of the needs of the public. People are suffering with high gas prices and affordability issues, and he does not care. All that matters is protecting his power, and he has no interest in whether he does that through democratic means.”
He concluded, “I think this all adds up to a desire to ensure that his party stays in power and his ability to do what he wants — to attack vulnerable communities — remains intact.”
an 8 26
As the midterms near, President Donald Trump is increasingly relying on a campaign strategy that fuses his public office with his private political agenda in a manner ethics experts warn may pose a problem. According to reporting by the Washington Examiner, Trump is calling into “tele-rallies” to campaign for down-ticket Republicans with growing frequency, and his tendency to include it on his daily White House schedule is raising questions about conflicts of interest.
“In recent weeks,” writes the Examiner, “the White House has begun listing evening tele-rallies on the president’s public schedule, though the events themselves are not live-streamed on the White House’s official channels.” The paper spoke with Trump’s top political aide, James Blair, who explained, “Obviously, this is much easier logistically,” adding the White House typically doesn’t share the tele-rallies with the public, saying, “We just don’t broadcast it. Never have.” Per the Examiner, “Blair took a leave of absence earlier this year from his role as White House deputy chief of staff to run Trump’s outside political operation. He suggested that the tele-rallies are now appearing on the president’s daily schedule because he ‘just [doesn’t] work there anymore and [doesn’t] get asked, and therefore no one says to leave off.’”
But according to Peter Loge, professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University and the director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication, the White House’s inclusion of tele-rallies on Trump’s schedule “blurs the lines between government and campaign operations.” As he noted, “President Trump has a history of mixing politics, self-interest, and government. Running politics on the official White House schedule is one more example of Trump treating the White House as something he owns, rather than something he borrows from the American people.”
Trump has held at least 16 tele-rallies over the course of his second term, two of which were held during the first year, while the remaining 14 took place in the past few months as Republican concern over the midterms grows. According to the Examiner, “On Monday night, Trump tele-rallied for Sen. Darline Graham Nordone (R-SC) and Michael Alfonso, the son-in-law of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is running for Congress in Wisconsin. In some cases, the president has joined multiple tele-rallies for the same candidate, such as Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL), whose Senate campaign drew separate tele-rally appearances from the president in May and June. In other cases, Trump has opted to join multiple tele-rallies on the same night, such as Monday.”
But as the Examiner reports, “the actual efficacy of the tele-rally, at least compared to in-person stumping from the president, remains to be seen. Trump-backed Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) lost his primary last week just days after the president called into a tele-rally in support of his reelection campaign. Trump’s April 20 tele-rally with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) in Virginia also failed to stop the state’s ballot initiative that would have granted Democrats a favorable electoral map. The Virginia Supreme Court struck down the new map after the initiative passed.”
-=-=
-=-=
an 8 26
The perfect way to fully grasp President Donald Trump and his movement is through professional wrestling, a new book by David Shoemaker says.
The Bullwark* sifted through *Why Hulk Hogan Matters in which the writer uses a "literary theory" to explain wrestling.
"What I want to do today is take Shoemaker’s work one step further and extrapolate it out to politics," wrote Jonathan V. Last.
The long-time journalist and author used 1980's wrestler Hulk Hogan as the perfect comparison to Trump by using the term "kayfabe." It's the acting piece of professional wrestling, which uses fake rivalries and staged events to keep the franchise propped up.
Shoemaker calls it an example of "not a fraud but a folk art." Last thinks this is the perfect explanation for how politics fell victim to kayfabe.
"Kayfabe is, it turns out, the mode of the demagogue. The demagogue always pretends to speak for the imagined true people. The authentic Volk. This is true in all times and places: In Germany in the 1930s (the Völkisch movement). In Myanmar in the 1960s (Burmanization). In America today ('heritage Americans')," Last described.
Trump is no different, using kayfabe in his 2016 campaign with perceived beefs on both sides of the political aisle. Trump even brought pal and former wrestling promoter Vince McMahon into his campaign.
"Where American politicians had previously felt the need to pantomime earnestness and consistency, Trump was openly playacting. He would insult an opponent’s wife and call the man a liar one day, and then embrace him the next day after the man submitted," recalled Last. "And the audience accepted this because they accepted that Trump was working in kayfabe. Trump realized that voters could behave like wrestling fans. They could know that the show was scripted and still care."
Watching the ordeal, Last said, was like watching Marines fight Roman legionaries. Yes, the two are fighters, but they're playing by different rules. In Trump's case, politics wasn't about the business of governing and building a better society. It was a show and voters were the audience.
"[W]restling is about narrative authority—who gets to embody the story a culture wants to tell itself," Shoemaker explained in the book.
In another Shoemaker book Last cited, the author described the "historic" battle between Hogan and Andre the Giant. The descriptions of the men included outlandish height and weight for both men. If it sounds familiar, it's the same kind of embellishments that Trump uses to boast his height is 6'3" and weight is 238 pounds. Several athletes who have their height and weight measured by the team also claim 6'3" and standing beside Trump, they're remarkably taller.
"Trump has understood this imperative in ways that never occurred to another American politician. It’s why he lies about the size of his inauguration crowds. Why he exaggerates everything to world-historical scale. Why he never appears without being covered in makeup. Why he wears his hair the way he does. Why, when he announced his intention to run for president, he paid actors to show up and make it look like a crowd of supporters," Last explained.
Shoemaker's description of Hogan's embellishments could easily be swapped out with Trump's.
"Hogan didn’t just lie the way wrestlers lie—inside the ring, for the sake of a story. He liked the way people lie when they’ve spent so long playing a character that the character starts freelancing in real life. His lies weren’t usually malicious or strategic. They were expansive. Improvisational. They sprawled," the book said.
Last went on to compare some of the photos of Hogan and Trump from the start vs. more recently. The perfect example is looking at Trump's official photos. The first photo appears softer; Trump has a big smile, capturing his desperation to be loved. The second photo shows him staring down the lens; a determined frown and increased sharpness give the image a harshness.
These are just a few examples. Last goes further into the ways in which the audience is part of the scheme too. Without enablers those who live a fake existance in and out of "real life," there is no audience. It's why Last thinks that "Trumpism is forever," even once Trump disappears. Millions of Americans joined the MAGA world and dedicated their lives to embracing the clothing, attitudes, catch phrases and any other pieces of identity.
-=-=
an 8 26
Trump has repeatedly said that investigators exonerated him of accusations of improper connections with the Russian government, but a new report complicates that claim by exposing a previously-overlooked FBI investigation into those foreign ties.
“For the last year, the Trump administration’s efforts to seek retribution against intelligence officials and FBI agents who investigated Russia’s 2016 election meddling have been spearheaded by federal prosecutors in South Florida trying to build a criminal case,” reported The New York Times' Michael S. Schmidt on Monday. “But in recent weeks, the White House has added a dimension to its push to rewrite the history of the Russia investigation, releasing a trove of previously classified FBI memos that it says back up President Trump’s claims that a so-called deep state was out to get him.”
He added, “There is little new of substance in the documents, and nothing that fundamentally undercuts the FBI’s rationale for pursuing the Russia investigation. But the material does shed new light on an often overlooked aspect of the swirl of events surrounding Mr. Trump in his first months in office in 2017: the bureau’s remarkable decision to open a separate counterintelligence investigation into the president of the United States, and how that inquiry was sidetracked before it had much of a chance to get going.”
The article went on to argue that the investigation was prompted by Trump’s May 2017 firing of FBI Director James B. Comey, which senior officials and counterintelligence agents worried was done to obstruct his investigation into Russia’s 2016 election meddling.
“Referring to the counterintelligence inquiry, one of the declassified memos made public by the White House last week said: ‘The goal of the investigation is to determine if President Trump is or was directed by, controlled by, and/or coordinated activities with, the Russian Federation in a manner constituting a threat to the national security of the United States and/or a violation of federal criminal statutes,’” Schmidt wrote.
Ultimately the FBI’s investigation was superseded by special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into potential collusion between Trump and Russia.
“When Mr. Mueller’s report was released in 2019, it said that the investigation had found no evidence that Mr. Trump and his campaign had conspired with the Russians during the 2016 election,” Schmidt wrote. “But Mr. Mueller declined to make a determination about whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice. The report did not contain a section on Mr. Trump’s personal ties to Russia and whether he was compromised or represented a counterintelligence threat.”
Schmidt continued, “Shortly after the report was released, Mr. Mueller testified about it before Congress, acknowledging under questioning that he had not examined whether, for example, Russian oligarchs had laundered money through Mr. Trump’s businesses.”
In July Anthony Scaramucci, a former communications director for Trump, argued that the president is indeed compromised by Russia.
“If Trump is disavowing NATO and breaking an 80 year tradition — something’s wrong,” Scaramucci posted on X. “If Trump is praising Vladimir Putin, whose entire economy is slightly smaller than the state of Texas — something’s wrong. If Trump is disavowing the 1994 defense agreement where we told Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons and we’d protect them — the agreement that got him impeached in his first term — something is wrong.”
Meanwhile in May, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) argued Trump’s seeming hostility toward Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion is proof that the president has a pro-Russia bias. He described Trump as “totally failing” in Russia and that he favored Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
-=-=
AN 8 26
Trump has created a White House where "the buck never stops with the people who actually hold power," "a new piece from MS NOW argued, and it is a "master class" in endless blame that his Cabinet is taking to heart.
In a piece published Tuesday morning, reporter Hayes Brown detailed how Trump has made "deflecting blame for mistakes, lapses and failures ... completely normal," despite the long tradition of presidents accepting blame for their administration's shortcomings. Instead, his growing list of failed policies and ideas has been pinned on a predictable cast of scapegoats, including "underlings; Democrats (in general or specific); strawmen of any political stripe; or, in a pinch, other key members of the administration."
No mounting failure has proven more ripe for dismissal than his abysmal popularity and the effect it is set to have on the GOP in the midterms.
"Trump put on a master class of the technique during an interview with Punchbowl News last week," Brown wrote. "His abysmal polling numbers and string of unforced errors have threatened the GOP’s chances of holding control of Congress after the midterm elections. Trump insisted, though, that he isn’t the source of the problem: 'The question is, will they vote? Because a lot of them are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you. … They’re angry at Republicans, but they’re not angry at me.'”
In response, Trump's Cabinet has proven they are "willing to take his lessons to heart," even if none of them have quite mastered the art of deflection as the president has. Under the president's model, officials have learned that "blame can be spread laterally among equals, down toward subordinates or even backward against the flow of time, but never up to the top," often leaving "Federal staffers down the chain" unable to fight back against accusations.
"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been a skilled student in his time in office," Brown continued.
"In the early days of the war against Iran, the Pentagon chief was full of bravado and happy to take credit for what he claimed was a swift, decisive victory. As the conflict stretched out and munitions stockpiles have reportedly been massively depleted, he’s sought to duck any criticism. While begging Congress for a cash infusion to restore the military’s weapons supply, Hegseth both denied that there is even a shortage and also blamed the Biden administration for 'four years of underinvestment and mismanagement.'”
He concluded later: "Trump’s abdication of this tenet has fostered this fecundity of finger pointing. Beyond the unnecessary drama it engenders, it is simply no way to run a government. Without accountability, failures are left to fester instead of getting fixed. Trump has crafted an administration that follows his example in shirking responsibility, placing self-interest above the interests of the nation. The buck stops nowhere in Trump’s White House."
-=-=
an 8 26
Trump throws tantrum after rebuke of his National Guard deployments
-=-=
an 8 26
Trump has a pick for White House counsel: Will Scharf, who has been serving as White House staff secretary since 2025. And according to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, Scharf has his work cut out for him — as Trump has a history of being "very hard" on his White House counsels.
During a Monday morning, August 10 appearance on journalist Peter Alexander's new show on MS NOW, Haberman noted that Scharf is very much a Trump loyalist. But she also argued that he could run into problems as White House counsel because he "has limits on what he will do."
Along with journalist Jonathan Swan, Haberman wrote the 2026 book "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump" — which takes an in-depth look at Trump's second presidency. During her appearances on MS NOW and CNN, Haberman has been stressing that Trump is much more brazen during his second presidency than he was during his first."
Talking to Alexander, Haberman emphasized that although Scharf is on board with Trump more often than not, his willingness to buck the president on occasion could prove problematic for him.
When Alexander described Scharf as an "ultimate loyalist" to Trump, Haberman responded, "He is, but he also has some limits, Peter, on what he will do. One of the things we wrote about in the book, Jonathan and I did, is two issues where Will Scharf drew a line over the course of the last year and a half — where he got concerned about what could entangle this administration in legal fights that they might not be prepared for. One was about when to invoke the Insurrection Act, which is, you know, a loaded weapon on the shelf, as is the idea of suspending habeas corpus rights for undocumented migrants."
Haberman continued, "You know, the right to due process under habeas corpus is an idea that predates the Magna Carta. It's enshrined in the Constitution. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld it very broadly. There was an episode that we wrote about where the president and (Trump White House adviser) Stephen Miller were really aggressively discussing, possibly just broadly, suspending these rights. But in general, Will Scharf is, as you say, he is somebody who generally believes in pretty expansive executive power. He was part of the president's team that fought for the immunity ruling at the Supreme Court, which has allowed President Trump, in President Trump's mind, to plow through all kinds of limits this term."
Appointed to White House counsel, effective September 1, Scharf replaces Trump ally David Warrington — who is returning to the private sector. Scharf has been a strong supporter of Trump's proposed White House ballroom, helping secure approval for the $400 million project.
-=-=
an 8 26
President Donald Trump’s administration continues to provoke right-wing extremists who want members of a Canadian province to secede from their nation, continuing a trend that has persisted since the start of the Republican’s second term.
“The separatists have good reason to think the Trump administration could be an ally,” reported Politico's Mickey Djuric on Sunday. “In January, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Alberta a ‘natural partner for the U.S.’ while referencing the province’s ‘great resources.’
According to Djuric, Bessent told conservative podcaster Jack Posobiec that “people are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the U.S. has got.”
Even though only 30 percent of Albertans want to secede from Canada, Djuric reported experts are worried they might succeed simply because the pro-union Albertans could stay home out of an excess of confidence that they will pull off secession during the October referendum. One such Albertan is Keith Walker, who lives in a small farming community in southern Alberta and supported Trump’s trade war against Canada by describing Prime Minister Mark Carney’s administration as communism. He compared Trump’s tariffs against Canada to his military campaigns against Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, confidently telling Politico that “that’s why that’s happening.”
Another secessionist told Djuric that “Trump is the only one that can save us,” while the Politico journalist reported that “people have wrapped themselves in Alberta’s flag, wave ‘we’re done’ banners and wear ‘Trump 2024’ and MAGA — Make Alberta Great Again — ball caps. This is an ‘Albertans’ Day’ gathering at the Whistle Stop Cafe, which gained notoriety for bucking pandemic-era rules and which former Alberta premier Jason Kenney calls ‘ground zero’ for the province’s fast-growing separatist movement.”
Djuric added that while “resentment toward the federal government in Ottawa is longstanding in Alberta,” the movement has been “supercharged” by “Trump and the increasingly toxic U.S.-Canada relationship. The separatists are furious about Carney’s friction with Trump and the fraying ties to their southern neighbor. Some even hope the Trump administration might help their cause.”
He also pointed out that “many separatists believe Trump’s presidency makes Alberta’s independence possible, with the United States a ready customer for its oil and gas should they split from Canada. One group, the Alberta Prosperity Project, is trying to seek a C$500-billion U.S. government loan to fund the province’s ‘seamless departure’ from Canada.” Meanwhile Casey Phillips from Edmonton, Alberta declared that “I like freedom and less taxes,” arguing that this justifies Alberta trying to leave the Canadian union.
In February a former senior State Department official warned NBC News that Trump’s cultivation of Albertan separatists is “irresponsible as hell,” continuing that “it’s really irresponsible for the United States to be engaging with these kinds of people, because it just encourages behavior that cannot be in the U.S. national interest.” By contrast, in January Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued that "I think we should let them come down into the U.S. and Alberta's a natural partner for the U.S. They have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people... [There is a] rumor that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not."
He concluded, "People are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the U.S. has got."
-=-=
an 8 26
Experts: We underestimated Trump's 'volcano of corruption'
-=-=
CT FAIL
AN 7 26
Trump, who has been livid when the Supreme Court rules against him and was particularly incensed by losing a decision over birthright citizenship, just received a decisive blow on one of the key issues of his presidency.
"The Supreme Court has put a decisive end to one of President Donald Trump’s signature crusades after he missed the deadline to seek a rehearing," wrote The Daily Beast's Erkki Forster on Monday. "When the court struck down Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship for millions of Americans in a 6-3 ruling at the end of June, it started a 25-day clock for the president to seek a reversal of the decision, which he vowed to do."
They reported on Trump saying last month on his Truth Social platform that "I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY. This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision.”
They added, "Still, the Supreme Court was not united in its opposition to Trump’s efforts to gut the citizenship protections guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, which states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States 'are citizens of the United States.' The court’s ultra-conservative wing of Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito dissented, signaling they would have overturned a century and a half of citizenship rights. And while Kavanaugh voted with the majority, he took the unusual step of filing a partial dissent, saying Trump’s executive order did not violate the Constitution but that it did 'contravene a federal statute.'"
Overall The Daily Beast concluded, "After the court issued its ruling in June, Trump suggested that Congress 'can easily make it up' with legislation to end birthright citizenship, saying, 'No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!' He was wrong: the court’s majority decision rests on constitutional grounds, meaning that it would indeed take a constitutional amendment to undo it, according to the Associated Press."
-=-=
7 26
WSJ NO LNX
‘The Boss Wants This Money’: Inside Trump’s Unprecedented Fundraising Operation
Meredith O’Rourke, nicknamed ‘princess of darkness,’ carries out president’s desire to wring hundreds of millions from companies for his projects
By
Josh Dawsey
,
Dana Mattioli
,
Annie Linskey
and
Emily Glazer
July 30, 2026
WASHINGTON—Almost every night in the White House, President Trump calls his fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, for an update.
Trump asks O’Rourke which companies and donors have cut checks and which haven’t, and for how much. He often asks her to make much larger financial requests than she was planning—for some donors the ask is $5 million, for others it is $50 million. And the president gives her names to call, often including people who have recently met with him, according to people with knowledge of the calls.
“This is very important to the president. He’s asked me to call you and ask you for this donation,” O’Rourke has relayed on phone calls with companies, persistently following up with them. In some calls, she has referred to Trump as the boss, saying “the boss wants this money.” In turn, Trump has called her the “princess of darkness” because she is such a “killer” with donors, according to people who have heard his comments.
SoftBank donated $50 million toward Trump’s presidential library. Apple cut a check for around $25 million toward his White House ballroom project, while Microsoft gave around $10 million and Amazon chipped in around $5 million, according to people familiar with the contributions. Meta Platforms recently gave $10 million to a Trump-aligned political committee, people familiar said, on top of a multimillion donation to the ballroom and a prior $22 million payment to the planned presidential library.
Trump stands out for taking personal control of the fundraising, and no sitting American president has ever raised these amounts for his pet projects. At the same time, companies have paid new attention to the White House as Trump has gotten involved in regulatory decisions that once were made by independent agencies, dramatically shifting the balance of power across Washington.
Trump has been demanding large checks from companies for a range of political and legacy projects—telling executives and lobbyists that their companies should give $25 million or $50 million. He has sometimes offered donors special access.
Aerial view of construction at the White House, with a helipad being built on the South Lawn and a ballroom under construction on the right.
Construction on the helipad and the ballroom at the White House this month. Rahmat Gul/Associated Press
No laws prohibit presidents from raising unlimited sums of money for nonprofits, like the ones used for the ballroom and his presidential library, his super PAC or political issue committees. For most of these types of transactions, public disclosure of donors isn’t required and reporting on spending is infrequent.
