Adam Kinzinger is the Republican Congressman who was brave enough to say that Trump inspired an insurrection on January 6, 2021. He was brave enough, with Liz Cheney, to join the January 6 Committee investigating the insurrection. Both Kinzinger and Cheney were reviled by other Republicans for daring to question Trump’s lies.
On his blog, he speaks out with independence and courage. In this one, he describes the Pentagon’s splurge on delicacies and luxury items:
For years we have heard the same talking point from the Trump administration and its allies: government waste is the problem. The answer, they said, was to slash programs, dismantle agencies, and create flashy new outfits like the so-called fake agency Department of Government Efficiency — DOGE — to root out fraud and save taxpayer money. The pitch was simple. Government was bloated, and adults were finally back in charge.
But the reality looks very different.
According to a watchdog analysis, the Department of Defense spent $93.4 billion on grants and contracts in September 2025 alone, with nearly half of that money spent in the final five business days of the fiscal year.
Anyone who has worked inside government understands that the end of the fiscal year can become a mad scramble to spend money before it disappears, but the scale of what happened here raises serious questions about priorities.
Some of the spending is almost comical if it weren’t real taxpayer dollars. The Pentagon spent $6.9 million on lobster tail, $2 million on Alaskan king crab, $15.1 million on ribeye steak, and $1 million on salmon in September alone. There were 272 orders of doughnuts totaling $139,224, along with $124,000 for ice cream machines and $12,000 for fruit basket stands.
That same spending spree included $60,000 for Herman Miller recliners, a $98,000 Steinway piano for the Air Force chief of staff’s home, and millions spent on electronics like Apple and Samsung devices. Even more staggering, the Defense Department spent $3.5 billion on cable television services.
At the same time Americans were struggling with rising grocery costs, borrowing money just to buy food, and falling behind on car payments, the Pentagon was filling shopping carts with lobster and ribeye.
What makes this particularly jarring is that this administration simultaneously dismantled programs that actually matter to people around the world. Under the banner of eliminating waste, they gutted much of the United States Agency for International Development. For decades, USAID helped prevent famine, stabilized fragile regions, and projected American compassion and leadership around the globe.
That money fed starving people.
But apparently feeding the world was wasteful. Lobster for the Pentagon was not.
I spent years in uniform flying the RC-26B surveillance aircraft with the Air Force. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t flashy. But it was effective. The aircraft supported counter-terrorism missions and provided intelligence that helped protect American troops on the ground.
In 2023, the program was cancelled.
Why? Because the Air Force didn’t want to spend about $20 million a year to keep it going.
Think about that for a moment. The entire annual cost of a program that directly supported operational missions was less than what the Pentagon spent on lobster tail in a single month. Programs that actually protect American lives were eliminated in the name of efficiency, while luxury purchases and end-of-year spending binges rolled on.
This is the fundamental problem with the politics of “waste.” The loudest critics of government spending are often the least interested in actually fixing it. They are interested in headlines and ideological targets. Programs that help poor people or foreign populations are easy political punching bags. Quiet spending inside the defense bureaucracy is not.
Now, a quick aside. Yearly budgeting and spending can be difficult. Let’s just take my personal Congressional budget per year of around $1.3 million. That covered everything from salaries, new printers, paper, and correspondence, to travel. If I went over my budget for the year, I was personally on the hook for the overspending. So naturally, we saved a lot of expenses for the end of the fiscal year so that we could make sure we stayed within the allowance. Some end of year splurging is understood, but this amount from DOD? Simply insane.
Real fiscal responsibility is not about cutting programs that feed the hungry or abandoning alliances that stabilize the world. It’s about making serious choices about priorities.
If the government wants to talk about waste, we should start with the billions spent on furniture, electronics, luxury food, and end-of-year spending sprees that do little to strengthen national security.
Because the truth is simple.
We didn’t stop feeding the world to save money.
We stopped feeding the world so someone else could buy lobster.
Heather Cox Richardson pulled together the extraordinary events of the past few days. She is the master of the question, “Make it all make sense,” even when it doesn’t. Her commentaries are wildly popular. She has about 3 million subscribers on Substack and an equal number who follow her on Facebook.
President Donald J. Trump is behaving more and more erratically these days, seeming to think he can dictate to other countries.
This morning, Trump told Barak Ravid and Zachary Basu of Axios that he needs to be involved personally in choosing the next leader of Iran. Speaking of Iranian politicians who are preparing to announce a new leader, Trump told the reporters: “They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodríguez] in Venezuela.”
Foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova of ONEST reported that in a call with Israel’s Channel 12 this morning, Trump called Israel’s president Isaac Herzog “a disgrace” and demanded Herzog pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “today” because Trump doesn’t want Netanyahu distracted from the war with Iran. Trump said Herzog had “promised” him “five times” to pardon the prime minister, and he appeared to threaten Herzog when he added: “Tell him I’m exposing him.”
In a statement, Herzog noted that “Israel is a sovereign state governed by the rule of law” and said the pardon is being dealt with by the Justice Ministry, as the law requires. After its ruling, Hertzog’s office said, he will examine the issue according to the law and “without any influence from external or internal pressures of any kind.”
In a conversation today with Dasha Burns of Politico, Trump insisted that “[p]eople are loving what’s happening” and said: “Cuba’s going to fall, too.”
The most astonishing example of Trump’s international aggression came from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Although Trump initially said he attacked Iran to keep it from acquiring nuclear weapons, Leavitt yesterday explained that Trump joined Israel in a military attack on Iran because Trump had “a feeling based on fact” that Iran was going to attack the United States.
Trump’s assertion of power globally contrasts with increasing setbacks at home.
Since the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs Trump imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) as unconstitutional, the administration has tried to slow walk repaying the $130 billion the government collected under those tariffs. But yesterday, Judge Richard Eaton of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that companies that paid the tariffs are entitled to a refund.
