Trump's new 'Freedom Fuel' spooks the 'drill, baby, drill' crowd
The latest from Raw Story's Nick Anderson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Opinion
Cocky Trump is leaving a criminal paper trail — and his immunity's running out
Just when we think Donald Trump has exhausted the ways a person can transform the presidency into an ongoing fundraising scheme, we’re given fresh new evidence that he’s barely scratched the surface.
I swear I thought I was hallucinating when I read last weekend that Trump’s social media company had put out word that it was pitching a premium “Trump API” service to Wall Street traders and investment firms that would charge them a subscription fee of as much as $100,000 per month to provide faster access to the president’s Truth Social posts. There was also the mention of a bargain-basement discounted plan of $60,000 a month for firms that signed up for a three-year plan.
What exactly does “faster access” mean? In this case, potentially delivering posts mere seconds before standard push notifications, allowing hedge funds and trading firms to react instantly to statements that cause massive global market fluctuations.
In layman’s terms, this is essentially a service that legitimizes insider trading. A speed advantage of just a few milliseconds for high-frequency trading firms can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in gains on a single big trade. It effectively acknowledges that Trump’s posts are strictly designed to be stock market boosters.
Do we need any more evidence that this guy is running the Wall Street equivalent of a numbers racket out of the White House? There isn’t even an attempt to disguise it or cover it up.
At least organized criminals have the decency to hide their duplicity. Not so Trump and company. They’re operating like a gang with complete immunity, possibly because they are.
For now. That immunity gifted by the Supreme Court only covers official acts. And if the Democrats deliver a midterm sweep — well, Trump is no doubt already swearing about what will happen.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts – the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee – didn’t mince words when she called this “an egregious scheme to profit off the presidency and enrich Wall Street while doing nothing to help Americans.”
Echoed Donald Sherman, president of the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens and Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: “It’s wildly unethical.”
Ethics. Ha! They’re so 2012. This is a president who hasn’t the thinnest understanding of them and isn’t interested. Holding the highest office in the land is about personal enrichment for himself, for his children, for the billionaire class. Anything else he does that benefits actual Americans happens entirely by accident.
You are already no doubt aware that Trump’s 2025 financial disclosures reported more than 21,000 financial transactions and stock trades before he added another 3,600-3,700 trades during the first quarter of 2026.
CNN found that within this data, Trump and his financial associates made at least 44 stock purchases across 21 different companies, which posting, days prior, positive and complimentary Truth Social messages about those firms.
In one example, Trump invested between $200,000 and $500,000 in Nvidia on April 15. Days later, he promoted the chipmaker’s plans to build AI supercomputers in the United States. In that same post, he vowed to expedite all necessary permits for Nvidia and similar firms.
This is what is called literally signing your name to your corruption and daring anyone to raise a stink. Emoluments Clause? What Emoluments Clause? This president is so busy lining his pockets that you wonder how he has any time left to even pretend to run the country. Oh yeah, he doesn’t.
And yet part of the deceit practiced by this crooked bunch is that they occasionally act as if any genuine lawbreaking in their midst has offended their fragile sensibilities. Such was the case last week when it was discovered and reported by ABC News that Gabriel Perez, Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator, was alleged to have used his insider knowledge of speech content to take in more than $100,000 via bets on the prediction market Kalshi.
Evidently Kalshi became alarmed by suspicious activity on the “Mentions” market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics will be uttered during a public speech.
In one of the rare instances when Trump didn’t immediately side with a person linked to him who is suspected of a criminal act, the president boldly tossed his teleprompter operator under the bus. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she spoke with her boss about it and that he called the betting “a disgrace” – making the immediate decision to put Perez on administrative leave.
Leavitt stressed that she was unaware of any other staffer who had made such trades. White House spokesman Davis Ingle added to ABC, “The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow.”
Hmmm. Interesting. Please do tell us more about these “strict ethics guidelines” and how they seem to apply so unevenly when you have a moment. Your head guy seems not to have received that particular memo.
The level of shamelessness and hypocrisy here is just off the charts. And the brazenness of scapegoating the working stiff who runs the prompter is beyond disgusting. Not to defend his behavior, but puh-leeze.
This administration apparently follows the lead provided by Richard Nixon when he told interviewer David Frost during their 1977 series of interviews, "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." This is what the staff of the current liars lineup at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW has been trained to believe, and they have all grown to become good little fascist automatons.
The truth is that these people thrive on the fraud they perpetrate and the angst they create in the minds of all who vehemently oppose their monstrous regime. Taking their marching orders from Trump, they wear the betrayal of their oath and their country like a badge of honor.
By feeding so voraciously at the trough of fiscal gluttony, they have lost sight of any sense of decency, morality, principal. Once again, this is pretty much a given when you follow the example of the worst human being America has ever produced – and it’s not even close.
(Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.)
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A horrifying hit list reveals exactly who Rubio will destroy to become president
We have a lot of metaphors for it; the camel’s nose under the tent, the foot in the door, where there’s smoke there’s fire, and the handwriting on the wall, among others. Every police state in history started this way. As the White House declared last week in a press release:
“Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, far-left extremism will be treated with the same seriousness and ferocity the world has long reserved for jihadist terrorism.”
First, they built the infrastructure based on what the public widely perceived as a real public safety and economic problem.
People had been pouring into the United States for centuries, looking for economic opportunity and a new life. Some were criminals, and Trump and the GOP highlighted their presence as the reason why it was so imperative to “build the wall” to seal the border and then begin aggressive mass deportations.
The majority of Americans (81% of Republicans and 49% of Democrats) rated border security as “important” in 2016, so Trump began by building his wall and expanding the detention centers that pre-existed from Reagan’s 1981 opening of them to detain Black Haitian refugees. (The detention firm CoreCivic got its first immigration detention contract in 1981, and another, GEO Group, was founded in 1984.)
The story Trump campaigned on and used as an excuse to massively expand arrests and detentions was the widely popular notion that they were hunting down and imprisoning “the worst of the worst.” Even many Hispanics voted for him thinking he would clean up their neighborhoods of criminals.
Trump rarely referenced immigrants without including words like “rapists” and “murderers”: he kicked off his 2016 campaign with such a speech after coming down the escalator at Trump Tower.
Then came the first policy turn that showed the lie and exposed what may have been their plan all along. Instead of arresting immigrants who’d committed crimes (or were even accused of having committed crimes), they went after Jose the gardener and Maria the maid.
Quickly, with encouragement by Supreme Court Justice Brett “Beer Bong” Kavanaugh, the system turned into a mass arrest and deportation program for people with brown and black skin rather than genuine “bad guys.”
This was the first point where Democrats began to publicly back away from the policy as white supremacist Republicans and racist independents embraced it more vigorously.
Then came the second policy turn, taking Trump, Vance, and Miller the next step toward their ultimate goal of turning America into a modern police state. In March 2025, during Trump’s second term, ICE agents began to mask up to conceal their identities and started using explicit and deadly violence against not only people of color suspected of being undocumented immigrants but also against anyone demonstrating against Trump and his ICE.
In the 16 months since, ICE officers have shot at least 30 people, killing at least eight that we know about and, as of last month, at least another 50 people have died in ICE custody. There have been no meaningful investigations of any of them and no prosecutions of ICE officers whatsoever for these “routine” actions.
And routine is exactly what they’ve become.
Which brings us to the next step, their third turn in the road: arresting and imprisoning legal immigrants for their words rather than their actions.
The Guardian reported this week that Salah Sarsour, the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, a green-card-holding business-owning legal permanent resident of the United States for over 30 years with six U.S. citizen children and nine citizen grandchildren, was arrested by ICE and held in a brutal detention center for 80 days where he lost 30 pounds and was denied monitoring for his diabetes:
“On 30 March, he was on his way to see his elderly mother when he was surrounded, he said, by at least 10 unmarked vehicles and armed agents in civilian clothing and whisked away, first to a detention center near Chicago and later miles away at a facility in Indiana. …
“When Sarsour, who has no criminal record in the US, was first detained, he thought the agents had mistaken him for someone else. When they tried to get him to sign paperwork agreeing to being deported, he refused.
“‘I was very confused,’ he said. Only as his ordeal protracted into days did he realize he had been targeted for his activism. ‘That really shocked me, to be honest,’ he said.”
