Ray Hartmann

The suspect is not the stuff of rabid MAGA dreams. Thank God for that

This cannot be what President Donald Trump had in mind.

Authorities made an arrest in connection with the heinous assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The suspect is Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old white, male Utah State University student, the son of registered Republican voters from the southwest of the state.

Robinson’s appearance — just a regular-looking white kid in college — could not be further from what the MAGA’s mind’s eye would have loved to see. At least superficially, he doesn’t fit the mold of their preferred villains.

In a decent time, this of course would not matter. We should all as Americans deplore Kirk's murder, without qualification. It’s a moment that could bring us all together in revulsion, across the great political divide.

But that’s not happening because Trump would never stand for that. As you probably know, Trump didn’t even wait for the existence of a suspect to blame it on fictional “lunatics on the Left.”

On Wednesday night, Trump delivered the most vile and unpresidential statement ever uttered at a moment of national grief.

Here’s the transcript of Trump’s most significant comments:

“It is long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.

For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today and it must stop right now.

My administration will find each and every one who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials and every one who brings order to our country.

From the attack on my life in Butler, PA last year which killed a husband and father to the attacks on ICE agents to the vicious murder of a healthcare executive in the streets of New York to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”

I think we can let it speak for itself that Trump indignantly called out “demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.”

The same can be said for Trump’s choices for examples of political violence in America. And, more importantly, his omissions.

But the key point — and it’s undeniable — is that all Trump cares about going forward is to exploit the Kirk tragedy to fit his own ends.

Just imagine what Trump and his MAGA acolytes would have done to exploit the Kirk tragedy had Tyler Robinson turned out to be a trans person. Or an undocumented migrant. Or a Black person. Or a Muslim.

So anxious was MAGA world to distort the murder for its narrative that someone leaked to the Wall Street Journal — well before Robinson’s arrest — that inscriptions found on shell casings related to the shooting contained messages of “trans ideology.”

It was confirmed on Friday that was empirically false.

So yes, Trump must have been apoplectic to learn that Kirk’s suspected assassin was just some white guy who grew up in a Republican household in deep-red Utah.

In dramatic contrast, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, did himself proud in the news conference announcing Robinson’s arrest.

“We can return violence with violence, we can return hate with hate, and that’s the problem with political violence — is it metastasizes. Because we can always point the finger at the other side. And at some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse.

History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country. But every single one of us gets to choose right now if this is a turning point for us. There is one person responsible for what happened here, and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable. And yet, all of us have an opportunity right now to do something different.”

Those off-the-cuff words from Cox came straight from the heart. The Republican Party needs more leaders like Cox, and so does the nation.

There’s a better path forward if we choose it, Donald Trump and his hatred notwithstanding.

This Trump move is illegal and immoral and should chill you all to the bone

There is arguably no better canary in the coal mine for the death of democracy than a president who seizes for himself the power to wage war.

We seem to be headed there.

President Donald Trump’s recent — and ongoing — unauthorized military aggression against Venezuela fails to meet even the minimal legal standard for presidential war powers.

Trump and his henchmen have largely dispensed with pretexts.

Citing no particular provocation, Trump blithely declared Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro America’s latest mortal enemy. That sort of gratuitousness is brought to you with a shrug by corporate media increasingly committed to a mission of stenography.

The administration has designated Tren de Aragua a “foreign terrorist organization” — which may well be accurate but does not seem to have come with any provable link to Maduro other than rhetorical. Even if true, nothing in U.S. law permits unilateral military action on that ground alone by a U.S. president.

But following the law has always ranked below the bottom of Trump’s “things to do” list in life.

Here’s how the United States has apparently begun to launch an illegal war almost overnight, without a millisecond of congressional debate. And with scant attention at best in the news media.

The Escalation — One Week, One Direction

August 8, 2025 — Trump designates Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization under the 2001 AUMF framework.
(AP)
Late August — U.S. naval and marine units mobilize in the southern Caribbean under an “anti-cartel” initiative.
(The Guardian)
September 2 — A U.S. drone strike sinks a speedboat allegedly linked to Tren de Aragua, killing 11. The administration justifies it as a drug interdiction.
September 3, 2025 — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denounces the U.S. strike as a violation of sovereignty, orders militias to mobilize, and warns that Washington is laying the groundwork for regime change.
September 3–4 — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calls the strike “just the beginning.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio signals more strikes are being considered.
September 5 — Trump orders the Pentagon rebranded as the Department of War in communications and signage. Hegseth becomes “Secretary of War.”
September 5–6 — Ten F‑35 stealth fighters are deployed to Puerto Rico. Trump publicly states he’s weighing strikes inside Venezuela.

Trump’s posture toward Maduro wasn’t always so hostile. During his first term, he told Axios on June 21, 2020, he was “open to meeting” with Maduro and even called him “very smart.”

The timing was just astonishing, especially in today’s context. Trump publicly praised Maduro fewer than three months after his own Department of Justice had issued a press release headlined: “Nicolás Maduro Moros and 14 Current and Former Venezuelan Officials Charged with Narco-Terrorism, Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Criminal Charges.”

Apparently narco-terrorism didn’t concern Donald the First as much as it seems to concern Donald the Second.

Back in 2020, Trump did reverse himself on Twitter, but only after heads exploded among Florida Republicans. Taking issue with fellow strongmen has never ranked as one of Trump’s strengths.

Trump has always positioned himself as an isolationist — and his repeated campaign pledges of “no more endless wars” — arguably garnered more votes than most analysts credited. Trump mocked “globalist” entanglements, vowed to bring troops home and end foreign adventurism.

That’s all a thing of the past now that Trump openly aspires to become the world’s most dominant dictator.

He drools about invading and seizing Greenland. He muses obscenely about annexing Canada, or at the very least, waging a mindless economic war with it and many other close allies. He obsesses about seizing the Panama Canal.

His MAGA base has always been animated by extreme nationalism — ethnically and economically grounded — and it’s widely presumed that instinct mutates into isolationism. Even among those whose political philosophies can only be captured in five words or less.

It remains to be seen how Trump’s abandonment of isolationism might play out with the base. But never underestimate the power of a cult leader.

What’s more, we should not discount similarities to the dicey motives of previous U.S. adventurism — “war for oil” in Iraq springs to mind — especially given that Trump is exponentially more transactional than all previous U.S. presidents combined.

On Saturday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller defended Trump’s Venezuela policy by calling the country “so rich in resources, so rich in reserves,” while describing Maduro as “the head of the cartel.”

In poker, that’s known as a “tell.”

Let’s hope I’m wrong in thinking this Venezuelan adventure is far graver than a few news cycles of an unstable Trump cosplaying as a warlord. But, to me, this one has real potential for disaster.

I don’t like the looks of that canary.