After the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump immediately imposed new tariffs of 15% on all global trade, using as justification Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. As Lindsay Whitehurst and Paul Wiseman of the Associated Press noted, this is awkward because the Department of Justice under Trump argued in court last year that Trump had to use the IEEPA because Section 122 did “not have any obvious application” in fighting trade deficits.
Today the Democratic attorneys general of more than twenty states filed a lawsuit to stop the new tariffs imposed under Section 122. “Once again, President Trump is ignoring the law and the Constitution to effectively raise taxes on consumers and small businesses,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Thursday.
The Department of Justice has also quietly backed away from Trump’s demand that it investigate whether former president Joe Biden broke the law by using an autopen to sign presidential documents. Yesterday, Michael S. Schmidt, Devlin Barrett, and Alan Feuer reported in the New York Times that prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., “were never quite clear what crime, if any, had been committed by the Biden administration’s use of the autopen.”
They concluded there was no credible case to make against Biden. The journalists noted that “the failed inquiry has only added to the sense among many federal investigators that Mr. Trump has become increasingly erratic in his desire to use the criminal justice system to punish his political adversaries for behavior that comes nowhere close to being criminal.”
Trump had been so invested in his attacks on Biden over his quite ordinary use of an autopen that he replaced a White House picture of Biden with one of an autopen, so the prosecutors’ shelving that investigation has to sting. Likely even more painful, though, is today’s news that Trump’s hand-picked National Capital Planning Commission has put off a vote to approve the ballroom Trump is proposing to replace the East Wing of the White House that he suddenly tore down last October.
At a Medal of Honor ceremony on Monday, Trump called attention to his ballroom and boasted: “I built many a ballroom. I believe it’s going to be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world.” But the American people do not share Trump’s vision. The chair of the commission said “significant public input” has caused him to delay the vote until April 2. Jonathan Edwards and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post say that of the more than 35,000 comments the commission received, more than 97% were opposed to Trump’s plans for the ballroom.
But perhaps the biggest setback for the Trump administration showed in the testimony of now-former secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem before Congress this week. There, days after Trump launched a major military operation in the Middle East without consulting Congress, angry lawmakers of both parties exposed the lawlessness and corruption taking place in the department under Noem’s direction. But their stance was about more than Noem: her lawlessness and corruption represented the larger lawlessness and corruption of the Trump administration.
Noem testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. In both chambers, Democrats jumped right to a central feature of the way in which Noem and the administration are setting up the idea that anyone who opposes the actions of the Trump administration is participating in “domestic terrorism.”
They tried to get Noem to walk back her statements that Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both shot and killed by federal agents acting under her authority in Minnesota, were “domestic terrorists.” Noem refused to do so. She has not actually called them “domestic terrorists” but has said they were engaged in “domestic terrorism,” a distinction that reveals the administration’s attempt to criminalize political opposition. Rachel Levinson-Waldman of the Brennan Center explained that “[t]o actually be called a ‘domestic terrorist, an individual must commit one or more of 51 underlying ‘federal crimes of terrorism,’” which involve nuclear or chemical weapons, plastic explosives, air piracy, and so on. Good and Pretti, and the many others administration officials have accused, do not fit that description. But on September 25, 2025, Trump’s NSPM-7 memo claimed that those opposing administration policies are part of “criminal and terroristic conspiracies” and that those who participate in them are engaging in “domestic terrorism.”
Noem refused to back away from the idea that Trump’s opponents are engaging in “criminal and terroristic conspiracies” by, for example, opposing the behavior of federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. Leaving that definition behind would undermine the administration’s entire domestic stance.
Democrats slammed Noem for her handling of detentions and deportations, ignoring court orders, and detaining U.S. citizens. In the House, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, said she “turned our government against our people, and…turned our people against our government.”
Republicans also called Noem out. Noem’s poor handling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has left North Carolina still suffering after terrible storms in 2024, and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) went after her.
He highlighted a letter from the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who said the department’s leaders have “systematically obstructed” the work of him and his staff. He identified eleven instances in which the department had refused to provide records and information. In a criminal investigation with national security implications, the department would permit him to access a database only if he revealed details of the investigation of individuals who might be related to the investigation.
Tillis said: “Does anybody have any idea how bad it has to be for the [Office of Inspector General] in this agency to come out and do this publicly? That is stonewalling, that’s a failure of leadership, and that is why I’ve called for your resignation.”
Lawmakers also focused on the corruption in DHS, which now commands more than $150 billion thanks to the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Lawmakers referred to a November 2025 ProPublica story in which reporters traced a $220 million contract for an ad campaign featuring Noem. The contract went first to a brand new small company organized by a Republican operative just days before winning the contract, and then to a subcontractor, Strategy Group, owned by Noem’s former spokesperson’s husband and closely associated with Noem’s advisor and reputed affair partner Corey Lewandowski.
Noem insisted she had nothing to do with the contract award and claimed Trump had signed off on the ad campaign. About the contract, Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO) commented in apparent disbelief: “You want the American people to believe that this is all above board, that $143 million of taxpayer money just happened to go to this one company that doesn’t have a headquarters, doesn’t have a website, has never done work for the federal government before, and is registered apparently or attached to a residence from a political operative, and of course one of the subcontractors of that contract, as you know, is a political firm that’s tied to, to you back when you were governor of South Dakota?”
Since Noem’s testimony, the Strategy Group released a statement saying it received only $226,137.17 for its work on the ad campaign.
Also under scrutiny was Noem’s purchase of a private plane with a luxurious bedroom in it, which brought up questions about whether, as is widely reported, she is having a sexual relationship with a subordinate. She refused to answer, and insisted Lewandowski had had no role in approving contracts. Joshua Kaplan and Justin Elliott of ProPublica promptly fact-checked her: in fact, Lewandowski has signed off on a number of contracts.
Lawmakers’ indictment of Noem for her extreme partisanship, disregard of the law, corruption, and lying condemned similar behavior from the administration in general. Today Trump told Steve Holland and Ted Hesson of Reuters that he “never knew anything about” Noem’s $220 million ad campaign, suggesting she lied to Congress under oath. This afternoon, just before she went on stage to speak, Trump announced by social media post that he was replacing Noem with Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.