All told, the second-term president has raised more than $800 million since returning to office, according to an updated Wall Street Journal analysis.
Some of the money is earmarked for specific projects, including the White House ballroom and the Freedom 250 funds for the nation’s birthday celebrations, but Trump has floated using funds in other ways. The president, at the dinner thanking contributors to the ballroom project, said, “We’ll have money left over, and we’ll use that for something…maybe for the arch or something else that will come.”
Interviews with dozens of donors, executives, lobbyists, Trump advisers and others indicate a staggering fundraising and influence operation, with Trump at the center of it all. The president closely tracks who gives, aides said, repeatedly assigning O’Rourke with big asks that she has told others make her uncomfortable. Danielle Alvarez, an outside spokeswoman for Trump and O’Rourke, said it was “laughable” that O’Rourke had ever been uncomfortable with a request.
Chevron was asked to give $50 million this year. The oil company gave millions, but far less than the requested amount. Several top Washington lobbyists have been asked to raise $50 million or more, including from their clients, for Trump projects.
Meta executives convened a series of calls among themselves to discuss strategy after being repeatedly asked to give money to various Trump funds. The company has donated to the inauguration, the ballroom and two Easter events. About $22 million of Meta’s money went to the library after the social-media company agreed to settle a lawsuit Trump had filed for suspending his accounts.
Meta also wrote a $10 million check to Securing American Greatness, a political committee aligned with Trump that highlights conservative issues such as lowering taxes and reducing crime. Contributions to Securing American Greatness aren’t publicly reported, unlike contributions to super PACs, which disclose donors in regular filings.
When some donors have been put on the phone with Trump after giving millions, they expected to receive thank yous, but instead were asked for more money, people familiar with the calls said. In one case, O’Rourke asked an executive to cut a $1 million check to a Trump entity just days after he’d attended a thank you dinner for a separate multimillion-dollar donation he’d made to the president’s ballroom, according to a person familiar with the exchange.
“Trump is shattering all fundraising paradigms in regards to hitting up corporate America for donations. The scope is mind-bogglingly large,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “We used to talk about the Lincoln bedroom being for sale, but this is just a wholesale money trough that’s totally different.” Critics alleged in the 1990s that the Clinton administration allowed overnight stays in the White House’s Lincoln bedroom in exchange for campaign contributions.
Place setting at a dinner for US President Donald Trump, with a name card reading "The President."
A place setting for the White House dinner for ballroom donors in October. andrew caballero-reynolds/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
In the Rose Garden on a warm April evening, some of the president’s biggest donors mingled with top White House aides and the president. Some of the guests received special tours, including of the Oval Office at night. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” Trump said on the tour, people with knowledge of the event said.
Then one businessman stood up. It was the reclusive billionaire Timothy Mellon, who has donated millions of dollars to Trump causes—even in the form of solid gold, some of the people said. Mellon has contributed more than $100 million to MAGA Inc., Trump’s super PAC.
He gave a toast to the president, several Rose Garden attendees said. He called Trump the “greatest president in my lifetime.” His remarks drew polite applause from the Fortune 100 executives arrayed around him.
At another Rose Garden dinner, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was seen sitting next to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
The White House referred requests for comment to Alvarez. She said the president is the “most successful fundraiser in modern political history” and that Trump plans to use the money to “help Republicans win big in the midterms, build an enduring political infrastructure and continue advancing innovative private-sector initiatives.”
“One thing has never changed. President Trump can’t be bought,” she said.
Change from first term
Trump’s stance on fundraising has dramatically changed from when he was first running for president. In 2015, he called political-action committees a “scam” and said he had disavowed them. His team sent letters to unauthorized super PACs that were supporting his election efforts, asking them to return their money to donors. “I am self-funding my campaign and therefore I will not be controlled by the donors, special interests and lobbyists who have corrupted our politics and politicians for far too long,” he said at the time.
Marc Short, Trump’s former director of legislative affairs, said, “One of the things that most rallied his crowds in 2016 was draining the swamp. The crowds would go wild.”
Short and other former administration officials said Trump had little interest in fundraising during his first term. “There definitely wasn’t a corporate shakedown like you see now,” he said, adding that the president during his first term didn’t aggressively seek money from companies with business before the government.
Read more
The Mystery Money Powering Trump’s Second Term
Trump would sometimes berate aides for signing up too many donors to take photos on “click lines” and would leave events as soon as he finished speaking. In the first term, he regularly complained that the money went to entities such as the Republican National Committee that he didn’t control, and viewed it as an obligation.
In 2020, Trump raised money for his re-election campaign but wasn’t notably aggressive about it.
Wiles had to persuade Trump during the 2024 campaign to do fundraising calls. But he embraced big money on the campaign trail, even asking oil executives to give $1 billion at a Mar-a-Lago event in April 2024. At one point, he told donors he wouldn’t have lunch for less than $5 million, according to audio from a 2024 fundraiser reviewed by the Journal.
O’Rourke, a well-known fundraiser in Florida, was part of Trump’s 2016 and 2020 operations. In the 2024 cycle, she was tapped to lead fundraising for the whole campaign. She opted to drive six hours between the Trump campaign headquarters in Palm Beach and her homebase in northwestern Florida instead of flying so she could spend the time on back-to-back calls with donors. Driving also ensured she wouldn’t be out of touch for the hourlong flight, according to people familiar with the campaign.
Eric Trump, Susie Wiles, Steve Witkoff, and Meredith O'Rourke listen at a news conference.
Eric Trump, Susie Wiles, Steve Witkoff and Meredith O'Rourke listened to President-elect Trump speak at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 7, 2025. Evan Vucci/Associated Press
After the 2024 election, Trump realized how many donors and companies were lining up outside his Mar-a-Lago club to cut multimillion-dollar checks and told O’Rourke to immediately start soliciting donations, advisers said. She was planning to slow down operations. Strike while the iron is hot, Trump told O’Rourke, according to Trump advisers and an account the president has repeatedly given in private settings.
O’Rourke isn’t a government employee, although she is often at Trump’s side in the White House and elsewhere. She sometimes sits in on meetings, including when Trump meets with corporate executives about issues that affect them. O’Rourke also travels with top officials on Air Force One. She often posts photos of herself with Trump, including in the Oval Office, on her social-media accounts and has referred to Trump as a mentor.
At a meeting with tobacco executives in May at Trump’s golf club in Jupiter, Fla., the president promised to do much of what executives wanted on policy related to vaping and the Food and Drug Administration. He also took in millions of dollars in contributions for his political committees. O’Rourke sat in on the meeting. Shortly after the meeting, the FDA lifted restrictions on some flavored vaping products, and the FDA’s chief was gone.
At the time, White House spokesman Kush Desai said, “The only guiding factor behind the Trump administration’s health policymaking is Gold Standard Science. FDA’s regulatory treatment of nicotine pouches and vapes is rooted in recent evidence that has found they can help adults quit smoking.”
O’Rourke was appointed a director at Trump Media & Technology, owner of Truth Social, and named to the board of the National Park Foundation, which oversees the Trump-aligned group that raised money for Freedom 250.
Trump, tapping his real-estate sales roots, has conversations with O’Rourke about how to specifically sell various projects, giving her pointers on how to pitch the library, according to people familiar with the conversations. Trump has told allies that he doesn’t want to struggle to raise money for his library the way Joe Biden has. Plans for the Trump library show a glass-walled skyscraper that is expected to also have a hotel.
“She’s a combination of tough but charming, and she absolutely has the president’s 100% trust and respect,” said Brian Ballard, a top Washington lobbyist who first worked with her in Florida in the 1990s. “She literally is the most talented fundraising professional I’ve dealt with, and I’ve dealt with a ton of them.”
In the spring, even as Republicans were gearing up to raise money for the midterms, O’Rourke began sending out solicitations for a new Trump initiative called the National Garden of American Heroes Foundation. The money will be used to remake a golf course in Washington and build a statue garden.
Candlelight dinners
O’Rourke sends out invites to prominent CEOs and their handlers and lobbyists to attend $1 million-per-head candlelight dinners at the White House or one of Trump’s properties, where guests are given extraordinary access to the president. Many of the events are arranged by industry, such as cryptocurrency or manufacturing.
O’Rourke often attends the dinners and takes notes about what the president promises and what the donor says, and she will filter the notes to other White House officials. Trump will often ask the donors to follow up with O’Rourke, attendees said.
Guests listen to President Donald Trump at a dinner for donors to the White House ballroom.
Guests listened to Trump speak at the ballroom-donor dinner at the White House. John McDonnell/Associated Press
At times, donors with particular agendas have shown up, such as a marijuana CEO pushing for changes in drug laws or the CEO of Pfizer who talked up experimental cancer drugs.
A regular presence at Trump’s dinners are cryptocurrency executives. The president has made more than $1.4 billion from his family’s crypto-related ventures since taking office, his financial disclosures show, and has often told the cryptocurrency crowd how he has made them richer.
The president sits at the center point of a horseshoe-shaped table and often stays for two hours. At Mar-a-Lago, he sometimes gives private tours of the gilded lobby. At an April event at Trump’s winery in Charlottesville, a TV was wheeled in so donors could watch with Trump the progress of astronauts returning to Earth, attendees said.
The president is often solicitous and warm at these fundraisers, asking each CEO to introduce themself. There are regular guests, such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Last year, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife personally contributed $25 million to Trump’s super PAC.
Trump has surprised donors at how long he will stay and talk. Within 24 hours of launching the war in Iran, he attended a lengthy $1 million-a-plate fundraiser in Florida. Many expected he would cancel, and the event was interrupted at one point for him to learn that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed. After that, Trump listened to a range of corporate concerns and even engaged in a lengthy back-and-forth with Verizon’s CEO about what kind of cable was best.
Trump also asks lobbyists to set up meetings at his golf clubs and properties. The lunches are often lighthearted, with celebrity athletes stopping by the table. There, he often meets with executives over burgers, before telling the lobbyist later how much the client should give.
“What can I do to help you?” Trump has said at multiple events, according to attendees. “What do you need?” he asked CEOs at a Florida event.
President Trump with John Ratcliffe, Marco Rubio, and Susie Wiles at Mar-a-Lago, overseeing "Operation Epic Fury."
Trump and advisers at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 28, when the U.S. launched strikes on Iran. Daniel Torok/White House/Getty Images
Senate Democrats have noted that some of the corporate donors have later been the beneficiaries of regulatory changes. “Money well spent! Your company’s millions of dollars in recent investment in President Trump’s political operation appears to have enabled tobacco manufacturers to circumvent federal law and unlawfully sell unauthorized e-cigarettes,” six Democratic senators wrote in a June letter to Altria’s CEO, saying the company contributed to the president’s ballroom and inauguration.
The company responded to the senators, describing policies it said would protect youth and reduce tobacco-related harm and saying it welcomed an opportunity to discuss the issue with legislators at greater length.
Government business
Executives said Trump is one of the most accessible presidents in recent times. In private, they acknowledged that this administration is much more transactional than prior ones. If a company encounters an issue with the federal government that comes to Trump’s attention, he will want to know how much money the company gave, according to a person familiar with the matter. At times he’ll rib the corporate leaders who haven’t met the goals he set, the person said.
Several CEOs and board members said they believe there is a link between their contributions and their access to the president. One chairman of a publicly traded company said that if you give the money, you know you are either checked on a list, or crossed off a list if you don’t.
Some lobbyists said they tell their clients to be noncommittal when Trump asks for a large donation and to say they’ll get back to him and his team. Many of the corporate donors have business before the government, are seeking federal contracts or are lobbying on a range of issues from trade policy to defense policy and appropriations.
Lockheed Martin gave more than $10 million in late 2025 and early 2026 related to America’s 250th anniversary and infrastructure projects in the Washington area, people familiar with the matter said.
A company spokesperson said “Lockheed Martin has a long history of supporting projects in both the Washington, DC, area and across the country.” The spokesperson added that its engagement with the government is guided by compliance standards and follows applicable laws and regulations.
In June, the Pentagon awarded Lockheed a contract worth up to $35 billion to make missiles to replace U.S. stockpiles drawn down by the war with Iran. A few weeks later, Trump revealed that Lockheed had agreed to pay roughly $5 million toward a new helipad he is now building at the White House.
Workers constructing a helipad on the South Lawn of the White House.
Workers assembled the presidential seal on the helipad. Finn Gomez/Getty Images
Freedom 250, the Trump group that organized anniversary celebrations, raised more than $50 million, according to people familiar with the matter, and invited donors and other participants to a wine reception at the White House with Trump in the spring. Social-media platform TikTok gave around $2 million toward Freedom 250, according to people familiar with the matter. Other donors contributing more than $1 million each toward the anniversary included Oracle and ExxonMobil.
When SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son’s team approached the White House offering support, they were told to give funds to the presidential library. SoftBank gave $50 million to the project, according to people familiar with the matter.
One of Son’s ideas for the space is to use a portion of that money to create an area in the library dedicated to the relationship between the U.S. and Japan, one of the people said.
Trump has taken in money from deep-pocketed companies and their owners through lawsuits or threats of litigation. The president has told his lawyers that he wants bigger payouts from media companies and others he believes have wronged him, according to people familiar with the discussions. ABC News and CBS parent Paramount have reached settlements with the president that included around $15 million each for the Trump library to end lawsuits.
Trump has filed a lawsuit against Dow Jones, the publisher of the Journal, alleging he was defamed by an article about a birthday letter to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A Dow Jones spokesman said, “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
Companies have traded notes about what Wall Street analyst Blair Levin calls “The Trump Transaction Tax,” or a payment outside of the cost of normal business. “Another way of saying it,” Levin said, “is simply that we’re replacing the free market with the market for Trump’s affections.”
Donald Trump speaks at a fundraiser for a White House ballroom expansion.
The dinner for ballroom donors was held in the East Room of the White House. Jim LoScalzo – Pool via CNP/Zuma Press
In October, Trump hosted companies and donors that contributed to the ballroom project for a dinner in the White House’s East Room. Standing at a lectern with a model of the planned ballroom next to him, the president recounted the ease of his fundraising.
“So many of you have been really, really generous,” Trump said. “I mean, a couple of you, I was sitting here and saying, ‘Sir, would $25 million be appropriate?’ They said, ‘I’ll take it.’”
He added: “It doesn’t take too many 25s to get it done.”
“Chief executives throughout the history have contributed to making the White House special,” Trump said, “and nothing of this magnitude has been done.”
Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the August 1, 2026, print edition as '‘The Boss Wants This Money’: Trump’s Fundraising Operation'.
Josh Dawsey is chief political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He began his career at the Journal and re-joined the newspaper in 2025 after working for eight years at The Washington Post. Josh was part of a team of journalists at The Post that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2022 and a team that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. He is the winner of the 2026 Aldo Beckman Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage and a two-time recipient of the White House Correspondents Association award for deadline news reporting.
Josh is a lecturer at the Allbritton Journalism Institute and the enthusiastic owner of a rambunctious rescue dog named Pepper.
Follow
Dana Mattioli is a Pulitzer Prize-winning technology investigations and enterprise reporter for The Wall Street Journal in New York. She does deep dives on technology, politics, antirust and other subjects. Prior to this role, she led investigations into Amazon's business practices, market power and antitrust issues. She is the author of the book "The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power," which was longlisted as one of the best business books of 2024 by the Financial Times and named a best book of 2024 by Publishers Weekly.
Dana was part of a WSJ team that won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for coverage of Elon Musk. She was part of a team that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for its investigation into Amazon, and was the winner of the 2021 Gerald Loeb Award for Beat Reporting. In 2021, she received the WERT Prize, an award from the Women’s Economic Round Table that honors excellence in comprehensively reported business journalism, and received a Front Page Award for her Amazon coverage. In 2026, she received the Nellie Bly Award from the Newswomen's Club of New York.
Dana earlier covered mergers & acquisitions, where she and colleagues broke some of the largest deals ever recorded, including Pfizer’s $150 billion deal to buy Allergan. In 2016, she won a Gerald Loeb Award in the breaking news category for coverage of the Dow-DuPont merger. She was a finalist for the 2015 Larry Birger Young Business Journalist Award.
Before covering M&A, she reported on retail companies and produced a string of front-page articles and scoops on the troubles at Kodak and J.C. Penney as well as the M&A exploits of various retailers.
Dana started at the Journal in 2006. She graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., with degrees in journalism and literature.
Follow
Annie Linskey is a White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal, a role she assumed in 2022 after covering national politics for the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and Bloomberg News. Her reporting spans three presidential campaigns, four administrations and four continents. She was part of the team of reporters writing about President Trump’s ties to Jeffery Epstein—a body of work that won the Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability and was a finalist for the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Her reporting on Trump’s efforts to profit from the presidency was recognized with an honorable mention from the Sabew Best in Business Awards.
Prior to that, her reporting on the Biden administration and the president’s decline in office was recognized with the Gerald R. Ford Prize for distinguished reporting on the presidency, the National Press Club’s Lee Walczak Award for political analysis and the New York Press Club’s National Award.
She started her journalism career at the Baltimore Sun more than two decades ago, where she focused on crime and later city and state politics. She also freelanced from Cambodia, covering the Khmer Rouge war crimes trials.
Follow
Emily Glazer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning enterprise reporter focusing on business leaders, power and influence for The Wall Street Journal in New York. Her articles often focus on the intersection of business and politics, CEO succession, board shakeups or regulatory investigations. Emily also contributes to the Journal’s Personal Board of
-=-=
-=-=
an 7 26
Trump just lost his 19th straight judicial case in an attempt to obtain state voter roles, continuing his failed track record of being rejected by courts when attempting to suppress voters.
“[Department of Justice] loses for the 19th time in efforts to obtain state voter rolls, this time in Colorado, courtesy [sic] of Judge Philip Brimmer, a George W. Bush appointee,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney posted on X on Tuesday.
In the case itself, Judge Brimmer declared that Trump’s administration has no legal authority to supersede the states and try to purge voters from the rolls.
“The authorities cited by the United States do not support its position,” Brimmer wrote on Monday, citing cases including Jud. Watch, Inc. v. Lamone in 2019, State of Ala. ex rel. Gallion v. Rogers in 1960 and Dinkens v. Att'y Gen. of U.S. in 1961.
“In order to state a claim for violation of” existing laws, Brimmer added, “the United States must allege that it requested a ‘record or paper required by section 20701.’” Yet “because the Court finds that Colorado's SVRL is not a record or paper that must be produced pursuant to” existing statues, the court denied Trump’s claim.
“Accordingly, the Court will grant the motions to dismiss of the Secretary, the Common Cause Intervenors, and the Alliance Intervenors, and deny the United States' motion to compel, and dismiss its claims,” Brimmer concluded.
Adam Klasfield, editor-in-chief of All Rise News, posted on X that this is an ironic loss for Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general who was just cleared by the Senate Judiciary Committee for possible confirmation to be full-time attorney general.
“On the day he clears Committee, reports emerge that Todd Blanche lost his 19th consecutive lawsuit seeking sensitive voter data,” Klasfield wrote. “Blanche has no victories in these cases. (Edited post: The ruling was dated Monday, first reported today.)”
Speaking with AlterNet in June, Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation at Common Cause Dan Vicuña argued that Trump’s various so-called voter reform efforts — including seeking states’ voter rolls — are all part of an effort to steal the midterms.
“What they all add up to is a desire to avoid any accountability to the voters in the midterm elections — to ensure, to preordain the outcome of a midterm that he thinks is going to go badly for him,” Vicuña told AlterNet. “We know, from the Big Lie of the 2020 election to spurring on a violent revolt to overthrow a free and fair election, that he has no respect for democratic norms, for the voice of the people.