This Republican may blow up her life's work — just to please Trump

As many of you know, I ran last year for Congress against Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO), and lost. I have no plans to run again.

As regular readers know, I’ve hardly mentioned her since starting this Soapbox almost four months ago. She’s largely irrelevant.

But the upcoming bombshell decision facing the U.S. House of Representatives about whether to release the Jeffrey Epstein files is a test of Wagner’s fundamental integrity unlike any other she has faced in her years in Congress. And it is upon us.

Wagner has had one signature issue in her career — standing up, she claims, for the plight of women who are victims of sex trafficking. When I say it’s her one signature issue, let me add: whatever comes in second place isn’t even close.

The issue didn’t come up when I ran against her, because there was nothing to argue about. For years, she has spoken loudly and repeatedly and elegantly on behalf of the need to have better protection for sex-abuse victims, and particularly for those who have been trafficked.

Good for her. I never questioned her righteousness nor her sincerity on this point and there were plenty of other issues for me to campaign on, none of which needs to be rehashed here.

But the Jeffrey Epstein scandal is the definitive sex-trafficking story of our time, and maybe of all time. What this pervert did, who he did it with, how, when and why — and the ongoing coverup of his trail of evidence by Donald Trump — is about as major as news stories get.

As best as I can tell, Wagner, the self-proclaimed champion of trafficked women, has never once spoken Epstein’s name publicly — despite the fact that he used his power and privilege to traffic and abuse hundreds, if not thousands, of young girls.

Wagner faces a vote that is tough for her fellow Republicans — but should be a slam-dunk for her — which is whether to require the Justice Department “to release all the files related to Epstein’s case, including information related to his clients and close circle,” as reported today at The Hill.

The Trump White House, dropping any pretense of true innocence, has gone full-authoritarian with its own Republican Party on this one.

“A White House official commented on the discharge petition Tuesday night, saying that supporting it would be viewed as ‘a hostile act,’” NBC News reported.

Really? Releasing all the Epstein files — in accordance with Trump’s repeated pledges on the campaign trail to do just that — is now a hostile act. Those are pretty strong words.

Wagner’s vote, whenever it happens, will present a rare binary choice. So would her refusal to follow the leads of fellow Republican Reps. Thomas Massie (the disclosure bill’s co-sponsor), Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert in the event Trump’s lapdog House Speaker Mike Johnson manages to kill it.

Here’s the choice:

Wagner votes “yes” for full disclosure of the Epstein files, proving she is a woman of integrity and cares about sex-trafficking victims, as she has claimed for at least a decade

Wagner votes “no” or even fails to vote “yes” as a participant in Trump’s coverup, in which “integrity” and “Ann Wagner” should never be mentioned in the same sentence again.

You didn’t hear me talk like that during the campaign, because nothing had occurred in her record for me to question her personal character. This would be it.

If Wagner fails to stand with Epstein’s sex-trafficking victims — and with the basic principle of accountability for sex traffickers — then she at least should do the world a favor and renounce the following that she either sponsored or cosponsored:

FOSTA – Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act
Bill: H.R. 1865 (115th Congress)
Role: Primary sponsor (authored)
Summary: Amended Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to remove immunity protections for websites that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking, enabling civil and criminal liability. Passed the House 388–25 (Feb 2018), Senate 97–2 (Mar 2018), and signed into law April 11, 2018 as part of the broader FOSTA‑SESTA package.

SAVE Act – Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation Act
Bill: H.R. 4225 (113th Congress, 2014) & H.R. 285 (114th Congress, 2015)
Role: Primary sponsor
Summary: Made it a federal crime to knowingly advertise commercial sex acts involving trafficking victims, particularly minors or coerced adults. Passed the House 392–19; ultimately incorporated into the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (JVTA) of 2015.
Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (JVTA)
Bill: S. 178 (114th Congress, 2015)
Role: Key House co-sponsor and advocate; included Wagner’s SAVE Act provisions
Summary: A wide-ranging bipartisan anti-trafficking law that enhanced law enforcement tools, increased restitution, funded services for survivors, and strengthened training across federal agencies. Incorporates multiple bills, including the SAVE Act, and was signed into law on May 29, 2015.
Trafficking Survivors Relief Act
Bills: Multiple versions — H.R. 6292 (114th), H.R. 459 (115th), H.R. 3627 (116th), H.R. 8672 (117th), H.R. 7137 (118th Congress, 2024), and reintroduced in H.R. 1379 (119th Congress, 2025)
Role: Original sponsor or cosponsor in multiple sessions
Summary: Provides post-conviction relief—such as vacating convictions, expunging arrests, sentencing mitigation, and affirmative defenses—for survivors of human trafficking who committed non-violent crimes as a direct result of their victimization. Versions reported in the House and supported across party lines.

For cynics who might think Wagner believes Trump is entitled to some special exemption on the subject of sexual exploitation of women, I would direct them to her public comments on October 9, 2016 — in the wake of the release of the infamous Access Hollywood Tapes — in which she most clearly stated he was not. In fact, she felt so passionately about sexual exploitation of women, that she made this public statement:

"I have committed my short time in Congress to fighting for the most vulnerable in our society. As a strong and vocal advocate for victims of sex trafficking and assault, I must be true to those survivors and myself and condemn the predatory and reprehensible comments of Donald Trump. I withdraw my endorsement and call for Governor [Mike] Pence to take the lead so we can defeat Hillary Clinton."

It took Wagner less than three weeks in 2016 to decide that Trump wasn’t such a bad predator, after all. Or maybe that she didn’t need to be that true to victims of sex trafficking and assault.

Today, the “strong and vocal advocate for victims of sex trafficking and assault” has another opportunity to show that she means what she has been saying all these years.

What’s it going to be, Ann Wagner, when it comes to your chance to stand up and make a politically difficult statement on behalf of those victims? Even at the risk of seeming “very hostile” to Trump?

It is her moment of truth.

Trump's lickspittle-in-chief just made a very dumb move indeed

Donald Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder took quite a jolt last week.

Here’s what some are saying happened: Vice President JD Vance somehow short‑circuited his electric fence and gave an interview to USA Today where he spoke openly — and maybe a little too eagerly — about that moment in the future when he might have to replace Trump as president.

“I've gotten a lot of good on‑the‑job training over the last 200 days," Vance said in an exclusive interview published Aug. 27, when asked if he was ready to assume the role of commander‑in‑chief.

"Yes, terrible tragedies happen,” he added. “But I feel very confident the president of the United States is in good shape, is going to serve out the remainder of his term, and do great things for the American people.”

Oh no you didn’t, JD.

By the time he started flipping around like a vice‑presidential seal, blathering about Trump’s supposed super‑stamina, it had to be too late.

Did Vance really not get the memo that Trump leaves office when Trump decides to leave office? That’s the last we all heard.