This is an assertion of power the president does not have: he can nominate Mullin, but the Senate must confirm or reject his appointment.
Apparently unaware she was fired, Noem proceeded to give a speech in which she recited a false quotation from George Orwell, the writer who devoted much of his work to the importance of manipulating language to facilitate authoritarianism, a fitting end to Noem’s career in the Trump administration.
But Noem is not likely to disappear from the news. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker recorded a video saying: “Hey, Kristi Noem, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Here’s your legacy: corruption and chaos. Parents and children tear-gassed. Moms and nurses, U.S. citizens getting shot in the face. Now that you’re gone, don’t think you get to just walk away. I guarantee you, you will still be held accountable.”
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) was more direct: “Turns out lawlessness is not a winning strategy,” he posted. “See you at Nuremberg 2.0.”
As many of you know, I was born and raised in Texas. I grew up in Houston, third of eight children. I went to public schools, then to college in Massachusetts. I have never stopped being a Texan. I live in Brooklyn now but a part of my heart will always be in Texas. So I keep a close watch over developments in my home state.
The victories of James Talarico for Senate and Gina Hinojosa for Governor put Texas Democrats in a good position to turn Texas blue.
Gina Hinojosa coasted to victory in the Democratic primary over seven opponents. Soon after the polls closed, she had 61% of the vote. She will face incumbent Greg Abbot in November.
Talarico won the primary by 52.8% to Crockett’s 45.9%.
(Full disclosure: I contributed to all three campaigns.)
Talarico was a member of the state legislature. He has studied theology and is working towards a Master of Divinity at the Austin Presbyterian Seminary. He hopes to win independents and Trump voters with his deep religious faith and his rhetoric of love and reconciliation.
Under Governor Greg Abbot–now seeking his fourth term–Texas became an extreme MAGA state. Abbot echoes whatever Trump says , or says it first. Abbot is mean and has a stone heart.
Gina Hinojosa swept the Democratic primary for Governor. She is smart, articulate, beautiful, and Hispanic. One of the reasons that Democrats have not won a statewide office since 1994 is low turnout and growing Hispanic support for Trump. Gina was a featured speaker at the last conference of the Network for Public Education in Columbus, Ohio, and she was wonderful! As she explains in her PBS interview, strengthening neighborhood public schools is her top priority.
The Republicans running for Senate will compete in a May run-off. Jon Cornyn, the incumbent, is a reliable vote for Trump but not really MAGA. He seems like a moderate Republican who votes with Trump to protect his hide. Cornyn is running for his fifth term.
His opponent Ken Paxton is Attorney General of Texas, and it’s fair to say that he’s been scarred by scandals. His wife is a state senator. He cheated on her. Some of his staff blew the whistle on him and said he took payoffs from men he was investigating. The Republican House impeached him; the Republican Senate cleared him, thanks to generous donations by hard-right MAGA billionaires.
Paxton and Cornyn will have a runoff in May.
Talarico will be a strong candidate for the Senate. Hinojosa will be a strong candidate against Abbot, if Texans are sufficiently sick of pay-to-play politics.
The outcome will depend on turnout. Right now, Texas is run by a handful of oil billionaires. They want low taxes and minimal public services. They are Christian nationalists who love money and power.
If Talarico can attract the support of non-MAGA Republicans and if Gina can bring Hispanic voters to the polls, Texas will flip blue.
See Gina Hinojosa speaking at the Network for Public Education conference in April 2025, before the Republican-dominated Texas legislature passed vouchers. The passage of vouchers happened only after Governor Abbot primaried anti-voucher Republicans with the millions given him by billionaire Jeff Yass, the richest man in Pennsylvania.
See Talarico on how the worst people quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on MLK Day and then violate his teachings every other day of the year.
Talarico on Christian nationalists, who–he says–are “more committed to the love of power than to the power of love.”
I love these two and will support them both. There will be a tidal wave of money pouring into Texas Republican coffers from other states to try to stop these two exciting Democrats!
Republicans on the House Iversifgt Conmittee called former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to testify. She asked for an open public hearing, but they refused.
She roasted them for failing to call for the testimony of those who are named in the Epstein Files and in widely circulated photographs. They have not invited testimony from Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Howard Lutnick, or Elon Musk.
Here is her statement:
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Committee… as a former Senator, I have respect for legislative oversight and I expect its exercise, as do the American people, to be principled and fearless in pursuit of truth and accountability.
As we all know, however, too often Congressional investigations are partisan political theater, which is an abdication of duty and an insult to the American people.
The Committee justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.
As I stated in my sworn declaration on January 13, I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that.
Like every decent person, I have been horrified by what we have learned about their crimes. It’s unfathomable that Mr. Epstein initially got a slap on the wrist in 2008, which allowed him to continue his predatory practices for another decade.
Mr. Chairman, your investigation is supposed to be assessing the federal government’s handling of the investigations and prosecutions of Epstein and his crimes. You subpoenaed eight law enforcement officials, all of whom ran the Department of Justice or directed the FBI when Epstein’s crimes were investigated and prosecuted. Of those eight, only one appeared before the Committee. Five of the six former attorneys general were allowed to submit brief statements stating they had no information to provide.
You have held zero public hearings, refused to allow the media to attend them, including today, despite espousing the need for transparency on dozens of occasions.
You have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files. And when you did, not a single Republican Member showed up for Les Wexner’s deposition.
This institutional failure is designed to protect one political party and one public official, rather than to seek truth and justice for the victims and survivors, as well as the public who also want to get to the bottom of this matter. My heart breaks for the survivors. And I am furious on their behalf.
I have spent my life advocating for women and girls. I have worked hard to stop the terrible abuses so many women and girls face here and around the world, including human trafficking, forced labor, and sexual slavery. For too long, these have been largely invisible crimes or not treated as crimes at all. But the survivors are real and they are entitled to better.