This is entirely about his own power and his own ego. He will even invest in protecting that ego and protecting his power at the expense of the needs of the public. People are suffering with high gas prices and affordability issues, and he does not care. All that matters is protecting his power, and he has no interest in whether he does that through democratic means.”
He continued, “I think this all adds up to a desire to ensure that his party stays in power and his ability to do what he wants — to attack vulnerable communities — remains intact.”
As for the attempts to nationalize elections, Vicuña added that the efforts are likely illegal.
“I think some of these attempts to federalize, to nationalize elections are clearly illegal,” Vicuña explained. “You've seen some of that overreach already struck down — attempts to order independent agencies to force a strict voter ID requirement on people. That has been rejected.
Common Cause is in court challenging the latest executive order to turn the United States Postal Service into some election administration agency and to create a further bureaucratic layer to make it more difficult to vote by mail. In terms of the president's authority to order around USPS, it's illegal. In terms of USPS's authority to become some sort of national election administration agency, it far exceeds the legal authority that Congress gave to the postal service. The statute describing what kind of work the postal service would do is about postal service work — processing mail and selling stamps. It has nothing to do with election administration.”
-=-=
an 7 26
Trump's promises of an "economic revival" and a return of manufacturing have once again fallen flat, with a new Washington Post piece documenting the closure of a factory in "Trump country" owned by a prominent Trump donor.
Per the Saturday morning piece, the Conn Selmer plant in Eastlake, Ohio, just east of Cleveland, shut its doors for the last time at the end of June. Located within a 61-year-old building, the plant was a subsidiary of the Steinway Musical Instruments company until its acquisition in 2013
"At a time when the president of the United States said the country was in the midst of a manufacturing renaissance, the 150 people who still worked at the plant were losing their jobs, and seeing many of them offshored to China," the report detailed.
The plant was one of the many holdings in the portfolio of John Paulsen, a billionaire hedge-fund owner whose firm acquired Steinway over a decade ago, and who emerged as a vocal backer of Trump during his 2024 campaign. He was also notably supportive of Trump's tariff plans, claiming that they could "protect American jobs and protect American manufacturing.
"What you see is a hollowed-out American manufacturing base. And we need to protect American jobs and protect American manufacturing,” Paulson said during a CNBC appearance in September 2024. “We can’t have Americans — American producers closing American factories and offshoring.”
This manufacturing "renaissance" under Trump has, so far, failed to materialize, with recent data showing that the sector has, in fact, lost around 75,000 jobs during his second term. Tariffs have borne the brunt of the blame for this, as their haphazard and disastrous implementation has done far more to harm the economy than to bring jobs back from overseas.
As the Post's report highlighted, Trump has long claimed to be able to prevent the closure of factories in the U.S., with little in the way of results to prove it.
“All of those bad things that you had to suffer with, you’re not suffering anymore, because now people and companies have an incentive to stay,” Trump told workers at an appliance factory back in 2020. “They’re not going to be leaving so fast. I want to make sure these companies aren’t leaving.”
“Together we will reclaim our nation’s destiny as the number one manufacturing superpower in the world," Trump said during his reelection campaign in August 2024. “We will do it, and China won’t even be close. Nobody will be.”
-=-=-=
an 7 26
Trump's many lawsuits have a tendency to implode during the discovery phase, so much so that conservative commentator Rick Wilson has dubbed it one of his "rules" of politics, and the latest bombshell revelations from Capital One show exactly why.
Wilson, a vocal conservative critic of Trump for many years, was the latest guest on commentator Molly Jong-Fast's podcast, "Fast Politics." During the discussion, the pair discussed the stunning new revelations emerging from Trump's lawsuit against Capital One.
Capital One Financial is among the institutions that Trump has sued, alleging that they "debanked" him and his companies for political reasons in 2021 following his involvement in the Jan. 6 riots. This week, however, Capital One disclosed that it shuttered around 300 Trump Organization accounts after a months-long investigation into signs that they were connected to money laundering. The company is now asking a federal judge in Florida to dismiss the case, arguing that its new disclosures "make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs' accounts for anti-money laundering ('AML') reasons."
Per NPR, the company said that the decision to close the accounts followed "months of analysis and a careful review," though it is not clear if the Trump Organization was given notice and time to explain the signs of money laundering. It is also not clear if any other banks raised similar alarms, and the Trump Organization has not responded to any outlet's request for comment so far.
Digging into the development during his "Fast Politics" appearance, Wilson said that this summed up "the performative nature of all Trump lawsuits," and suggested the creation of a "third Wilson rule," after his first two rules about politics: "Everything Trump touches dies" and "Everyone hates Ted Cruz."
"And the third one is no Trump lawsuit survives discovery," Wilson explained. "Because now that the bank is going to say, OK, well, if you want us to show why we think you were money laundering, we will reveal in court why we think you were money laundering. And Trump's people, I promise you, they're going to go... 'nevermind.'"
Wilson continued: "It is like all these cases ... when the rubber hits the road, when the facts matter, when the discovery is going to embarrass the living hell out of them, right? You know, it's why they dropped the charges against the Olympian this week after he allegedly personally destroyed the Reflecting Pool. It's why they just can't hold up on these B.S. defamation cases, like against the BBC and other things. There's just a sense that these lawsuits are like a lottery ticket for him. Maybe sometimes somebody will just collapse and go, okay, we'll give you money."
-=-=
-=-=
Trump’s manufacturing promise backfires: Data shows 75,000 lost jobs
AN
-=-=-=
AN 7 26
Trump has previously fumed at the Supreme Court, which includes three judges he appointed, for differing from him on issues like his tariffs, his attempted suppression of mail-in ballots and his opposition to birthright citizenship. Now he has cited a right-wing commentator notorious for having been secretly funded by the Russian government to attack one of his own appointed justices, Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
“Amy Coney Barrett is clearly terrified of the left,” Tim Pool posted in a comment that Trump shared. In 2024 Pool was discovered by President Joe Biden’s Justice Department to have accepted money from two RT employees, Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, as part of their nearly $10 million plan to fund an unnamed Tennessee-based company that would influence American politics through pro-Trump commentators.
“Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims,” Pool wrote at the time. “I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are instructed.”
In addition to Pool the scheme included Matt Christiansen, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern and Taylor Hansen.
Speaking with this author for Salon in 2018, a former US ambassador to Russia who Trump offered to hand over to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Michael McFaul, questioned whether Trump has been compromised.
“The generous interpretation,” McFaul said at the time, is that Trump “didn’t understand what he was talking about. But let’s be clear: What Trump was doing was assigning moral equivalency to a legitimate indictment with lots of evidence against several Russian military intelligence officers for violating American sovereignty in 2016 during the presidential elections, with a completely fabricated, cockamamie story invented by Putin. To even, for a moment, give any kind of dignity to what President Putin proposed was not in America’s national interest, from my point of view.”
=-==
AN 7 26
President Donald Trump’s recent speech at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial was a key moment in his carefully choreographed America 250 weekend. Though partisan and rambling in typical Trumpian style, the speech stood out for its focus on a theme which has increasingly dominated his rhetoric over recent months: the dangers of communism.
Communism is back, the US president argued – a resurgent menace and mortal threat to American liberty.
He linked the fight against communism to the upcoming midterm elections in November. Trump’s Republican party is presently on course to lose at least one and possibly both houses of Congress. Meanwhile, the president’s personal job approval ratings continue to plummet.
This attack on communism might seem so ludicrous as to be easy to dismiss. It is partly a response to the success of Zohran Mamdani, who was elected last year as the mayor of New York on a Democratic Socialists of America ticket.
Neither Mamdani nor any of his Democratic Socialists colleagues are remotely close to being communists. But Trump has clearly decided that the best strategy for the midterm elections is to whip up a new Red Scare.
He may well be right. Anti-communism has huge appeal within American political culture – particularly for the generation of voters who, like Trump, grew up on a diet of cold war propaganda.
Ironically, given the connections Trump has regularly made between communism and immigration, it also appeals to some voters from immigrant communities. For much of the Latin American diaspora in the US, particularly from places such as Cuba and Venezuela, anti-communism is even more politically powerful than it is for the rest of the country.
When we think about the history of anti-communism, we probably think first about McCarthyism and America’s last major Red Scare in the 1950s. But anti-communism was not limited to the US or the cold war. It was one of the most powerful global political projects of the 20th century.
Anti-communism drove Britain and its allies to invade Russia 1919, and provoked a rightwing backlash against the rise of the Labour party in the 1920s. It fuelled Christian politics and parties in the interwar period, particularly in the Vatican.
Anti-communism also underpinned the rise and popular appeal of fascism throughout Europe in the 1920s and ’30s. It drove Britain’s murderous fight against Malaysian independence in the 1950s, caused up to 1 million deaths in the Indonesian genocide of the 1960s, and was used to justify mass torture and disappearances during the Latin American dictatorships of the 1970s.
It also underpinned many features of 20th-century politics that are widely regarded as progressive. The UK’s welfare state, for example, was built to encourage the working classes to resist the siren call of communism. Social democratic parties existed to offer a reformist alternative to revolutionary parties to their left. Many trade unions, in Britain and elsewhere, pursued the fight against communist rivals with even greater urgency than the fight against their bosses.
Anti-communism, in short, was a far more persistent and powerful force in 20th-century history than anti-fascism.
Manufacturing an ‘enemy within’
There are three reasons why anti-communism was, and remains, such a powerful project. The first is the ease with which hatred or fear of communism can be yoked to hatred or fear of other outsider groups.
For Trump, the link is between communists and illegal immigrants. For the Nazis, it was between communists and Jews. Hitler’s deranged obsession with “Judeo-Bolshevism” culminated in the Holocaust.
The second reason is the ability of anti-communism to unite people across the political spectrum, from traditional conservatives to the wildest fringes of fascism.
In the Spanish civil war, fear of communism proved a more powerful ideological glue for Franco’s supporters than fear of fascism did for the fractured Republican side. And throughout history, there have been plenty of examples of liberals and social democrats who, when push came to shove, chose to line up on the side of the fascists when the threat of communism loomed.
The third reason is that anti-communism doesn’t require the existence of actual communists to retain its power.
Many of those being tarred with the brush of communism, like Mamdani, are no more than moderate social democrats by historical standards. Similarly, most of those killed in the anti-communist massacres in Indonesia and Latin America weren’t card-carrying party members. And while there were plenty of Jewish communists and socialists in early 20th-century Europe, the idea that all Jews were communists was nothing more than an antisemitic fever dream.
We can see all of this at play in the rise of the global far right over recent decades. Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro declared at his first inauguration that Brazil’s flag would never be red. Colombia’s president-elect, Abelardo de la Espriella, denounced his reformist opponent as a “radical left Marxist”.
Even mainstream UK conservatives such as Suella Braverman are prone to sharing “cultural Marxism” conspiracy theories.
For all these reasons, it’s important not to be blinded by the seeming absurdity of Trump’s anti-communist rhetoric. Anti-communism is back – indeed, it never went away.
It survived the end of the cold war, embedded itself within some of the most extreme ideological currents of the far right, and is now reemerging as a central plank of global politics. It is powerful, persuasive and dangerous, and we need to take it seriously.
David Brydan, Senior Lecturer in the Modern History of International Relations, King's College London
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
-=-=-=
AN 7 26
Trump has made little secret of his disinterest in addressing the needs of blue states that did not support him in 2024, and now, Politico reports that emails have exposed how he overruled his own agencies to punish those states when they needed relief.
In a Wednesday morning report, Politico cited "Emails between state and federal officials" that it had obtained, as well as over 150 documents, outlining Trump's habit of denying disaster relief to states he considers to be among his "political adversaries." Some of these denials came after his own government agencies determined that those states did indeed meet the thresholds for government aid.
"Emails between state and federal officials obtained by POLITICO along with more than 150 pages of documents submitted to FEMA by three states — New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island — provide new details about Trump’s low rate of approving disaster aid for his political adversaries," the report detailed. "He also denied a request by New York after administration officials verified that it had met federal standards for approval, according to state officials. Trump’s rejections came after regional offices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and NOAA determined that the states met government thresholds for receiving aid following a record-breaking snowstorm in February."
"The Blizzard of 2026 certainly achieved a pinnacle ranking in the memories of those who experienced it and climatologically in the historical rankings of snowstorms," a NOAA report about Rhode Island, among those obtained by Politico, explained.
While presidents have the sole authority to approve or deny disaster aid, Politico noted that it is "highly unusual" for them to deny requests after these agencies have already "verified that damage estimates exceeded preestablished levels," citing conversations with officials from past administrations, both Democrat and Republican.
"I can’t think of a time a declaration was denied," one anonymous ex-FEMA official said, referring to states that met certain agency disaster damage standards.
Since the administration of George W. Bush, Politico explained, presidents had "approved all 69 state requests for snow assistance that met FEMA." The one exception was a 2016 request from New Mexico, "which was being investigated for mishandling FEMA funds."
"The emails and documents, which haven’t previously been reported, shed new light on Trump’s decisions to reject an overwhelming number of requests for disaster aid from Democratic-led states, even as he has approved nearly 90 percent of requests from states that are governed by members of his own party," the report added. "The revelations also offer a fuller picture of Trump’s tenure over the most partisan distribution of FEMA aid since the agency was created in 1979. Trump’s recent rejections involving snow diverge from the actions of other presidents, including Trump in his first term, who routinely approved similar requests from governors of opposing parties."
In response to questions about these denials, a FEMA spokesperson attacked the notion that federal aid should be dispersed for "regular operations like snow removal." Snow removal was previously "targeted for elimination" as a possible way to reduce spending at FEMA under Trump's second administration.
“Without that aid, our local governments will be stuck with the costs of an unprecedented snowstorm that didn’t care about political boundaries,” Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey said in a statement to Politico.
-=-=-=
an 7 26
Whether by intention, error or force of law, the Trump administration has owned up that Donald Trump sees himself president of MAGA, not of the nation.
A New York Times report this week disclosed a month-old court filing in which federal officials acknowledged that they cut $7.5 billion in clean energy programs selectively among states “based solely” on whether those stated had voted for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
In court answers about a lawsuit challenging the stated reasons of cuts based on “waste and fraud,” the government copped to the real reason – partisan politics. Indeed, the administration funded grants for states that had backed Trump in 2024, even though the Energy Department had recommended they be cancelled.
It may not be a specifically impeachable offence, but it certainly shows that Donald Trump is abusing his office, his oath – and weirdly even punishing the Trump voters in the states taking the cuts.
Trump certainly has been acting in a variety of ways as if he wants to target states that voted against him, but this court filing seemed a public acknowledgement that should get some serious attention.
As The Times concluded, “The admission showed how Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid in his second term. Far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies — or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes.”
Trump certainly has no hesitation about collecting taxes from blue states or demanding voting rolls or demanding special treatment, just in spending the money disproportionately raised from those states.
President for Some, Not All
The White House and Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget , have remained silent about the government’s court arguments in a suit brought by the affected states. At the time of the cuts, Vought posted that “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”
Now, a government lawyer told the court that none of the cancellations were “based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor.”
Apart from all else, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright repeated the waste argument in sworn congressional testimony, telling House members in June, “No decisions (about the cuts) were made on politics.”
Someone might tell Jim Jordan, chair of the Judiciary Committee, who referred former special prosecutor Jack Smith to the Justice Department for investigation of perjury for not answering a question that Jordan had never asked.
Vought is seeking to finalize rules that would make political appointees the final arbiters of how the government would award more than $1 trillion in annual grants. He wants the power to block or revoke money if states do not conform to administration priorities. The White House has also sought to layer additional restrictions on grant recipients, limiting their political activities, memberships along with vague requirements that they cannot use the money for certain purposes, including those deemed “anti-American,” reported The Times.
Rather than combatting waste, it appears Trump and his cronies are trying to take control of the United States government, using the power of the American people for their own ends, argues historian Heather Cox Richardson in Substack.
Sen. Patty Murray. D-WA., and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said that politically minded grant cuts amounted to an “outright un-American” weaponization of government.
Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker pointed out that the cancelled grants included $583 million intended for Illinois “that would have gone toward lowering energy costs, strengthening grid reliability, and creating energy jobs.” He demanded the funds be restored. “Despite what he might think, Donald Trump is not the president of MAGA,” Pritzker said in a statement, but “the president of all America.”
Terry H. Schwadron retired as a senior editor at The New York Times, Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times and leadership jobs at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team part of several Pulitzers in New York.
xx --x-x
OMFG
AN 7 26
Over the course of his war with Iran, President Donald Trump has made inflammatory remarks that many have suggested implied his intention to use nuclear weapons. Now a whistleblower from his first term warns that he “watched Donald Trump talk about nuclear weapons like they were presidential toys,” and that “he may be closer to playing with them than you think.”
This is according to Miles Taylor, who served as deputy chief of staff at the Department of National Security during Trump’s first administration, at the time famously penning an anonymous article revealing the existence of a resistance movement working within the White House. On Monday, he published a new piece explaining why Trump has a “fixation” with using nuclear weapons.
“Last week,” writes Taylor, “the president told Axios he was ‘close’ to ordering a ‘massive attack’ on Iran … The threat had the same ominous feel of his April comments that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight.’ It was an insinuation that he possessed super powers — and might break the world’s nuclear taboo to end the stalemate.” The pause didn’t mean the war was off, however, and Trump told Axios why he thought the war had to continue: “They haven’t received enough pain yet.”
“Not enough pain,” notes Taylor. “I’ve heard rhetoric like that from him before. And it wasn’t about Iran.”
“Back in 2017,” Taylor explains, “Trump judged that the only way to bring North Korea to heel was to make it suffer. He tweeted furiously at ‘Rocketman’ Kim Jong-un and promised ‘fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before’ if the hermit kingdom didn’t meet his demands. That was Trump’s first wink-nod to the fact that he possessed an arsenal of nuclear bombs and was ready to use them. Kim answered by threatening to fire missiles at Guam and testing a nuclear-capable missile that could strike the U.S. mainland.”
Taylor says the situation escalated so rapidly that Defense Secretary James Mattis began preparing DHS officials for an all-out nuclear war. “For the first time in the Department of Homeland Security’s history, we ran exercises for a potential real-life nuclear strike on American soil, because frankly, we couldn’t rule out that our own president might take us into such an apocalyptic situation.”
According to Taylor, the president’s motivation was simple: “Trump wanted to see something blow up, and the rest of us built contingency plans around that desire. Thankfully, he didn’t launch nukes at North Korea. But General Mattis also isn’t at the Pentagon anymore. ‘Pistol Pete’ Hegseth is.”
Taylor asserts that “Trump’s nuclear fantasies go way back. When he was a candidate in 2016, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said a foreign policy adviser had come away from a briefing with Trump rattled, because Trump asked, three separate times, some version of the question: ‘If we have nuclear weapons, why can’t we use them?’ Candidate Trump also told The New York Times he wasn’t sure it ‘would be a bad thing for us’ if Japan built its own nuclear deterrent against North Korea, and he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Saudi Arabia should have nukes, too, ‘absolutely.’” And “since then, Trump has toyed with nuclear weapons more openly and more recklessly than any American president ever entrusted with the stewardship of the bomb.”
Now, amid an “unresolved war with Iran,” warns Taylor, “you get the picture of a president who’s just one mood swing away from putting his finger on the proverbial red button.”
Taylor says that Trump’s motivation is not difficult to grasp, writing, “Donald Trump has spent his entire presidency on a power quest, always hunting for the next most powerful thing he can do. And nuclear weapons are at the top of that list. To say that he’s ‘toying’ with extreme powers is probably the wrong phraseology. He’s addicted to power. Very much like it’s an intoxicant. When his own chief of staff, Susie Wiles, told The Atlantic that her boss had an ‘alcoholic’s personality,’ it wasn’t a mere slip of the tongue. That’s how everyone who’s served the man has come to see him … He has an uncontrollable, pathological, junkie-like urge to power.”