Sarsour was only released because U.S. district judge James Patrick Hanlon concluded he’d been held because of his outspoken support of Palestinian rights and not because of any crime he’d committed, immigration status or otherwise. He had another court proceeding Wednesday in Chicago — he's waiting to find out if he will be fully freed or re-imprisoned.
But now Trump’s concentration camps have officially been used to hold people whose views the administration dislikes.
Trump’s September 25th National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” identified as potential “domestic terrorist” threats those Americans who espouse:
“[A]nti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, … extremism on migration, extremism on race, extremism on gender, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.”
It was used last month to indict 15 protesters in Minneapolis. And now Secretary of State Marco Rubio has essentially declared that it’s a loaded gun pointed at anybody who opposes Trump or is even a progressive member of the Democratic Party. The excuse/weapon they’re apparently planning to use is Cuba.
For Rubio, it’s a two-fer. He wants to run for president and thinks taking Cuba will get him there…but he needs an excuse. And that excuse will also provide Trump, Vance, Miller, et al with a fine opportunity to start rounding up American progressives.
Labeling Cuba as “The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” Rubio issued a 140-page document which claims that that poverty-stricken island nation:
“…has infiltrated the highest reaches of the U.S. government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists, backed an unprecedented wave of left-wing terrorism on American soil, and carried out one of the most durable and damaging foreign intelligence penetrations in American history.”
He claimed, to an audience including representatives from 66 countries and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Education Secretary Linda McMahon:
“The Cubans devoted themselves to recruiting, cultivating and mobilizing a global coalition of activists, intellectuals, and political groups around this cause, building a sprawling revolutionary network that shaped a disproportionate share of America’s most famous and influential extremist movements, from the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground through to Antifa.
“Today, that network continues to maintain ties to powerful leftist nonprofits, anti-ICE collectives, socialist groups, and Marxist militant organizations across the United States.”
The document names American citizens, just as the new White House website is now naming individual American reporters, who are essentially accused of being communist/“leftist” collaborators.
They include my colleagues David Pakman and Amy Goodman, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, influencer Hasan Piker, and nineteen others, including two other members of Congress.
The 20 organizations named include the Amazon Labor Union, Black Lives Matter, Democratic Socialists of America, the National Lawyer’s Guild, and “Antifa.”
So now the architecture is in place. ICE has billions to expand their concentration camps, they’ve spread their secret police across every corner of America, they’re tied into Flock cameras and Palantir’s databases on pretty much every American citizen, and they’ve demonstrated they’re invulnerable to local law enforcement and can abuse or even kill people who resist them at will.
And now the Trump regime, like Putin and Hitler before them (among dozens of others), have identified “the enemy within” who must be purged and separated from society.
It might be good time to reach out to our elected officials and demand action. The phone number for Congress is 202-224-3121 but don’t forget your local officials, too, as it appears they’ll soon be dealing with ICE or ICE-affiliated federal goons coming for the “domestic terrorists” who defy “traditional American views.”
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Why is $30M of MAGA cash funding this Dem's fight against her progressive rival?
Ed Luce of The Straits Times/Financial Times recently argued, like so many other conservative and liberal commentators do, that the Democratic Party was missing a golden opportunity in the upcoming midterm elections due to its internal squabbling, stalled approval ratings, and a failure to effectively address the causes of the 2024 election losses.
Like most media coverage of the Democratic Party divisions, Luce has misunderstood the substantive differences between the two democratic factions. Because they have actually been discussing and arguing about party power going forward in relation to why they lost in 2024.
These media commentators do a disservice by highlighting the so-called radical and alienating rhetoric coming from the moderate or liberal mainstream Democrats and from the progressive socialists, or social Democrats, in relation to the radical right-wing or authoritarian rhetoric coming from the Trumpian administration.
Like falsely inserting into these political contests that antifa is a “domestic terrorist organization,” and the Democratic Party has been taken over by “communists,” as the Outlaw-in-Chief has invoked more than 81 times in a two-week period.
Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from a press conference at the Republican National Committee: “We’re fighting right now in Congress about whether we’re going to maintain our status as a constitutional republic or we’re going to trade that in, dismantle the foundations and go down this dark road of death to communism.”
It seems as though Trumpism is trying to pull off a Red Scare 3.0, and the question becomes: are the American voters as stupid as the Speaker, the Racketeer-in-Chief and his crew of miscreants?
Then again, these “social realities” about communism, antifa or the Democratic Party are about as real as Trump having won the 2020 presidential election or that January 6th was a nonviolent patriotic sit-in.
At the same time, Jim Messina, the former White House Deputy Chief of Staff who served as campaign manager for President Barack Obama’s successful 2012 re-election and is often referred to by the media as the White House’s Fixer, on Morning Joe’s Tuesday airing this week was making the case for why Democrats should be sticking with moderate rather than progressive democrats.
This framing or narrative problem by “old guard” Democratic operatives and by most mass media commentators is that, fundamentally, they cannot wrap their heads around democratic socialism as a legitimate alternative to neoliberalism or as having nothing in common with the former USSR or other highly centralized and contemporary authoritarian regimes like China and Cuba.
Meanwhile, these media outlets or platforms have been ignoring, for the most part, that these democratic socialists or progressive democrats in the U.S. have everything in common with the Social Democratic parties of Western and Northern Europe that emerged between 1945 and 1960 during the “Golden Age” of social democracy. And then these social democrats were accentuated by a second wave of dominance in the 1990s after the reunification of Germany and the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Today, these Social Democratic parties remain in place despite the wannabe authoritarian-like political parties that have emerged on the right and are trying to kill democratically administered governments, not unlike the efforts of President Trump and his loyalist minions who are trying to do the same in the United States.
Winning the “War on Crime” or Losing the Wars on Authoritarianism & Democracy
When it comes to the Trumpian 2.0 “war on crime,” nothing could be more of an oxymoron than the political actions and talking points of the deputy to the former Attorney General Pam Bondi — now the acting and nominee for the permanent post of AG — Todd Blanche. As a steward of the Justice Department for the past 18 months and as the legal “fixer” for the Fraudster-in-Chief since he became Trump’s criminal defense lawyer in April 2023 ahead of his arraignment in the New York hush-money case, here is the non-exhaustive record of Todd “Carte” Blanche and his lawless “war on crime” on behalf of the reconstituted Department of Retribution:
- “No MAGA left behind” began on day one of the second administration when he facilitated the president’s office to erase the insurrection, which began with the pardons of Rudy Giuliani and the fake slates of electors and finished with virtually everyone, some 1,500-plus persons, who were charged and convicted for their activities on Jan. 6.
- Dropping the prosecution of 10 unnamed additional “co-conspirators” of Epstein and Maxwell that were under investigation with plenty of evidence in the Epstein Files that supported additional charges on behalf of hundreds of victims seeking redress. As well as withholding key material about the perpetrators, while disclosing information and even naked photos of the survivors, transferring Ghislane Maxwell to a minimum custody facility which was against the Federal Bureau of Prison guidelines for sexual offenders, failing to release some two million pages of Epstein files as required by law, and last but not least, for covering up the judicially alleged sexual predatory behavior of victimizing a teenage girl of 13 years by defendants DJT and Jeffrey Epstein.
- Overseeing and executing Trump’s revenge indictments like the two against Jim Comey or the ongoing investigation in the Southern District of Florida into his political enemies like former CIA Director John Brennan, and even the recent prosecutions of a former Olympian and a few others for putting their hands in the Reflecting Pool.
- Signing off on Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund to use taxpayer money to reward Jan 6 defendants. And as part of this bogus “settlement agreement,” he also signed off on allowing Trump, his family, and their businesses to walk away from pending lawsuits and unpaid tax liability, while precluding any future investigations of this kind.
- Failing to pursue investigations into the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti as ICE continues to kill more innocent people while violating the Fourth Amendment, among others.
In addition to the usual “wars on crime,” Blanche has overseen the DOJ's closing of more than 23,000 pending criminal investigations while shifting resources away from white-collar crime, corporate fraud, and minority civil rights law enforcement in order to prioritize the “lawless” and mass deportation of noncriminal and nonviolent undocumented workers.