In Southeast Asia, I met girls as young as twelve years old who were forced into prostitution and raped repeatedly. Some were dying of AIDS. In Eastern Europe, I met mothers who told me how they lost daughters to trafficking and did not know where to turn. In settings around the world, I met survivors trying to rebuild their lives and help rescue others – with little support from people in power, who too often turned a blind eye and a cold shoulder.
If you are new to this issue, let me tell you: Jeffrey Epstein was a heinous individual, but he’s far from alone. This is not a one-off tabloid sensation or a political scandal. It’s a global scourge with an unimaginable human toll.
My work combatting sex trafficking goes back to my days as First Lady. I worked to pass the first federal legislation against trafficking and was proud that my husband signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which increased support for survivors and gave prosecutors better tools for going after traffickers.
As Secretary of State, I appointed a former federal prosecutor, Lou CdeBaca, to ramp up our global antitrafficking efforts. I oversaw nearly 170 anti-trafficking programs in 70 nations and directly pressed foreign leaders to crack down on trafficking networks in their countries. Every year we published a global report to shine a light on abuses. The findings of those reports triggered sanctions on countries failing to make progress, so they became a powerful diplomatic tool to drive concrete action.
I insisted that the United States be included in the report for the first time ever in 2011. Because we must hold ourselves not just to the same standard as the rest of the world but to an even higher one. Sex trafficking and modern slavery should have no place in America. None.
Infuriatingly, the Trump Administration gutted the Trafficking in Persons Office at the State Department, cutting more than 70 percent of the career civil and foreign service experts who worked so hard to prevent trafficking crimes. The annual trafficking report, required by law, was delayed for months. The message from the Trump Administration to the American people and the world could not be clearer: combatting human trafficking is no longer an American priority under the Trump White House.
That is a tragedy. It’s a scandal. It deserves vigorous investigation and oversight.
A committee endeavoring to stopping human trafficking would seek to understand what specific steps are needed to fix a system that allowed Epstein to get away with his crimes in 2008.
A committee run by elected officials with a commitment to transparency would ensure the full release of all the files.
It would ensure that the lawful redactions of those files protected the victims and survivors, not powerful men and political allies.
It would get to the bottom of reports that DOJ withheld FBI interviews in which a survivor accuses President Trump of heinous crimes.
It would subpoena anyone who asked on which night there would be the “wildest party” on Epstein’s island.
It would demand testimony from prosecutors in Florida and New York about why they gave Epstein a sweetheart deal and chose not to pursue others who may have been implicated.
It would demand that Secretary Rubio and Attorney General Bondi testify about why this administration is abandoning survivors and playing into the hands of traffickers.
It would seek out officers on the front lines of this fight and ask them what support they need.
It would put forth legislation to provide more resources and force this administration to act.
But that’s not happening.
Instead, you have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers.
If this Committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.
If the majority was serious, it would not waste time on fishing expeditions.
There is too much that needs to be done.
What is being held back? Who is being protected? And why the cover-up?
My challenge to you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, is the same challenge I put to myself throughout my long service to this nation. How to be worthy of the trust the American people have given you.
They expect statesmanship, not gamesmanship. Leading, not grandstanding. They expect you to use your power to get to the truth and to do more to help survivors of Epstein’s crimes as well as the millions more who are victims of sex trafficking.
Timothy Snyder left his endowed professorship at Yale University and is now ensconced at the University of Toronto, where he holds the inaugural Chair in Modern European History at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Snyder is known for his many books about European history.
Donald Trump, president of the United States. “Calling this meeting to order. That was a long speech that I just gave. State of the Union. Long speech. Not going to stand up and do that again next year. So let’s hear it. Plans to make sure I don’t have to. Plans to end the United States by a year from now. Around the table. Go. Start us off, Linda.”
Linda McMahon, Education. “Thank you, sir. Nothing is more important for the country than public schools. So we are destroying them by directing tax money away from public school parents and towards private education scams.”
Russ Vought, Management and Budget. “The republic depends on its institutions. As you know, sir, we are wrecking our civil service by firing those who are qualified and replacing them with political hacks. I don’t want to overstate my case, sir, but these are not just normal hacks. They are hackety-hacks, sir. They will use what remains of the government to hasten the process of its destruction. Hackety-hack, sir.”
Trump. “Good. Hack. Good. But maybe something faster.”
Scott Bessent, Treasury. “A government works on the basis of tax revenue. From the beginning of your administration, sir, we have been overseeing a shift whereby people who actually have the money won’t pay any taxes. Indeed, our oligarchs will be the happy recipients of whatever tax money we can scrape up from the middle and working classes. This wealth shift from the population at large to the wealthy few is inconsistent with the survival of a republic. This will help speed along the change Russ is talking about.”
Howard Lutnick, Commerce. “And there’s a next step, if I may, sir. When we empower the oligarchs they can help us. Big tax cuts make them happy and destructive. The endgame here, sir, is to have billionaires control extraterritorial zones, like Epstein Island, a place that I know well, but without any fear of taxation or any other form of government control. These little fiefs then replace the United States. This is the scenario and I do think we can bring it home within a year.”
Pam Bondi, Attorney General. “And a republic is based upon law. This is where Justice comes in. We can ruin law in a number of ways, such as investigating the people we ourselves murdered, or persecuting your personal enemies. A good way to kill our Constitution is to protect pedophile oligarchs, such as yourself, sir. I was attorney general in Florida while Epstein pioneered our future, sir, and I can see this through on a national scale. We can make this Epstein World, sir.”
Trump. “I like it. But that’s familiar stuff. I mean I live there now, right. Let’s see some movement. How about some color.”
RFK Jr, Health and Human Services. “There was a lot of color in the middle ages, sir. Our freedom and security are based on modern vaccinations and hygiene. We undo all of that and promote epidemics. We see good results already in Texas and South Carolina. Not just people dying but babies and children getting really colorful diseases like encephalitis. By the way, this also opens up wellness markets for the people Howard and Scott are talking about. It takes people a while to die and there is money to be made there.”