He might want to revisit the North Korean manual on speculating about the Leader’s health. We know he owns a copy — the whole Cabinet just performed it in unison in meeting with Trump last week.

We don’t have details as to how Trump exploded upon learning of the blasphemy from Vance, but it’s safe to assume he wasn’t swelling with pride. So, he thought he’d teach Vance a little lesson.

“Trump Removes Secret Service Protection for Harris.”

Oops. Wrong vice president.

Where can we go to get a president with cognitive acuity?

There’s nothing funny about the story that Trump revoked Secret Service protection for former Vice President Kamala Harris — as he’s done with other political targets. In fact, it’s disgusting that the topic is even being debated.

But liberals might not want to seize the bait too quickly on this one. As the New York Times reported, vice presidents typically receive six months of protection after leaving office as a matter of standard procedure.

President Joe Biden had extended that period by a year through executive order, given the unusually high threat level faced by Harris, the Times reported. Biden had done the right thing in the right way, which is to say quietly.

But it wasn’t a permanent step because the nation does not give lifetime Secret Service protections to former vice presidents and their families (unlike presidents). Maybe it should, but it does not.

I didn’t know that, and I’m guessing neither did you. But its important context because Trump and his right-wing state media wants our heads to explode on this one. Or any outrage that doesn’t involve mention of “Epstein.”

This doesn’t excuse the stench of Trump gleefully promoting diminished safety for his political opponents. It’s just the public version of how he privately chokes loyalty out of Republicans, in this view.

As a mobster, Trump has reveled in each opportunity to proclaim the withdrawal of Secret Service details from individuals — which would have taken place quietly under a decent president. He gets to thrill his bloodthirsty followers with the closest thing to “lock them up” presently at hand.

Best of all, Trump gets to bask in dishing out the one thing he’s never had to fake: brazen cruelty. Just another ugly trademark.

Meanwhile, the person who ought to be swallowing hardest is JD Vance.

After all, Trump tried to have his last vice president killed by a mob.

Firing Trump's most lunatic lackey is now a matter of life and death

Bear with me on this one.

I know that to 99 percent of readers, headlines reading “CDC Director Fired” fall squarely into the daily category of “Trump stupidity that I don’t want to hear about.” Fair enough. Especially if it reads, “Susan Monarez Won’t Quit” and no one knows who Monarez is.

This one’s a little different.

Monarez was confirmed as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director on Trump’s enthusiastic nomination just 29 days ago, on a straight party-line vote of the U.S. Senate. Nothing unusual there.

But here’s the rub: The 47 Democratic “no” votes were tied to Monarez’s refusal to distance herself from the rantings of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the twisted soul dubbed Secretary of Health and Human Services by Trump. Conversely, being Trump’s pick was the only possible consideration of 51 Republican senators.

Then an unusual thing happened. Shortly after Monarez received the keys to her office door, she started feuding with Boss Bananas because he (RFK Jr.) is, after all, not playing with anything resembling a deck of 52 when it comes to the public health. Or much of anything.

Here’s how it played out, according to New York Times reporting.

Kennedy Jr. summoned Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to his office in Washington earlier this week to deliver an ultimatum.

She needed to fire career agency officials and commit to backing his advisers if they recommended restricting access to proven vaccines — or risk being fired herself, according to people familiar with the events.

So what does Monarez do? She immediately starts doing precisely what all the Democrats demanded, which was to push back against RFK Jr.’s natural instincts to Make America A Dark Ages Pit of Death Again. (That’s MAADAPODA if you’re looking to put it on a T-shirt.)

RFK Jr. demanded her resignation on the spot, not surprisingly. Initially, the White House said nothing, briefly leaving a question as to whether an initial refusal to resign would matter. It didn’t.

Trump fired Monarez, five weeks to the day he had said this about her:

“As an incredible mother and dedicated public servant, Dr. Monarez understands the importance of protecting our children, our communities, and our future. Americans have lost confidence in the CDC due to political bias and disastrous mismanagement.”

Four top CDC officials resigned in protest within four hours of RFK Jr.’s attempt to evict Monarez. Mind you, they — and Monarez — were presumably part of Trump’s MAHA braintrust until, say, 15 minutes ago.

And the two who spoke out most vocally weren’t especially shy:

“People of dubious intent and more dubious scientific rigor (are now) in charge of recommending vaccine policy. Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.” — Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

“Recently, the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives…If [Monarez] leaves, we don’t have scientific leadership anymore” — Dr. Debra Houry, CDC Chief Medical Officer.

As a footnote, the typically reticent American Public Health Association apparently snapped, calling Kennedy’s leadership “reckless mismanagement” and flatly stating: “RFK Jr. must be removed from his position.”

Unfortunately, that sort of condemnation from rational people with vast medical and scientific credentials might be precisely what Kennedy needs to survive. But it does seem to me that people who care about the collective health of our country — regardless of tribe or ideology — really ought to be speaking out.

As best as I can tell, Sen. Patty Murray, (D-Wa), has been the only Democrat willing to call for Kennedy’s firing. Where’d everyone else in her party go?

As Drs. Daskalakis and Houry told us, Kennedy’s derangement is a matter of life and death. We have no idea where this is headed.

But the nation will require a healthy dose of luck for this story to wind up as just more Trump noise.

Humiliation for Trump's hatchet woman is a win for everyone else

It’s a case of poetic justice made for the Internet.

Self-adulating U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro just received a large dose of humiliation, not mitigated in the slightest by her own inability to feel shame.

You know the famous adage that “you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich”?

Well, a Washington, D.C. grand jury sided Tuesday not only with the sandwich but with the young man who slung it at the chest of a Customs and Border Protection agent who Donald Trump wants to appropriate as a storm trooper.

The grand jury took the extraordinary step of declining felony charges against Sean Charles Dunn, 37, a former Justice Department paralegal, who had been enraged by the presence of agents in a peaceful D.C. restaurant-and-bar neighborhood.

Dunn has become something of an Internet folk hero since video captured him hurling his protest sub.

Undoubtedly, the grand jurors had to be pushing back against what they saw as a dramatic overcharging of Dunn with a felony. Good for them.

Why? Because ever since her broom landed in the U.S. Attorney’s office, Pirro has cackled that every Trumpian case on her watch must be charged up to the max. Just because she can.

There should be another adage for that: Bad people make bad prosecutors.

Get ready to be tired of losing.

And I’m enjoying the online backup that Dunn has been receiving, with my personal favorite being this one from poster Tim Massie raising the perfect question:

"What did Pirro want him charged with? Assault with a deli weapon?”

Let us not forget that this same Pirro was just fine with Trump pardoning as patriots 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists — including 14 commutations for full-out violent criminals — for their role in trying to overturn his election defeat on January 6, 2021.