While protecting the crimes and the perpetrators of the powerful and of Trump’s corrupt allies in particular, Blanche, during his confirmation hearing, was trying to offset his own lawlessness and corruption by touting several accomplishments of DOJ’s operations over his first year such as combating violent crime, the fentanyl crisis, and protecting children from child predators. And most importantly, about how he has been “restoring American trust” in the DOJ after it had “turned against” President Trump.
Before continuing, allow me to go on the public record and say that, based on this non-exhaustive review of all the lawless behavior of Blanche in his assisting or acting capacities as AG, it is really quite insane that he should receive one vote let alone be confirmed as anyone’s AG, especially DJT’s. Rather, he should be immediately disbarred, and he should also be facing charges for a variety of criminal and civil offenses.
After losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, and after the failed insurrection to steal the election on January 6, 2021, the GOP won back the House in 2022 and expanded its marginal lead in the Senate by one vote, from 50-50 plus VP Mike Pence to 51-49. This time around, however, because of the daily “in your face” lawlessness, corruption, and weaponization of justice from top to bottom, as well as the president’s ongoing and incessant efforts to interfere and suppress voter turnout in 2026, his Republican flunkies will lose control of the House in November, if not the Senate.
That's thanks mostly to the fact that Trump has made a disastrous and chaotic living nightmare out of everything he has touched, from One Big Beautiful Bill to reciprocal tariffs to wars of choice – that have each raised the cost of living and made affordability nothing more than a “pipe dream.” And, internationally, Trump couldn’t have messed up U.S. foreign relations any more than he already has.
So now let’s see how the gross “mass media” mischaracterization or depiction of the intramural Democratic party politicking between factions struggling for inner and outer party control/power has been playing out in the 2026 midterm primary and general elections, within and between the Democrats and the Republicans, by focusing in on the race to become the next Democratic U.S. Senator (or not) from Michigan.
Democrats Haley Stevens v. Abdul El-Sayed v. Republican Mike Rogers?
It seems like only yesterday when Michelle Obama first said those words, “When they go low, we go high.” That was back on July 25, 2016, during the opening night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on behalf of presidential nominee Hillary R. Clinton.
A lot has changed in our politics over the past decade of Trumpism — for the better and for the worse depending on how one looks at it. Polemically, what is “better” or “worse” will be decided by a combination of financial muscle and ideological power.
I can think of no better example – perhaps because I have been a resident of Ann Arbor, MI for the past 36 years – than the Senate race between Democratic Party House Rep. Haley Stevens from Michigan’s 11th congressional district and Abdul El-Sayed, M.D., Ph.D., Rhode Scholar and a former Executive Director of the Detroit Department of Health — and a progressive Democrat. The primary for the Democratic Party candidate is on August 4.
The 11th covers mostly Oakland County, a highly affluent urban-suburban area that stands as one of the wealthiest counties in Michigan with a median household income that sits at about $97,760. Much of the anti-El-Sayed, and pro-Stevens spending has come from AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project. UDP relies heavily on multi-million-dollar donations from prominent Republican and Trump-aligned billionaires.
With about five weeks left before the primary, rising Democratic star and Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow, who was also in the race, exited. Two months before, El-Sayed was already leading the three-way race and was the only candidate beating likely Republican candidate Mike Rogers by one point, 49 to 48, while McMorrow and Stevens were trailing by five and four points respectively. Presently, El-Sayed leads Rogers 47 to 42.
At this point, Stevens and her backers began lying about her record, even trying to infer from 2018 film footage that Barack Obama was endorsing her for the U.S. Senate, though he had remained neutral. Meanwhile, UDP was doing its best to smear El-Sayed, spending roughly $30 million on television advertisements and mailers to back Stevens. It was its largest single-race investment ever.
Here are the “crimes” that El-Sayed is guilty of: He has been campaigning for universal health care or Medicare for all. He does not take money from corporate Political Action Committees. And, last but not least, he has made well known his opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel and has referred to Israel’s campaign in Gaza as “genocide.”
Guess what? According to a Quinnipiac poll taken in August 2025, “Half of US voters think Israel is committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza.” The same as the United Nation’s commission of inquiry concluded in its report in September of that year.
Gregg Barak is an emeritus professor of criminology and criminal justice at Eastern Michigan University and the author of several award-winning books on the crimes of the powerful, including Criminology on Trump (2022) and its sequel, Indicting the 45th President: Boss Trump, the GOP, and What We Can Do About the Threat to American Democracy (2024). The third book in this Trump trilogy, Regime Change, Authoritarian Treason, and the Outlaw-in-Chief: President Donald Trump’s Struggle to Kill U.S. Democracy & Realign American Global Power, will be published after the 2026 midterm election.
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Trump's business interests may have just unleashed nukes in the Middle East
The Trump administration has put Americans through such a dizzying array of near-daily corruption so deep that a U.S. president somehow makes over two billion dollars while in office – impossible without obliterating conflicts of interest – that many of us, even the most attentive, have been somewhat lulled to sleep. It's not only exhausting, but also leads to a certain amnesia regarding some issues.
But among the concerns about deepening corruption, there are some issues that can never be set aside and must arise in our minds daily: Epstein, the appearance of pay-for-pardons, and the airplane. We now have to plant perhaps the biggest, the one that threatens civilization at a level matched only by climate change – no hyperbole – because Donald J. Trump just opened the door to U.S. sanctioned nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. He did so not only with a nation with which he had many pending business deals, but one that also murders journalists, supplied 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11, and is run by a corrupt and murderous thug rivaling Putin, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Short and sweet, the Trump administration just entered an agreement allowing the Kingdom to enrich uranium and plutonium, justified as needed for power usage, and yet with few safeguards to cap enrichment such as to never come close to material for a nuclear bomb.
We are in a war with Iran purportedly over Iran's decision to enrich uranium and create nuclear-tipped missiles, and yet we just blessed such a plan with a nation that might be just as untrustworthy, just as dangerous, just as corrupt, and just as capable of starting a nuclear war that threatens the world. Maddeningly, it is also a nation with far more business deals pending with the American president's family. It is, again, Saudi Arabia.
This potential deal with the potential conflict also smells enough to stand out, according to The New York Times, meaning there's something likely hidden, something awful, because there actually is a model for how to do a deal like this properly. The fact that the Trump administration purposefully veered away from the established model points to something wrong. Inevitably, we arrive back at the conflict.
Nuclear power deals in the Middle East are not new. The United States entered into a similar agreement with the United Arab Emirates in 2009. But that agreement contained far more restrictions and conditions, including stringent inspections, signing and "additional protocol” with the International Atomic Energy Agency. And the UAE even agreed not to create its own fuel, and thus would never have the infrastructure to create a weapon.
The UAE agreement, one brokered by both the Bush and Obama administrations, became known as the “Gold Standard” for nuclear nonproliferation. And yet for reasons known only to Trump, this particular administration and this particular agreement set all those Gold Standard restrictions aside.
Wonder why?
Well, for one, Saudi Arabia, led by the butcher who is MBS, absolutely assures us, according to The New York Times, that the Kingdom will proceed to enrich weapons-grade uranium (And once there, an easily made weapon) "if Iran ever obtains a nuclear weapon." Do you find it likely that a man like Prince Mohammed will patiently wait for Iran to successfully implement a nuclear weapons program before he starts building his own? Or, given that we're at war with Iran because they are said to be close to weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, do you find it more likely that he simply starts off on the assumption that Iran will soon enough have that capability such that the goal is weapons-grade enrichment right away?
Now, to be absolutely sure, there are reasons one would want to obtain nuclear weapons to match those of an enemy like Iran, hoping to reach mutual assured destruction. Thus, from a certain point of view, Saudi Arabia's desire to “nuke up” is understandable. And yet, from a far more valid, lasting, and fundamentally safer point of view, that need can be entirely vitiated by one promise by the United States: "We will defend any nuclear attack on you with a nuclear response."
Indeed, the Biden administration understood MBS's desire to protect the Kingdom so much that the Biden Administration sought to make such a deal with Saudi Arabia - allowing enrichment, contingent on one major concession that would have made the Middle East much safer: that Saudi Arabia recognize Israel.
