Lesley Abravanel, Alternet

In a time of deep partisan divisions, Thursday's memorial service for former Vice President Dick Cheney will be revealing — not for who does show up, but for who does not, reports Peter Baker in The New York Times.

Cheney, who died earlier in November at the age of 84, was the architect of America's "aggressive response to terrorism" after September 11, 2001, and then "championed the invasion of Iraq, making him a hero to Republicans and a villain to many Democrats who thought he went too far," Baker writes.

But it was Cheney's late-in-life decision to join his daughter and former Wyoming Republican representative Liz Cheney in speaking out and eventually voting against President Donald Trump that "left him isolated from his own party and re-examined by some of his most vocal critics."

Former president George W. Bush, under whom Cheney served as VP, will deliver the eulogy at Thursday's service at the Washington National Cathedral, and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who "assailed Mr. Cheney in a successful campaign to succeed him, will attend to honor his predecessor," Baker writes.

"So will former House Speakers John A. Boehner, a reliable Republican ally during the Bush-Cheney years, and Nancy Pelosi, a staunch Democratic adversary at the time," he adds.

Also expected to be in attendance: former Vice President Kamala Harris, a year after "Mr. Cheney stunned many Americans by announcing that he would vote for her against Mr. Trump," Baker writes.

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said, adding that because of Trump's “lies and violence,” he could “never be trusted with power again.”

“We have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris," Cheney said.

Three other former vice presidents will be on hand as well: Al Gore, a Democrat, and Mike Pence and Dan Quayle, both Republicans.

Conspicuously left off the list: Trump, which, Baker notes, "is hardly a surprise." Vice President JD Vance, however, was invited, but hasn't said if he would attend even though it's custom for the sitting VP to "honor the service of someone who once held the same office," Baker notes.

"Trump ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff after Mr. Cheney’s death, as required by law, but issued no statement and has refrained from commenting publicly," Baker says.

Other Trump administration officials are also staying away, as are those "incumbent Republican members of Congress who still want a political future may stay away as well, out of fear of angering Mr. Trump, who considers Ms. Cheney one of his chief nemeses," Baker writes.

"Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are not planning to attend, although both released respectful statements after Mr. Cheney’s death praising his service and patriotism," Baker notes.

Following Cheney's endorsement of Harris, Trump lashed out on social media, calling him “an irrelevant RINO,” meaning Republican in Name Only. “He’s the King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars, wasting Lives and Trillions of Dollars, just like Comrade Kamala Harris."

A leading physician says that President Donald Trump's claims of ignorance when it comes to his recent MRI scan is "nonsensical," insisting the president absolutely knows why his doctors had him take the test, according to The Daily Beast.

Dr. Vin Gupta, a medical analyst for NBC News and former Chief Medical Officer at Amazon, tells the MeidasTouch Podcast, "You know when you get an MRI what part of your body is going into the very narrow part of that MRI scanner because you hear it. You have to be in there for, you know, anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes."

Trump confirmed in late October that he underwent an MRI scan as part of a recent physical examination, claiming the results were "perfect." But when asked about why he took the scan, he claimed ignorance.

"I have no idea what they analyzed, but whatever they analyzed, they analyzed it well," Trump said when asked by a reporter if the MRI was on his brain. "And they said that I had as good a result as they've ever seen."

Dr. Gupta says he doesn't buy it.

"The notion that he doesn’t know what got scanned is nonsensical because he’s hearing the magnet beat, and it’s for minutes,” Gupta says. “It’s not for seconds, so he definitely knows what got scanned.”

The doctor also says that "medical professionals very seldom order MRIs as part of a routine physical check-up because the scans tend to throw up 'a lot of false positives,'" The Daily Beast explains.

“It’s actually a terrible screening tool,” the doctor explained. “The fact that his team is saying, ‘Hey, he got this MRI. It’s part of an executive physical, part of his routine physical,’ is utter nonsense. That’s not a part of a routine physical exam.”

As for what is actually going on with Trump's health, Dr. Gupta can only offer an educated guess.

“Is there something happening in the brain? Is the vasculature of the brain not getting enough blood to the brain? Who knows? Did he have stroke burden?” Gupta asks.

"I’ve seen the same videos as you, just of his functional status looking, at times, pretty unstable. If there’s early detection of something, that would make sense: that he is high-risk for something, or they already know he has a condition, maybe a neurologic issue, and they’re monitoring it. That would make complete sense," he says.

Two months after the assassination of MAGA podcaster Charlie Kirk, over 600 people have been targeted by the government with firings, suspensions, investigations and other actions, Reuters reports.

Educators, they note, are the main target, noting that "more than 350 education workers were fired, suspended or investigated in the days following the assassination, including 50 academics and senior university administrators, three high school principals, two cheerleading coaches and a theology instructor."

Reuters reports that "Republican officials publicly threatened to deprive universities and schools of taxpayer funds unless specific critics of Kirk were fired."

One of those people, Lauren Vaughn, a kindergarten assistant in South Carolina, was fired from her job after posting a Kirk quote defending the Second Amendment on social media followed by the now ubiquitous liberal rallying cry for gun control, "thoughts and prayers."