“If deploying troops to seize foreign leaders and raining missiles on other nations isn’t cutting it anymore,” Taylor concludes. “I worry about where the quest leads next. I’ve written before about how close Trump got to using the bomb the first time. Let’s not forget what Trump reportedly absconded with after he left the presidency: U.S. nuclear secrets. Back in office, the fixation has returned.”
X-X-X-
AN 7 26 // RR?
Over the weekend, President Donald Trump was hit with a CNN fact check that did not go in his favor. While Trump is known for making grandiose, exaggerated claims, according to CNN, a series of stories he’d just told were “completely made up.”
Trump was delivering remarks at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency when he veered off-topic to delve into one of his oft-discussed obsessions: his hatred of wind turbines. He began by denouncing “the Green New Scam, where we were scammed,” before saying, “The whole country was – I wasn’t scammed. I got it right from the beginning; I got it from the first minute when I heard this crap. You know? They were saying wind was so wonderful, so wonderful, except you couldn’t watch your television. They wanted to watch the debate, Donald Trump against Sleepy Joe Biden. Nobody could watch it because the wind wasn’t blowing. Remember that? ‘Darling, we’d like to watch the debate tonight.’ ‘I’m sorry, the wind isn’t blowing.’”
The story, however, was entirely imaginary, and its underlying premise nonsensical, said CNN reporter Daniel Dale. In reality, a massive 51 million people watched the debate on television alone — including in Texas, the nation’s top producer of wind power.
“The president is making stuff up again,” Dale said. And as wind comes from a mix of power sources, with batteries storing wind-generated power for periods when the wind isn’t blowing, Dale noted that not only was the story itself “completely made up,” but the concept undergirding it was “completely made up by the President of the United States.”
According to the Daily Beast, “The president has harbored an irrational hatred of wind turbines ever since the Scottish government approved a wind project off the coast of Aberdeen within sight of his golf course more than a decade ago. For years, he has pushed bizarre theories about how wind turbines kill whales, cause cancer, and destroy property values, and has tried throughout his second term in office to block offshore wind projects.”
Trump made a number of other completely made-up claims at the event, asserting that “brownouts and blackouts every weekend,” which CNN described as “simply not true.” He also whined more than once that he gets “no credit” for the “$19.2 trillion” in investments the U.S. received during his first year back in office. According to CNN, “He doesn’t get such credit because the US hasn’t actually received anywhere close to $19.2 trillion in investment during this presidential term, let alone take in that much during the first year of the term; as we’ve repeatedly explained, Trump’s figure is a fabrication even the White House can’t substantiate.”
-=--=-=
an 7 26
Preservationists are reacting with fury after allies of President Donald Trump moved to weaken federal restrictions on construction projects built on historic sites.
Trump-appointed members of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) on Friday voted move forward with rules that would weaken Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires the federal government to both evaluate how construction projects might impact protected places and to consult with people and groups affected by such projects, including Tribal Nations.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, on Monday ripped Trump for stacking the council with loyalists who appear determined to “tear down the safeguards that protect America’s history so he and his billionaire friends can build whatever they want, wherever they want.”
“Right now, a developer has to stop and listen before paving over a tribal burial ground, a Revolutionary War battlefield, or the church where your grandparents were married,” Huffman added. “Trump’s council wants to end that and cut tribal nations, states, counties, towns, and communities out of that conversation entirely.”
Greg Werkheiser, founding partner at the law firm Cultural Heritage Partners, said in an interview with NPR published on Friday that the vote amounted to an “attempt to gut historic preservation protections.”
“There are millions of these sites in this country,” Werkheiser emphasized, “and all of them are made less protected by this effort by the Trump administration.”
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) on Monday denounced the council’s vote, describing it as “a significant step back for historic preservation, community participation, and the inclusive design processes that serve the public good.”
“At its core, the revisions strip communities of their right to be heard,” said the AIA. “These revisions place approximately 1.4 million historic sites at greater risk by shifting decisions away from the communities where they are rooted. The revisions make public comment optional rather than mandatory, narrow the definition of historic property, and shift decision-making authority almost entirely to federal agencies—sidelining state historic preservation officers, tribal historic preservation officers, tribes, and local governments.”
Michaela Pavlat, manager for the National Parks Conservation Association Indigenous Partnerships Program, said the Friday vote was a “calculated, yet unwarranted attack on tribal consultation, historic preservation, and the regulations that have protected the places that tell our country’s diverse stories.”
Gussie Lord, managing attorney for tribal partnerships at Earthjustice, noted that the National Historic Preservation Act “has not slowed the pace of new roads and power plants in this country, but it has given Tribes a seat at the table and preserved irreplaceable Indigenous sites from destruction.”
“What happens when entire landscapes are bulldozed without a thought to their cultural and historic importance?” Lord asked. “No one should support cutting Tribes out of the decision-making process for projects that impact their rights and sacred places.”
x-x-x-
an 7 26
Whether by intention, error or force of law, the Trump administration has owned up that Donald Trump sees himself president of MAGA, not of the nation.
A New York Times report this week disclosed a month-old court filing in which federal officials acknowledged that they cut $7.5 billion in clean energy programs selectively among states “based solely” on whether those stated had voted for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
In court answers about a lawsuit challenging the stated reasons of cuts based on “waste and fraud,” the government copped to the real reason – partisan politics. Indeed, the administration funded grants for states that had backed Trump in 2024, even though the Energy Department had recommended they be cancelled.
It may not be a specifically impeachable offence, but it certainly shows that Donald Trump is abusing his office, his oath – and weirdly even punishing the Trump voters in the states taking the cuts.
Trump certainly has been acting in a variety of ways as if he wants to target states that voted against him, but this court filing seemed a public acknowledgement that should get some serious attention.
As The Times concluded, “The admission showed how Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid in his second term. Far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies — or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes.”
Trump certainly has no hesitation about collecting taxes from blue states or demanding voting rolls or demanding special treatment, just in spending the money disproportionately raised from those states.
President for Some, Not All
The White House and Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget , have remained silent about the government’s court arguments in a suit brought by the affected states. At the time of the cuts, Vought posted that “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”
Now, a government lawyer told the court that none of the cancellations were “based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor.”
Apart from all else, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright repeated the waste argument in sworn congressional testimony, telling House members in June, “No decisions (about the cuts) were made on politics.”
Someone might tell Jim Jordan, chair of the Judiciary Committee, who referred former special prosecutor Jack Smith to the Justice Department for investigation of perjury for not answering a question that Jordan had never asked.
Vought is seeking to finalize rules that would make political appointees the final arbiters of how the government would award more than $1 trillion in annual grants. He wants the power to block or revoke money if states do not conform to administration priorities. The White House has also sought to layer additional restrictions on grant recipients, limiting their political activities, memberships along with vague requirements that they cannot use the money for certain purposes, including those deemed “anti-American,” reported The Times.
Rather than combatting waste, it appears Trump and his cronies are trying to take control of the United States government, using the power of the American people for their own ends, argues historian Heather Cox Richardson in Substack.
Sen. Patty Murray. D-WA., and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said that politically minded grant cuts amounted to an “outright un-American” weaponization of government.
Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker pointed out that the cancelled grants included $583 million intended for Illinois “that would have gone toward lowering energy costs, strengthening grid reliability, and creating energy jobs.” He demanded the funds be restored. “Despite what he might think, Donald Trump is not the president of MAGA,” Pritzker said in a statement, but “the president of all America.”
Terry H. Schwadron retired as a senior editor at The New York Times, Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times and leadership jobs at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team part of several Pulitzers in New York.
RWW MISC
07/21/2026
Judd Legum @ Popular Information: ICE is lying about body cams. These documents prove it.
In February 2026, months after ICE’s $75 billion windfall, Acting Director Todd Lyons said that only 3,000 of ICE’s 13,000 officers wore body cams. ICE was avoiding compliance with the policy by simply not ordering many body cams.
Robert Reich @ Substack: Trump’s Two Killing Fields
In the Trump manosphere, violence is seen as a sign of virility. When that virility is challenged, the automatic response is to escalate the violence.
Yunior Rivers @ Democracy Docket: Trump’s DOJ launched a new ‘election integrity’ website. It’s riddled with errors
The errors would be embarrassing on any federal website. On this one, they also appear to serve an ideological purpose.
Hannah Knowles @ The Washington Post: A religious sect is at the heart of an old fight getting attention in a GOP race
Rep. Andy Biggs, the party’s likely nominee for Arizona governor, faced criticism from fellow Republicans over his handling of a small police force more than a decade ago.
David Edwards @ Raw Story: Turning Point silences GOP whistleblowers invited to speak against Trump-backed candidate
Allies of Turning Point USA blocked two people with sexual misconduct allegations against a Trump-backed Arizona congressional candidate from speaking at a Republican district meeting. The candidate is former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who is running for Arizona's 5th Congressional District on a platform of "God, family, and freedom" with President Donald Trump's endorsement.
Spencer MacNaughton and Sean Robinson @ Uncloseted Media: ‘Hand Jobs, Oral Sex and Anal’: Pete Hegseth's Pastor Wants Gay Men Prosecuted for These Acts
Doug Wilson believes the U.S. should become a Christian theocracy, married women shouldn’t have the right to vote and gay sex should be illegal.
AN 7 26
President Donald Trump has a very strange habit that was revealed in a conversation with a podcaster this week.
Tom Homan, who is officially Trump's executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), spoke with the wife of Trump deputy Stephen Miller for her pro-Trump podcast, answering a rapid-fire round of questions. One answer was bizarre enough to get flagged by the Daily Beast.
According to Homan, Trump is making policy decisions on the phone with half-awake staff at 2 and 4 a.m.
Host Katie Miller asked how many times a week Homan speaks with Trump and how early in the morning he has called.
Homan said he speaks with the president several times a week. He then revealed, “I’ve gotten calls at 2:00 a.m. I’ve got calls at 4:00 a.m."
Homan tried to explain that sometimes it's a timezone issue because "he may be on Air Force One flying from the West Coast ... but I’ve gotten calls at 4:00 a.m."
One case Homan highlighted involved Trump calling at 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
“First thing he says, what are you doing? I said, ‘It’s four o’clock in the morning, sir. I’m sleeping. It’s Sunday,’” Homan recalled.
In another case, the half-awake Homan was playing the role of the yes-man as Trump asked, "What do you think about ICE in airports?"
"I said, ‘I think it’s a brilliant idea.’ He goes, ‘Good, you’re running it starting tomorrow,'" the top advisor said.
He was referring to the March decision to send ICE to airports while TSA agents were furloughed during a partial government shutdown. ICE officers ended up being photographed and taped wandering around airports and standing around watching TSA do their jobs.
It ultimately turned into another Trump idea that drew ridicule from late-night comedians, while angering TSA agents, one TIME report said. At the time, CNN host Dana Bash questioned, "With respect, if you're doing this in 24 hours, how well-thought-out could this be?"
At the time, Homan claimed that ICE agents were there to make arrests, but none of them had any training as TSA agents.
It adds to ongoing discussions about the president's sleep habits revealed in the book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, which walks through Trump's trouble sleeping at night, noting that at times he can't fall asleep until after 5 a.m. and will sleep until 10 a.m. or later.
“Occasionally, aides couldn’t reach him during the hours between eight and ten, when they soon came to realize [that] meant he had stayed up all night, on the phone or watching television or both, only to finally catch some sleep around four or five in the morning," the book said.
On one such morning, staff reported that Trump's team couldn't reach him. An aide checked on him, finding he was still asleep. Trump continues to be a "night owl," the book describes. When the First Lady does sleep at the White House, the two don't sleep in the same bed.
The book added that while Trump has “never been a big sleeper,” aides now believe he “is sleeping even less, keeping stranger hours than he had in his first term.”
During his first administration, Trump's doctor, Ronny Jackson, who is now a GOP congressman from Texas, listed sleep aids as among the drugs the president would occasionally use.
The Daily Beast previously analyzed Trump's schedule to count the number of presidential events that began at 11 a.m. or later.
On the rare occasion that Trump is up before 11 a.m., the Beast analysis found, it is when he goes to play golf.
--===---
TRUMP LIBRARY CHANGE NAME/STATE # DO NOT MATCH 20 MILLION?
--===-
AN 7 26
No one can find the $18T Trump claims he's given the US
an 7 26 see fasc
Last Thursday, three speeches delivered by MAGA figureheads in the Trump administration amounted to “pronouncements” of the death of American democracy. This is according to veteran critical care physician Robert B. Shpiner, who took to the Guardian to warn of the dangerous way the White House is wielding the word “cancer” to describe its political opponents.
“The presumption that US elections are legitimate died last week in Washington,” writes Shpiner. “It did not die of one wound. It died of three, inflicted in a single day… And the country, running to the loudest of them, never examined the one most likely to kill.” Shpiner admits that while such pronouncements can seem alarmist, when his family left Russia in 1917 and Germany in 1933, “in both generations, leaving was called excessive; staying was the reasonable position. But an alarm that was right both times it sounded is not overcaution.” He asserts that the alarm sounded three times last Thursday.
“The morning belonged to the secretary of state,” writes Shpiner. “Before officials of more than 60 countries, he announced that the counterterrorism architecture of the free world, built over a generation against jihadist mass murder, should be rebuilt and aimed at the domestic left. He named a transnational enemy defined by hatred of the west, ‘a revolt of the worst against the best.’ He tied it to Iran and to Cuba and offered no evidence for either link. He said the journalists and thinktanks who might check the claims often agree with the enemy’s goals. The move is old and reliable: discredit the second opinion in advance.”
Then, writes Shpiner, “midday belonged to the White House deputy chief of staff. What he said deserves to be quoted rather than summarized, because summary is a mercy it has not earned. He called ‘leftwing political terrorism’ a ‘fatal cancer of civilization.’ He said that its politics, left to run its course, ‘always becomes a gulag.’ He said antifa demonstrators are ‘all deformed in some way, in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism,’ that ‘their outer appearance becomes a manifestation of their inner hatred,’ and he asked why there is ‘not one normal-looking person among them.’ He said that when the leftist protests that his rights are being violated, those appeals ‘must fall on deaf ears.’ He urged the assembled governments to be ‘completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization.’”
Here Shpiner notes that he has practiced critical care for four decades, and that “cancer is my vocabulary, not his,” writing, “I know what happened the last time a government borrowed it. The Nazi state’s central perversion was the medicalization of killing: the enemy as tumor, as bacillus, the nation as patient, extermination as cure… When a government describes citizens as a cancer, it has written the first line of a treatment plan. On Thursday, the plan was read aloud, from a state department podium.”
Finally, writes Shpiner, “the evening belonged to the president. In primetime he called the American election system indefensible, claimed a foreign power held 220 million voter files, declared mail voting inherently corrupt, accused his own intelligence services of concealment, and told Congress that the only reason to oppose his bill is the intent to cheat. That framework converts every future outcome into evidence. Pass the bill and win: the bill worked. Fail and lose: the cheaters blocked it. A presumption of legitimacy cannot survive inside a belief system engineered to be unfalsifiable.”
Shpiner describes the media’s response in the days to come as a “triage error,” asserting that the focus fell on the “loudest injury” — President Donald Trump — and ignored “the morning’s remarks, the ones that declared a class of Americans a cancer and read enmity on their bodies.” Writes Shpiner, “I have watched teams run to the dramatic patient while the quiet one, the one not crying out, exsanguinates behind a curtain. The most dangerous words spoken in Washington on Thursday were not spoken in primetime. They were spoken before lunch, to more than 60 countries. The official transcript records the applause.”
He concludes on a grim note, writing, “In 40 years of intensive care, I have pronounced death many times. The criteria are strict because the declaration is irreversible, and so we are taught to be certain before we speak. I have also, more than once, seen a rhythm return after the room had gone quiet, when someone refused to stop compressions on schedule. This notice is filed in the knowledge that pronouncements can be premature. It is filed in the fear that this one is not.”
XXXXX
an 7 26 grift truth soc
Inside the secret $100K tool giving traders Trump's news first
Target of Trump lawsuit finding new ways to humiliate him
an 7 26 bbc
//
One of President Donald Trump's latest revenge lawsuits appears to be on the verge of a "humiliating" implosion, according to a new breakdown from The i Paper, as the legal battle enters a new phase where his target "can smell blood."
Among his many other attempts at legal warfare, Trump has been suing the BBC for defamation over what The i Paper on Wednesday called the "clumsy" editing of his speech prior to the Jan. 6 riots, seeking $10 billion in damages. The process took a turn for the worse for the president this week, when Judge Enjoliqué Lett sided with the BBC's demand to force Trump and his companies to disclose financial information as part of the discovery process, to determine the accuracy of his suit's claim that the documentary caused him "massive economic damage to his brand value, and significant damage and injury to his future financial prospects.”
Trump is notoriously secretive about his personal finances, especially since his entry into politics, which has brought renewed scrutiny to his alleged tax dodging and the legitimacy of his net worth claims. The lawsuit behind Trump's controversial "slush fund" settlement originally revolved around his allegations about the IRS leaking his tax information to news outlets, signaling his particular sensitivity over the issue.
Judge Lett also gave the BBC the ability to subpoena figures close to Trump, potentially forcing them to testify under oath about his "thoughts and intentions in the hours leading up to the 6 January 2021 riots on Capitol Hill."
Writing about the story for The i Paper, reporter Simon Mark noted that "The BBC can smell blood" and that Trump has already given hints about a "massive climbdown" in his allegations against the network.
"Trump, of course, has no intention of placing his financial data in the hands of BBC lawyers, and even during Tuesday’s hearing the President’s attorney indicated that a massive climbdown may soon be underway," Marks explained. "Al Brito, leading Trump’s legal team, told the judge that the President’s claims against the BBC had 'evolved.' He said that an amended version of the lawsuit would soon be unveiled in which 'the damages are limited in a way that is different from when the case was originally filed. Even if there has been harm to the brand, we are not pursuing that as part of our damages,' he said, predicting that the amended lawsuit would have a 'far more narrow scope.'"
He continued: "The BBC smells blood in the water. The corporation’s lawyers say Trump’s legal team are dragging their feet over efforts to schedule the President’s deposition in the case. The corporation continues to call for the entire lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that the BBC is not the broadcasting powerhouse in South Florida that the President claims."
The lawsuit had already been withering in scope prior to Judge Lett's discovery ruling. Marks noted that the BBC's legal team had already convinced the court that "neither BBC Studio Productions nor BBC Studios Distribution played any role in producing or creating the documentary and were uninvolved in its American broadcast," successfully getting those aspects of its operation removed from the suit.
Marks concluded: "The BBC may be in the process of proving that it’s possible to stand up to a bully and win, especially when grandiose claims made in a lawsuit simply do not stand up to scrutiny. But Trump’s lawyers are likely to remain very busy, as an irascible president funds them to wage his war on reporting."
mark lamb primary sexting 7 26 wins
https://www.politico.com › news › 2026 › 07 › 21 › lamb-wins-arizona-house-primary-01007464
Mark Lamb wins Arizona House primary despite sex scandals
TodayMark Lamb, the former Pinal County sheriff, overcame a late push from self-funding candidate Daniel Keenan in Arizona's 5th District.
Mark Lamb, the former Pinal County sheriff, overcame a late push from self-funding candidate Daniel Keenan in Arizona’s 5th District. Lamb will enter November as the heavy frontrunner in the deep-red Phoenix-area district to replace Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who is running for governor.
Keenan had poured nearly $2 million of his own cash into the campaign and attempted to make Lamb’s alleged sexual misconduct and abuse of power central to the race. Lamb has denied the allegations.