And yet, for reasons known only to Donald Trump, this deal isn't dependent upon such a massive gain; indeed, it's only dependent upon some nebulous Trump assurances that there will be limits. Except, again - Prince Mohammed has already promised to blow by those restrictions based on one measuring stick, one perhaps already "close enough" to keep going.
In other words, the Donald Trump administration, at war with Iran over the fear of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, might just have set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, all but compelling Egypt, Turkey, the UAE again and Jordan, at a minimum, to initiate their own programs, based on the same standard. And off we go.
Off we go. And while "mutual assured destruction" has always kept nations possessing nuclear weapons in stasis and prevented them from use, does anyone believe that such safety and sanity applies equally to the Middle East, based on their history, especially Saudi Arabia?
So let's once again talk about Saudi Arabia and why all these other administrations might work with the Saudis only under some strict protections, along with significant gains from the Saudis, but the Trump administration appears ready to simply push ahead without.
Well, for one, we already know that Trump has a classic conflict of interest. Again.
The Trump Organization and its partners, led by sons Don Junior and Eric Trump, have expanded significantly in Saudi Arabia with multiple Trump-branded real-estate developments announced through Dar Global (a company with close Saudi government ties), and the Trump Organization is in ongoing discussions involving major Saudi projects such as Diriyah.
Those are just a couple of handy examples that fit right in with Jared Kushner profiting off the last administration's treatment of Saudi Arabia (Essentially letting the Kingdom off scot-free for butchering an American resident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, along with credible reports that Kushner provided sensitive U.S. intelligence to MBS allowing the 2017 anti-corruption purge (which arrested hundreds of Saudi princes, businessmen, and officials) and perhaps aided in killing of other dissidents.
Of course, almost impossible to believe as unrelated; Kushner's brand new investment firm post-administration got $2 billion to invest (and profit from percentages) from MBS upon the completion of his work.
What might Donald Trump and the Trump Organization be getting in consideration of this deal? Given the open past corruption and certainly the appearance of a laughable conflict of interest, it is absolutely irresponsible not to ask what might be in it for Trump.
Total reset: It is possible that Donald Trump just unleashed a planet-threatening nuclear arms race off in the Middle East, and entirely possible that he did so for personal profit - practically the definition of not only an American nightmare, but the entire First World's line in the sand, the one that - if profit were to be established, and the United States did nothing to stop it, would be the moment that we officially crossed over. We are no longer "that" United States. (If we haven't already passed that juncture.)
Rather than be lumped in with all the "good countries" in NATO (Canada, the U.K., Germany) and in East Asia (South Korea, Japan, Australia), we now find ourselves in the company of MBS and Putin - as always, you know - the "bad guys."
And here we are. The United States may be crossing the line to sanctioned nuclear proliferation for presidential personal profit and very, very much to the detriment of the average American who would, literally, be much less safe in such a world.
This deal has to be ratified by Congress, and the business development side, using American companies to set up the infrastructure, likely has some strong Republican support, according to the Times, but there are enough questions surrounding the deal that it's not going to get a Congressional auto-stamp. Of course, that leaves sensible Americans, ones not wanting to unleash nukes across the Middle East and ones with serious questions about those possible conflicts, reliant on a Republican Congress to ask the right questions, demand honest answers, and then neutrally evaluate the pros and cons. The same Americans must rely on the Trump administration feeling constrained by Congress. Try not to laugh. Try not to cry.
Actually, go ahead and cry.
Because this truly is one of those deals that, for some reason - reasons the administration prefers not to address- doesn't contain the restrictions or gains other presidents demanded; no "gold standard" here, though it was certainly available. But not wanted. And thus one of those conflicts of interest that arise daily that better stick in one's mind daily, right up there with Epstein.
Donald J. Trump, the man with business deals spread across Saudi Arabia, a nation led by a man who's proven himself ready to kill critics and personally pay American leaders who "aided" MBS's goals, just green-lighted a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, one that MBS has promised to jump on, contingent only on that premise underlying why we're currently at war with Iran.
Daily conflicts and corruption, amnesia, it passes, it's exhausting, can't keep up. But unlike even 747s and cryptoscams, we better keep "Saudi nukes" in mind daily at the level we keep "Epstein cover-up" at the forefront of our minds. So forefront that one would be smart to contact representatives to get some answers on what Trump might be getting in this deal, the one that shouldn't move off a page, never mind into law.
Yeah, yeah - it just keeps going. But this one is different. This one threatens the planet. This one better be watched and better be stopped, even if it already seems too late.
It might literally be the international community's worst nightmare. It really is okay to cry. But also cry to Congress. It can't hurt.
Jason Miciak is a RawStory columnist and former editor of Occupy Democrats, author, political consultant, attorney, and single parent girldad. Please follow him on Bluesky, and he can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com. He also reads and appreciates comments.
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This pathetic parasite dared denigrate a military giant — and debased only himself
I quit drinking almost five years ago, otherwise I’d be writing this column blind drunk after watching yesterday’s revolting performance from Pete Hegseth in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Instead, I’m blind with outrage and disgust at the pithiness of the pathetic Hegseth.
In between boasting about his own non-existent accomplishments, he had the temerity to take a swipe at his predecessor. He said, in essence, that he had no idea what Lloyd Austin actually did as Secretary of Defense.
Well, allow me to help, you miserable excuse for a “war” secretary.
Lloyd Austin didn't launch an unnecessary war with Iran, one that now carries a staggering price tag in dollars and, more gravely, in American lives, and that barely a third of the country supports. Hegseth did.
Austin didn't install a make-up studio in the Pentagon. He didn't rename the Department of Defense, a name that has stood since 1949, to the jarringly regressive "Department of War." He didn't post sensitive military plans on a commercial social media app.
He didn't churn out vanity workout videos for public consumption while American service members were in harm's way. He didn’t put out gaming videos with montages that spliced Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto gameplay footage with real military strikes
He didn't cancel promotions for qualified Black and female soldiers. He didn’t try to push out trans soldiers or put targets on the backs of gay and lesbian soldiers. He didn't demand testosterone tests from the officer corps. He didn't stand in front of a room full of generals and berate them.
Hegseth has done all of it.
And perhaps most damning: unlike Hegseth, who at this week's hearing could not even offer an accurate accounting of the dead and wounded, Austin never forgot the human cost of the office he held.
Hegseth is so deplorable that, according to Eric Schmitt’s New York Times story, the Pentagon withheld reports of dozens of nonfatal injuries from the public, bringing the total of wounded U.S. service members to over 400 in the Iran conflict. His reporting indicates a significant lag in official tracking, with numerous troops sustaining severe wounds requiring advanced care
In fact, Lloyd Austin did so, so, so much more, and accomplished so, so much more than Hegseth could ever dream about.
Austin is a retired four-star general who spent 41 years in uniform. He was the first Black officer to lead an Army corps into combat, the first African American to head U.S. Central Command, and ultimately the first Black Secretary of Defense in American history.
In 2003, he earned the Silver Star for his leadership during the invasion of Baghdad. As defense secretary, he built and sustained the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a coalition of more than 50 nations that has kept a besieged democracy in the fight against Russian aggression. He drove a strategic pivot toward the Indo-Pacific to counter China.
He oversaw sweeping reform of the military justice system, stripping the chain of command of its grip on sexual assault prosecutions. He managed the logistics of a nationwide vaccine rollout that kept the force operationally ready through a pandemic.
Pete Hegseth's highest rank, by contrast, was major in the Army National Guard.
Hegseth doesn’t even have a slight fraction of Austin's judgment or discipline in the job. Austin held regular press conferences. Hegseth hasn't faced one since May, and he has been working to push reporters out of the Pentagon altogether rather than answer for his record.
Austin was deferential to Congress and to career Pentagon personnel; Hegseth treats both as dog do-do. Austin was trusted by allies who had spent decades relying on American steadiness. Hegseth is, by wide and growing consensus among those same allies, a source of embarrassment and laughter. Unfortunately, that is reflected in the military that is serving underneath him.
But the starkest contrast is human.
Lloyd Austin made a practice, not a photo-op, of showing up for the families of the fallen. He was a regular presence at Arlington National Cemetery. He took part in dignified transfers. He personally called the families of service members killed overseas, including after the 2024 drone strike in Jordan that killed three American soldiers.