According to a Reuters review of court records, public statements, local media reports and interviews with two dozen people who were fired or otherwise disciplined, Vaughn "was one of more than 600 Americans fired, suspended, placed under investigation or disciplined by employers for comments about Kirk’s September 10 assassination."

At least 15 people were punished for "allegedly invoking 'karma' or 'divine justice,'" they note, "and at least nine others were disciplined for variations on 'good riddance.'"

"Other offending posts appeared to exult in the killing or express hope that other Republican figures would be next," they add.

But others like Vaughn were disciplined for simply criticizing Kirk's politics, they note.

"This account is the most comprehensive to date of the backlash against Kirk’s critics, tracing how senior officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, local Republican lawmakers and allied influencers mobilized to enforce the Trump movement’s views," Reuters explains.

"The story maps the pro-Trump machinery of retaliation now reshaping American political life, detailing its scale and tactics, ranging from shaming on social media to public pressure on employers and threats to defund institutions," they add.

While Reuters notes that "Americans sometimes lose their jobs after speaking out in heated political moments," the post-Kirk situation was different "because of its reach and its public backing from Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other top government officials."

"It represents a striking about-face for Republicans, who for years castigated the left for what they called 'cancel culture' – the ostracism or punishment of those whose views were deemed unacceptable," they add.

Vaughn is challenging her dismissal in a federal lawsuit filed September 18, seeking reinstatement, they write, but the school district maintains that her post “appeared to endorse Mr. Kirk’s murder or indicate that it was ‘worth’ him losing his life to protect Americans’ constitutional rights.”

Like Vaughn, Julie Strebe, a sheriff’s deputy in Salem, Missouri, lost her job after posting comments on Facebook about the shooting, including, “Empathy is not owed to oppressors.'

"She said her bosses were besieged with calls for her dismissal and that, at one point, a hand-drawn sign appeared across from her home reading, 'Julie Strebe Supports the Assassination of Charles Kirk,'" and has since had to install five surveillance cameras at her house to protect herself.

Reuters notes that "many Republican officials have embraced the punitive campaign," proposing "extraordinary measures," from lifetime social media bans to revoking visas over those they deem to have reveled in Kirk's death.

"Some academics compared the backlash to the 'Red Scare,' the anti-Communist purge that peaked in the 1950s, when officials, labor leaders and Hollywood figures were accused of Communist ties," Reuters notes.

Landon Storrs, a University of Iowa history professor, agrees, saying, "there are very disturbing parallels."

Even Trump loyalist Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) says it has gone too far, warning on his podcast that letting government decide “what speech we like and what we don’t” sets a dangerous precedent. Silencing voices like Jimmy Kimmel's might feel good, he said, but “when it’s used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.”

Far right social media influencers like the X account Libs of TikTok started the revenge campaign almost immediately following Kirk's death, Reuters says.

"In the week after the shooting, Libs of TikTok shared the names and profiles of at least 134 people accused of celebrating violence or mocking Kirk’s memory, frequently tagging Trump administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. At times, the influencer posted disciplinary actions taken against specific government employees," they write.

The people Reuters has identified may not be accurate, they say, noting that "the tally of more than 600 people punished for criticizing Kirk is likely an undercount. Many companies and government organizations haven’t publicly disclosed terminations or suspensions."

The fallout has led to many peoples' silence, they report, saying, "The retaliation has silenced many voices. Scores of people who posted anti-Kirk comments have since scrubbed or locked their accounts, Reuters found. Others said in interviews that they are pushing back."

One of those, Kimberly Hunt, an HR worker in Arizona who was fired for her Kirk comments, is doing just that.

Hunt says she has raised more than $88,000 from a GoFundMe campaign titled, “Doxxed, Fired, but Not Silenced," saying she wants to use the money to further her education, become a content creator, and keep calling out people like Kirk.

“It’s definitely just emboldened me,” she says.

Not so for Florida Atlantic University associate professor Karen Leader, who was placed on administrative leave for her comments after a former staffer of Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) shared screenshots of her posts and tagged her employer.

“Whether my career is over or not, I don’t know,” Leader says. “But my life has changed.”

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has referred former Jack Smith prosecutor Thomas Windom to Attorney General Pam Bondi for criminal investigation, reports MSNOW.

The House Judiciary Committee has formally accused Windom, a former senior assistant special counsel to Smith, of obstructing a congressional investigation by declining to answer questions, and has referred him to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 1505.

Jordan has been actively scrutinizing Smith and his team's handling of the prosecutions against President Donald Trump, demanding testimony and documents, and referring a former aide for criminal prosecution for allegedly obstructing a congressional investigation.

"I think it's very serious in what it signals about this administration's willingness to go after people associated with Jack Smith's investigation," says MSNOW senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin.

"Tom Windom, who's the subject of today's referral, was really the public face of the federal election interference case brought against President Trump in D.C. He was the lead prosecutor that you saw in court every day, and they're accusing him of obstructing a congressional investigation by claiming privilege and otherwise not being responsive to their questions," Rubin continues.