Four policemen lost their lives, and at least 174 were injured as a result of the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s patriots were not known to attack police with a single sandwich. No — their weapons included firearms, tasers, knives, crowbars, flagpoles bearing the American flag, fire extinguishers, and pepper spray.

So we don’t need a single lecture from the former Fox News ghoul — nor the First Felon — about protecting police.

Allow me to share the insults Dunn hurled at Trump’s police-state platoon along with the sandwich, straight from the police report:

“F––– you! You f–––––– fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!”

Maybe Dunn shouldn’t have wasted his sandwich on this, but I’m fine with him speaking his piece as an American who doesn’t wish to live in a police state. Even better were the grand jurors who sent “Judge Jeanine” a loud-and-clear sandwich message Tuesday.

Now, let the good memes roll.

Trump just delivered the darkest of messages

On Friday, the FBI raided the home and office of John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser.

Although it cannot be confirmed that the agents wore flak jackets emblazoned “DJT Retribution Tour 2025” on the back, they didn’t need to. Trump’s DOJ apparatchiks had already swarmed social media in the most unserious law-enforcement performance since the great Leslie Neilsen’s Police Squad classics.

The tweets were something to see. All just happened to get posted right around the times FBI agents were showing up for coffee with the Boltons. All were delivered in classic mean-face protocol, which of course demanded that no reference be made to anything in particular.

From FBI Director Kash Patel: “NO ONE is above the law … @FBI agents on mission.”

Agents on mission? What are you, 12?

But Patel’s was the serious stake in the ground. Others just retweeted it:

From Attorney General Pam Bondi: “America’s safety isn’t negotiable. Justice will be pursued. Always.”

From Deputy FBI Director Don Bongino: “Public corruption will not be tolerated.”

Bongino’s prospective bunkmate, Andrew Bailey, must be chomping at the bit to have a piece of this action.

This is such amateur hour. These performative fools have debased the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

We have a real problem here. The specifics of Bolton’s situation are beside the point.

In matters referencing national security, affidavits are almost always sealed — sometimes forever. There won’t be a lot of substance for liberals to pore over this weekend with their biscuits and gravy at Cracker Barrel.

The only part of this story worthy of prospective consideration is whether somehow, some way, the Republican political establishment might get nudged out of its cultish trance by this happening to old ally. I don’t think so.

Bolton is not a sympathetic figure on a personal level. From his earliest days as a vitriolic, super-militaristic, hyper-partisan neocon, his persona has remained the rarest of acquired tastes across the political spectrum.

More directly to the point of this story, it remains impossible to forgive Bolton for putting his bank account ahead of his country in 2019. That’s when he refused to testify in Trump’s first impeachment so as not to compromise upcoming profits from the 2020 release of his explosive tell-all book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.

Who knows what would have happened had Bolton done the right thing?

It’s widely assumed that the book — and Trump’s years-long public feud with Bolton — are the beginning, middle and end of this FBI adventure. And yes, karma’s a bitch.

But remember that famous old passage? “They came for the crotchety national security advisors, but I wasn’t a crotchety national security advisor, so I said nothing.”

In that sense, Bolton presents an ominous test case. Whatever natural base of supporters he might have had is likely limited to his cellphone contacts. He could be in for a rough time.

And I truly don’t believe anyone should be celebrating that.

I’ll harken back to my June 9 column on another part of Trump’s terroristic playbook. That was about ICE stormtroopers, but it applies equally to the police-state tactics involved today with the FBI:

“There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that reads: “Hang one to scare a hundred.”

I assure you there a whole lot more than a hundred former Trump officials, military brass and other vocal critics who won’t sleep well tonight. Trump just delivered the darkest of messages — and it has been received.

If anyone might harbor even the slightest doubt that this is 100 percent about vindictive, petty and malicious retribution, it’s helpful that the Dark Lord of Vengeance couldn’t contain his devilish glee.

“Good morning. John Bolton. How does it feel to have your home raided at 6 o'clock in the morning?” — Roger Stone.

This is what America voted for.

And John Bolton’s home won’t be the final venue.

This rare Republican can't avoid being crushed — by her own party

They partied like it was 1999 in Gov. Mike Kehoe’s office this week.

Kehoe unveiled Catherine Hanaway as Missouri’s new attorney general at a news conference Tuesday in his office. Hanaway represents a major upgrade over Andrew Bailey — who was called by Donald Trump to bring his thuggery to the FBI.

Being better than Bailey is lower than any limbo bar in the world. Hanaway is a normal person with the intellect, character and résumé for the AG job. Bailey is the polar opposite in all four respects.

Hanaway is what’s known as a “normal Republican.” She also is a hard-right social conservative — especially on women’s reproductive freedom — to a degree that almost guarantees she won’t be loved in her new job by anyone to the left of Attila the Hun.

Bailey, on the other hand, is a MAGA Republican to his venomous core. And herein lies the real uncertainty about Hanaway’s path ahead.

Catherine Hanaway is most definitely a RINO in the minds of Trump’s MAGA base. That’s not my definition; it’s theirs. The point’s not even debatable.

Watching the video of Hanaway’s introductory press conference, one could easily imagine Republicans were back in 1999 or thereabouts, when Hanaway was a freshman Republican state legislator. Kehoe was in Jefferson City as well at that time, as the owner of a prominent car dealership.

Everything said Tuesday was just normal GOP fare from the previous century. Hanaway would lead with her proven toughness on crime, she’d be pro-life, she’d advance “conservative values,” she’d draw upon her proud rural roots, and she’d protect individual rights.

But the event was far more notable for what wasn’t said. That would be anything that might soothe the psycho psyches of deep red MAGA world.

There was not a single reference to the scourge of the illegal-immigrant invasion, nor sanctuary cities, nor the need for the state to cooperate with ICE. There wasn’t a single reference to supposed genital mutilation of kids, for which Bailey slandered Washington University while Hanaway sat on its Board of Trustees.

There was no talk about the need to end habeas corpus or to increase the use of National Guardsmen and even federal troops to fight crime in Missouri. Hanaway even referenced St. Louis positively without the obligatory “Democrat-run” MAGA qualification.

Asked if Trump had been consulted or otherwise had input into Hanaway’s selection, Kehoe answered with a most abrupt — and I’d say telling — firm “no.” These folks better hope video of this doesn’t get shown on the walls of Stephen Miller’s vampire cave.

Here’s the problem for Hanaway and Kehoe: MAGA didn’t die this week. And it’s not going away anytime soon in the state of Missouri.

Left to her own devices, Hanaway might perform as a solid prosecutor like she did in St. Louis as U.S. Attorney, but with deference to the political winds that blow harder through her office in Jefferson City. She’d focus on the job, with the aforementioned right-leaning politics.

But Hanaway’s not going to be left to her own devices. Not as long as Trump is president.