He spoke, publicly and often, about the obligation to remember that every name on a memorial wall belonged to a person with a story.
At this week's hearing, Pete Hegseth did not mention the troops killed or wounded on his watch. He was too busy insisting his predecessor had done nothing.
Lloyd Austin left the Pentagon with the respect of allies, the trust of Congress, and a record any general would envy. Pete Hegseth is leaving a trail of scandals, an enormously unpopular war, a demoralized officer corps, and a growing list of questions he refuses to answer.
He said he doesn't know what Austin did. That’s because Pete Hegseth is doing everything atrociously wrong.
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A typhoon of a tantrum proves Trump's only friends are corrupt babies
Threatening to call President Donald Trump to fix some manifestly just and earned punishment has become somewhat of its own sport of late. And no, this piece isn't about the appearance of pay for pardons — although, in a sense, maybe it kinda is.
We have run into a spate of Trump-adjacent superstars facing consequences for something wholly unrelated to the actual presidency, but wholly offending Trump and his supporters' worldview, which, boiled to its essence, can be summarized: "As president, my friends and I can do what we want, including bail ourselves out of trouble that impacts only high-handicappers, poor people, or libs."
Now, no doubt, history is stuffed with guys (mostly) calling in "presidential favors" — whether it be for good seating at the Kennedy Center, admission to Harvard, or good placement for drilling in the Alaskan North Slope. Oh, and it's not just a Republican thing, although we'd like to think it's "more of a Republican thing." And, of course, presidents always had the pardon power.
But like so much else about Trump, none of this presidential favor stuff has ever been taken to such international heights, nor such mundane neighborhood lows. If corruption might help, there's one man to call, and "the guys" (because they're all guys) who walk around with Trump in their phone contacts increasingly seem willing to use it. And not for oilfields! (They just call the White House switchboard for that.)
First up, the tragedy that is Tiger Woods. Ironically, many of us who might well extend a ton of understanding and prayers regarding a pain pill addiction taking hold of a man who's endured more surgery and scopes than a redneck by aliens now cannot extend such sympathy due to how it all went down. All hope for well-wishes crashed more spectacularly than his vehicle when Tiger called Trump upon being approached by the cops. Sorry, Tiger, that cannot be forgiven, no matter how high you might've been.
Next, of course, "The Red Card that Wasn't" in the Men's Soccer World Cup. To briefly review, American forward Folarin Balogun received a red card for an infraction that tossed him from the game and, by hard and fast rule, also the upcoming match against Belgium. Nearly everyone agreed that Balogun didn't deserve the red card. But everyone also agreed that once a red card is issued, the deal is done; it is not reviewable, period. Until Trump.
"Our president" made a tantrum-like phone call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who, being just as corrupt as Trump, did what Trump asked. He defied every rule in the book and reversed course. Balogun avoided the one-game suspension and was on the field to receive some old-school a---kicking karma when the US Team lost 4-1 to Belgium.
The lesson, obviously, is that if you are going to play the Trump card, you better be playing along with someone who thinks like Trump. FIFA's Infantino fit the bill; the Martin County, Florida, Sheriff's office did not. They refused to "play ball," so to speak, even with Tiger on the phone to his buddy. At this point, everyone should at least be on the same page regarding the "Trump rule."
Except one guy.
It was clear over the weekend that American golfer and mega Trump supporter, Bryson DeChambeau, didn't learn his lesson, and not just because he never even got around to making the actual call to Trump, which makes everything even breathlessly worse — making the threat but not following through. Commit or go home! (which he also threatened to do, but we're ahead of ourselves.)
For those of you too busy watching the World Cup, too busy with real lives, or too busy to care about anything about golf or Trump, let's review. "The Open Championship," aka "The British Open," is one of golf's four "major" tournaments — the ones you wanna win. On Friday, Bryson found himself near the top of the leaderboard when he hit a drive that veered all but 45 degrees off the fairway into bushes and grass high enough to hide small deer. But his problems only started there.
Golf seems almost designed to appeal to wealthy conservative culture, and has an almost sexual appeal to such men. The courses are gorgeous, all curves and swales, the equipment exquisite and expensive. And the whole sport is about getting a ball in a hole faster than the other guy. But like a lot else in upper-crust wealthy conservative culture — and, I suppose, their love lives, too: golf's rules are more about what you can't do than what you can. And one of those things you cannot ever, ever, do is "improve your lie"; you play your ball from wherever it happened to land.
We now rejoin Bryson, who hit the ball so deep into the grass that walking around his ball, as he did many, many times, especially behind the ball, beat down the grass behind his swing, and that is something that one cannot do. The referees from the esteemed Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews assessed Bryson a two-stroke penalty, sending the player into a comprehensive, Def-Con Four, All-American meltdown.
And so what does any self-respecting Trump-supporting athlete now have to do in such a position while having Trump in his contacts? You guessed it. Mid-temper tantrum, DeChambeau threatened to call Trump. From The Telegraph:
Bryson DeChambeau warned officials at The Open that he was ready to call President Trump in the tense stand-off that saw the American hit with a two-shot penalty for “inadvertently improving his lie.”
Having already stomped all over the grass, the rules of golf, and the rules of "life" (never mind more intimate situations), Bryson then did what any MAGA devotee, including his hero, would do in just such a situation: threaten to quit.
At one stage he told Moir, “I just won’t play tomorrow.” That reaction was widely pilloried in a saga that overshadowed the on-course action and which inspired criticism from fellow players, most notably Rory McIlroy who accused him of “holding the Open hostage” and being “performative”.
Sounds like our guy, and no, we don't mean Bryson, who — again — tried this trick before he checked the titanium-strengthened maxim "only threaten corruption with an already corrupt organization" — kind of like only having an affair with someone who has as much to lose as you, indeed a lot like that maxim.
And while there are a lot of corrupt organizations, especially in sports, an entity that goes by the moniker "The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews" wasn't likely to ever be one just by sound, and, turns out, wasn't one in practice. Perhaps if Bryson had the king in contacts... But now we're as far from the fairway as Bryson.
Normally, one might have to give Bryson credit for having not, actually, called Trump mid-round, something at which Tiger failed. But upon making the threat? Man, go all in on it; that's not something to "halfway." Alas, even Bryson will probably admit that he'll never be Tiger Woods.
So where does that leave us? Nowhere. Nowhere we don't know we already inhabit, a world in which corruption — which always existed sub rosa — now not only lives above the surface, it's all but de facto accepted as "likely to work," if it involves Trump and... if it involves an organization as corrupt as him. Perhaps the only thing "new" in all this is the sheer pettiness of it. It used to be someone had to offer something as consequential as a new semiconductor plant, or 120,000 acres open to drilling, or something "big" enough to bother the president.
Nowadays? It's some hack, hacking his way through bushes in Scotland. Or something called a "red card," pulled by a guy in disturbingly tight black shorts. Or just your biannual Tiger Woods' vehicle roll. Rather plain but for the fact that they all are (or were) cool enough guys that our ever-insecure president wanted their friendship.
And you thought presidential corruption was limited to 747s, crypto, obstructing investigations into sex trafficking, and the appearance of paying for pardons. Get creative, work that mind out a little. Get athletic about it. Just don't cheat. But if you must cheat, make sure you only cheat with other cheaters. It opens up a whole world constrained by more rules about what you can't do than what you can.
And if you have Trump in contacts and mention it? For God's sake, call! Don't beat around the bush about it. You never know who is just as corrupt as Trump until you know. But if something is "Royal and Ancient," stay on the fairway. Leave the phone with the caddie.
Jason Miciak is a Rawstory Columnist, former editor of Occupy Democrats, an author, political consultant, attorney, and single parent girldad. Please follow on Bluesky, and he can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com. He also reads and appreciates the comments.
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This fury is ripping at its chains — and if it breaks free the GOP is finished
A lot of Democratic nominees for elections this fall just "don't get it" — voters are angry, and candidates better learn to meet those voters where they are — or lose a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
By every measure, this should be a blue wave election of historic proportions (momentarily set aside fears of an election canceled, one being run by the military — all legitimate fears, but not relevant for this discussion). First, the president's party nearly always loses seats in the mid-term election, and the Republicans don't have seats to lose in the House. The supposedly safe seats in the Senate look less safe by the day. Second, President Donald Trump is polling at a near 36% approval rate, and that number may be very soft. Many MAGAs are too embarrassed to say they disapprove of Trump. Inwardly, they are breaking.