Doug Burgum, Interior. “I may have something even more basic than that, sir. Everything we know about human history indicates that rapid changes in climate can bring down whole civilizations. We are deliberately engineering one of those. By suppressing green energy we can generate rapid global warming and make human life unsustainable. And along the way we get that color. People turning against each other, guns out until we run out of ammunition, then clubs, starvation, the works, a real spectacle. And, as Bobby says, disease. Very colorful, sir.”
Lee Zeldin, Environmental Protection. “And, if I may add, sir, our campaign to fry the species gives us all good practice in telling big lies, which are needed for all of these plans. Also, the billionaires will be fine on their islands when all of this happens.”
Trump. “OK, that’s colorful, I get it, but I want something with bad guys. Like a movie. The warming thing doesn’t work as a movie. Do you remember The Day After Tomorrow. I don’t remember the Day After Tomorrow. I want enemies. Bad guys who win.”
Marco Rubio, State. “I can help there. You are right, sir, that a republic to survive has to defend itself against autocratic enemies. So we empower the autocrats in China and Russia. We break the international system that held them back. We prop up Moscow in Ukraine and we give Beijing our most sensitive technology, ideally by way of middlemen who enrich you, sir, personally. If I may say so, sir, your friends and family have been very helpful in all of this.”
Tulsi Gabbard, National Intelligence. “Intelligence is the eyes and ears of our republic, sir, and we want these eyes and ears to be penetrated by foreigners who wish for us to fail and die. So we have liftedour cyber-defenses and announced that we have done so. If I may add, sir, both Russia and China support your incredible leadership in their information ops. It’s as though we all want the same thing. I see it every day and it’s beautiful. Spirit of Aloha. We say hello and they say goodbye…”
Kristi Noem, Homeland Security. “Without disagreeing with any of that, I just wanted to add that a republic exists because people believe they belong to a single nation. So the most direct way to kill our republic is a civil war. This almost worked the last time; this time we are getting the federal government behind white supremacy. We are creating a giant national secret police force in order to invade cities and force a conflict.”
Pete Hegseth, Defense. “Kristi is right. The war we can win is against Americans. And now that we are bringing unsupervised AI to direct our weapons, we won’t have to start it ourselves. It will be automated, we just watch from those safe islands. You see, sir? Movies. Terminators. Squiddies. Remember Wargames, sir, shall we play a game? AI likes nuclear war, it will recommend it 95% of the time. Get me into a conventional war, I lose it quickly, and boom. That would save you from having to give the speech, sir.”
Trump. “I like it. No long speeches. No Union. Steal what we can and burn the rest. Or burn first and then steal? Works either way. Steal, burn. Either way. Burn, steal. To help out I will just be me. Steal, burn. Me. Burn, steal. Me.”
(Applause)
•••
The conversation is fictional, of course. In essence, though, this is little more than a review of the news of the last few days and weeks.
Jess Piper lives in a rural part of Missouri. She is under the impression that the people elected in her district should listen to her grievances. She tried to speak to her representative and almost got arrested.
I am not an investigative journalist. I am a storyteller, but the story I am about to tell you has me feeling a little like Erin Brockovich. It keeps getting bigger. I keep taking notes. I keep hearing from others who are experiencing the same thing.
Something stinks in Missouri, and the stench is spreading fast — like a feed lot in July.
Republican Congressional Representatives are up to something nasty, and I think it is coordinated.
On January 30th, a few local Kansas City groups decided to go to one of our Congressman’s regional offices. He has five offices, and his constituents pay the rent for each.
My Congressman is Sam Graves. He has been in office for 24 years. He wins by a landslide every two years. He hasn’t held a town hall since 2012, and last fall, when I asked him to his face when he would hold a town hall, he told me, “I don’t do those.”
Many folks in his district have grievances with his policies and his fealty to the regime, so several of us went to his Kansas City office to voice our concerns to his staffers. The event was publicized and drew over 200 people.
When I arrived at the building that houses Sam’s office, I noticed a “No Trespassing” sign. I thought it was odd. The building is large, but it houses constituent offices for both Sam Graves and Senator Eric Schmitt.
Sam Graves’s KC Office, North Ambassador Drive, Kansas City, Missouri. 1/30/26.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I found the visitor’s parking space and parked. As I opened my back door to grab my protest sign, a woman in an unmarked police car told me I couldn’t park in the visitor’s lot, while a man in the passenger seat of the car filmed me with his phone.
I told her to take it up with someone else. I had every right to park in that spot.
She told me the building’s owner didn’t want us there. I told her I parked in the correct spot to speak with my Congressman in the office I paid for.
She told me to move my car, or I would be towed, because I was on private property.
I told her to do whatever she needed to do, but they’d have to tow dozens of vehicles. I grabbed my sign and walked toward the crowd gathering on the sidewalk.
I walked to the building to find Sam’s constituent office, and a man inside the building opened the door for me. I smiled at his courtesy, and I was about to pass through the open door when he stepped in front of me.
I looked up at his quick movement, and he asked me if he could help me.
I told him I was going in to speak to my Congressman’s staff. He told me there were no appointments that day. I stated I didn’t need an appointment…I had a sticky note to deliver. He said I couldn’t come in, and he would deliver anything I had to Sam’s staff.
And that was it. I was met by a guard at my Congressman’s door and not allowed in the building. I was denied my First Amendment right to petition my government for a redress of grievances.
I thought this was where the story would end, but what happened to me and others in Kansas City that day is happening all over the state. Missouri constituents are being met with hostility and locked doors and threats of citations and even arrest for showing up at our own Representative’s offices…
Remember when my Congressman told me he doesn’t do” town halls? He meant it. He is adamant. No contact with constituents and no questions answered and no relief delivered. He is a man beholden to his donors, not his voters.