But Lamb — bolstered by Trump and Arizona-based Turning Point USA — managed to ward off the attacks.
The race’s outcome reveals the strength of Trump’s endorsement, and it’s the latest example of how willing GOP primary voters have been to accept scandal-ridden candidates favored by the president.
AN 7 26
Trump is targeting American history itself in a new push that looks less like patriotism and more like political control.
Trump is specifically targeting the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, or ACHP, which The New Republic's Timothy Noah warns is at work trying to destroy historic preservation of national sites and even Native American tribes.
ACHP regulators deal specifically with Section 106 of the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, which requires federal agencies to consider how their projects might affect historic places before proceeding. So, if a project could damage or change a historic building, site or landmark, the ACHP steps in and works on ways to reduce harm. Trump, by contrast, wants to make huge changes that forever damage or eliminate historic landmarks, such as his bulldozing of the White House itself.
In his report, Noah said that Trump's ACHP is "reviewing" Section 106. The process of "reviewing" it is further along than Noah said he fully realized.
"Now the ACHP, which is under the firm control of President Donald Trump, has produced a draft notice of proposed rulemaking (text here and here) that would make it significantly easier for Trump 'to fast-track projects that destroy, or cause irreversible damage to, our historic places, with virtually no public oversight,' according to Sara Bronin, who chaired the ACHP under President Joe Biden. The ACHP is expected to publish the notice of proposed rulemaking by the end of this week," Noah wrote.
So far, Trump's plans have involved things like erecting his Arc de Trump, blocking Arlington National Cemetery and building the National Garden of American Heroes in West Potomac Park. However, projects like the East Wing prove he's fully prepared to take a wrecking ball to some of the most important public land in the United States.
"These regulatory changes would be like handing a box of matches to an arsonist," wrote Noah.
Greg Werkheiser, founding partner of Cultural Heritage Partners, told Noah, "We’ve never seen a proposal that would do this much damage to this much of the country’s history in one stroke.”
His group is currently dealing with litigation over Trump’s Kennedy Center overhaul, and Trump's idea to whitewash the grey Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
"Cultural Heritage Partners has set up an online war room to fight against the proposed Section 106 changes," Noah reported.
Bronin said, “I would encourage people not to get distracted by the types of projects that have been in the news, because these changes are geared toward a more systematic overhaul of the process” to “benefit some of the most destructive projects that are in the federal pipeline."
She explained that it isn't merely about building statues of himself in Washington; it's also about oil and mining operations in national parks protected by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
One case dates back to an effort by former GOP Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona, who slipped in a provision into a 2014 defense bill that moved an area of Arizona’s Tonto National Forest from ownership of the local indigenous community to an Australian mining company called Resolution Copper. The mining operation would "obliterate" the native community. The one thing standing in its way has been Section 106. However, the use of the term “geographically compact” is now preventing the land from being protected because it's so expansive.
Noah also said that the text claims “noncompact, unimproved natural features such as mountains, valleys, bodies of water or landscapes, including ethnographic landscapes, do not qualify as property for the purposes of section 106.”
It will likely grant Trump the license to dismantle the entire Oak Flat area, known as Chi’chil Biłdagoteel.
“These two words,” Bronin warned, “would greenlight a wave of destruction of our historic and culturally significant properties that we’ve never seen before.”
rww misc
07/20/2026
Joel Zapata @ Texas Observer: The Real Lesson Behind Texas’ New Bible Curriculum Requirements
Going forward, students will learn that life circumstances are beyond their power to change. They will learn that their place and the place of others in the economy and larger society should not be questioned.
Sophia Tesfaye @ Salon: MAGA’s influencer class is breaking Trump’s White House
As the failure of Trump’s domestic agenda demoralizes his base, the defining currency of MAGA has shifted from ideology to access.
Mark Jacob @ Stop the Presses: Trump and prediction markets are building a society of suckers
The convicted felon in the White House loves shadowy financial schemes that benefit insiders.
Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Sharon Lerner @ ProPublica: Trump Officials Want to Use Human Rights Aid to Advocate for White South Africans and Right-Wing Causes in Europe
Proposed grant recipients have included a free-speech organization that has fought against bans on “gay conversion therapy” and an Afrikaner group that promotes self-governance.
Jim Carroll @ Flux: Renewed ICE killings are inevitable result of mass deportations rooted in incendiary claims of immigrant invasion
The stakes are nothing less than the question of who belongs in this country, and who should ultimately count as a real American.
Jonathan V. Last @ The Bulwark: Truth Social Legalizes Insider Trading
Donald Trump is an innovator in the field of corruption and Truth API is something we’ve never seen before: A device that legalizes insider trading and turns Trump’s Truth Social account into something like a Bloomberg terminal.
Greg Sargent and Ryan Enos @ The New Republic: Trump’s Rage at Journos Boils Over—and Even Fox Is Rattled
Donald Trump is essentially saying, “Look, the next time I give remarks that are designed to sow distrust in our elections, you damn well better carry it, otherwise the full weight of the federal government is going to bear down on you.”
Scot Nakagawa @ The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook: They Are Not Coming for ‘Illegal Immigrants’
What’s happening to immigrant communities right now isn’t immigration enforcement. It is a campaign of systemic terror, operating on multiple simultaneous fronts, designed to make 13.7 million people - and the families, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and communities attached to them - feel that no corner of their life is safe.
Steven Beschloss @ America, America: Pressing Delete Won’t Eliminate the Truth
From ICE agent crimes to climate change, Jan. 6 and hunger in America, the Trump regime is working to deny the public knowledge to confront its crimes and failures.
an? 7 26
Trump has worked to accelerate America’s development of AI rather than regulate it, and the result is not just an epidemic of deepfakes and hallucinations being passed off as legitimate research. A new report reveals that some of the nation’s best-educated workers, who once were secure, are taking it on the chin.
“About one third of the total personal wealth in the United States is held by the top 1 percent of households, while the bottom half of Americans holds less than 3 percent, according to Federal Reserve data,” wrote The Washington Post's Elizabeth Dwoskin and Shira Ovide wrote on Sunday. This data includes former economic winners who are now finding themselves on the wrong side of layoffs and hiring freezes — tech workers.
“The sense of precariousness among America’s professional elite could be a preview of what’s ahead for the rest of the country as AI spreads,” the Post wrote. “Silicon Valley techies are ‘are guinea pigs for what tech dudes want to do to everyone,’ said Anil Dash, a technology entrepreneur.”
They added, “At tech companies, leaders obsessed with winning the AI race have tasked their workforces of coders, lawyers and HR professionals with becoming the front line of that transformation. They’re being measured by how quickly they can automate their own jobs while watching their colleagues get pushed out in successive waves of layoffs.”
The report continued, “Layoffs.fyi, which tracks announced job cuts, counts more than 800,000 tech workers laid off since 2022, including large staff reductions in recent months at Meta, Microsoft, Oracle and Amazon.” According to the Silicon Valley market research consultancy founder Oliver Raskin, whose company is called Signalcraft Insights, “there’s this whole tranche of people who’ve been quite used to being among the most upwardly mobile in society who are all of a sudden saying, ‘Now I’m the guy on the street.’”
In the mid-to-late 20th century, autoworkers were the group most likely to fall into the category of “entered a specialized field on the premise that it was well paying and stable, only to have the rug pulled out from under them.” Now that dubious distinction belongs to tech workers such as coders and engineers, whose positions are being outsourced to AI because the technology’s speed and without regard to notable dips in quality.
“There’s just a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear, a lot of people feeling like, if they get let go from this job, they might not find another one,” Anneke Buffone, a psychology PhD who Meta hired to help employees’ well-being and safety but ultimately left in December, told the Post.
“She described getting pushback from managers when she tried to explain that a particular AI tool was a waste of time,” the Post reported. “The system had so many errors that she needed to redo its work.”
It continued, “But her bosses ‘were like, ‘No, keep using it more. It’ll just get better,’’ she said. ‘There’s a feeling among management that when you voice that AI has all these problems, they don’t want to hear it.” AI, she said, makes “everything go so much faster. It creates this illusion that you can get all this stuff done. Much of the time you’re just babysitting the AIs.’”
an 7 26
Trump's no-bid contract spree is worse than anyone thought —and it's just the beginning
an 7 26
White evangelicals now regret the deal they made with the devil: report
an 7 26
When rapper Boosie Badazz — a.k.a. Torence Ivy Hatch Jr. — announced he was suing a lobbying firm that he paid to get him pardoned by President Donald Trump for alleged unlawful firearm possession, the music star did more than air his own grievances. According to a recent report, Hatch also shed light on how Trump has systematically used his pardoning authority to enrich his allies and consolidate his power.
“$600,000: That's the amount rapper Boosie Badazz reportedly paid a Washington lobbying firm to secure a presidential pardon,” NPR's Ayesha Rascoe told NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright in a Sunday interview. “The rapper, whose real name is Torrence Hatch, was looking to overturn a federal conviction over the unlawful possession of a firearm. But the pardon hasn't happened. Now Hatch is reportedly looking to recover half of what he paid through arbitration. The rapper's case represents a growing industry in Washington, D.C.: wealthy clients paying to try to secure clemency from President Trump.”
As Wright explained to Rascoe, “There was an impetus by folks around the President, and the President himself, to do more of these pardons,” with the Justice Department’s pardon attorney Ed Martin losing much of his authority to the president and his inner circle.
“I've talked to a lot of different pardon attorneys, pardon lobbyists, folks who are involved in this business, and they say that their number one piece of advice to their clients is, one, call who you know,” Wright said. “If you know anybody remotely close to the White House, let them know that you're looking for a pardon. And two, try to get in front of the President. I've talked to people who say they have advised their clients to go to Mar-a-Lago, the President's resort residence in Palm Beach, Florida. Any way that you can get your application — your reasons for why you deserve clemency — in front of the President, they say, is an easier way to get closer to a pardon.”
Regardless of the ethical controversies surrounding this process, Wright emphasized that it is also entirely legal.
“This is legal,” Wright told Rascoe. “To be fair, people have always paid attorneys and lobbyists for pardons. You're not paying for the individual pardon; you're paying the person to go advocate on your behalf to get you a pardon or commutation.”
She added, “What's happening now is that, because of the normal barriers that used to exist to obtaining a pardon, it is now easier for people with some sort of association — they don't have to have a law degree, they don't even have to be an actual registered lobbyist — to go advocate to the White House to get their clients pardoned. And so this has created and normalized a new economy in which people are paying up to $5 million in some cases to individual lawyers or lobbyists to advocate on their behalf in hopes of getting a pardon. Now, not everybody who is doing this is getting a pardon, as we can see from this case.”
Not all of Trump’s pardons occurred because of lobbying efforts. Trump also used his power to help roughly 1,500 rioters who helped him attempt to overthrow the government on Jan. 6, 2021 after he lost the 2020 presidential election. Ever since, many of the Jan. 6ers have gone on to engage in serious crimes.
"At least 12 of the pardoned rioters have since been charged with other serious crimes, including child molestation, assault, harassment, murder plots and charges related to a vicious dog attack," The New York Times editorial board wrote in June. "The outcome was predictable. Critics, including this board, had warned that Mr. Trump’s pardons would embolden the rioters by signaling that crime has no consequences. One does not have to be a criminologist to predict that people who commit a violent act and are absolved of any punishment might become repeat offenders."
AN 7 26
One of the Trump family's companies this week unveiled the latest in their long line of moneymaking schemes, and according to the D.C. insiders at Pod Save America, it constitutes "truly one of the most wildly corrupt things that has ever happened."
President Donald Trump, his family and their many business holdings have been doggedly determined to milk as much money as possible out of his second term through an unending parade of schemes and grifts. As Trump himself admitted in a recent interview, he has felt no compunction about profiting off his station after realizing that no one would stop him if he did.
Earlier this week, the Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Trump's Truth Social platform, announced its intention to sell early access to "market-moving" posts on the platform from some of its "highest-ranking" accounts. The president is by far and away the biggest account on Truth Social, with his continued use of it over other social media sites being essentially the only reason it still exists. In effect, the plan appears to be selling early access to Trump's posts so that banks and traders can take advantage of how they will impact the stock market.
In one of the most recent episodes of the podcast, the former Obama administration officials at Pod Save America dug into the news, calling it an alarming new low for Trump's corrupt second-term pursuits.
"Why don't they just start asking the Treasury to print money for the Trumps?" co-host Jon Favreau, the former head speechwriter for Barack Obama, said. "That is, I don't know why we're going through all of these schemes and this and that. Everything's so complicated. Just go to [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent, ask him to start printing money, put it in your pocket, walk away."
The other co-host, former senior Obama comms advisor Dan Pfeiffer, did not mince words with his reaction to the news.
"This is truly one of the most wildly corrupt things that has ever happened," Pfeiffer said. "And that's saying a lot."
Pfeiffer also stressed that, despite the fact that Truth Social is a "stupid platform" that few people outside of political circles pay attention to, Trump's posts there are legitimate presidential statements. In effect, he said, this new plan from the Trump Media & Technology Group would be akin to past presidential administrations giving Wall Street early access to official speeches or press releases.
"Example: president announces a new ceasefire with Iran, you can use that to buy oil futures," Pfeiffer explained. "He says the end of the ceasefire, you can sell your oil futures faster than anyone else because you have paid money to the president to get access to that market-moving information before everyone else in this country."
He further suggested that the move represented an "abuse of power" from Trump, as well as an example of "a high crime and a misdemeanor," referring to the sorts of offenses for which a president could be impeached.
an 7 26 press suppr
DOJ demands phone from reporter’s mother after Trump Air Force One humiliation
AN 7 26
President Donald Trump has been promoting a variety of makeover projects in Washington, DC, including some at the White House. One of them is a statue of the United States' third president, Thomas Jefferson, which, according to the Daily Beast, was unveiled in the White House Rose Garden last week — but without any prior announcement.
The Daily Beast's Leigh Kimmins explains, "The New York Post reported earlier this month that the work, created 25 years ago by George Lundeen, arrived at the White House at the end of June and was held for examination by security experts. Lundeen, 77, also made the 7-foot, 700-pound bronze 'fight fight fight' monument to Trump that captures his raised fist immediately following a 2024 assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania. The new work depicts Jefferson working on a draft of the Declaration of Independence. Lundeen told the Washington Post that Trump loves it so much that he sent the artist a congratulatory message. 'I just wanted to thank you. The sculpture looks really beautiful,” Trump told Lundeen."
The new work, according to Kimmins, depicts Jefferson "working on a draft of" the American Declaration of Independence.
Trump, according to Kimmins, told Lundeen, "I just wanted to thank you. The sculpture looks really beautiful."
Kimmins notes, "Trump replaced the central grass lawn with a stone patio. The Jefferson effigy is the fifth statue he has added. It joins a statue of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and a sculpture called 'Freedom's Charge,' which honors Revolutionary War soldiers."
Kimmins notes that Trump "has overseen a new outdoor statuary exhibition in downtown Washington that includes a statue of Caesar Rodney, a signer of the Declaration of Independence whose monument was removed from public view in Delaware during the 2020 protests amid criticism of his history as an enslaver."
"The display is part of a broader effort by Trump to elevate historical figures whose monuments became flashpoints during the racial justice protests, including Confederate symbols he sought to protect during his first term through executive action aimed at preserving federal monuments," Kimmins reports. "In March, he also installed a replica of a Christopher Columbus statue that had been torn down in Baltimore during the 2020 unrest on the White House grounds. Two people familiar with private conversations said Trump — who has himself been the target of repeated protests — has at times privately expressed sympathy with figures such as Columbus, who was celebrated for centuries as an explorer before becoming a flashpoint because of his role in colonization and enslavement."
an 7 26
Ahead of the pivotal 2026 midterm elections, Politico reports that a consistently red state is being pushed away from Republicans, all because of a longstanding environmental crisis resulting in cancer-causing water.
Once considered a swing state, in the last several election cycles, Iowa has emerged as a solid red state, breaking for President Donald Trump in all three of his races. Despite that trend, there remains a hope among Democrats, backed up by recent polling data, that they might be able to pull off wins in the state this November, given how toxic Trump and the Republican Party are becoming with voters. This is especially true in Iowa, where the president's economic agenda has caused major pains for the state's many farmers.
On top of all that, Politico on Sunday released a report revealing that a long-term ecological crisis is also triggering a "political reckoning" in the Hawkeye State, and it could end up being a disaster for Republicans.
Chris Jones, the Democratic nominee for Iowa's secretary of agriculture, told Politico that his "decade as a research engineer, monitoring the state’s rivers and streams," led him to pursue public office, to address the alarming things he discovered about the state's rivers and lakes. As the report explained, "Iowa’s lakes and ponds are often murky and fetid from algae blooms fed by fertilizer runoff, a byproduct of the state’s vast agricultural industry’s reliance on farming chemicals."
"Iowa has a long-simmering water problem that has finally begun to boil over — and it’s changing Iowa politics," Politico explained. "People are angry and worried about the quality of the state’s water, the health risks it poses and its increasingly undeniable tie to the state’s signature industry: agriculture."
It continued: "In recent years, Iowa’s cancer rate has climbed significantly above the U.S. average. It now stands as the nation’s second highest, and Iowa is one of only three states where the rate is rising. The situation has put a spotlight on nitrates, which are linked to a growing body of science to kidney, brain and ovarian cancer. Nitrates are a key component in the deluge of chemical pesticides and fertilizers used by the state’s farmers, some of which washes off farm fields and into waterways. A second culprit is glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the world’s most common weedkiller, which the International Agency for Research on Cancer declared 'probably carcinogenic' in 2015, an assessment rejected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."
While candidates on both sides have long been wary of tackling issues stemming from Iowa's all-important farming industry, things are different this year. Voters are "steaming mad" about the impact these chemicals are having, and as a result, candidates from both parties have taken aim at the industry, and found success doing so. In a development that is "scrambling" the common understanding of Iowa's politics, "some of those winning candidates are Democrats."
"In the Republican primary for governor, a businessman, farmer and political operative named Zach Lahn shocked the political establishment by edging out Trump-endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra for the nomination," Politico explained. "Lahn won, in part, by openly acknowledging the state’s water crisis and connecting the dots between agriculture and cancer. Lahn was also the first candidate for statewide office endorsed by MAHA Action, the main PAC supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement. MAHA voters supported Kennedy and President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential elections, but have since rebelled against some of their moves, especially the Trump administration’s open support for glyphosate."
It continued: "As for the Democrats, they have their best shot in a decade or more of winning statewide offices in November’s election. Democrat Josh Turek is neck-and-neck in recent polling with Republican Ashley Hinson in the open race for U.S. Senate. And Lahn’s Democratic opponent, Rob Sand, bested him by one percentage point, within the margin of error, in recent polling in the governor’s race."
CONTEXT DJ HIRES
BULWARK SOMMER 7 26
TRUMP’S PRIMETIME ADDRESS Thursday is shaping up to be a grab bag of conspiracy theories, all of them intended to help Republicans take control of the midterms. He might declare that Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are somehow fake senators; or announce a national emergency on voter fraud. The latest reporting suggests Trump will claim China tried to steal the 2020 election.
Whatever Trump does, it’ll be because of John Solomon—a star conservative reporter who is, somehow, also a White House staffer. For nearly a decade, Solomon has had a hand in the creation of nearly every major MAGA grievance narrative, from the Russia investigation to Ukraine to 2020 election fraud. Solomon has a pretty clear M.O.: He’ll spin a story that seems like a massive exposé, getting it trumpeted on Fox News and throughout the right-wing media ecosystem before it has a chance to deflate under scrutiny, as it usually does.