"The idea that he could be prosecuted for that when he is really trying to protect himself and the prerogatives of the special counsel's office is really flabbergasting to me," she adds.

MSNOW legal analyst Catherine Christian agrees, saying, "I agree. It's part of the retribution agenda."

The FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are struggling to quash conspiracies that their current leaders used to espouse, according to a Tuesday report in CNN.

The first of these involves the ongoing saga surrounding deceased child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, whose recently published emails link President Donald Trump directly to him.

When FBI Director Kash Patel attempted to tout what he thought was a major win for the administration on drug crackdowns last week, he was overshadowed by Epstein.

"For Patel and other FBI and Justice officials, the first 10 months in office have featured a series of headaches, with theories once peddled by the president’s loyal supporters-turned-government officials getting in the way of their new priorities," CNN reports.

In 2023, Patel told far-right podcaster Benny Johnson the reason the files were not released was "Simple, because of who’s on that list."

In the months since Attorney General Pam Bondi said there was no Epstein list, "Bondi, Patel, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, and other Trump administration officials have sought to close the books on Epstein — only to be confronted by the reality that the conspiracies they fueled won’t allow them to," CNN says.

Patel has only made things worse, they write, noting that "as director, Patel has told Congress the FBI went through all investigative materials related to Epstein and found no evidence of a grand conspiracy of Epstein trafficking women to the wealthy and elite despite his previous support of the idea."

In June, Patel told podcaster Joe Rogan that “we’re not gonna re-victimize women. We’re not going to put that s—— back out there. It’s not happening, because he wins … You want to hate me for it, fine.”

Bongino also fanned the conspiracy flames on his own podcast in May, 2024, when he said, “What the hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein?”

Another conspiracy theory that has been resurrected to the annoyance of Justice Department officials is the one involving the identity of the person who planted pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee offices the night before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

Weeks before he took his position in the second Trump administration, Bongino said on his podcast, “Folks, this guy was an insider. This was an inside job. And it is the biggest scandal in FBI history," and on Saturday, right-wing media outlet The Blaze thought for sure they had the suspect until their theory was quickly debunked.

"Soon, the FBI and Bongino himself were forced to defend the agency from the same type of allegations the deputy director had once made," CNN writes.

This has angered the MAGA base, including former FBI agent and right-wing podcast host Kyle Seraphin, who angrily posted on X Sunday following Patel’s claims on Fox News that the FBI was thoroughly investigating the pipe bombs, saying, "You can actually hear the shovel hitting the b——, right? Is it just me?”

To counter this frustration, the FBI created a new social media account on Wednesday called the “FBI Rapid Response", CNN reports.

"The stated goal of the account: Combating 'lies, smears and falsehoods from the fake news and others seeking to undermine our work and national security.'"

That account has struggled to do just that, CNN says, attempting in its second post to defend the FBI against "claims it had lied, this time from right-wing media star Tucker Carlson, who claimed the FBI had lied about Donald Trump’s would-be assassins’ online presence."

“This FBI has never said Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever,” the FBI posted about the man who shot Trump at a rally last summer and killed an attendee.

Patel sent out his own post following that one, saying, "The investigation, conducted by over 480 FBI employees, revealed Crooks had limited online and in person interactions, planned and conducted the attack alone, and did not leak or share his intent to engage in the attack with anyone."

CNN also notes how Patel used to rail against the so-called 'deep state' and is now being mocked for becoming part of it, in the wake of recent firings in the bureau.

"In recent days, FBI agents have been sharing with each other an AI generated music video that pokes fun at Patel for 'hiding all the Epstein files,' among other public missteps by the director, sources inside the agency told CNN."

Although President Donald Trump has previously floated Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as his heirs apparent in 2028, that plan is under threat as new Republicans mull a 2028 run, Newsweek reports.

Recent cracks in the MAGA base over the release of the files pertaining to late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and support of far-right influencer Nick Fuentes, among other things, may make it "difficult for Trump to rally his supporters around whoever he favors," Newsweek explains.

And while Trump has previously floated the unconstitutional idea of running for a third term, that notion has been dismissed, and instead, he is "likely to attempt to cement his influence on U.S. politics by choosing a successor, and whoever follows him will be responsible for guiding the Republican Party through future elections and continuing MAGA policies and the president's legacy," Newsweek says.

A most recent poll by Polymarket shows Vance has a 56 percent chance of becoming the Republican nominee in 2028, while Rubio is a distant second, with an 8 percent chance. But now that others may enter the field, that could change.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a former Trump loyalist turned foil, has dismissed rumors she will seek the presidency despite a most recent poll showing her chances improving.

Her odds, Newsweek reports, have increased from 2.7 percent in August to 4 percent in November, according to Polymarket.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has emerged as a vocal critic of Tucker Carlson, is also reportedly weighing a run, despite poor early polling in which he currently has 4 percent support, trailing Vance who polls at 42 percent according to a separate YouGov poll.

In that same poll, Trump's eldest son Donald Trump Jr., came in distant second at 13 percent. Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, whose 2024 presidential campaign was eviscerated by Trump, sits at 7 percent and Rubio is narrowly ahead of Cruz at 5 percent.