And this applies to Ann Wagner and Eric Schmitt and Eric Burlison. They don’t care.
Petitioning our government is our First Amendment right. A right that exists even under this regime. Even under a Missouri GOP supermajority.
Someday, I hope the rest of Missouri will wake up to this fact.
These Representatives don’t care about you. Stop voting for them.
Andy Borowitz is America’s humorist. More than that, he is incisive and brilliant. He used to write for The New Yorker, but now has his own Substack blog called The Borowitz Report. I subscribe, and I recommend that you do so as well.
In this post, he gives insight into our notorious Attirney General, Pam Bondi, who has turned the Department of Justice into Trump’s personal law firm.
It’s important to remember that she was Attorney General of Florida from 2011 to 2019. She claimed that human trafficking was her #1 issue but somehow overlooked Jeffrey Epstein. As Attorney General, she is still shielding his crimes. Could it be that she is doing this to protect Trump?
Her obnoxious, aggressive, pugnacious appearance before the House Judiciary Committee showed the real Pam Bondi.
Can the attorney general of the United States go to prison?
The answer, of course, is yes: John Mitchell, who served under Richard M. Nixon, later served 19 months behind bars for crimes related to the Watergate cover-up.
Will the toxin known as Pam Bondi follow in his footsteps?
It’s worth considering in light of her appearance before Congress on Wednesday, a performance that Kimberly Guilfoyle might call “too shouty.”
Her testimony was unquestionably obnoxious. But was it criminal?
When you examine the evidence, it doesn’t look good for Pam.
This was the pivotal moment: responding to a question from California Rep. Ted Lieu about the Epstein scandal, Bondi snapped, “There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime. Everyone knows that.”
Lieu, who must have been tickled that Bondi was dumb enough to step into the weasel trap he set for her, responded that the attorney general might have just committed perjury. Which, as every Watergate superfan knows, is exactly what earned her Republican predecessor, John Mitchell, a trip to the pokey.
When the Trump shitshow is finally over, two things must happen. First, there must be a solid month of dancing in the streets. Second, there must be a reckoning: ideally, Nuremberg-style trials of the corrupt quislings who enabled this unprecedented crime spree. With those enjoyable tribunals in mind, let us now consider the case of Pam Bondi.
Remember when Trump nominated Matt Gaetz to be attorney general? We were so much younger then—although, it should be added, not young enough for Matt Gaetz.
At the time, I observed that Gaetz’s nomination was not what QAnon had in mind when they said they wanted to bring pedophiles to justice. In the end, Matt turned out to be as reckless with Venmo as he was about the age of consent, and Trump quickly withdrew his name.
Pundits claimed that Trump never expected Gaetz to pass muster with the Senate. By their reckoning, he was a “sacrificial lamb”—an odd way to describe a man who, in his personal life, had consistently behaved like a wolf. But by shitcanning Gaetz, the theory went, Trump was sending a signal to his Senate toadies that they’d better confirm all his other nominees, no matter how idiotic, incompetent, or drunk. When it came to Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Dr. Oz, Kash Patel, and myriad other passengers in Trump’s clown Cybertruck, the gambit seemed to pay off.
Matt Gaetz, peering into the gates of Hell. (Erin Scott-Pool via Getty Images)
As for the job of attorney general, Democrats and Republicans alike seemed relieved that it would not be filled by a summer-stock version of Jeffrey Epstein. Surely, whoever Trump named as Gaetz’s replacement would be an improvement.
Instead, Trump picked Pam Bondi.
In 2016, when she was Florida attorney general, Bondi secured her place in Trump’s heart with a speech at the Republican National Convention. Her bloodcurdling attack on Hillary Clinton inspired the GOP mob to break into a familiar chant, which prompted Bondi to comment, “Lock her up? I love that.” And so, by approving the incarceration of a woman who had never been charged with a crime, Bondi displayed an attitude towards due process that would someday serve her splendidly as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
She would, of course, have another opportunity to assert her preference for imprisoning innocent people with the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. On April 14, 2025, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, Trump’s accomplice in the world’s most notorious administrative error, joined him in the Oval Office, receiving a much warmer welcome there than was offered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. After chummily congratulating each other on the abduction and deportation of a non-criminal, the two men started workshopping how their brilliant strategy might be applied to innocent American citizens.
“The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns,” Trump told Bukele, who calls himself “the world’s coolest dictator”—a stroke of branding so cringe, it’s amazing it didn’t come from Elon Musk. “You’ve got to build about five more places,” Trump advised him.
Where did America’s attorney general stand on this flagrant nullification of a basic right enshrined in the Constitution? Trump added, “Pam is studying. If we can do that, it’s good.”
Pam, apparently, is a quick study. On Fox that evening, she was all in on Trump’s blatantly illegal idea, asserting, “These are Americans who he [Trump] is saying who have committed the most heinous crimes in our country, and crime is going to decrease dramatically.”
It’s not that Bondi is bad at her job—it’s that she’s outstanding at the exact opposite of her job, that is, using the DOJ to subvert justice whenever possible. Bondi’s Department of Injustice, a mutant creation worthy of George Orwell and Lewis Carroll, has proven inhospitable to career DOJ lawyers, who have struggled in court to defend the indefensible.
One such staffer, senior immigration attorney Erez Reuveni, committed what Bondi apparently considers a cardinal sin: uttering a truthful statement within earshot of a judge. After acknowledging what was obvious to any thinking person (but seemingly elusive to Messrs. Trump and Bukele)—that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was a mistake—Reuveni was put on indefinite leave and then fired.
Meanwhile, Liz Oyer, a longtime DOJ pardon attorney, was fired for refusing to restore gun rights to the actor Mel Gibson, who lost them after pleading no contest to domestic battery charges in 2011. Apparently, Trump believes Mel Gibson needs lethal weapons more urgently than Ukraine.
We shouldn’t be surprised to see Trump standing up for the rights of domestic abusers, since a sizable number of the January 6 rioters he pardoned fit that description. He doubled down on his support for this cohort by appointing a crony accused of domestic violence, Herschel Walker, ambassador to the Bahamas.