Trump’s ceaseless and sustained assault on democratic institutions offends the instinctive sensibilities of real Republicans almost as much as it does those on the Democratic side. Real Republicans pride themselves as the party of states’ rights and less government and more privacy — and while they haven’t lived up to that much — it’s quite another thing for RINOs to embrace full authoritarian control.

On the other hand, we’ve seen what’s happened with Hanaway’s good friend, Rep. Ann Wagner, who quite literally sold her political soul — who cares about the Epstein files and all this talk about sex trafficking stuff? — in full subservience to the rule of Trump.

It’s not a question of whether Hanaway will be called upon to sacrifice her core beliefs — just as Kehoe is preparing to do now on Trump’s gerrymandering demands — it’s a question of when.

Whether that manifests itself in endless, feed-the-base frivolous partisan lawsuits at taxpayer expense like Bailey did — or whether it might involve something more deadly and serious — a MAGA reckoning will be coming for Hanaway.

As a citizen and as someone whose early career was privileged to feature working for the wonderful Kit Bond — mine when he was governor, hers as a young Senate aide — I truly wish Hanaway well. For all our sakes.

But I wouldn’t bet against the power of Trump and MAGA in Missouri. Horrific times lie ahead.

These aren’t the good old days

New Trump henchman's disastrous record would make a North Korean general blush

Andrew Bailey, Missouri hardly knew ye.

But what we saw of ye was plenty more than enough.

One of the most nakedly partisan attorneys general in Missouri history, Bailey has been tapped by President Donald Trump to become his quasi–number two man at the FBI. Bailey snagged his career vault solely by politicizing the power of his state law-enforcement office in Trump’s name.

Meanwhile, Governor Mike Kehoe announced today that former GOP House Speaker Catherine Hanaway — the only woman to hold that post — is his choice to replace Bailey as attorney general. That’s unlikely to sit well with many in MAGA world, a subject for later in this space.

For now, as I documented here, Bailey served a constituency of one and it paid off handsomely — one adoring, taxpayer-funded Trump press release at a time. Bailey didn’t limit himself to following the MAGA playbook like others at his craft; his degree of obsequiousness to Trump was enough to make a North Korean general blush.

Bailey’s rise is a cautionary tale. He succeeded not only because he advanced Trump’s agenda, but because of how he went about the task.

His was not a triumph of right-wing ideology. It was of style points, groveling, ruthless ambition, and a willingness to get down and dirty.

Bailey took a back seat to no one as a toady for Trump during the 2024 election campaign. That meant paying homage in a big way to the Big Lie that Trump was somehow robbed in 2020.

“The left stole that election by changing the rules of the game at the 11th hour. They’re going to try to steal this one by silencing our voices on big tech social media platforms, by stifling us in the mainstream media and by packing the polling places with criminal illegal aliens that shouldn’t be here in the first place.” — Bailey, May 14, 2024 debate in Springfield, MO

Most Republicans survived by nodding their heads at the falsehood needed to soothe Trump’s mental trauma over losing to President Joe Biden in 2020. Not Bailey. He went all in on the lie — and I suppose garnered some style points with that whole “packing the polling places with criminal aliens” sequel, which you didn’t hear every day.

Holding fast to the Big Lie wasn’t unusual. Doubling down with zeal four years later was quite another thing.

But Bailey goes big, just the way Trump likes it. When he attacked trans people as attorney general, he didn’t just check off a box — he went all in with the declaration that virtually all trans care was “an unfair, deceptive, fraudulent, or otherwise unlawful practice” for “any person or health organization” to perpetrate.

Bailey didn’t even limit that dripping bigotry to kids. He tried to include adults as well — not for any decent reason, but to get himself lambasted by the nationally respected Human Rights Campaign. Think Trump doesn’t go for that sort of thing?

It’s the pattern that Bailey followed throughout his tenure in office. He wasn’t satisfied to use the power of his office to attack DEI wherever he could detect it as some horrible virus.

Instead, Bailey would do things like falsely blame the Hazelwood School District’s DEI program for the off-campus assault of a student. When proven wrong, Bailey must have been smiling broadly to become the focus of a formal complaint about the behavior of his office.

He recused himself from a gambling lawsuit filed against the Missouri State Highway Patrol after PACs connected to the lobbyist of the companies suing the state wrote thousands in checks to the committee supporting his campaign, the Missouri Independent reported. Trump likes that sort of thing.

It was not his only brush with campaign violations. And Bailey was blasted by Clay County Judge Karen Krauser, who ordered Bailey to sit for a deposition after it was discovered he and a deputy met with a member of the Jackson County Legislature without the knowledge of the county’s attorneys. The county was a defendant.

Do you think Trump minds that he crossed the line with a judge?

Bailey has resisted releasing individuals whose convictions were overturned, even when new evidence supported their innocence. In the case of Sandra Hemme, a judge threatened to hold Bailey in contempt for instructing prison officials not to release a woman whose conviction had been overturned after she served 43 years.

If there’s any mitigating circumstance to Bailey’s tenure as attorney general, it’s that he’s not a good lawyer. In one of his first and most important cases, Bailey attempted to thwart the will of the people to keep off the ballot the 2024 constitutional amendment that eventually reinstated women’s right to an abortion.

That wasn’t remarkable. Bailey was expected by Republicans to fight the measure. They might not have expected his 6-0 thrashing before a moderately conservative Missouri Supreme Court.

Legal observers point to the astonishing number of losses he’s piled up. From mask mandates to social media censorship to his toxic emergency order declaring gender-affirming care as “experimental,” the list goes on.

But the point for Bailey was never about winning cases. It was about winning attention from the MAGA base and, above all else, Trump himself.

Just because a guy isn’t good at trying cases doesn’t mean he can’t be good at that.

Besides, Bailey is off to a new job as one of the very top officials of the FBI, the most important law-enforcement agency in the world. There, he won’t need to worry about trying cases — or losing them.

In fact, how he did in his previous work won’t matter at all. Although he had a fine career in military service, Bailey comes to the FBI with zero experience at the FBI or any police agency like it.

Zero. Unlike all the 38,000 men and women who serve today at the FBI. What could go wrong with any of that?

Nothing, apparently, if Andrew Bailey does what he does best.

Which is to keep Donald Trump happy.

Even Trump's top toady is warning this appalling move risks disaster

Something treacherous looms today on the Alaskan horizon.

As Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet to hammer out their version of a Ukrainian-Russian “peace” plan, it could portend one of the darkest chapters in the history of American foreign policy. That’s not hyperbole.

I don’t pretend to have the chops to analyze a matter so grave. So I’ll be turning to an expert in this space.

But first, let’s review the basics. Trump’s friendship with Putin is warm and longstanding, most revealed — speaking of dark chapters — by his shocking statement in 2018 at Helsinki that he trusted Putin more than 18 intelligence agencies of his own administration.