Calvin Jillson, a politics professor at Southern Methodist University in Texas tells Newsweek that Vance is still poised to be the frontrunner.

"The 2028 presidential race, with no incumbent in the fight, will likely draw at least a dozen contenders, maybe many more on the Democrat side. Though things could change in the coming months, Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, is a strong favorite for the Republican nomination" Jillson says.

"Rubio, Cruz, maybe Tucker Carlson, will wrestle him for it, but the question for Vance and Rubio is how they can stay close enough to Trump to win the nomination without staying so close that Trump’s baggage becomes theirs in the general election," he adds.

Vance's path to the nomination may not be smooth, though, Jillson says, adding that "only if the Trump administration founders will Cruz and Carlson become relevant. But if it happens, expect a cage match, as Trump might say, ‘like no one has ever seen before.'"

A casualty of the MAGA civil war that has erupted over neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes and former Fox News fixture Tucker Carlson is an unlikely victim—Vice President JD Vance—who has been 'shivved' by President Donald Trump, according to Greg Sargent on The New Republic's Daily Blast podcast.

Sargent says that as Vance has his eyes on taking the reins of MAGA in a post-Trump world and poll numbers point to the veep as the likely heir, it's not a lock, and the president may not be helping him secure that lock either.

"It occurs to me that Trump really, whether intentionally or not, shivved Vance in the back in a way here," Sargent says. "So Vance has an Indian American wife. He’s gonna want a free hand to do his anti-immigrant appeals while also presenting himself as non-bigoted."

Vance, Sargent says, has to straddle a very difficult line.

"Vance wants to get away with what you might call a soft or veiled white nationalism," he says, adding that "Fuentes actually mocks Vance and makes racist comments about his wife. He makes the white nationalism extremely explicit."

Sargent says he believes "Vance would have preferred it if Trump sidelined Fuentes, but Trump basically dumped Fuentes on Vance to have to deal with later."

Vox's Zack Beauchamp says that Trump hasn't been that interested in his succession.

"I’ve got a personal theory that Trump has mostly checked out of the succession fight at this particular moment in time. There’s a lot going on with him, a lot of things to wrangle," he says.

"And the question of, like, how to deal with someone like Nick Fuentes is just not at the top of his agenda. He’s just answering it the way he would any other question. I don’t know him. I’m not involved in this, I don’t know, Tucker’s business is Tucker’s business." he adds.

Fuentes aside, Beauchamp says that Trump's apparent disinterest in his succession puts Vance in a precarious place.

"That abdication, though, does put Vance in this position because he wants to—as you say, it’s very clear—be the Republican standard bearer in 2028. He wants to create a sort of very ideological version of MAGA."

But Vance, Beauchamp says, "is trying to turn it into a disciplined ideological cadre. But then you have to answer questions, right? Questions: if you really stand for something, what do you do about this guy who’s gaining popularity? Who hates you, right? Who will demean you in the grossest of possible terms—and your family—and you’re supposed to have honor, and you’re supposed to stand there and say, look, I can be a leader, and you’re gonna let this guy take pot shots and be a platform by your friend, like Carlson."

Vance has a connection to Carlson, he adds, saying, "And Vance and Carlson are friends. But, like, Carlson pushed very hard to get Vance nominated and was reportedly instrumental in securing that role."

That friendship, Beauchamp says, makes Vance's role in this MAGA civil war awkward.

"Vance doesn’t want to condemn Tucker because he sees him as an essential ally going forward for the nomination," he says. "And if he goes too hard on Fuentes, that can be seen as going after Carlson. So he’s stuck."

Beauchamp says if he could, Vance would probably like to kick Fuentes out of "the coalition," and the veep's silence "is de facto an endorsement of what Tucker is doing."

"And that’s where he’s stuck at this moment. And that’s bad for him. That’s not where he wants to be in a world where he’s trying to sort of consolidate across the conservative movement core support ahead of people who are going to try to outflank him on the we-don’t-like-Nazis side, which is still popular even among some mainstream conservatives who have MAGAfied themselves," Beauchamp says.

For now, Vance is "trying to ride it out," Beauchamp says.

"Vance is in a position where his own allies are at risk if he shoots at Fuentes. So my guess is he wants to take that shot but wants to do it at a better time. Not right now, because right now in doing so he’d be stabbing people who he’s close to personally, and who he needs politically, in the back," he adds.

As experts and internet sleuths worked to dissect and decipher the explosive emails released last week by the U.S. House Oversight Committee from estate of deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein referencing President Donald Trump, the White House, reports The Poke, was working hard to change the narrative.

"Although the claims in the emails remain unsubstantiated, and Donald Trump maintains he had no knowledge of or involvement in Epstein’s sex-trafficking or abuse, his messages paint the president in a very bad light," they write.

"One exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and his brother, Mark, particularly grabbed the attention of the internet," they explain, referring to an email that went viral referring to Trump performing a sex act on someone named "Bubba," which sent the internet into a frenzy of speculation, with many assuming it meant former President Bill Clinton, whose nickname is, indeed, Bubba.