Now in his gig as a short-term White House staffer, Solomon has been digging up the raw material necessary for both prosecuting Trump’s enemies and the expected attempt at electoral chicanery.
Yet this narrative impresario and his brand of quasi-journalism remain largely unknown outside the world of right-wing media.
In 2007, when Solomon was an investigative reporter at the Washington Post, the Columbia Journalism Review was already complaining that his stories amounted to the “John Solomon special”: front-page revelations that, when scrutinized, turned out to be little more than a “steady stream of mediocrity.”
Now, thanks to his role in the Trump administration, Solomon has a chance to work that magic on a much larger scale.
Typically, MAGA muckrakers are liars or crackpots, like Mike Lindell, or that one rogue falconer (but not the one you’re thinking of). Compared to these folks, Solomon is a veritable Walter Cronkite. He has a serious journalistic background after working for Post and the Associated Press, and he dresses in ties and navy suits. His veneer of seriousness provides a valuable service for the MAGAverse. Watching him can almost feel like watching a grizzled mainstream investigative journalist who just happens to validate Trump’s obsessions.
A story from the final days of the first Trump administration shows how much Solomon lives in the Trumpworld pocket. The day before Joe Biden’s inauguration, then-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows called Solomon to the White House to review a binder of newly declassified files from the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Trump and Russia—just the kind of document handout Solomon loves.
Meadows wanted Solomon to publish the contents of the binder on Inauguration Day. Solomon’s staffers at his website, Just The News, scrambled to scan them all. Then a new envelope arrived for Solomon, with new files “he was permitted to write about,” according to a lawsuit Solomon later filed against the Justice Department.
Unfortunately for Solomon, the whole plan got botched when a White House staffer recalled the files for further redaction. The binder disappeared back into the new Biden administration. Solomon’s fervor for getting access to them again led to a special favor from Trump, who named Solomon as one of his personal representatives at the National Archives, where he would have the freedom to again pursue the story (to give you a sense of Solomon’s perceived reliability to the ex-president, the only other person designated as Trump’s representative at the time was Kash Patel). It was a decision intended to redound to mutual benefit, and sure enough, Solomon eventually published the files in April 2025.
HOW DID SOLOMON WIND UP as Trump’s favorite journo? After leaving the Post in 2008, Solomon moved between journalism nonprofits and conservative media for a while, powered by a personality once described as “charming and garrulous and brimming with swagger.”
He reached a new level of prominence on the right when he became an executive at The Hill in 2017. His portfolio there was superhuman: simultaneously launching a TV channel, drumming up ad business, and filing news and opinion articles. As you might expect, it was a situation rife with conflicts of interest, with one staffer warning that Solomon was up to “reputation-killing stuff.”1
Solomon’s first big moment at The Hill came with his coverage of the Uranium One faux-scandal, during which he heavily insinuated—but did not come close to proving—that Hillary Clinton had approved the sale of rights to a key American uranium reserve to Russia in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation. At the time, Republican anxieties about Trump’s own Russia ties were in overdrive, so Solomon’s articles gave them the tantalizing feeling that the “real” Russia scandal was that Clinton was the true Putin patsy.
In March 2019, Solomon waded into even murkier waters: the bizarre series of events that led to Trump’s impeachment over efforts to pressure Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. Solomon inexplicably began to target American ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch in articles for The Hill, portraying her as disloyal to Trump and weak on corruption. A month after Solomon’s series began, Trump fired Yovanovitch.
House Democrats later alleged that Solomon’s columns were part of a smear campaign run by Rudy Giuliani and a web of right-leaning Ukrainians and Americans, in a complex deal meant to convince Ukrainian officials to investigate the Bidens.
Solomon met regularly with figures involved in digging up dirt on the Bidens. The group became known as the BLT Team, named after the BLT Prime restaurant in the Trump International Hotel in Washington where they met. The gang included Giuliani, the prolific Ukrainian-American schemer Lev Parnas, and husband-and-wife legal team Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova. He even shared a draft of a story with the group before publication—a major journalistic taboo.
DiGenova and Toensing seem to have made something of a cottage industry out of this. They represented at least one Ukrainian involved in the scheme. They had also, perhaps not coincidentally, represented a key Uranium One “whistleblower.” And they were also Solomon’s own lawyers, even though he used them and their clients as sources in his articles without disclosing that relationship. Once again, all of this flies in the face of journalistic standards.
Conflicts of interest aside, much of Solomon’s reporting on Ukraine was simply wrong, according to experts on the byzantine world of Ukrainian politics. Even as Solomon became a regular on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show (and used that relationship to make himself valuable to the BLT Team, according to Parnas), an internal Fox News research document I reported on at the time acknowledged that Solomon was involved in a Ukrainian “disinformation campaign.”
“It was primarily non-truths and non-sequiturs,” one State Department noted of Solomon’s reporting during the first Trump impeachment investigation.
Solomon left The Hill in October 2019. The newspaper skewered him in an internal review, with some of the editor’s notes added to his Ukraine’s articles running nearly as long as the articles themselves.
DESPITE QUESTIONS ABOUT SOLOMON’S credibility during his run at the Hill, his star on the right continued to rise. In 2020, he launched Just The News, a conservative news outlet where he has run pro-Trump stories without even the thin layers of editorial oversight he faced at prior media outlets.
Solomon is also becoming a right-wing media mogul, adding minor conservative brands The Post Millennial and (the historically significant) Human Events to his holdings in November. In June 2025, the publisher of RealClearPolitics accused Solomon of convincing some of that website’s donors to withdraw their support in an attempt to soften it up for a takeover, too.
IAF
Solomon also helped launch and continues to provide office space to a foundation that doles out millions of dollars to a network of conservative media outlets and think tanks, including his own site. As Mother Jones reported, few if any of those funding connections are disclosed in Solomon’s journalism when he cites groups that have benefited from the nonprofit’s largesse. Mother Jones describes the sort of ideologically driven news sites in the foundation’s network as “pink slime,” a name that comes from “by-products added as filler to ground beef.”
But Solomon’s biggest honor came this summer, when Trump made him a special government employee tasked with helping “identify some documents, some secrets” to be declassified and released to the public. He is eligible to serve in the role for up to 130 days. Solomon, who said he’s not being paid for the White House declassification work, announced in June that he was stepping down as Just The News’s editor-in-chief, although he continues to host his show and publish articles on the Just The News website.
Solomon isn’t the only member of the BLT Team joining the administration. In April, diGenova was sworn in as a counselor to the Justice Department operating out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, where he’s reportedly working with a grand jury to indict Trump critics like former CIA director John Brennan. The judge overseeing the proceedings—and making decisions on whether to approve things like subpoenas for witness testimony or documents—is infamous Trump loyalist Aileen Cannon, who ran interference for the president during special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents investigation between Trump’s terms in office. Earlier this spring, Cannon blocked the release of Smith’s final report on his investigation’s findings.
Toensing came out of retirement in May to be sworn in as a “deputy chief for civil rights in the criminal section” in the same prosecutor’s office, according to a statement filed in court by District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
“Ms. Toensing has extensive obligations in that [Florida] District related to a grand jury proceeding,” Pirro wrote, suggesting that Toensing too is working on some kind of urgent grand jury case against perceived Trump enemies.
Solomon has openly admitted that his role declassifying government documents is central to helping that same grand jury, suggesting the once-ridiculed group involved in crafting the anti-Biden Ukraine narrative is now helping Trump pursue his enemies through the Justice Department.
Referring to the administration’s push to declassify files about investigations into the president, Solomon told Benny Johnson in April that “those documents will help this prosecutorial team in Miami” by taking away the need for the sorts of secret and time-intensive processes that would otherwise be needed to make use of them in court.
But Solomon’s decades-old reputation for letting down his audience is starting to reach conservatives, too. Popular conspiracy theory blog Conservative Treehouse has grown skeptical of Solomon’s promises, even adding a bolded warning label of sorts to a preview of Trump’s Thursday speech so readers wouldn’t get too excited.
“Caution should be noted as newly appointed Special Government Employee John Solomon is responsible for the content,” the post read.
Emerald Robinson, an anchor at Mike Lindell’s online channel, wasn’t excited either.
“LOL why would anybody trust John Solomon based on his record?” she wrote on X.
When you’ve lost Lindell’s crew…
rww misc
07/16/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla
Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck @ CNN: GOP Senate candidate has close ties to White nationalist influencer, his son-in-law
Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins has built a national profile as a combative, Trump-aligned online provocateur — a style that has repeatedly drawn scrutiny over his associations with far-right figures, inflammatory social media posts and accusations of antisemitism, which he has denied. Now, one of the starkest examples of extremism in the Georgia congressman’s orbit appears much closer to home: his son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, a pro-White nationalist and social media influencer with a track record of sharing antisemitic material and Nazi imagery in comments across the internet.
Katherine Faulders, Aaron Katersky, Peter Charalambous, and Nicholas Kerr @ ABC News: White House teleprompter operator made more than $100K betting on Trump's speeches
The White House said that Gabriel Perez has been placed on unpaid leave.
Jarrett Ley, Meg Kelly, Klara Auerbach and Maura Judkis @ The Washington Post: Reflecting Pool peeling probably caused by application flaws, experts say
President Donald Trump has blamed vandals, but a Washington Post analysis finds that the peeling tracks closely with stages of the renovation process.
Kathianne Boniello @ Mediaite: Tom Homan Warns on Fox Dems Need to ‘Shut Their Mouth’ About ICE or There Will ‘Be More Bloodshed’
Trump Border Czar Tom Homan ominously warned Democrats to stop stoking criticism of ICE or “there will still be more bloodshed” — after three people were killed in a week of ICE-related incidents.
Josh Kovensky @ Talking Points Memo: Trump DOJ’s Top ‘Antifa’ Prosecutor Marched With Crowd on Jan. 6
It was not known publicly that a federal prosecutor marched to the Capitol on Jan. 6. He was appointed this year to run a national task force targeting alleged left-wing political violence.
Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: Can This Pseudo-Journalist Destroy American Democracy?
The post-truth era gets its post-truth journalist—only this time, he’s operating from inside the government.
7 16 26 big speech
englebrecht mtg wh
//
'My cyber guys looked at it': Mike Lindell won't quit conspiracy theory after Trump boost
AN 7 26
Supreme Court judge blasts Trump for attacking America's highest bench
AN 7 26
President Donald Trump’s former White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, has an explanation for why the Republican has failed to end the Russia-Ukraine war as promised and is now pulling America out of NATO: He is compromised by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“If Trump is disavowing NATO and breaking an 80 year tradition — something’s wrong,” Scaramucci posted on X on Tuesday. “If Trump is praising Vladimir Putin, whose entire economy is slightly smaller than the state of Texas — something’s wrong. If Trump is disavowing the 1994 defense agreement where we told Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons and we’d protect them — the agreement that got him impeached in his first term — something is wrong.”
After noting that Trump frequently criticizes other world leaders but refrains from doing so about Putin, Scaramucci speculated that it is because Putin “owns” Trump.
“It’s hard to watch as an American but it’s obvious,” Scaramucci wrote. “Why does he own him? That’ll probably come out someday.” He then added that Russia also pays right-leaning podcasters, referring to the 2024 indictment proving that Russia had paid influencers including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, Benny Johnson, Tayler Hansen and Matt Christiansen.
“Republicans hanging out in Moscow, repeating the same lines,” Scaramucci concluded. “The question isn’t whether something exists. It’s what.”
In response to this article, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said that “Anthony Scaramucci lasted 11 short days in the White House. He makes lightweights look credible.”
Scaramucci is far from alone among critics alleging that Trump is compromised by Russia and that this is helping Putin’s agenda. Speaking with this journalist for Salon in 2019, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (who served under a Democrat, President Bill Clinton) claimed that Trump’s pro-Putin rhetoric “is undermining democracies for the sake of separating them from the United States and from each other and it is a new form of using… It’s kind of weaponizing information, and what sometimes is called asymmetrical warfare, in terms of making sure that our alliances are weakened and that the democratic institutions in those countries are under pressure and threat. At the same time, I think that it does work also as a way of expanding Russia’s influence.”
Trump was also found in a report by special counsel Robert Mueller to have worked with Russian allies to spread disinformation about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, worked with accused Russia-tied sources like his then-campaign chair Paul Manafort and his top adviser Roger Stone and his open encouragement of Russia to dig up dirt on Clinton.
Yet Scaramucci’s criticisms of Trump are not limited to his ties to Russia. Earlier this month, he criticized Trump for engaging in business deals that have netted him more than $2 billion since taking office, the first president to so openly and lucratively profit from being in office. Scaramucci posted on X that “it smells terrible and it should be stopped. But we’ve lost our sense of shame. Trump said 2 things: 1. It’s peanuts and not that much money. 2. Nobody cares. That second one is the one that should keep you up at night.” He added, “Hopefully people actually do care. Hopefully they show up in November and send these guys a message.”
Meanwhile, in May Scaramucci bashed Trump’s handling of the economy.
“If Barack Obama had done half of what Trump is doing now, Fox News would have been calling for impeachment,” Scaramucci posted on X. “Trump has no economic philosophy. He spent $8.2 trillion in his first term and he's on pace for $9 to $10 trillion in this one. We're at 100 percent debt to GDP held by investors — 122 percent if you count the Fed's balance sheet.”
On a separate occasion in May, Scaramucci observed that "all my Wall Street buddies voted for him and now they’re regretting the fact," later clarifying that "most of the people are.”
Speaking with this author for Salon in 2018, Scaramucci attributed Trump’s political success to his ability to speak to the economic concerns of ordinary Americans.
“What I saw was in a generation we went from aspirational working class families, like the one I grew up in, to [desperate] working class families,” Scaramucci argued. “What I saw is a decline in wages causing some level of economic asphyxiation for a very large group of people. And so Trump being out there, going into those areas, explaining the policies that he’s going to put in place, and then executing on some of those policies. I mean it’s not me saying, it’s just go look at ‘The Wall Street Journal.’”
AN 7 26
President Donald Trump is reportedly planning on delivering a speech in the near future amplifying his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him — and social media users on X are raising the alarm.
“Things are about to get very, very, very bad,” posted podcaster Chris Mowrey. Similarly Shannon Watts, the New York Times bestselling author of “Fired Up,” wrote that this means there will be “a Civil War instead of midterm elections.”
Journalist Pedro L. Gonzalez struck an ominous note by pointing out that Trump also plans on declaring Georgia’s two senators, Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, to be illegitimate.
“If this is true it just shows that Trump is becoming more and more authoritarian, but the stupid kind of authoritarian who can’t even mask regime lies in a convincing way and so it’s obvious to everyone that he is terrified of his opponents (Ossof [sic] is a viable presidential candidate for Dems, one with more appeal than Vance) and also the average voter, which is why he keeps shamelessly pushing the SAVE America Act,” Gonzalez argued.
Policy consultant Adam Cochran also posted a lengthy analysis about the report, poking several holes in Trump’s arguments about supposed 2020 election fraud.
“Doesn’t work like that,” Cochran said. “First off, there was no fraud, but you seized the ballots and the paper back ups to make sure no one could question it.”
He added, “Second, the Constitution has no way to nullify a swearing in. Only peer expulsion. Third, this sudden ‘announcement’ is when Trump is down by two senators and desperate to pass a bill. Lastly, Trump had 64 court cases to try and litigate the election, including in Georgia. No case turned up any evidence, including after an audit of these ballots.”
Cochran concluded, “Trump’s own lawyers and advocates then admitted to making up the conspiracy about this county, and were charged for it. Part of the court evidence included their own email records of coming up with the plot.”
Melanie D'Arrigo, the vice president of legislative affairs for New York’s chapter of the National Organization for Women, was more succinctly than Cochran while likewise noting that his claims about Georgia had been litigated.
“The same Georgia election where Donald Trump was indicted by a jury of his peers for trying to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to ‘find 11,780 votes,’ to overturn the state's 2020 presidential election results?” D’Arrigo wrote. “That election?”
Meanwhile Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, simply said that the reporting if true would be “insane. INSANE.”
Trump has made a number of efforts to avoid losing the 2026 midterm elections, from unsuccessfully trying to pass the SAVE America Act to require voters to show proof of citizenship and likewise unsuccessfully attempting to get the US Postal Service to decide who can send by ballots by mail to purging voters from the rolls and threatening to send ICE to intimidate voters at the polling places.
“Someone should read to him ‘Lost, Not Stolen,’ a 2022 report by eight conservatives (two former Republican senators, three former federal appellate judges, a former Republican solicitor general, and two Republican election law specialists),” conservative columnist George F. Will wrote for The Washington Post on Monday. “They examined all 187 counts in the 64 court challenges filed in multiple states by Trump and his supporters. Twenty cases were dismissed before hearings on their merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before hearings. Of the 30 that reached hearings on the merits, Trump’s side prevailed in only one, Pennsylvania, involving far too few votes to change the state’s result.”
Will added, “Trump’s batting average? .016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.”
AN 7 26
A progressive US senator on Monday welcomed a federal judge’s ruling that found President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service was an illegal act of self-dealing, while calling for the Republican to be impeached for a third time.
Trump and his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, “acted in bad faith and for an improper purpose by ‘collusively filing a lawsuit with claims subject to multiple dispositive defenses solely to provide cover for a collusive settlement,’” US District Judge for the Southern District of Florida Kathleen Williams—who was appointed by former President Barack Obama—wrote in her 56-page ruling.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called Williams’ order “a scalding, blistering judicial opinion calling out Trump’s sham litigation, striking down his corrupt IRS immunity, and holding his sycophant lawyers to account.”
“That’s a good start,” the senator said. “Impeachment is next.”
Finding that “sanctions are appropriate here,” Williams referred Trump’s personal attorney Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar for “its consideration, review, and determination as to whether any disciplinary action is appropriate in light of the findings and rulings made in this order.”
Williams also banned another one of the president’s personal lawyers, Daniel Epstein—who is not related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted child sex criminal and former close friend of Trump—from seeking admission to practice law in the Southern District of Florida for one year.
The judge further found that acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche’s “apparent capacity to speak for both plaintiffs and defendants, sign a ‘settlement’ document on behalf of all parties to this action, and then repudiate part of that agreement, demonstrates that there was only one party whose interests were being represented throughout this case.”
In January, Trump and his sons sued the Internal Revenue Service and US Treasury Department for $10 billion over the leak of the president’s tax returns by a former IRS contractor. Trump’s own Department of Justice (DOJ) then settled the case in May by agreeing to exempt the plaintiffs from future IRS audits and create a roughly $1.776 billion settlement slush fund for people claiming they were unfairly targeted by the government.
Beneficiaries of the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” were expected to include January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrectionists, roughly 1,500 of whom were pardoned by Trump and dozens of whom have since been charged or convicted for serious crimes, including child sex crimes, rape, grand larceny, burglary, home invasion, gun violations, death threats against public officials, and fatal DUI incidents.
Blanche has signaled that the DOJ will no longer pursue the creation of the slush fund.
Williams wrote in her ruling that “certainly, a court should not be a forum for a party that cynically views a lawsuit as a vehicle to achieve a predetermined outcome: ‘I’m suing myself.”
“President Trump did not pursue his claims until he once again occupied the White House and had appointed his former lawyer, and the former lawyer of persons who are putative beneficiaries of the ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund,c’ to prominent positions in the DOJ,” she continued. “These officials then negotiated on behalf of the United States, with his current lawyers, including his former White House counsel, to reach a ‘settlement.’ It is risible to suggest that there was ever adverseness between the parties.”
“Even the fund amount—$1.776 billion—speaks of a ‘branding’ effort rather than a deliberate and thoughtful calculation of damages,” the judge added.
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team responded to Monday’s order in a statement asserting that “the IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to The New York Times, ProPublica, and other left-wing news outlets, which was then illegally released to millions of people.”