We also know of Trump’s bitter history with our courageous ally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In 2019 — just a year after Helsinki — Trump attempted to extort dirt about political rival Joe Biden in exchange for release of military assistance desperately needed by Ukraine. He was impeached for that.

Trump more recently scolded and attempted to humiliate Zelensky in a shameful scene that defiled the Oval Office. It’s an indictment of our times that it did not receive more universal condemnation.

But that’s just the common knowledge piece of the story. To do full justice to the background about Putin, Trump, Ukraine and American foreign policy, I’ve decided to call upon a real expert.

His deliberate words provide clear context to why summitry between Trump and Putin poses such a grave danger to the world:

Vladimir Putin is a thug. He is a murderer. He is not someone to be admired. He is someone who has jailed and killed journalists, political opponents. He bombed a schoolhouse full of children. This is not a leader, this is a gangster.

There is no moral equivalence between the United States of America and Russia. I don’t understand people who say, well, America’s not perfect, so who are we to criticize Putin? We are not in the same category.

When you give someone like Vladimir Putin a propaganda win by standing next to him and treating him like an equal, you empower every anti-democratic movement across the globe. You demoralize our allies and you send the worst possible message to the world.

Russia is not just another country. It is an active adversary of the United States. It interfered in our elections, it continues to attack our institutions, it backs brutal dictators like Assad, and it has invaded and illegally occupied parts of Ukraine and Georgia.

When leaders in our own country excuse or even praise Putin, it tells our allies they can’t count on us — and it tells our enemies they can walk all over us.

Donald Trump is a con artist … It’s time to pull off his mask so people can see what we are dealing with here. We must not hand the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual.

We cannot have a president who looks at Vladimir Putin and sees a role model. This is someone who poisons his political opponents, assassinates defectors on foreign soil, and jails dissidents.

Some people say, well, Putin’s strong. He’s decisive. That’s like admiring the mafia for its discipline. The question isn’t whether he’s effective. The question is: What is he effective at doing? The answer is crushing freedom and destabilizing the world.

We know Putin lies. We know he manipulates. And we know that when you stand next to him and suggest he’s telling the truth over our own intelligence agencies, it does enormous damage. It weakens our democracy.
The people of Ukraine are fighting and dying to resist Putin’s imperial ambitions. If we abandon them now, we won’t just be betraying an ally — we’ll be inviting more aggression, more chaos, and more suffering around the globe.
Supporting Ukraine isn’t charity. It’s in our national interest. If Russia can invade and conquer its neighbors without consequence, what message does that send to China? To Iran? To North Korea?

There are leaders in the world today who do not believe in freedom. They do not believe in elections. They believe in power, fear, and control. Vladimir Putin is one of them. We should never make the mistake of treating him as anything else.

When our own leaders parrot Russian propaganda or downplay Russia’s crimes, they’re not just being naive. They’re helping our enemies.

The minute you stop defending truth, the minute you decide it’s acceptable to ignore facts or excuse tyrants because it suits your politics, you’re no longer leading. You’re enabling.

In these perilous times, I hope every American takes these powerful words to heart from a man who today is a leading voice on U.S. foreign policy.

That would be Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Every word above is a direct quote from Rubio’s past public commentary over a 15-year period. He spoke them forcefully during his tenure as a U.S. Senator from 2011 through 2024, as well as his 2015-16 run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Now? Not so much.

Little Marco, as Trump called him during that campaign, has shrunken in stature to the sniveling, groveling member of Trump’s cabinet that we see today rendering a tragic parody of North Korean President Kim Jong-un’s sycophants. Rubio has sold his soul — in plain view of the world — to a degree that’s arguably unprecedented.

Now Rubio prattles about Trump being the peace president. He speaks with great restraint about Putin. The old Rubio fire applies now only to Zelensky.

But Marco Rubio’s real beliefs — his real words — cannot be erased by Trumpian revisionist history.

Unlike their author, they continue to stand for something important.

Trump's massive gamble has a fundamental flaw

It’s happening.

This morning, President Donald Trump took the largest step since he took office to test the limits of his power. And he did it in a way calculated not to alarm most Americans.

Trump announced that he was essentially supplanting the D.C. police with the National Guard and — most inappropriately — FBI agents to address what he termed an “emergency” crime problem in the nation’s capital.

It’s a perfect testing ground for an unprecedented expansion of presidential power. And understand that it’s a guardrail test, not a response to an actual crisis.

The residents of Washington D.C. face neither an emergency nor a crisis — and Trump fully understands that. Crime is empirically down, and even if it were not, nothing has transpired in the past seven months that would remotely rationalize this seizure of police power.

Trump views Washington D.C. as a petri dish.

Given that most Americans have long harbored an irrational distaste for D.C. — which happens to have an overwhelming Black majority population — it provides the ideal backdrop for Trump to invoke the national fear of crime. Any action advertised to fight crime in D.C. can count on a warm embrace from millions of Americans.

And in this case, the fact that Trump can declare a crime emergency where there is none — and get away with it — is a feature, not a bug. Because if he can do it in Washington D.C., he can eventually branch out federal police power to cities like Los Angeles, New York City, Minneapolis, Chicago and beyond.

The bluer the state, the better.

Trump’s action today also provides a test for a principle that we’ve seen unfold in alarming ways: He used his mastery of social media — and his mind control over a feared and powerful political base — to introduce false crises and invented issues that never occurred before he took office.

Just consider how many times Trump has successfully unleashed some bizarre new premise that had never been contemplated — much less debated — in the past presidential campaign. Or anytime, in any serious way, in the nation’s discourse.

Here are just a few examples:

Instituting a vicious trade war with our closest neighbor, Canada. As well as other erstwhile allies across the globe.
Repurposing ICE as a secret police force and using it to arrest judges and politicians.
Invading and annexing Greenland.
Re-seizing the Panama Canal.
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico, which, by the way, is still the Gulf of Mexico.

That list goes on. This isn’t an abstract debate.

The seizure of D.C. police fits an ominous pattern of Trump unilaterally declaring an emergency based on nothing but the reach of his megaphone — and a grip of power over Congress, sanctioned by a partisan U.S. Supreme Court, that is arguably unprecedented in U.S. history.

What makes this particular move ominous is that Trump has launched it without the slightest provocation or even the remote appearance of a crisis. He doesn’t need a fig leaf.

Trump initiated his seizure of police power against a backdrop of falling crime in the nation’s Capitol:

Violent crime: Down 26% in D.C. year-to-date
Homicides: Down 12%
Robberies: Down 28%
Aggravated assaults: Down 20%
Total crime: Down 7%
(Source: Metropolitan Police Department data)

Regionally, the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area has seen overall crime drop 13%, with homicides down 30%. The picture is clear: the “crime surge” is political theater, not statistical reality.