And while Epstein's brother quashed that rumor Sunday, saying it was not in reference to Clinton, the White House social media staff went into damage control mode, hyping the love story between Trump and First Lady Melania instead.

"With all the subtlety of a bulldozer crashing into the East Wing, the White House went straight to damage-limitation mode with this display of the world’s most unpopular – and unconvincing – lovebirds," The Poke writes.

The official White House X account posted a picture of the couple with the lyrics, "I can't help falling in love with you," and, The Poke says, "In case anyone hadn’t got the message …they had a back-up photo"—a picture of them holding hands with the caption, America's power couple."

Despite that, the message got through indeed, but it failed miserably, The Poke notes.

"As calming measures go, it was a complete failure. The guffaws could be heard on both sides of the Atlantic," they write.

"Nothing says soulmates like air kissing your spouse as if he’s the senile drunk uncle you have to put up with every Thanksgiving," posted liberal influencer Jo Jo From Jerz on X.

Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) used no words in his post on X, instead reposting the 'power couple' post with a picture of Trump and Epstein.

Missouri Democratic congressional candidate Fred Wellman posted on X, "Hahahahaha. You can actually smell the flop sweat from that building here in Missouri. Tick tock."

Author and activist Brooklyn Dad Defiant wrote on X, "LMAO, you clowns are ridiculous. You think everybody has a room temperature IQ, and that nobody has paid attention to the fact that Melania can't stand to be touched by the guy. That she doesn't even live with him. She designed a hat so that his lips couldn't reach her face. The guy almost never posts Happy Birthday or Happy Anniversary to her. Biggest sham marriage ever. But sure, you post a sappy tweet because trump is implicated in the Epstein files, and you're trying to disassociate the image of him with LITTLE GIRLS."

President Donald Trump lashed out at reporters Sunday night after they questioned him on two sensitive issues—release of the files on late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson's interview with neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, HuffPost reports.

Trump "raged against reporters during a media Q&A as he arrived back in the Washington area after a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida," they report.

The president got triggered after being questioned about the comments by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who called Trump's sudden demand for an investigation into Democrats associated with Epstein "a smokescreen" to prevent the release of new documents, HuffPost explains.

“Well, I don’t want to talk about it because fake news like you, you’re a terrible reporter, and fake news like you they just keep bringing that up to deflect from the tremendous success of the Trump administration,” he said.

A few minutes later, Trump "lashed out again," when asked by a reporter about Carlson's "friendly interview" with antisemite Fuentes.

"What role do you think Tucker Carlson could play in the Republican Party and the conservative movement going forward?” the reporter asked.

"Trump praised Carlson for saying “good things” about him and bragged about how many page views his interview with Carlson received. That’s when someone ― perhaps the same reporter who had asked about Epstein ― interrupted with a follow-up question about Fuentes," HuffPost writes.

Trump, who immediately cut the reporter off, saying, "Will you let me finish my statement? You are the worst. You’re with Bloomberg, right? You are the worst. I don’t even know why they have you.”

He then continued, saying, "You can’t tell him who to interview. If he wants to interview Nick Fuentes ― I don’t know much about him ― but if he wants to do it, get the word out. Let ’em, y’know, people have to decide, ultimately people have to decide.”

Trump had dinner with Fuentes at Mar a Lago in 2022 with Kanye West and later claimed he had no idea who Fuentes was.

Policy expert and journalist William S. Becker writes in The Hill that the Supreme Court made a "horrendous mistake" giving President Donald Trump absolute power and says the court's conservative majority must correct this error.

"Their decision in Trump v. United States was naïve at best," Becker writes. "More likely, the court bought into the right wing’s confusion about the difference between a unitary president and a dictator."

The 6-3 2004 ruling said that a former President is entitled to a tiered immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in office.

Becker says "the ruling put the Constitution and the rule of law into the hands of a president who willfully abuses both," adding that it was "an especially reckless act when President Trump was seeking the presidency again."

"A serial scofflaw and a 34-count convicted felon, he was clearly running for office to escape trials and jail time for dozens of additional alleged crimes. Trump ran on a platform of personal retribution rather than public service," Becker adds.

Trump, he writes, wasted little time proving how egregious an error the Supreme Court made, as "under the cloak of presumptive immunity, Trump has become the most thoroughly corrupt president and imminent threat to democracy in American history."

Trump has "turned the justice system on its head," for ten "tumultuous months," Becker says, putting his friends and donors above the law while ordering "malicious prosecutions" against his perceived enemies.

Trump's pardoning of at least 1,500 people associated with the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol whom Trump referred to as "patriots," included, according to NPR, dozens who had prior convictions or pending charges, "ranging from rape, sexual abuse of a minor, domestic violence, manslaughter, production of sexual abuse materials involving children, and drug trafficking."

At least 5 Jan. 6 defendants, Becker notes, faced new charges including murder and possession of child pornography.

"Trump has normalized what is being called the 'insider pardon'," Becker says, pointing to his recent pardon of a crypto-billionaire connected to Trump's sons' firm.

"Ordinary citizens are also victims of Trump’s vindictiveness," he writes, noting that Trump "was accused of denying disaster assistance to three blue states while granting it to three red states."