“President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable,” the statement added.
Defenders of the rule of law welcomed Monday’s ruling, with Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, co-presidents of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, taking a swipe at Trump’s “brilliant idea of suing the government he runs and resolving the lawsuit with the creation of an illegal and unconstitutional nearly $1.8 billion slush fund, paid for at taxpayer expense and likely to be distributed to January 6 insurrectionists, among others, as well with as an immunity deal protecting Trump and his family from IRS investigation.”
“Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was a willing participant in this fraud on the court and the American people,” the pair added. “If the Senate needed an additional reason not to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general, it just got it.”
AN 7 26
Newly-revealed messages show attorney general’s key role in Trump vendettas
JUL 4 SP ANTI-COMMIE
AN
7 26
'We found the communists': WSJ exposes Trump’s 'unprecedented' state capitalism
Experts sound the alarm on 'deranged' Trump for doctored US-Canada-Greenland map
Experts sound the alarm on 'deranged' Trump for doctored US-Canada-Greenland map
AN 7 26
name off kennedy ctr //
an 7 26
'Disaster': Kennedy Center employee reveals venue’s 'depressing' decline under Trump - Alternet.org
thom
7 8 26 anti-commie
...t. Get this. This is an these are act this is an actual quote from a speech that Trump gave a couple of days
0:16
16 seconds
ago at the faith and freedom conference or what you know this this Christian nationalist conference that he was speaking at. He says the Democrats they
0:24
24 seconds
are horrible. They want to resume the transgender mutilation of our children.
0:28
28 seconds
They want to restart the war on Christmas and churches. And as you saw with the communists elected in New York City recently, and they're communists.
0:35
35 seconds
They're not social democrats. They want to completely destroy the traditional American way of life. You'll live in squalor. There will be no food. There
0:44
44 seconds
will be no housing. There will be no military. There will be no law and order. There will be no nothing. There will be no nothing. You'll be a third
0:52
52 seconds
world inhabitant in every way. And everyone will suffer or die. You'll suffer or die. That's what happens for thousands of years cuz it's been happening by different names. The
1:00
1 minute
problem is a couple of years go by, the whole place collapses. Always does, always has. But I'm sorry to say, but assassinations of those who oppose them
1:08
1 minute, 8 seconds
is a very important element of their ideology. Assassination is a big deal for them. They're animals. They're animals. They hate our country and they
1:16
1 minute, 16 seconds
hate our people. And then he goes on to say, "These are not social democrats. These are hardcore godless communists.
1:24
1 minute, 24 seconds
They're godless communists. All communists are godless. They don't believe in God. That's the most serious threat to our country since its existence in my opinion 250 years ago.
1:34
1 minute, 34 seconds
This is a major threat to our country.
...
MMA
Hugh Hewitt's only Iran principle is that Trump is always right
07/08/26
Fox's Marc Thiessen calls for the US to set Iran “back to the stone age militarily and then declare victory, open the strait by force, reimpose the blockade”
07/08/26 9:12 AM EDT
Fox host Lawrence Jones on the Iran MOU: “The deal was a joke from the very beginning”
07/08/26 9:00 AM EDT
AN 7 26
On Tuesday, the White House announced the launch of President Donald Trump’s “Freedom Fuel Network” of gas stations offering lower fuel prices in Philadelphia, but while the administration clearly expected applause, critics were quick to point out the grift and irony of the endeavor.
“FREEDOM FUEL HAS ARRIVED,” blared the White House X account, claiming, “the FIRST Freedom Fuel Network gas station has LANDED in Philadelphia, lowering the price at the pump to $3.47 for our 47th President. President Trump is leading the charge to lower gas prices this summer – putting more money in your pocket.” This was shared along with a video showing customers thanking Trump while a voiceover boasted about a series of area gas stations that will keep prices an average of 50 cents lower than other state stations, locking the “47” into the price in honor of Trump.
“Going through all that trouble and the best they can do is $3.47 per gallon?” responded disinformation researcher Jared Holt. “What a joke.” And as CBS News White House reporter Kathryn Watson reminded, “Fwiw, gas averaged $2.87 on February 1 before the war.”
Ironically, this comes at a moment when Trump has been leveling vocal attacks against the so-called Democratic “Communist menace.” During his 4th of July speech, for example, he ranted, “There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”
One commenter may have had the president’s words in mind when saying of the Freedom Fuel decree, “I thought we were fighting against communism?”
This isn’t the first time Trump’s contradictory stance toward the political ideology has been raised. As the Libertarian publication Reason noted, Trump has repeatedly taken Federal stakes in private companies like Intel and U.S. Steel – a practice that is typically associated with communism and socialism.
But perhaps the sharpest criticism of the Freedom Fuel plan came from GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan, who claimed, “The Freedom Fuel Network, the 25 stations that lowered prices the President has referred to, was registered June 23, 2026 to Corporation Trust Company, which Trump has used himself before. It was registered 3 weeks after T-Mobile took over some Shell stations offering $1.99 gas.” If this is true, then the president could be poised to benefit financially from the scheme, which would represent yet another conflict of interest in an administration riddled with them.
De Haan also added, “The stations lowering prices via the Freedom Fuel Network in PA, NJ, etc are simply being subsidized – the stations are losing money – which is being paid for by someone or some entity. The stations are likely losing 20-50c/gal.” In other words, if De Haan’s numbers are right, it appears that the American taxpayer is subsidizing Trump’s Freedom Fuel while he takes a cut.
Trump lays bare his desperation as he hurls another whopper - Alternet.org
AN 7 26
RALPH NADER
After progressives, including self-described Democratic Socialists, won numerous primary victories in New York and elsewhere, President Donald Trump launched a whopper of a lie, even by his crazed standards. He declared that the “communist” Democratic Socialists are “the biggest threat to our nation there is, maybe since our founding…. That includes World War I, World War II, September 11, it includes the Pearl Harbor attack.” This comes after his November 2025 White House meeting with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, where Trump praised Mamdani strongly, saying they would work together to make a better New York City.
Trump is singing a different tune now. He is like Senator Joe McCarthy on steroids, who in the 1950s smeared political opponents, activists, and others, falsely accusing them of being communists. Snarling Joe then maliciously exploited the post-war fear of the Soviet Union. Today, Trump is just following in McCarthy’s footsteps by launching his latest BIG LIE yet to firm up his shrinking base of Trumpy MAGA voters.
Look for Trump, an authentic fascist, to dittohead himself on his “communist” tirade. He knows that the pro-Israel, corporate Democrats are distancing themselves from the rising new progressive candidates who, if they’re smart, will make populist domestic demands that are heavily favored in the polls.
These Democratic candidates should push for a much higher minimum wage than the present frozen federal minimum of $7.25 per hour; full Medicare for All; restore corporate and super-wealthy taxation to the levels of the prosperous 60s; crack down on corporate crimes against consumers, workers, and the environment; and adopt the long-time Western European social safety net of childcare, paid worker and family sick leave, and paid vacations. A real child tax credit would cut child poverty nearly in half and would benefit over 60 million children. They should raise the Social Security taxes on upper-income people to pay for raising Social Security benefits frozen for over 45 years.
Jeffries and Schumer are perfect foils for Trump to pit them against the rising progressive revolt inside their party. Why? Because they will dig in their heels, reflect their paymasters’ demands against most of these reforms, and create the very cleavage Trump wants.
Candidates should push to cut the bloated military budget, end hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare, and direct the savings to public works and safety net services in the community, USA.
These changes have substantial left-right voter support because they are concrete improvements for all families who need and deserve such social benefit returns from the tax dollars they send to Washington.
There are other left-right supported reforms, such as public funding of campaigns; ending the gross, corrupt selling of our elections to the highest toxic profiteering bidders; ending military arms shipments to countries that violate human rights (already federal law but unenforced); and stopping Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians, committed with US weapons and unconditional political backing, which violates five federal laws.
All these measures should be integrated into a heavily publicized “Contract for the American People” and turned into a daily vocal call for a commitment to this agenda by these candidates. The classmessage is that corporations, all created by government charters, should be our servants, not our masters, as the Kleptocratic Trump regime continues to balloon the Trump Dump.
Bolstered by support of such concrete commitments, Trump’s “communist bellowing” will look ridiculous and will be ripe for the sharpest of counterattacks, dragging the GOP’s wreckage out into the open by comparison. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the Republicans will be hoisted by their own petard.
The real hurdle to this “Contract for the American People” are the corporate Democrats—indentured to the same Wall Street crowd and military-industrial Empire of war and vast profits. The chief corporate Democrats are the party’s leaders—Hakeem Jeffries in the House and Chuck Schumer in the Senate. When asked by a reporter about impeaching Trump (the cruel, corrupt, violent, America-wrecking outlaw, using the White House as corporate-occupied territory to enrich himself), Jeffries replied, “I don’t want to get out ahead of that discussion.” What about getting ahead of Trump’s daily despicable efforts to destroy our democracy and wrecking America?
How about just representing the vast majority of the Democratic voters and about 60% of all polled Americans who think Trump is “a dangerous dictator” and want him impeached and removed from office?
Jeffries and Schumer are perfect foils for Trump to pit them against the rising progressive revolt inside their party. Why? Because they will dig in their heels, reflect their paymasters’ demands against most of these reforms, and create the very cleavage Trump wants.
If Trump does not steal the election with his many voter suppressions, redistricting, and other attempted usurpations of state election controls, he’ll work to paralyze a Democratic-run Congress. Jeffries and Schumer, to preserve their leadership, are susceptible to not rocking the boat and not fiercely rolling back all the Republican Party’s devastating enactments since January 20, 2025.
Let’s see if the incumbent and newly elected progressives know how NOT to marginalize themselves by pushing distractingly marginal ideas instead of showing just how popular the above components of this proposed Contract for the American People are with the voters.
These challenges should also focus on the growing drive for Impeachment around the country, which both Trump, Jeffries, and Schumer oppose (The Hill reports neither Jeffries nor Schumer have endorsed any of the removal efforts)—the latter two enforcing a “Now is not the time” policy. What smug insensitivity to the fears of millions of Americans hurting from Trump’s cruel decrees every day and night NOW!
Jeffries and Schumer are creating their own Achilles heels for emboldening their progressive Democrats to move to replace them in January 2027.
AN 7 26
Allies rip Trump as renewed Greenland obsession 'threatens to derail' NATO - Alternet.org
AN 7 26
Legal expert tears apart Trump's 'extortion' of blue states - Alternet.org
AN 7 26
Trump loyalist heckled and booed at 'hostile' town hall - Alternet.org
NY REP?
AN 7 26
Trump 'humiliated because Iran is 'culturally incomprehensible' to him - Alternet.org
BOMB AFTER SHIPS HIT OFF OMAN
7/8/26 AN
President Donald Trump is at the NATO summit in Turkey where things grew contentious when he dropped a "diplomatic bombshell" on Canada.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Justin Trudeau kept getting threatening phone calls from Trump before he was replaced by Mark Carney.
At one point in a call, Trump told Canada he would kill a 118-year-old agreement that set the border with the U.S. and its neighbor to the north on maps and on the ground.
The agreement came when Canada was still handled by the United Kingdom, and at the April 1908 Boundary Convention, it was the U.K. that signed the agreement, not Canada. But Trump didn't care, telling Trudeau, “I tear that up, and your whole country unravels.”
Trump seemed confused that the law established the border, but the reality is that a slew of other agreements and treaties set the border, including the Treaty of 1818 and the Oregon Treaty of 1846.
According to the Journal, "Over dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trudeau’s envoys tried to dissuade Trump from absorbing their country. When one Trump aide pointed out Canada’s 41 million people would lean Democrat, the president came up with a neat solution: just split the northern neighbor into two states, one red, the other blue."
It's unclear how Trump would make that work, given that he has an approval rating in Canada of around 22 percent, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
When Carney took over, he asked for a review of Canada's dependency "on one particular country for its data storage, military hardware, payments processing and even food."
The report called it the first move for a country shifting the U.S. from an ally to a threat. It was a stark contrast to what NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte did, which is to encourage members that they had to do whatever it would take to keep the alliance together.
"In effect, a push to make Canada America’s 51st state had lighted a fuse of unintended consequences that would play out far beyond North America, as overseas allies asked themselves whether the U.S.-led alliance could truly last," the report said.
Carney's first visit as prime minister was not to the U.S. but to France, where he and President Emmanuel Macron discussed ways to dial down its dependency on the U.S.
"Canada had the critical minerals needed by France, whose state-backed tech firms were taking early steps into the U.S.-dominated spheres of AI and quantum computing. French diplomats joked that since Canada and Denmark share a land border on an uninhabited Arctic island off Greenland, that could make the North American country a legitimate candidate to gain fast-track membership in the EU. Carney laughed," the report said.
When Carney went to the U.K. next, they discussed how "they might band together if the U.S. left 'Five Eyes,'" the U.S.-led intelligence-sharing alliance made up of the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. While that idea never gained traction, it was discussed with MI6.
While in the U.K. his requested report about a world without America was finished and he was able to share it with Kir Starmer’s office.
Starmer wanted to be cautious, insisting that they had to find a way to salvage the relationship between the West and America.
“We don’t have a relationship to keep!” Carney replied, according to the report.
Informal advisor and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was advising Canada to "produce a video that might persuade the president that they were serious about border security. Trudeau’s government hired a film crew to capture two Black Hawk helicopters and a sniffer dog on patrol. Instead of placating Trump, it seemed to fuel his interest in revisiting the placement of the border."
Carney's team, by contrast, began reading clinical and psychological studies on "impulsivity" to better learn how to deal with Trump. They believed that Trump's 51st state idea was really about "price discovery," when he throws out an absurd idea to see how the financial markets will react.
Other aides thought it was more about Trump trying to kick Trudeau while his poll numbers were down.
Either way, Carney has looked for new ideas to deal with the volatility of the American leader while slowly reducing reliance on the U.S.
RWW
07/07/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla
Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany @ The New York Times: Nearly a Million Investors Lost a Total of $3.8 Billion on Trump Crypto Coin
A report from a cryptocurrency analytics firm details how those who bought the Trump memecoin have fared, with most retail investors having lost money while sophisticated traders did better.
7 26 MMA
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 07/07/26
The MAGA plot to subvert the 2026 midterm elections is coming into focus. Election denial bigwig Steve Bannon has outlined a scheme in which President Donald Trump — aided by right-wing journalist John Solomon at the White House and Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence — would declassify and release documents purporting to show significant foreign interference in past U.S. elections. The president would then use that theory as the “predicate” to declare a “national emergency” and try to seize control of the elections apparatus to curtail voting rights in November.
The foundational lie of this scheme — and of election denial writ large — is that Trump is such a popular figure that only massive election fraud could explain the defeat of his movement at the polls. And the right’s propaganda apparatus is essential in buttressing that lie by ignoring or explaining away all evidence to the contrary. Outlets like Fox News don’t just celebrate the president as an heroic, visionary figure — they tell viewers that the polls are wrong and “The MAGA Momentum Is Unstoppable.”
Here's how this scheme has worked in the past, and a glimpse into how Trump and his propagandists are kicking into gear again this cycle.
Poll trutherism is the foundation of election denial
Trump is an historically unpopular president. Polls over the decade since he entered the political spotlight have consistently found that he is broadly disliked, and his job approval is currently tracking near its all-time lows, according to poll aggregations from The New York Times, Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin, and the conservative RealClearPolitics. The most recent results from pro-Trump Fox News are in line with those averages, showing 39% of respondents approve of the job Trump is doing while 60% disapprove, with his performance underwater by large margins on issues from the economy to immigration.
The president has responded to these dire numbers not by trying to appeal to a broader swath of the country but by declaring that he is actually popular and that news outlets have fabricated these results to damage his political standing.
“Fake polls — I got one today,” the president told reporters in February. “I saw one today that I'm at 40%. I'm not at 40%. I'm at much higher than that. I'd love to run against anybody. The real polls say ‘you'd kill everybody, it wouldn't even be close.’”
In late June, he likewise argued that other, unnamed surveys show his “REAL POLL NUMBERS ARE THE HIGHEST THEY HAVE EVER BEEN,” with his job approval at “at 65%, and more!”
As with so many of Trump’s actions, this is simultaneously laughable and menacing. It is ridiculous on its face that the president of the United States is so unwilling to accept that the majority of the public don’t like him that he’s instead concocted a vast conspiracy theory implicating the bulk of the nation’s pollsters and media outlets while apparently inventing “REAL POLL NUMBERS” that show he is beloved.
But Trump inevitably carries that absurd argument to its logical conclusion: When election results correspond with the public polls and Trump loses, he decries those elections as “rigged.” He famously attributed both his popular vote defeat in 2016 and his popular and electoral vote losses in 2020 to election fraud, and baselessly warned in the leadup to the 2024 election that only rigging could explain it if he lost again (this time he won both the popular and electoral votes despite his low favorability).
He’s also extended that argument to elections for other allied candidates. If you accept the polls, Trump’s actual unpopularity is “putting the Republican Party at risk of a severe rebuke from voters in just six months’ time in the 2026 midterm elections,” as CNN noted in May. But Trump’s lie turns that reasoning on its head — if his “REAL” numbers are so good that the GOP should really be romping in their elections and only massive election fraud could explain Democratic victories.
Last month, for example, Trump baselessly claimed that “cheating dogs” who administer elections in California had stolen the Los Angeles mayoral race from former reality TV personality and conservative candidate Spencer Pratt. He added that “they” had only “approved” Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton to make the run-off because “I started hitting them” with baseless fraud allegations. (Pratt’s share of the vote was on track with polling of the race and just under the vote share Trump himself received in LA in 2024, while Hilton and fellow Republican gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco combined to run three points under Trump’s statewide total that year — but the president has claimed that loss was also the result of fraud.)
He has also urged Republicans to pass legislation to curtail voting rights, arguing that failure to do so will result in midterm defeats. “We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms, if we are foolish, stupid and unwise,” Trump said Friday. “But if we terminate the filibuster as we should do and immediately vote for the SAVE America Act, then we will not lose an election for 100 years.”
MAGA media are hiding Trump’s unpopularity from their audience
The right-wing propaganda machine plays a key role in this farce.
Republicans spent decades tearing down the press and urging their supporters to get their information only from ideological allies. That opened up the party base to Trumpian lies, like his claims about news outlets producing fake polls.
MAGA media could try to keep their audiences grounded in reality, leveling with them about Trump’s unpopularity and pushing the party to change course. But in the lead-up to both the 2020 and 2024 elections, they portrayed Trump as the odds-on favorite and suggested a defeat could only result from fraud. And since Trump returned to office, the right-wing commentariat has largely toed the president’s line and hidden worrying signs about his faltering support.
The strategy is particularly obvious — and noxious — on Fox. The network’s hosts and commentators are aware that Trump is deeply unpopular, as it employs pollsters whose own surveys show it. But they are concealing that knowledge from viewers — a group that often includes the Fox-obsessed president himself — rather than leveling with them.
Fox hosts hide the network’s brutal polls while touting Trump as “the ultimate dealmaker” ushering in a “golden age” that makes the United States “the envy of the world” — and that “America, just like McDonald’s, we’re loving it.”
Its pundits swoon over how his “support among his base, among Republicans, is as strong as any president we've seen in modern history” and assure viewers that “the polling that you're seeing come in on Trump is incorrect.”
They point to outdated polls that suggest Trump’s actions are popular over their own survey data when it says otherwise.
After the crowd at Madison Square Garden loudly jeered the president when he appeared on the Jumbotron at Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the hometown New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs, Fox & Friends claimed his reception was actually “mixed.”
And when dismal turnout marred Trump’s efforts to make the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence all about himself, they pretended otherwise.