It’s almost incidental that the takeover undermines Home Rule and local democracy. It’s such an obviously false pretext for federal overreach that his MAGA apologists might as well admit that the best defense is that Trump’s doing this because he wants to.

And he can.

Trump is counting on a very specific bet: that much of the country either dislikes Washington, D.C., on instinct or simply doesn’t care what happens there.

This is a trial balloon. It’s a calculated test of guardrails.

If we as a nation allow it to stand, we do so at our own peril.

These deranged imbeciles have replaced heart disease as America's biggest killer

Heart disease, step aside. There's a new number-one health hazard to Americans.

That would be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The vacuous anti-vaxxer has proven just as dangerous as his own family members warned the United States Senate he would be. That was in late January after he was nominated as Secretary of Health and Human Services by President Donald Trump. He was confirmed, shamefully.

Kennedy squeaked through by placating Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy with the brazen lie that he wouldn’t dismantle the nation's vaccine safety systems or take down government vaccine guidance. And I do mean brazen: Kennedy specifically promised to respect the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, only to fire all 17 of its members.

Perhaps for not wearing tinfoil hats.

This week, things took a sharp turn for the worse. We got the answer to that age-old question, “What would happen if a deranged imbecile controlled America’s public health system?”

Kennedy canceled $500 million in contracts for projects to develop vaccines using mRNA technology. The medical community — not to be confused with Kennedy’s crackpot community — considers the emerging technology to be critical to the nation’s health and security.

It prompted a firestorm of uncommonly strident protests from some of the nation’s leading medical experts, as reported at NPR.

"This may be the most dangerous public health judgment that I've seen in my 50 years in this business," says Michael Osterholm, who runs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

"It is baseless, and we will pay a tremendous price in terms of illnesses and deaths. I'm extremely worried about it."

Dr. Peter Hotez, who runs the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, described mRNA as “a proven technology for emerging respiratory viruses or respiratory virus pandemics. It is extremely safe and has been incredibly effective."

And there was this from Jennifer Nuzzo, Director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University.

"This is a profoundly disappointing development. When there's the next pandemic, we're going to be caught flat-footed. It absolutely leaves the country vulnerable."

Speaking of pandemics, the one person most undermined by Kennedy was Trump, who either didn’t care to comment or was too cognitively declined to notice. It turns out that the attack on mRNA technology doubled as a kneecapping of the one (1) good thing Trump did in his first term.

Here’s how AP reported that:

“Trump once hailed mRNA vaccines as a ‘medical miracle.’ Now, his health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is halting the vaccine technology's advancement.”

This marks a sharp policy reversal — mRNA vaccines, developed under Operation Warp Speed during the Trump era, were lauded for saving millions and fast-tracking pandemic recovery by delivering safe and highly effective COVID-19 vaccines in record time.

Now, it would be a miracle if someone could determine why Trump has unleashed this charlatan on the world. Most of the president’s appointees can be understood in the context of the administration’s known priorities.

You know, like ending American democracy, enriching the Trump family and repaying unspecified debts to Vladimir Putin. But what’s in it for Trump by destroying the nation’s health and security to appease Kennedy?

The most widespread theory is that Trump made a deal with Kennedy to plague the nation with this guy as HHS secretary — and maybe start a plague in the process. But, Mr. President, why does this have to be the first time in 79 years that you’ve kept your word about anything?

It’s hard to understand Trump’s ulterior motive here. And that’s the only kind he has.

The Washington Post noticed the contradiction inherent in Kennedy’s treachery:

Kennedy’s resistance against mRNA vaccines is without evidence. In fact, the technology — which instructs the body’s cells to produce a harmless bit of virus that is then used to train the immune system, as opposed to using weakened or dead versions of a virus — delivered arguably the most important achievement of Trump’s first term: the production of effective vaccines against the novel coronavirus within the span of a few months.

Such speed was practically unheard-of in biomedical research. Thanks to the urgency created by Operation Warp Speed, the federal government was able to mount an impressive vaccination rollout that boosted the population’s immunity to the coronavirus just when it was needed.

Now, if we could only find some way to boost the population’s immunity to RFK, Jr.

Trump's all in on new rage baiting—there's just one big problem

It appears that I must have missed a memo recently from Woke‑Liberal Headquarters.

If I understand correctly, I was supposed to have melted down by now over an American Eagle ad featuring actress Sydney Sweeney. Something about my outrage over a beautiful woman with blonde hair and blue eyes making a joke about having “good jeans” — a play on “good genes.”

Now, don’t let it get out, but that strikes me as a rather clever script.

Suddenly, though, some of the Right’s great philosophers — Megyn Kelly, JD Vance, The Five and now, even the big guy — are themselves raging on the Cultural Warpath about widespread liberal hysteria over the ad.

I’m confused, but if I'm following this at all, my instructions called for a tantrum about the ad representing eugenics and sexual exploitation. I was also supposed to be scandalized over having discovered Sweeney is a registered Republican and likes to shoot guns at a range.

Those seem pretty weird things to get upset over. Worse still, I was directed to level charges that Sweeney is some kind of Nazi. That’s over the line.

Besides, Sweeney’s actual resume speaks just fine for her as a remarkably accomplished actress and film producer at 27. What’s to hate about her? I’m even straining to take offense at her appearance.

Still, the story has gotten my attention because she’s the new MAGA hero du jour. And patriots on the Right have risen up to seethe that I’m seething.

Trouble is, it’s not just me who has failed their woke duty to take up arms over Sweeney’s appearance and humor. As best as I can tell, the entire frenzy from the Left has mostly been invented — and certainly been exaggerated — by MAGA influencers so they could start a frenzy of their own.

Why would they want to do that? Oh right. They’re sick and tired of that Jeffrey Epstein scandal dogging Donald Trump every moment — and this is just their latest move to distract from it.

Got it. So while Trump kindly moved convicted sex predator Ghislaine Maxwell to a far more comfortable prison — and apparently is flirting with a pardon for her because he really might need to give her one — let’s just talk about Sydney.

This does not make me mad.

Back in reality world, I can find no evidence that any Democratic politician or serious leader has become all that triggered by Sweeney or the American Eagle ad. A professor wrote an op‑ed criticizing it and some folks on social media did as well.

It’s not that there shouldn’t be room for those voices or that they need be scorned. Academically, the subjects of race or sexuality in advertising are fair game — especially if they’re nuanced. But MAGA doesn’t do nuance.

There’s exponentially more rage reporting from the right than there was original sin, if you will, from the left. This perfect example of “cancel culture” had one defect: it was attributed to Democrats, not sourced from them.