And understandably so, given the nation itself is also breaking, breaking under the weight of inflation, underemployment, stressed social services, wars, AI, and so much more. It is also all happening under the comprehensive control of the Republican Party. Conditions are set for a continent-spanning tectonic "slip," unleashing blue water barreling down toward a red government situated on a hill that won't be high enough.
Winning back the House — assuming we have even close to a normal election — is all but baked in. But now even the Senate is suddenly within reach. States like Texas, Ohio, South Carolina, Kansas, and more are watching their red political blood turn purple for lack of oxygen, the type produced only by hope. So Democrats provide hope, the oxygen to breathe again, and that's good.
But this country doesn't need good. Unfortunately, we passed that off-ramp long ago. At the very least, it needs "great" — because even good government cannot turn around one this bad. Never in history has any administration or Congress done more to cement in its control and cement out its accountability, from bunkers and troops in D.C., to a redistricted South all but disenfranchising American Blacks, and the looming threat of a federal government willing to manipulate elections themselves – "RIGGED" applied to every Democratic win.
Good can't and won't cut it, only greatness.
But greatness requires risk. Traditionally, D.C.-based consultants play it safe, happy to simply move some numbers up from the last election as self-evident proof of their value, fortifying their reputations, charging more next cycle, all while blaming the candidate for the actual loss. The country can't afford such conservative and self-interested advice right now, even in areas where they might produce even a small win with a safe candidate. We don't have that kind of time. It is a time for heroes, the ones who make noise, even if that noise narrows their victory.
Maybe a full generation ago, someone could run with a slogan like, "Less politics, more problem solving," and maybe even such "consultant-slop" might have been helpful, or at least not hurtful. This is not one of those times. This is really not one of those times.
Sure. Take a survey, do it today. You will get a very high number of people who say they want "less politics" and more getting along. After all, that's the grown-up answer, and it is the right answer in the right country. We just don't happen to live in that country right now. Because voters will say such things in a survey and then vote the opposite. Voters want more politics. Or, put more accurately, they want more fight, they want a hero, and that has never, ever, been as remotely close to true as it is in this term.
This column's last theme was dropping the "social Democrat" or "Democratic Socialist" label from recent young winners, and instead, without changing a thing about their beliefs, messaging themselves as "real Democrats, or "FDR Democrats." The theme, here and now in this column, is whatever one's platform may be, whether "Left-Left," "Mushy-Jeffries Left", or even "Independent," the beliefs themselves matter far less than running as someone furious with where this nation stands. Someone angry. A person willing to go to D.C. and be a hero, by creating a wholly new message, one rejecting the entire status quo. Change for the sake of change, all of it.
Mike Johnson loves to quote Jesus. Send someone to Washington D.C. who plans on acting like Jesus. The one and only time Jesus went s--t storm insane was in the Temple in Jerusalem — effectively, "the Capitol." He arrived in fury, tossed the tables of the money changers and vendors, screaming at the rich for doing all they could to keep their power over the poor.
Send someone willing to stand in front of a microphone and figuratively toss some tables around, and ask Mike Johnson to point to the portion of the MAGA movement Jesus would support. Pulling healthcare from the poor? Shooting immigrants?
Send a hero, turn the tables.
We see the pattern emerging in primaries and races all over the country, and it's not confined to Democrats — even the Republicans who are currently busting onto the scene are fighting a system they see as too moderate, and winning primaries. They are winning due to their anger, despite a message so batspit insane even Trump would say, "Whoa, wait, what?" The point is, they are winning primaries because the country is angry.
It is all just so awful. It is too hot, too expensive, too stupid, too corrupt. We bomb girls in school, we slam the doors on women and POC in our military, we shoot people on the way to work, we take healthcare away, we're regressing by the day, inviting diseases of the past to our present by politicizing science, research, modernity itself, all in favor of raw milk and the freedom to live "all naturally," like people 125 years ago, when one could get an infection or have a baby and then die "all naturally," and with no governmental involvement, aka "help."
If a candidate can't be bothered to be mad about such a situation and commit to being the hero who helps fix it, fine — but that candidate has little hope of turning a red district blue, or almost worse, that timid baby-blue Democrat won't be much help in turning any of this around, a wasted opportunity in a country that can't afford to waste anything, much less the remaining oxygen.
Fortunately, outside of a certain set of consultants, most based in D.C., and people outside of the beltway, are figuring it out. Mamdani didn't win by accident. Talarico isn't polling ahead of Paxton simply because Paxton's too corrupt — it's that Talarico is too indignant, insulted by the nation's direction, Paxton's party, and Talarico is willing to quote Jesus and fix it. We don't know who will eventually be nominated as the candidate in Maine, but we do know that nominating another nice moderate will get them run over. They already have their Susan Collins. They need a hero.
And the beauty of all this is that the voters want that hero. A very typical American may totally disagree with a candidate who wants universal healthcare, but vote for her anyway because "she is as sick of those people as I am and is going to change things." That is the message this time, this election — oppose Trump and MAGA however you believe is the best opposition, but damn it, have some attitude about it, refuse to be intimidated, find one's inner AOC, take some risks, be brave, do a little Jesus, and promise to upend tables. It is what voters want to hear and want to see.
To the candidates out there: don't try to persuade voters with your great ideas. Inspire voters by hearing their anger and ideas. Be angrier than they are, promise to make them proud, promise them a heroic effort, and the winning, especially this time, will take care of itself.
If you're not willing to take that risk, just get out of the way.
Jason Miciak is a Rawstory Columnist, former editor of Occupy Democrats, author, political consultant, attorney, and single parent girldad. Please follow him on Bluesky, or reach him at jasonmiciak@gmail.com. He also appreciates and reads comments.
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This sheer terror is driving Trump's 2 a.m. rage tweeting
Last week, Donald Trump essentially told us exactly what he will do this November. When reports start coming in that the Democrats are winning, he will send in the troops.
He’ll point back to last week's national address and tell the nation:
“I told you so. I warned you. They rigged the election for the Democrats and now I have to stop it.”
He’ll mobilize ICE and the National Guard’s “Rapid Reaction Force” that he’s assembled over the past six months to seize ballot boxes and crush the inevitable “insurrection” — protests in the streets against his seizing ballot boxes — by “left-wing communist radical domestic terrorists.”
He’ll declare a state of emergency, invoke his NSPM-7, and blame it on a foreign country and/or “Antifa.” He’ll declare protesting a crime, and tear gas will fill our streets.
This is easy for me to imagine: I was there in 1967 when Lyndon Johnson did nearly the same thing, although for an entirely different purpose, and I’ve worked in several countries where this very scenario had already played out.
And those same white supremacists Trump has already pardoned can also easily imagine how it should play out when he calls them out to attack protesters; they’ve been terrorizing minority communities for centuries and are very good at it.
This includes his tens of thousands of well-armed loyalist cult members who’re salivating at the idea of splitting that $1.776 billion they believe they’ll get when he seizes absolute control of the country.
As Senator Amy Klobuchar said on MSNOW:
“This is a man desperate to hold onto his power and he will do anything to keep that power.”
Would he actually be so audacious as to try that? Could he actually pull it off?
He could, he will, because he’s already tried it once.
The difference is that six years ago — the last time he tried to overturn an election he lost — his Attorney General, FBI Director, Director of National Intelligence, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, DHS Secretary, and Chief of the National Guard would all have refused such an order, so he called on thousands of violent thugs to attack the Capitol, stop the election certification, and murder the vice president.
This time, in a classically Putin-esque move, he’s replaced all of those people with lickspittles like Blanche and true believer fanatics like Miller and Homan who’ll do exactly what he tells them to.
Many of them sat in the room with him, in the front row in front of the teleprompter, watching and nodding along with his lies. They know that if Democrats win and the election is certified this fall many of them, too, will end up on the wrong end of civil and criminal investigations.
Trump has recently declared, officially, that Democrats are traitors, communists, potential terrorists, and should be deported. The only thing he hasn’t demanded is for Democrats to be arrested for our politics, and that may well come in just a few months.