Fact-checking website Snopes concluded that Trump “has approved many more major disaster declarations for red states than blue ones during his second term.”

White House budget director Russ Vought 's announcement that the administration was cancelling nearly $8 billion in funding for clean energy projects in 16 states that didn’t vote for Trump, is another example of this vindictiveness, Becker writes.

As the New York Times reported, “The cuts underscored the administration’s strategy of putting pressure on Democrats to accept a Republican budget bill and reopen the government.”

As for the Supreme Court's rationale in handing Trump all this unfettered power, Becker notes that Chief Justice John Roberts argued that a president must be able to “carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution” and take “bold and unhesitating action.”

But, "are lawlessness, extortion and corruption disguised as 'official acts' what Roberts had in mind?" Becker wonders, adding that in her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor "accurately described the court’s 6-3 ruling" as “a loaded weapon for any president that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain above the interests of the nation.”

Becker says that "history will not be kind to the Roberts court, nor should it be."

"It has failed as the republic’s last line of defense against despots. Worse, it handed the tools of autocracy to a man with criminal proclivities and no moral compass. The Supreme Court should admit its error and restore the principle that no one, not even the president, is exempt from the rule of law," he says.

Jay Clayton, Attorney General Pam Bondi's most recent appointment to investigate Democrats involved with late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after President Donald Trump's sudden reversal, has been chosen for what The New Republic's Michael Tomasky says is a "political task that has nothing whatever to do with justice."

Clayton, a corporate lawyer who is "mostly a high finance guy," Tomasky notes, chaired the Security and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term.

"One thing that impressed me, and that was at odds with the standard Trumpian flouting of rules of any kind governing the behavior of appointees and their families, is that his wife, a Goldman Sachs official, resigned her position when he took the job," Tomasky notes.

"What? People in the Trump solar system acting ethically of their own volition? Hard to imagine how Trump tolerated that," he adds.

However, Clayton has "no prosecutorial experience at all" Tomasky writes.

When Trump named Clayton to run the Southern District of New York earlier this year, Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blocked his nomination, but Trump appointed him on an interim basis for 120 days. After that the federal court for the district decides whether his appointment should go forward, and Manhattan's federal judges gave him the green light.

Clayton has been quiet in that position, Tomasky writes, saying "critics noted that when Bondi fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of James Comey who had overseen the prosecutions of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Clayton said nary a word."

"The Aaron Sorkin-movie version of Clayton would have told Bondi to stuff it Saturday and resigned—I do not hold this public trust to go on politically motivated fishing expeditions. But that’s not real life, especially in Trumpworld," Tomasky writes.

It would be "brave" if Clayton comes back and says there's no evidentiary basis to indict his targets—former Democratic President Bill Clinton, Democratic presidential adviser Larry Summers, and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, but if he does bring indictments, Tomasky says, there are only two plausible reasons.

"One might that there’s actually evidence sufficient to an indictment. In which case, let justice be done. But in Donald Trump’s, and Pam Bondi’s, America, we would be quite justified in suspecting a second explanation: That Clayton did what he was ordered by the White House to do," he writes.

"The Trump era is a time of learning what people are made of. I’m guessing that in six months’ time, we’ll know a lot more about Jay Clayton than we know today," he adds.

Prices have risen so high at fast food landmark McDonald's under President Donald Trump's leadership that " traffic from one of its core customer bases, low-income households, has dropped by double digits," reports the LA Times.

"The struggle of the Golden Arches — long synonymous with cheap food for the masses — reflects a larger trend upending the consumer economy and making 'affordability' a hot policy topic," writes Suhauna Hussein.

Executives of the fast-food chain say "the higher costs of restaurant essentials, such as beef and salaries, have pushed food prices up and driven away lower-income customers who are already being squeezed by the rising cost of groceries, clothes, rent and child care."

Analyst Adam Josephson says that prices are rising everywhere—especially at McDonald's.

"Happy Meals at McDonald’s are prohibitively expensive for some people, because there’s been so much inflation,” Josephson says.

Josephson and other economists point to Trump's K-shaped economy as the reason for shrinking traffic of low-income consumers.

Meanwhile, all is well for companies catering to higher-income consumers, like Delta Airlines, where data shows that while their main cabin revenue fell 5 percent for the June quarter compared to a year ago, premium ticket sales rose 5 percent, "highlighting the divide between affluent customers and those forced to be more economical," Hussein writes.

The same is happening with luxury brand hotels, where "revenue at brands including Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis is up 2.9 percent so far this year, while economy hotels saw a 3.1 percent decline for the same period, according to industry tracker CoStar."

“There are examples everywhere you look,” Josephson says.

Consumer credit delinquency rates, Hussein explains, show how badly low-income households are suffering under Trump.

"Households making less than $45,000 annually are seeing 'huge year-over-year increases,' even as delinquency rates for high- and middle-income households have flattened and stabilized," says Rikard Bandebo, chief strategy officer and chief economist at VantageScore.

As rents have increased, the amount families have left over after paying for housing and utilities has fallen to record lows, Hussein notes.

“It’s getting tougher and tougher every month for low-income households to make ends meet,” Bandebo says.