But what makes the Mel Gibson case particularly rich is that Trump has repeatedly claimed he is punishing universities for their “failure to combat antisemitism.” If Trump is serious about spanking antisemites, he need look no further than his pal Mel.
After the actor’s 2006 drunk driving arrest in Malibu, the police report indicated, “Gibson blurted out a barrage of anti-semitic remarks about ‘fucking Jews’. Gibson yelled out: ‘The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.’ Gibson then asked: ‘Are you a Jew?'”
Mel Gibson after his 2006 drunk driving arrest (L) and his 2011 domestic violence arrest (R).
In the upside-down world of Pam Bondi, highly regarded DOJ lawyers are fired and Mel Gibson is rearmed. But do such perversions of justice make Bondi a candidate for worst attorney general ever? They most certainly do, when one considers how decisively and repeatedly she has violated her oath of office:
“I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
Rather than defend the Constitution, Bondi has used her time in office to tirelessly protect pedophiles—which should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with her tenure as Florida’s AG. The following campaign ad from that era, in which she vowed to “put human trafficking monsters where they belong—behind bars,” hasn’t aged well:
As Bloomberg’s Mary Ellen Klas wrote, “Bondi kept her distance from the state’s most prominent sex-trafficking case, even as Epstein’s victims pleaded with the courts to invalidate provisions of his non-prosecution agreement and filed lawsuits alleging that he abused them when he was on work release from jail.”
I am confident that Bondi’s misdeeds—including but not limited to her role in the Epstein cover-up—have more than earned her a Nuremberg-style tribunal. I am not, however, suggesting we chant, “Lock her up.” Unlike our current attorney general, I believe in due process.
I thought of canceling my subscription to The Washington Post when Jeff Bezos blocked the editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris for President in 2024.
But I didn’t because there were so many writers whose work I appreciated, both opinion writers and news reporters. .
I have a special connection to The Washington Post.
I worked as a copyboy for The Post in the summer between my junior and senior years in college. It was a menial job but I loved it. It was a badge of honor (in my mind) to work there.
When my book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Chiice Are Undermining Education was published, Valerie Strauss of The Post decided to give the book maximum exposure. First, she interviewed me for Book TV, then she wrote a glowing review.
I read The Post everyday and enjoyed the reporting, the editorials, and the opinions.
But now, it is impossible to remain a subscriber after Jeff Bezos cut the heart out of the paper. Since he realized how vengeful Trump is, he became Trump’s sycophant. He hired a Murdoch guy as publisher. He hired a conservative as editor. He fired 1/3 of the news writers. He laid off bureau chiefs all over the world. His focus now is politics and national security.
As one ex-staffer put it, he murdered The Post. What was once was a great liberal (but not leftwing) newspaper is now a conservative paper. No more investigative reporting if the kind that toppled Nixon. No more deeply researched reporting from other nations.
He cut the heart out of the newspaper I loved to read for decades.
Jeff Bezos left a loyal reader like me no alternative. I canceled. There are so many other sources of news today that I don’t need to read a newspaper that sold out its principles.
The Republican-sponsored SAVES act has been passed by the House but not the Senate. It would cancel online registration. It requires voters to present a birth certificate or a passport. Millions of American citizens do not have either. Women, in particular, would be disadvantaged because the name on their birth certificates do not match their married names. .
Like me, you probably read that the FBI raided the office of the Fulton County voting headquarters in an effort to prove that the 2020 election was rigged. Just another evidence of Trump’s paranoia.
No, say the authors. That’s a cover story. The truth, they say, is that the raid was intended to rig the elections of 2026 and 2028. It was part of the GOP’s long-running effort to cancel the votes of Blacks and students, groups that favor Democrats.
Palast and Hartmann write:
For god’s sake, let’s get to the REAL agenda behind Wednesday’s-FBI raid on the Fulton County elections office. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE 2020 ELECTION. The warrant says the FBI wants the envelopes from the 2020 election to hunt for crimes. But that’s just the legal excuse for the storm trooping.
This is NOT, as the media seems to think, about Trump’s attempt to prove he won the 2020 race, as if he’s some political Captain Ahab was trying to chase the Moby Dick of 2020 revenge.
This is all about 2026 and 2028. Look at a map. Fulton County is the heart of “Blacklanta.” And Atlanta is the electoral heart of Georgia. And Georgia is the swingiest of swing states. If Republicans don’t cut down the Black vote in Atlanta, they lose the crucial seat now held by Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. And in 2028, the GOP, if they don’t suppress the vote in Fulton, they lose the White House. Fulton was the fulcrum of Trump’s loss in 2020 and could spell doomsday for Republicans in 2028.
So, how exactly do you stop Fulton County Black folk (and the LGBTQ community and the hipsters who left rural Georgia because they hate their parents) from voting? The answer is in one word: DROP-BOX.
Surveillance footage of a drop box in Atlanta, used in the film 2000 Mules as evidence of a “mule” whom filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza claimed was paid to stuff this and 26 other ballot boxes. According to D’Souza, this was “the smoking gun! O.J. Simpson…leaving the scene of a crime!” But it doesn’t show anything more than a Black man voting.
Follow me on this.
First, let me explain to my White readers a fact about African-Americans: In the majority, they vote early, having suffered the cruel absurdity of six-hour lines on Election Day. (And remember, it’s a FELONY crime in Georgia to give an elderly voter standing in line, thirsty a bottle of water). From long, sad experience, Black voters have learned to use early voting opportunities, especially mail-in ballots that can be placed in a drop-box.
For example, in the election run-off following the 2020 vote, which put two Georgia Democrats into the US Senate, over a million mail-in ballots (1,084,021) were cast, mainly in drop-boxes, mostly in Fulton/Atlanta.
Republicans took note. So, in a bill signed by GOP Governor Brian Kemp, the infamous SB202, the state declared all-out war on early voting, especially early votes placed in secure drop-boxes.