After all, he can’t afford to allow the House or Senate to fall into Democratic hands, because then he’ll be investigated with the power of law and subpoena for the many crimes he is currently committing.
He wouldn’t survive that politically, and he believes the Senate this time will actually convict him: they know that once he’s convicted and has thus lost his power, there’s no way he can regain it and he’ll no longer represent a threat to their political careers.
This is all why he’ll say or do anything to hang onto his power, because he knows if he loses that power his entire house of cards collapses.
He and his children go to prison or are forced into exile. His wife gets to reinvent her life the way she wants. What’s left of his properties gets sold off at auction like his casinos were the last time he went bankrupt.
This is what he’s imagining at 2 o’clock in the morning when he’s rage-tweeting. He’s also remembering the terrifying hours he spent sitting in a courthouse charged with 34 felonies for which he could go to prison.
It’s easy for him to imagine, because it’s exactly what he constantly tries to do to people he thinks have slighted him, from Jim Comey to Letitia James to Adam Schiff and dozens of others: he tries to break them financially while threatening them with long and brutal imprisonment.
He’s done this repeatedly, and his most recent threat to break or jail somebody was issued just last week.
But none of what he’s planning works without a lot of ordinary people saying, “Yes,” and that’s also where we may have a say.
That’s the thing about these operations that gets lost when we talk about them as if they’re just the work of one man, America’s Hitler, to quote JD Vance. It’s never one man who pulls the whole thing off, although it does take a lying psychopath with charisma and some leadership skills to get the process rolling.
Ultimately, though, it can’t work without the National Guard captain who decides the order is lawful enough, the county clerk who hands over the machines because a federal agent showed her a piece of paper, the local cop who puts on the riot gear because his sergeant did, and the poll worker who turns his ballots over to masked ICE agents because it feels safer.
My friends who were there in Germany in 1933 told me, as does history, that that country didn’t fall to a majority; the Nazis never got a legitimate victory at the ballot box.
That nation fell, as others have throughout history, because tens of thousands of people in unremarkable jobs did the small thing that was asked of them in the moment it was asked, and told themselves it was only temporary, and it must be okay because somebody higher up must know something I don’t.
Every one of those people made that decision cold, under pressure, with a stranger in a uniform standing in front of them and about four seconds to think.
Which is why the useful work right now isn’t reactive, and it isn’t something we do in November. It’s finding out, before November, what the people around us are going to do.
— Go meet your county election officials; they’re mostly your neighbors, and in a lot of counties they’re the ones who’ll be standing between a federal agent sent by Trump and a ballot box with nobody backing them up.
— Ask your sheriff, on the record, at a public meeting, whether he takes orders from Washington or from the county.
— Ask your state legislators what the plan is if the National Guard shows up, because most of them probably haven’t thought about it and they damn well should. Ask your governor and state attorney general.
— Find out which lawyers in your town do election work and whether they’re organized. Get to know the people on your block well enough that you can call them at midnight, if necessary.
— Get to know your local elected officials and, in the few months ahead, show up at your local Democratic Party meeting.
People who’ve already decided what they’ll do, and who know that the folks around them decided the same thing, behave completely differently when the moment arrives than people who are trying to figure it out on the spot.
That’s not optimism. It’s just how it’s always worked, in Selma and Kiev and Manila and everywhere else people have looked at an illegal order or an out-of-control authority figure and said, “No.”
What matters most in the next four months is going to happen at the local level, in county commission meetings and election offices that nobody’s watching.
Go be somebody who’s watching.
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Trump's World Cup backfire erased him from the global view of America
That photo from Sunday at the World Cup.
I don’t even need to go any further because you automatically know what I’m talking about.
Spain, world champions, standing on the podium, arms open, ready to hoist the trophy, and Donald Trump planted there with them, soaking up a moment that belonged to somebody else.
FIFA’s president, who has long kissed Trump’s posterior, hurriedly tried to move him out of the way. Physically. At the biggest sporting event on the planet, Trump had to be nudged aside so the actual winners — not a loser like him — could have their time in the sun.
That image is only part of the story of this World Cup.
Go back a few weeks Trump's direct intervention to overturn U.S. soccer star Folarin Balogun's World Cup suspension sparked global backlash, with U.S. Soccer officials criticizing the meddling as a "moral stain" on the game.
The U.S. ended up losing its next game. The world celebrated that loss, crying vindication after a cheating Trump tried to fix it.
But the boos that followed the U.S. team after Trump stuck his nose where it didn’t belong weren't really about the team. They were about him. He cursed America's chances while the world cursed him.
Two moments. Same malevolent man. Same insidious instinct. Get in the middle of something that isn't his, make it about him, and let everyone else suffer in his wake.
But not quite.
I live in the New York City area, and for the last month I've been taking my usual runs along the Hudson River, past the train stops and ferry landings, and the tourist spots. And it has not looked like my city.
It looked like the world. Jerseys and hats from six continents. Flags I had to look up while I was running because I didn’t recognize them. People stopping dead in the middle of the riverwalk because the skyline caught them off guard.
I watched strangers photograph that breathtaking skyline with their breaths taken away. You could see the awe in their eyes. The excitement.
So I stopped a few people for the purpose of writing this column at the conclusion of the World Cup. I asked them where they were from, what they thought of this country, and what they thought of Donald Trump.
The first people I talked to were, coincidentally, a family from Spain. I suppose that should have been a personal harbinger of who would go on to win.
Father, mother, and two teenage sons, their English coming in pieces. They told me New York had been beautiful to them. Strangers at the train station walking them to the right platform. People at their hotel going out of their way. They were all smiling from ear to ear.
I asked about Trump, and the father didn't hesitate. He said, in effect, that Americans aren't like Donald Trump. He said Americans are like the people at the train station and the hotel. That's what he wanted to take home with him.
I met a retired couple from England near the World Trade Center sculpture around the corner from my building on the Hudson. It was right after the U.S. lost to Belgium. They told me, in no uncertain terms, that what Trump did was wrong. He had no business doing it.
They said they felt sorry for the American players, getting hated for something that wasn't their fault.
And then Sunday. That humiliating photo. And the world pounced, again, on the egomaniacal Trump. The neediness of it. The narcissism of a man who cannot let a moment exist unless he's standing in the middle of it. Trump belongs in only one place, Alcatraz, which he wants to upgrade, presumably for his upcoming stay.
But that picture from Sunday. My, oh my. What struck me wasn't the mockery that came from all sides of the globe. Or the unanimity of the condemnation. The whole world just knew, instantly, what it was looking at.
Here's what I’ve been thinking about over the last few days. Maybe it was a strange kind of blessing that this World Cup landed in the U.S. in the middle of Trump's second term.
The world already disliked and mocked him before the tournament started, and sadly, by extension Americans. Now, its worst instincts about him were validated. But that is only one side of the story.
Because the tournament was here, on our sidewalks and subway platforms, on buses and in hotels, all those people didn't just watch America from a distance. They walked through it. Ate in it. Got lost in it and got helped by strangers who didn't ask where they were from before pointing them in the right direction.
They're going home now, to their communities in Spain, England, and to every country whose flag I saw along the Hudson. They're going to tell two true stories at once. They'll talk about the ignoramus who couldn't stay out of a red card review and couldn't stay out of a trophy photo.
And they'll talk about the people of the U.S. they encountered, and how wonderful and helpful they were. And how beautiful our country is.
Trump wanted to be the story of this World Cup, and for two ugly — and brief — moments, he was.
Yet his intrusions can be cropped. He wasn’t top of mind to the Spanish father who's going to tell his sons that Americans aren't like that. And those kids will nod their heads in agreement.
Trump is temporary. He's a stain on two moments in a month-long tournament. What the rest of the world actually experienced here was the goodness, the beauty, the celebration, that will travel home with them, remain with them, and stand the test of time.
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MAGA trolls are spitting mad as bulletproof Dem rises
Over the last six weeks or so, Hunter Biden has emerged as the strongest and most vocal critic of Donald Trump since Gov. Gavin “Studly” Newsom. But instead of using AI to trigger the MAGA cult, Hunter uses “FU,” like a true son of Fightin’ Irish Joe Biden, because he knows his very existence is enough to set them off.