Besides, there’s nothing organic about any of this. Consider this from AP News:

U.S. fashion retailer American Eagle Outfitters wanted to make a splash with its new advertising campaign starring 27-year-old actor Sydney Sweeney. The ad blitz included “clever, even provocative language” and was “definitely going to push buttons,” the company’s chief marketing officer told trade media outlets.

Okay, now I get it. This was designed to provoke all along. Well-played.

'So hot!' Don Jr. gushes over bizarre AI image of denim-clad dad AI -generated image of Donald Trump. (Donald Trump Jr's Instagram)

Sorry for not taking the bait, but I think this is a case of an advertising agency deserving a raise, seeing as how American Eagle just spiked. And a case of MAGA warriors deserving credit for diabolical deceit in lying about the purported outrage from liberals.

On the other hand, I still don’t want anyone thinking I’m afraid to take a bold stand on this burning issue that has caused so many tens of liberals nationally to work themselves into a tizzy. No snowflaking this one for me.

So, I will vote with my pocketbook. I’m announcing that I will not purchase any item of clothing for myself that has been modeled by Sydney Sweeney.

And if you want to think that’s because Ms. Sweeney looks quite good in everything and I look good in nothing — well, you’re just a reverse sexist pig. And an ageist.

For the record, mark me down as outraged. Just don’t ask me why.

This ruthless GOP apparatchik shows Trumpists stop at nothing

As much as I’m no fan of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, I must admit he has stumbled upon a promising cause.

And one that he has vast firsthand knowledge about: alleged misuse of public funds for political purposes, a dark art for which he truly deserves respect as a master practitioner.

Bailey sent Missouri state troopers to pay an unannounced visit Monday to St. Louis County Executive Sam Page’s office with a court order allowing them to seize his cell phone. That’s a bit unusual.

Ostensibly, the reason for taking Page’s cellphone is to investigate whether he might have improperly used nearly $36,000 in taxpayer money for a mailer to sway voter opinion about a proposition on April's ballot, the Post-Dispatch reported. That was the subject of a complaint by citizen-activist Tom Sullivan of University City.

I’m guessing Sullivan had a solid point, although I’m with the 62 percent of St. Louis County voters who rejected Proposition B — the subject of Page’s ire — as a dramatic overreach by the County Council. The measure would have given the council the power to fire department directors and the county's top attorney.

But that’s water under the bridge. So, too, is Page’s not-at-all-persuasive argument that the county-funded direct mailers attacking the proposition were “educational.” Somehow phrasing like “B is bad … B as a power grab. And B does nothing good for St. Louis County” doesn’t read like it came from a textbook.

None of that, however, makes it okay that Page, a Democrat, is now having his cellphone rifled through by Bailey, who’s not just a Republican, but an ethically challenged hyper-partisan, election-denying, thoroughly untrustworthy, sniveling MAGA disciple of Donald Trump.

And I say that having voted for Republican businessman Mark Mantovani for county executive in 2022 in his failed effort to unseat Page as county executive.

For Bailey, misusing public funds for political purposes is also known as Tuesday. Since his appointment in 2023 by Gov. Mike Parson (after Eric Schmitt vacated the office in winning his U.S. Senate seat), Bailey has treated the Attorney General’s office like a political campaign headquarters with subpoena power.

His record is a highlight reel of partisan interventions. He subpoenaed Washington University for transgender medical records, a move that drew national outrage over patient privacy and stretched the law to its breaking point. He continues to grandstand with partisan probes into diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Missouri schools (and presumably anywhere else it exists).

Like so many other attorneys general, Bailey regularly churns out lawsuits at the expense of Missouri taxpayers that often represent the views of less than half of his constituents. When Republicans disapprove of the will of a majority of Missouri voters as expressed at the polls, Bailey faithfully represents his party over the people without exception.

As to public resources for political purposes, it was hard to top the help Bailey received from Parson — his former boss — during a 2024 primary race for attorney general. Parson had the audacity to use his government letterhead to attack the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) for not giving enough support to Bailey’s 2024 election campaign, as reported by the Missouri Independent.

“RAGA not supporting one of their own is quite unprecedented and deeply concerning,” Parson wrote in the letter to 10 attorneys general on RAGA’s executive committee and obtained by The Independent through a public records request.

So it’s safe to say Bailey understands the concept of blurring public resources and political purposes. And now he’s about to apply his knowledge base — and whatever other interesting facts he might find in Page’s cellphone — to champion good government.

Even Sam Page doesn’t deserve this.

That eerie sound you’re hearing is the First Amendment falling

One of the largest mergers in media history was approved Thursday by the FCC — an $8 billion marriage between Paramount and Skydance Media.

This was epic not as a business story but as a broadside against democracy. The agency established in 1934 as an independent honest broker was deployed as a weapon of domestic war by President Donald Trump.

Like any major merger, this one had twists and turns and complexities. This one had more than its share, as The New York Times reported:

“In recent weeks, Paramount has been engulfed in turmoil stemming from the company’s strained relationship with the Trump administration. The company paid $16 million this month to settle a lawsuit brought by President Trump. Critics — including CBS’s ‘Late Night’ host, Stephen Colbert — said the settlement was effectively a payoff to secure approval from the Trump administration, claims the company flatly rejected.”

In the end, however, the drama was dwarfed by an unprecedented, naked assault on a national media establishment that Trump has long slandered as “the enemy of the people.” And in true authoritarian form, the Leader’s will was executed by a shameless lackey — FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who tweeted:

“President Trump took on the legacy national media. He smashed the facade that they — and their Hollywood and New York execs — get to control the narrative. President Trump is now stacking up the wins with more to come.”

Such servile sycophancy from an FCC chairman is certainly without precedent in the independent agency’s 91-year history. But so is having the chair’s role filled by a bootlicker who co-authored Project 2025’s section on the FCC.

In Trump II, it’s barely a speed bump on the road to dictatorship.

The FCC’s 2-1 decision was put in its place by the lone dissenter and Democrat on the panel, Commissioner Anna Gomez:

“After months of cowardly capitulation to this Administration, Paramount finally got what it wanted. Unfortunately, it is the American public who will ultimately pay the price for its actions.

In an unprecedented move, this once-independent FCC used its vast power to pressure Paramount to broker a private legal settlement and further erode press freedom. Once again, this agency is undermining legitimate efforts to combat discrimination and expand opportunity by overstepping its authority and intervening in employment matters reserved for other government entities with proper jurisdiction on these issues.

Even more alarming, it is now imposing never-before-seen controls over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment, in direct violation of the First Amendment and the law.”

That eerie sound you’re hearing is the crumbling of the First Amendment. As I wrote here, the CBS capitulation to autocracy will go down as one of the most cowardly and damaging surrenders in American media history.

Tempting as it might be to blame it all on Trump, the ultimate culprit in the story is a media giant willing to sell its soul to an extortionist.

And as Commandant Carr put it so bluntly, there’s more to come.