Prices at fast-food restaurants are skyrocketing, too, up 3.2 percent year over year, at a rate higher than inflation “and that’s climbing” according to Marisa DiNatale, an economist at Moody’s Analytics.

“It has always been the case that more well-off people have done better. But a lot of the economic and policy headwinds are disproportionately affecting lower-income households, and [McDonald’s losing low-income customers] is a reflection of that,” DiNatale says.

McDonald's has previously offered budget meals, and tried doing so last year, with a $5 deal for a McDouble or McChicken sandwich, small fries, small soft drink and four-piece McNuggets.

In January it offered a $1 menu item alongside an item bought for full price, and launched Extra Value Meals in early September, but, Hussein writes, it didn't "immediately cut through to customers."

DiNatale says companies are weary of passing along higher costs to customers, saying, "A lot of businesses are saying, we just don’t think consumers will stand for this. [Consumers] have been through years of higher prices, and there’s just very little tolerance for higher prices going forward.

Bill Pulte, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), seems to get along very well with President Donald Trump and that, reports The Daily Beast, is rattling MAGA Republican feathers.

Pulte, writes Will Neal, "has reportedly made such a song and dance of pandering to the president that it’s starting to drive other aides insane."

Pulte's stunts, he writes, "using 'Ghostbusters'-themed posters as props in exchanges" with Trump, his habit of publicly bashing Trump opponents, and his emulating of the president's propensity to go off on "bizarre tangents during meetings with others," has led insiders to refer to him as "Little Trump."

Pulte made headlines most recently when he floated the idea of the federal government backing a 50-year loan program to address housing affordability.

When news broke that a team of ethics and investigations watchdogs had been fired at Fannie Mae, a government enterprise that helps keep the U.S. housing market stable, it was reported that investigators were "probing whether Pulte had improperly obtained sensitive mortgage data on key MAGA enemies, including New York Attorney General Letitia James," Neal explains.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Pulte has done all he can to please Trump, including making a donation of "several hundreds of thousands of dollars to the MAGA cause both ahead of last year’s presidential election and in previous election cycles," Neal writes.

Pulte was also seen supping with former Trump adviser Roger Stone late last year, and, Neal writes, "Pulte’s also been making an effort to get in Donald Trump Jr’s good graces."

Neal notes that there are reports that Pulte's MAGA opponents are "gathering something of a dossier" on his "perceived missteps in office," and "officials have told staffers to keep an eye out for Pulte and ensure he doesn’t approach Trump unattended."

Pulte isn't making many MAGA friends, Neal notes, pointing to the time he also got into a "tangle" with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a recent dinner, where, according to Politico, he said he "heard Pulte was badmouthing him to the president behind his back, and became so angry he threatened to punch Pulte 'in the f—— face'."

Despite President Donald Trump's message of affordability resonating with working class Americans in 2024, that pattern is shifting as "diverging fortunes for wealthy and poor Americans" "has tanked confidence in the economy—and the president who promised to solve the affordability crisis in the U.S.," writes Sasha Rogelberg in Fortune.

"While a wave of working-class voters flooded the Republican party ahead of the 2024 presidential election, that same group sent a loud message in the early November off-year elections, electing Democrats in every single race in which they were running," Rogelberg writes.

Economists, she notes, say that all Trump has done thus far is made the rich richer and the poor poorer.

"Apollo chief economist Trosten Slok noted wage growth for the lowest-income Americans plummeted to its lowest in about a decade, while wage growth for the highest-income group surpassed all other income levels, citing data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta," she notes.

The housing market, she says, has become "frozen," because "it’s simply unaffordable to sell your house and buy another one with mortgage rates above 6 percent."

The Amherst Group CEO Sean Dobson says that “We’ve probably made housing unaffordable for a whole generation of Americans."

Much of these indicators, Rogelberg says, can be traced directly to Trump, according to Pantheon Macroeconomics analysts Samuel Tombs and Oliver Allen.

“Data show wage growth has slowed more in the trade and transportation sector, and to a lower level, than any other major sector since the end of last year. Fears workers would be able to secure larger wage increases in response to the tariffs look highly unlikely to be realized,” the analysts write.

Under Trump, the economy is what Peter Atwater, adjunct professor of economics at William & Mary, calls K-shaped, in which different sectors or groups experience wildly different outcomes, like the two diverging arms of a "K".

“What we have today is a small group of individuals who feel intense certainty paired with relentless power control—and on the other, it is a sea of despair,” Atwater tells Fortune. “And that’s the piece that never gets talked about.”

Robert Armstrong agrees with Atwater in his Financial Times column in which he writes, “It could be that after five years of going nowhere, households in the bottom half of the wealth and income distributions have started to anticipate a bleaker future and are changing their spending habits accordingly."

Rogelberg says that "nose-diving confidence in the U.S. economy is reflected in the attitudes of Republicans and independents who voted for Trump."

According to a national NBC news poll, about 30 percent of Republicans believe Trump has fallen short of their expectations regarding the economy.

Two-thirds of independents blamed Trump for increasing inflation, per an ABC News/Washington Poll poll, and CNN polling data shows Trump’s approval rating has reached its lowest level since he took office the second time.