And he couldn’t care less about what they say, because he’s already heard it all, from the not-actually-a-laptop to those thirst trap photos that looked like Herb Ritts took them. Remember when Marjorie Taylor Greene used to bring them to work with her because, like most Republican women, her partner just wasn’t lighting her up the way she needed? I always imagine the staff at the local Kinko’s screaming “Not It!” any time Marge would send her assistant in with yet another thumb drive full of “evidence.”
Anyway, Hunter’s Substack, “Where’s Hunter?”-- cheekily named for the weak MAGA tweets trolling him over his struggles with addiction while they fully ignore the Trump Crime Family — is a treasure trove of truth, showcasing his art and detailing his seven years of sobriety.
In the heart-wrenching entry called “It’s Dad,” Hunter shares the story of the infamous voicemail his father left him, which no one was meant to hear. MAGA mocked Hunter for it because that’s what unloved bullies do.
I don’t believe we’re entitled to know absolutely everything about a public figure’s life, but when that voicemail was released, all I heard, as the mother of sons myself, was his father's love for him. I heard a father’s pain over not knowing how to help his beloved and only surviving son. I understood how much Joe wished his love was enough to protect and save Hunter, because that’s how all loving parents feel. If only our love could be manifested as a protective bubble when we can’t be with our kids.
Hunter also wrote about Lindsey Graham (remember how he died and Trump really didn’t care? Yeah, anyway, back to the garbage fire) better than any Republican did, because once again, a Biden led by example with grace and humility rather than finding a convenient scapegoat to blame everything on.
Everything that happened to Hunter as part of Trump’s political witch hunt happened to a private citizen in our country because the entire Trump Crime Family is threatened by the Biden family's record of being good human beings. Hunter also recognizes Trump’s sick obsession with his family, and the harsh language he uses is merited when he’s talking about what he and his father have dealt with thanks to years of MAGA bullying.
Hunter gave a masterclass in pushing back against Trump in a new and very NSFW interview with journalist and fellow Trump nemesis Jim Acosta this week, and he didn’t hold back one bit when he was asked what he would say if he were sitting across a table from the Orange Menace.
“I’d tell him to go f---- himself,” Hunter replied without hesitation.
And a nation of Democratic women swooned.
“This man has tried to torture me for ... 10 years,” Hunter continued. “The s--t that he says about my dad. His obsession with tormenting my dad. Hanging a picture of an autopen on the colonnade. Demeaning him and all the things he said about him.
“What the f--k kind of man would I be if I didn’t tell him to go f-- himself?”
This Jersey Girl fully approves of that take, as well as all of the other swears Hunter uses when rightfully raging against the adjudicated rapist Epstein Bestie. That’s really how all Democrats should speak about Trump, especially after his multiple losses last week, from his payout to E. Jean Carroll to his pet Todd Blanche tanking his Senate hearings to his shambolic appearance during his Biggest Lie Ever speech on Thursday, which has left Republicans in full disarray.
Amid that rambling nonsense was another targeted threat to anyone who writes or tells any truths about him that he doesn’t like. Hunter Biden has already won in that category as well this week, to the tune of $1.7 million, after emerging victorious in his defamation suit against former Overstock CEO and Trump sycophant Patrick Byrne.
You might recall that farce, but here’s an ICYMI rundown: Three years ago, Hunter sued Byrne (a longtime Trump ally who repeatedly promoted the Big Lie about the 2020 election) over his claims that he had reached out to the Iranian government in 2021, offering to have his father “unfreeze” $8 billion in Iranian funds in exchange for a bribe. It was a major MAGA trolling point, which Trump himself shared on his shell company-funded Truth Social.
Byrne is also named in the Epstein Files, just like Trump and unlike anyone with the last name Biden, which is just another weird coincidence.
What I love most about Hunter Biden’s DGAF attitude is that it’s also my attitude. He tells all of the harsh truths about himself before MAGA can, taking the wind out of their collective bullying sails. He points at everything Republicans are willfully ignoring about Trump and says all of the things elected Democrats can’t — at least, not publicly — lest they risk their proximity to power. But what does Hunter Biden have to lose, after everything he’s been through?
Absolutely nothing.
What can MAGA say about him that hasn’t already been said?
Absolutely nothing.
So what can Democrats learn from Hunter Biden?
Absolutely EVERYTHING.
They might not use the same salty language, but the truth about Trump is still true, no matter how you say it. Facts don’t care if you swear, because Trump is the real profanity, and he doesn’t get to decide what’s true.
Even if he never runs for office, Hunter Biden will be a guiding voice during a dark time, and I hope more people will start listening to him.
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Trump loyalists beware — this death sends a perilous message
Dying doesn’t automatically erase a person’s track record, no matter the circumstances. But you can tell how little the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) truly meant to Donald Trump simply (stressing that “simp” part) based on the “eulogy” the president posted on Truth Social.
Truth Social
Not only did he make Graham’s death all about himself, but he also used a photo that identified him as the “Acting President of Venezuela,” because Trump has to make literally everything about himself — even someone else’s death.
Trump also didn’t waste any time making sure Lindsey’s Senate seat didn’t remain empty for long, especially with his favorite pet, Todd Blanche, being grilled like a cheap Trumpsteak by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Trump’s co-conspirators and paid shills sent out flowery messages of MAGA propaganda that praise Graham for *checks notes* never speaking out against the Dear Leader.
MAGA is also fine with Trump’s fellow war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, not only praising Graham, but returning to the United States to attend Graham’s funeral.
Poor Lindsey’s body was still warm when Republican South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster appointed Graham’s younger sister, Darline, who has precisely zero years of government experience, to serve in that seat until the midterm elections.
Why no, that’s not normal in any way, but when was the last time our lives felt anything like normal? Trump went from zero to president, so why not zero to senator? He needs that vote to secure Blanche as Attorney General, but since Republicans are actually breaking ranks, her vote may not even matter.
Graham’s death has nearly fallen out of the news cycle, replaced by Mitch McConnell’s not-at-all proof-of-life photo op and Trump’s Biggest Lie Ever speech on Thursday night. But the initial response to his sudden demise and an “investigation” by the FBI as a response has set off the online conspiracy theorists, which is just par for the (golf) course when it comes to the way death is handled on social media.
Nobody can just die of natural causes anymore. Graham was said to have been complaining about not feeling well on Saturday night. But he didn’t want to miss his chance to praise Netanyahu yet again on Meet the Press Sunday morning, so he reportedly told staffers he would get medical attention after the interview.
“I can’t die now,” Graham is said to have joked. “I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out, and do Israeli-Saudi normalization.”
The Trump regime’s version of “normalization” is pretty far from normal, but few were willing to point that out when talking about Graham’s death.
Still, there are tactful ways to talk about someone reprehensible that you had to work with, for example, as former President Joe Biden did.
Leave it to Joe Cool to always set the standard for keeping it classy. A lot of Democrats did a lot of tightrope walking with this one, calling Graham “their friend” that they “often disagreed” with. Nobody with proximity to power wants to lose that proximity, as Charlotte Clymer sharply pointed out on Facebook on Wednesday.
As for me, I shared the same three screenshots of Graham that have been living on my phone for as long as Lindsey has been compromised.
There was a time when Lindsey Graham told the truth about Trump, but then he got an invitation to play golf that he definitely should’ve turned down, because he sealed his legacy on a putting green.
The official cause of death was “Myocardial infarction related to heart disease,” and self-recrimination for 10 years is hell on the ticker. Self-hate sure does rot you from the inside out.
I’m not sorry for any of the energy I spent criticizing everything about Lindsey “Friend of Israel” Graham, from his hawkish tactics to always voting against the LGBTQ community. Anyone who tweeted anything less than a glowing post about “Leningrad” Lindsey Graham got the full clutched-pearl version of MAGA, who took projection language to another level whenever they talked about the way we were talking about him.
It’s ridiculous for them to keep pushing multiple false narratives at once, because they can’t keep up, but the notion that death makes someone a saint really doesn’t work when their Dear Leader sets this kind of an example.
Telling the truth about our elected officials, both living and no longer living, will remain an act of resistance until Democrats are back in power, especially when the GOP refuses to ever acknowledge the truth about Graham, Trump, the Epstein Files, or anything else.
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