Those efforts have not fully assuaged the president — he has publicly urged Fox to fire its pollsters and even threatened to have them criminally investigated on the grounds that their negative results purportedly constitute “ELECTION FRAUD.”
But by downplaying the evidence of the president’s unpopularity, the network is nonetheless priming its viewers to believe him if Republicans are defeated in the midterms and he responds by crying “fraud.” And with election deniers consolidating power across the administration and laying the groundwork for a future attempt to subvert the vote, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
//
The plot to subvert the midterms is getting stranger and more dangerous
07/02/26 10:05 AM EDT
The right enters a post-proof era of election denial
06/10/26 2:35 PM EDT
Here’s the familiar playbook Trumpists will use to try and overturn the election if he loses
11/01/24
AN 7 26
Trump sparks fury after posting video of Muslim kindergartners in hijabs - Alternet.org
NYT 7 26
Trump Pardons Violators of the Clean Air Act and a Major Donor
The president used his clemency power to further undermine environmental laws and to help a political supporter who pleaded guilty in a fraud involving Jack Abramoff.
By Kenneth P. Vogel and Karen Zraick
Kenneth P. Vogel reported from Washington, and Karen Zraick from New York.
July 3, 2026
The White House announced on Friday that President Trump had issued pardons to 11 men, most of whom had been convicted of crimes related to the Clean Air Act, a bedrock environmental law.
The president also pardoned Adam Kidan, a major donor to Republicans, including Mr. Trump. He had served about two and a half years in prison for his role in a fraud scheme involving the disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The Clean Air Act pardons benefited people who had sold or installed devices for diesel trucks that defeated their emissions controls, making them far more polluting. It was the latest move by the Trump administration to undermine laws intended to fight climate change and curb air pollutants that harm human health.
Republicans and their allies in the business community have cast enforcement of the Clean Air Act as a hindrance to commerce and an undue burden to those who rely on diesel engines.
Mr. Trump, in a social media post announcing some of the pardons on Friday afternoon, echoed that framing, minimizing the scale of the crimes and casting the law, which was first enacted in 1963, as a tool used by his predecessor to target political enemies.
“It is my Great Honor to have just signed Pardons for six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration, and were in, or being sent to, prison, for ‘fixing their car,’” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
A White House official subsequently provided a list of the pardon recipients. It included nine people who had been charged with infractions related to the Clean Air Act.
The systems that most of them were accused of disabling are intended to make tailpipe emissions cleaner.
But the systems put more strain on engines, and malfunctions can lead to engine shutdowns, particularly in cold weather. Some truck owners have turned to mechanics — like some of those who were pardoned — to install devices to defeat the systems.
In January, the Justice Department announced that it would stop prosecuting Clean Air Act violations as criminal offenses, describing such cases as an example of the “overcriminalization of federal environmental law.” The department said it would continue to pursue civil enforcement.
Mr. Trump went a step further on Monday, issuing a directive to the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees enforcement of the act, that could pave the way for people to tweak emissions controls on their own vehicles without fear of civil penalty. The directive indicated that it was intended to “reduce or remove these burdensome regulations and decrease the rising costs that consumers face.”
A number of people who had been convicted criminally have been openly seeking clemency from Mr. Trump, including by enlisting Jeff Daugherty, a political consultant and lobbyist from Cheyenne, Wyo.
He had assisted Troy Lake, a diesel mechanic who served months in prison for a Clean Air Act violation before Mr. Trump freed him with a pardon in November.
Trump Administration: Live Updates
Updated
July 6, 2026, 5:05 p.m. ET34 minutes ago
Debut of Trump passports delights some and dismays others.
Historians reject the White House’s criticism of the Smithsonian’s American History museum.
Here’s how Times reporters confirmed Trump’s call with FIFA.
Mr. Daugherty represented five of the men who were pardoned on Friday, according to lobbying filings.
“These guys should never have been felons, ever,” Mr. Daugherty said.
One of his clients who was pardoned on Friday was Mackenzie Spurlock, 31, the owner of Matanuska Diesel, a small shop in Wasilla, Alaska.
He was charged with collecting at least $30,000 for removing emissions controls from at least 20 vehicles.
He pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to probation and fined $32,000. The conviction prevented him from rejoining the National Guard, where he spent six years as an aircraft mechanic.
“It’s a huge relief,” Mr. Spurlock said after the pardon was announced. He said he was grateful to the president as well as to Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, who had supported the clemency grant.
With the timing of the pardon the day before the 250th anniversary of the country’s independence, Mr. Spurlock said that “driving past, seeing flags wave today just hits completely differently.”
He said that he planned to re-enlist in the National Guard, and would like to work with federal agencies and manufacturers to address the persistent issues that lead vehicle owners to seek out so-called defeat devices.
He has argued that modern emissions control systems often render trucks inoperable in Alaska’s harsh winters, leaving drivers stranded in subzero temperatures. He said he was simply trying to help his customers by installing the devices.
But the cumulative effect of bypassing emissions systems adds up.
By 2020, the most recent numbers available, the E.P.A. estimated that the emissions controls had been removed from more than 550,000 diesel pickup trucks over the prior decade, or roughly 15 percent of all diesel trucks originally certified with those controls. The effect, the agency found, was the equivalent of adding more than nine million diesel pickups to American roads, spewing harmful nitrogen oxides at levels up to 300 times the legal limits.
Environmental groups immediately criticized the pardons.
“Making kids sicker with asthma by poisoning the air is unpardonable,” Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an email. “But that’s what Trump is crowing about on this 100F degree day in globally warming Washington as he issues get out of jail free cards for pollution cheaters!”
Mr. Kidan had pleaded guilty in 2005 to conspiracy and fraud charges involving his purchase of a casino boat fleet with Mr. Abramoff, who became a poster child for Washington corruption in the pre-Trump era.
Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Kidan were each sentenced to 70 months in prison and ordered to pay a total of $21.7 million in restitution related to the $147.5 million purchase of a cruise ship line in 2000.
Mr. Kidan served less than half of that prison sentence and became an executive in the staffing industry.
It is not clear whether he paid the full amount of the restitution. A pardon typically wipes away any remaining financial obligations.
He has donated millions of dollars to Republican campaigns and groups over the years, including more than $270,000 to Mr. Trump’s political committees in 2024, according to campaign finance records.
Mr. Kidan declined to comment.
Maxine Joselow contributed reporting.
Kenneth P. Vogel is based in Washington and investigates the intersection of money, politics and influence.
Karen Zraick covers legal affairs for the Climate desk and the courtroom clashes playing out over climate and environmental policy.
:{:{A version of this article appears in print on July 5, 2026, Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Pardons Donor And Men Who Violated An Environmental Law.}:
an 7 26
Since returning to the White House 17 and one-half months ago, President Donald Trump has made a concerted effort to fill the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) with MAGA loyalists. And according to the New York Times, Trump is determined to overhaul the federal judiciary as well.
Reporter Mattathias Schwartz, in the Times, details Trump's push to fill the federal courts with MAGA judges.
A prime example, according to Schwartz, is Emil Bove — a former personal attorney for Trump who is now a federal appeals court judge. Bove, the Times reporter notes, "has drawn public criticism" for attending one of Trump's "campaign-style rallies." And some of the criticism is coming from Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge.
Gertner told the Times, "When he was nominated, my concern was that he was not just the president's lawyer. He was doing and saying things that were inappropriate. And he's continuing to do so now."
Bove isn't the only MAGA Republican Trump wanted to place in the federal judiciary.
"Judge Bove, one of three of Mr. Trump's former personal lawyers whom he has nominated for the appellate bench, pushed hard for Mr. Trump's policy agenda as a senior official at the Justice Department," Schwartz explains. "His age and résumé —
two clerkships and nine years as a federal prosecutor — have also driven speculation that Mr. Trump might choose him to fill a potential Supreme Court vacancy. To Mr. Trump's supporters, Judge Bove's elevation to the federal bench represents a course correction from the first Trump term. Then, nominations were guided by the leadership of the Federalist Society, a pipeline for conservative legal talent that has drawn fire from Mr. Trump when his nominees rule against him."
Schwartz continues, "Now, he is reshaping the bench by turning to lawyers he feels would be more loyal to him and his agenda."
MAGA Republicans, according to Schwartz, find Judge Bove's "defense of Mr. Trump’s deportation agenda" to be "heartening."
"Michael Fragoso, the former chief counsel to Sen. Mitch McConnell, has posted what he called a 'trolling meme' showing Judge Bove alongside Judge Aileen M. Cannon of the Southern District of Florida, who issued a series of rulings favorable to Mr. Trump when he was being prosecuted, as newly minted justices on an expanded Supreme Court," Schwartz notes. "Judge Bove, Mr. Fragoso said in an interview, was already proving himself capable of persuading his peers."
Fragoso told the Times, "Anyone can write a law review article in a dissent. What's harder is getting to a sound outcome as part of a three-judge panel."
an 7 26
President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement have caused a major disruption in the partisan nature of "patriotism," according to an extensive new report from Politico, mirroring a similar shift caused by the far right on a global scale.
On Sunday, Politico reported on the findings of its latest poll, claiming that "Patriotism has become partisan," according to respondents from all over the world, at least as far as expressions of national pride are concerned.
"It doesn’t matter that people across the ideological spectrum are equally likely to say that they themselves are patriotic. New international polling shows that when you ask them about expressions of patriotism, they think those displays are right-coded," the report detailed. "Those results from The POLITICO Poll reveal the extent of right-wing populist parties’ success after years of claiming nationalism as central to their political identities — and growing in power and popularity."
According to the poll's findings in the U.S., "respondents were 15 points more likely to expect someone who said they were proud to be American to be Republican (38) than Democratic (23)." Despite that notable perception, the poll also found that, overall, "pride in one’s country is essentially nonpartisan," with 68 percent of U.S. adults, "including most Trump 2024 voters and former Vice President Kamala Harris voters," agreeing that they were proud to be Americans. Similar majorities were found amongst respondents across the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain.
"The findings are the latest sign that these parties — from Donald Trump’s 'America First' movement in the United States to the rise of the far right across Europe — are owning the language and symbols of patriotism, including a country’s flag," the report added. "Right-wing parties have rapidly gained ground by tapping into voters’ growing concerns over border security and cost of living, and have flexed their power over the last decade, reshaping existing debates over conservatism, sovereignty and national identity. In some cases, they have pushed major political parties, like America’s GOP, further to the right."
It continued later: "In the United States, Trump’s 'America First' agenda and 'Make America Great Again' movement have explicitly made national identity central to Republican messaging. The president has vowed to secure the southern border, conduct widespread deportations and prioritize aggressive trade politics aimed at boosting the U.S. economy."
moore endorse corrupt crypto kazakstan an 7 26
an 7 26 nato
WSJ attacks Trump over ‘dangerous’ message his MAGA-friendly move sends - Alternet.org
World leaders secretly met to hatch a plan for how deal with 'not reasonable' Trump - Alternet.org
Trump just found a new way to grift Europe: report - Alternet.org
an 7 26 nepo
President Donald Trump won the votes of millions of Republicans in 2016, 2020 and 2024, and yet many have soured on him as he struggles to fix the economy, faces ethics scandals and seemingly disregards Republican Party interests in favor of promoting his own brand.
On Monday, one three-time Trump voter voiced her frustration to the Associated Press (AP).
“I think it’s insulting to people in the 7th that someone who lacks qualifications and any life experiences and any kind of demonstrable leadership skills or experience is even being touted as a candidate,” Meg Ellefson, a 20-year resident of Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district, told the AP regarding Trump endorsing the 26-year-old Michael Alfonso to represent that seat. Despite lacking any relevant experience, Alfonso is the son-in-law of former reality TV star Sean Duffy, who went from starring in “The Real World” to serving as Trump’s Secretary of Transportation.
Ellefson, who said she now opposes Trump, added that the endorsement is “super aggravating to me.”
The Aug. 11 primary will test whether Trump’s endorsement of Alfonso, Duffy’s star power in his old congressional district and Alfonso’s fundraising advantage will be enough to put the political newcomer over the top.
This is not the first time in summer 2026 that a three-time Trump voter has publicly complained about his performance as president. Last month MS NOW correspondent Alex Talbot spoke with a three-time Trump voter in Florida who was upset that the president’s economic policies have failed to help him.
“It's frustrating that you see your president getting richer and richer, and the middle class getting poorer,” the voter said to Talbot. When asked if he had to pick one word to describe how he feels about Trump enriching himself while ignoring ordinary voters’ economic concerns, the voter replied that he is “confused, and a little disappointed. Not what I had hoped things would be when I voted for him.” He added, when asked if he feels richer or poorer since Trump took office, that he feels “poorer.”
Also in June a three-time Trump voter in Pennsylvania told CNN”s John King that he believed Trump was acting like a standard politician.
"As of right now, I see President Trump is kind of acting like a regular old politician to me. And no love," Babb told King.
King asked Babb if Democrats should do more to check Trump’s power.
"Yeah," Babb agreed. "No love lost from my opinion."
Similarly, Ohio three-time Trump voter Annette Dombrowski told MS NOW reporter Alex Hebit that she suffers emotionally because of Trump’s policies.
“I actually have panic attacks,” Dombrowski, who works as a janitor, told Hebit. “I've had a couple this past week and I get very emotional over it. I don't want to work anymore, but I can't afford to retire.” When Hebit asked Dombrowski if she believed Trump understands her plight, she said she did not.
“No, he hasn't lived it to understand it. He sees it. He has not lived it. He needs to live it,” Dombrowski told Hebit. “Wear the clothes. Wear the shoes. Wear the Walmart clothes. Wear your Walmart shoes. Do your thrift store shopping. Don't eat steaks. I don't get to go out to dinner. … It's not an overnight thing, but it's been two years now. You said you'd bring down the grocery prices. I must be the most angry person when I grocery shop, because I buy the same things every week, and I see it jump every week.”
An 7 26
Ex-White House lawyers sound alarm as Trump’s grift hits 'new low' - Alternet.org
okla foreign refinery fail an 7 26
Republicans are 'livid' and turning on Trump over arrest of nun - Alternet.org
MAGA investors lost their shirts in 'legal scam' that brought Trump billions - Alternet.org
rww
07/01/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla
Eric Lipton @ The New York Times: Trump’s Moneymaking Run: Unrivaled in Presidential History
The president’s move to open new business ventures, rather than eliminate potential conflicts, defies a long-held tradition.
Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Trump has now made over $1.5 million from his MAGA Bible grift
The "God Bless the USA" Bible has made the president a lot of money. Not bad for a book he's never read.
Tom Latchem @ The Daily Beast: MAGA Guru Floats Deranged Plan After Trump’s SCOTUS Defeat
Federalist boss Sean Davis reacted to the birthright citizenship ruling with an unhinged list of “ways forward” that alarmed even conservatives.
David Moye @ HuffPost: GOP Rep. Troy Nehls Goes Full Marie Antoinette About Affordability And, Yeah, It's Bad
One person said the Texas Republican's comments "might be the most tone-deaf thing I've heard a politician say."
Amos Barshad @ Columbia Journalism Review: ‘All I Have Is the Power to Talk and Be Heard’
Tucker Carlson on pitying Donald Trump, never listening to podcasts, and planning a new political party—while selling you nicotine pouches.
Ministry Watch: Is America Experiencing A Revival? George Barna Has His Doubts
Mario Murillo has been one of the strongest proponents of the “America is in revival” narrative. He argues that mass tent meetings, conversions in California and elsewhere, and openness among young people indicate that the country is already experiencing a “Third Great Awakening.” Lance Wallnau has likewise said that America is experiencing a spiritual awakening, often linking it with political developments and what he describes as a national “reformation.” But people who study religion say…not so fast.
Charlie Sabgir @ The Atlantic: Young Republican Activists Are Turning Against Trump
Conservative groups at colleges across the country want a far more radical GOP.
---}:
NEW REPT ON CORRUPT
AN 7 26
‘Stinks to high heaven’: Trump’s favorite newspaper sick of his family's corruption - Alternet.org
rww
06/30/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla
Alexander Willis @ Raw Story: Supreme Court deals devastating blow to Trump in major citizenship rights case
The Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to President Donald Trump’s agenda Tuesday after ruling 5-4 against his efforts to eliminate birthright citizenship, a constitutional right long targeted by far-right figures.
Kate Riga @ Talking Points Memo: Supreme Court Lets Red States Force Trans Girls to Play on Boys’ Teams
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that neither Title IX nor the Equal Protection Clause forbids schools from keeping trans girls off of girls’ sports teams, an inflection point in a years-long campaign by the right, particularly the Trump administration.
Laura Meckler @ The Washington Post: Trump-backed ‘Freedom Trucks’ tell a sanitized story of the country’s founding
At a time of fierce debate over how to teach American history, the mobile exhibits weigh in squarely on one side of the argument.
Mehdi Hasan @ The Guardian: Why is Elon Musk boosting an anti-immigrant film loved by the far right?
Elon Musk has long described himself as a “centrist”. He likes to pretend that he hasn’t changed his views; it’s the Democrats who have lurched to the left. He’s merely a free speech advocate; a self-styled “moderate” resisting the excesses of the “woke mind virus."
Alex Kaplan @ Media Matters: Election deniers reach a fever pitch calling for a “national emergency” declaration so Trump can give himself “king-like powers” over the midterms
After President Donald Trump issued an executive order at the end of March aimed at stopping supposed fraud with mail-in ballots, election deniers have urged Trump to declare a national emergency to allow a federal takeover of election processes. On June 24, Trump echoed those calls and suggested that passing a bill to supposedly combat election fraud is a “national emergency.”
Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: Ben Shapiro Hired a Debater to Fight Groypers. It Backfired Badly.
The internet is a vicious place, even when…er, especially when…you’re fighting vicious people.
The Throckmorton Initiative: More Great Moments in Christian Nationalist History: George Washington the Healer
Tim Barton exaggerates George Washington's religiosity for Josh Howerton.
AN 6 26
The U.S. Supreme Court kicked off the closing stretch of this term with a triple blow to President Donald Trump.
In a much-watched case surrounding states’ rights and voting, the court ruled that the federal government cannot require states to toss mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by that deadline.
Trump wants to ban most voting by mail, and the Republican National Committee had sued Mississippi, which grants a five-day grace period for ballots received after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.
“The ruling, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is a setback for President Donald Trump, who has frequently criticized mail-in voting, claiming without offering evidence that it is rife with fraud,” NBC News reported. The votes of hundreds of thousands of Americans voting by mail were counted in the 2024 election despite being received after Election Day.
“This ruling is a big loss for Trump & GOP allies who have repeatedly claimed that ballots postmarked by Election Day – but arriving days later in the mail – should not be counted,” observed journalist Jamie Dupree. “That issue is now off the table for the 2026 midterms.”
Trump himself recognized the ruling as a “tremendous loss” just one hour after it was handed down — and he used it to again call for passage of his SAVE America Act, which critics say is a voter suppression bill.
He wrote that there was only one reason to oppose the legislation: “Cheating!”
“In a time when there is a powerful Communist Movement taking place in our Country, one more dangerous than World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or September 11th, all Dumocrats, and our five Republican Senate Hold Outs, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, and Mitch McConnell must vote to save our country,” he wrote. “There can be no more excuses!”
Trump also faced another loss on Monday, when the court ruled that the president could not fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, at least for now. NBC News called the court’s ruling a “setback” for Trump. The court did, however, grant the president greater control over other independent federal agencies, a win Trump quickly trumpeted.
“It is such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The Supreme Court also refused to review lower-court rulings that require Trump to pay journalist E. Jean Carroll $5 million.
“A 2023 trial found President Donald Trump liable for allegedly sexually assaulting journalist E. Jean Carroll,” The Washington Post reported. “The decision Monday leaves in place a ruling affirming the judgment.”....