Peter Loge, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, who served as senior advisor to the FDA commissioner under President Barack Obama says that Trump's abysmal economy is a clarion call for change.

"People want to know that they can afford a medical bill if they get sick, their kids will have a better future than they do, or have a chance of a better future. And if voters feel like things aren’t working, they fire their politicians in charge to hire new ones," Loge says.

"Voters are pretty well saying, ‘We don’t think whatever the Republicans are doing is making stuff less expensive. We need life to be more affordable and less chaotic. It’s pretty unavoidably chaotic. Now we’re going to bring in new people to try a new thing,’” Loge adds.

Indian Americans are increasingly finding themselves the targets of racism by far-right Christian nationalists, and those who identify as MAGA Indian Americans who work in President Donald Trump's administration aren't immune to the vitriol, reports Harmeet Kaur in Newsweek.

When FBI director Kash Patel wished his followers on X a Happy Diwali—a holiday celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and some Buddhists across the world—"far-right Christian nationalist and white nationalist accounts flooded his post with bigoted memes and rhetoric," Kaur writes.

"Similar hostility followed Diwali greetings on X from former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, as well as posts about the holiday from the White House, the State Department, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders," Kaur notes.

Some Indian Conservatives, she writes, are shocked by these reactions, including one who is known for making his own racist statements.

"After one X user said that the existence of Indians disgusted them, Dinesh D’Souza, the right-wing commentator who has peddled racism against Black Americans for decades, mused: 'In a career spanning 40 years, I have never encountered this type of rhetoric. The Right never used to talk like this. So who on our side has legitimized this type of vile degradation?'" Kaur notes.

While this vile rhetoric isn't new, Kaur says, it's rising from the political right, and Trump's aggressive immigration crackdowns are leading MAGA to freely say the quiet parts out loud, "openly suggesting that only white Christians belong in America," she writes.

Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan, an editorial manager and analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who has examined anti-Indian hate speech and the far right online, says to look no further than the White House for the source of this racism.

“The call is coming from inside the house,” Venkataramakrishnan says.

Kaur says that Indian immigrants and Indian Americans are "the latest target of a growing anti-migrant movement in the US and around the world" and "the most consistent anti-Indian bigotry online focuses on the H-1B visa program, of which Indian nationals are the biggest beneficiaries," she writes.

"The program, which admits highly skilled foreigners into the US to work in specialized fields, has sparked infighting among Trump supporters, with visa opponents such as deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller accusing India of 'a lot of cheating on immigration policies,'" Kaur writes.

The far-right has taken aim at Indian Americans, saying they are the ones depriving other—read: white—Americans of good paying jobs.

"They accuse Indians of hiring only within their caste or ethnicity, invoke stereotypes about Indians being dirty or smelly, and highlight behaviors like eating with one’s hands as cultural backwardness," Kaur says.

And it's not just far-right trolls invoking these tropes, she writes.

"During the recent New York City mayoral race, the independent campaign of former Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo released (then quickly deleted) an AI-generated attack ad depicting Zohran Mamdani sloppily eating rice with his hands," she says.

Success of Indian Americans makes them a prime target for hatred, according to Rohit Chopra, a professor at Santa Clara University who studies far-right online communities and who co-authored the reports for the Center for the Study of Organized Hate.

Indian immigrants and Indian Americans are among the highest-earning ethnic groups in the US, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data.

“The public image of the Indian community has been that of these basically successful tech professionals and CEOs,” Chopra says. “And the Indian community and Indian American community significantly plays up that image too.”

And, "as long-simmering resentment against affluent Indian Americans metastasizes into a demonization of the entire community," Chopra says "there’s a danger that this could inspire real-world violence."

Most recently in Florida, a Republican councilman, Chandler Langevin, posted on social media that Indians come to the U.S. to “drain our pockets.” Despite constituents calling for him to resign, he refused, but was formally censured.

In Irving, Texas, a Dallas suburb popular with Indian American tech executives, three masked men staged a roadside protest carrying signs that read “Don’t India My Texas,” “Deport H-1B Visa Scammers” and “Reject Foreign Demons," Kaur writes.

A South Asian community leader in Texas said that white supremacist groups were harassing people outside Hindu temples, Kaur reports.

Salil Maniktahla, an Indian American who lives in Springfield, Virginia, said he was accosted by someone in a restaurant who hurled slurs at him, saying "Trump is your president," and "go home."

“What I see now is that a lot of people are mouthing off in ways that they felt they were prevented from doing prior to 2016,” Maniktahla tells Kaur.

Vice President JD Vance, "whose wife Usha Vance is Indian American, dismissed remarks from a government staffer such as “normalize Indian hate” as youthful indiscretion," Kaur says.

Chopra says that Indian Americans need to wake up to what's going on.

“I think that sections of the Indian American community have been living in this fool’s paradise,” Chopra says.

"This should serve as a kind of wake-up call — that racism that’s directed at people of color and minority groups, you are not exempt from. And maybe that should spark some kind of reflection about questions of solidarity with other vulnerable groups," he adds.