Early voting days, when you can use the drop box, were cut from 60 to just seven (!). And drop boxes — meant to serve voters who can only vote when they get off work at night — were sealed up at night in state office buildings.
The result, not reported by a single US outlet (except, God bless him, Thom Hartmann) was that the number of mail-in ballots cast dropped by 83% — 83%! — from over a million to 0.2 million (191,286) by the run-off of 2022.
Why? It goes back to what Donald Trump calls, correctly, one of the most influential documentaries of all time: 2000 Mules. The film, premiered by Trump at Mar-a-Lago, accused 2000 Black men of taking $10 from George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg and Stacey Abrams to stuff drop-boxes with tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots, especially in Fulton County. It was the perfect Sturm for the right, a stimulating concoction of racism and anti-Semitism.
There wasn’t a bit of evidence, of course, but it looked convincing to MAGA-nauts. Every single drop-box in Georgia has a video camera over it to prevent fraud, and the videos are public. So, the Trump front called True the Vote, showed videos of Black men “stuffing” the drop boxes with extra ballots.
Except it wasn’t true. The “star” criminal was a Black man accused of “running from the scene of crime like OJ Simpson.” In fact, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is Republican controlled, ran all over the state to arrest each Black alleged ballot stuffer (a felony crime) — but found that every one, EVERY ONE, was a legal voter. The man accused of thievery was Mark Andrews, who is a Verizon executive who legally dropped his family’s ballots in the drop box. But, as LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter says, “He was seen guilty of a crime because he was Black.” That, literally, was the only “evidence” of the crime.
Note: I want you to see Mark Andrews, supposed Black “criminal” supposedly caught in the act of VWB, Voting While Black. Next Thursday, February 5, at 6:30pm Central time (4:30pm Pacific), chapters of Indivisible will host a special online showing of my film, Vigilantes Inc., America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen, which rips Trump’s True the Vote a new one. If you’re in the Chicago area, you can attend the live showing with Q&A to follow.
Early voting, mail-in voting and casting an early vote in a drop were the keys to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, key to a huge surge in minority and student votes nationwide.
And massive suppression of early, mail-in and drop-box votes were key to Trump’s triumphant return. (Did anyone note that, seen from the Oval, the demolition of the East Wing only leaves the Right Wing.)
Following the 2020 election, over 20 Red States passed laws eliminating or restricting drop-boxes. And in every single case, legislators cited the bullshit “evidence” of 2000 Mules. Fact check: The state of Georgia recounted and reviewed every single Fulton County drop-box and mail in ballot and didn’t find one single forged ballot. Every vote had an identified, verified vote. Not ONE ballot.
White Democrats don’t seem to understand how important early drop-off votes mean to Black and student communities. But the Republicans understand it completely. In fact, GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that, had he not gone to court and stopped Houston from mailing out absentee ballots to all voter, “Donald Trump would have lost Texas.” Texas! (Note: Houston has the largest number of Black voters of any city in America.
By seeking every envelope from drop-box and absentee voters, Attorney General Pam Blondi is saving her job by saving the GOP from the voters’ wrath. The game is to force a state (i.e. Republican) takeover of Fulton County voting (possible under SB 202). And you can’t separate the invasion of Atlanta voting offices from the Purge’n General Blondi’s demand that Minnesota hand over its voter rolls.
The underlying purpose of Blondi’s seizure of Minnesota’s voter files is the restoration of two other racially poisonous vote suppression tricks. One is the return of the “Interstate Crosscheck” purge program and its sister, the purge of “aliens” from the rolls. Interstate Crosscheck cost nearly one million voters their registrations in 2016, key to Trump’s first election. Crosscheck was ruled illegal through a grassroots campaign led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sen. Bernie Sanders and litigation brought by PUSH, the NAACP and the ACLU based, I’m proud to say, on the evidence presented to the courts by the Palast Investigative Fund. But. now, Crosscheck is BAAAACK! Want to know about Crosscheck. Read my investigation for Rolling Stone.
And there’s the canard of allegedly MILLIONS of alien voters swimming the Rio Grande just to vote for Democrats. When Florida used the ICE lists to purge 187,000 (!) voters from the rolls, mostly Hispanics, it turns out only ONE was an illegal alien: A Republican from Austria.
But that’s a story for another day — and for our film, Vigilantes Inc.Grab some popcorn and save America.
The Palast team is preparing to launch a full-scale, national investigation of vote suppression in coordination with PUSH, Black Voters Matter Fund, the NAACP and the Transformative Justice Coalition. But dammit, we can’t do it without funding. We don’t need a lot, but if you don’t stand up and help, who will?
Greg Palast Investigates is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Investigative journalist and author of the NY Times bestsellers Armed Madhouse + The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. See my latest film at: https://WatchVigilantesInc.com
Gene Nichol, professor of law at the University of North Carolina, wrote a rousing article in an effort to awaken the citizens of his once-progressive state to the dictatorship that Trump has built in the past year. He refers to him as King Donald the First.
Personally, I think that Trump operates not as a king but as a Mafia boss. He extracts protection money from universities and law firms. He threatens our allies (but strangely not our enemies). He takes campaign contributions in exchange for pardons. His sons invest in lucrative real estate deals with nations that want an entree to the President. He tears down the East Wing of the White House to build a gaudy ballroom, without going through any of the steps required to make changes in a historic building. He slathers the austere and beautiful Oval Office with tawdry gold ornaments befitting the Godfather’s crass taste.
Actually, Professor Nichols agrees with me. In the article, he compares Trump to Al Capone.
We have launched a war against Venezuela — apparently because we can. We have provided no justification, no rationale, no candor. Their oil, we claim, is now ours. We’ll sell it and, Donald Trump explains, the “money will be controlled” by him. If the Venezuelans don’t bend quickly enough to our command, we’ll kill more of them. It’s like a video game to us. You know, like blowing up the boats. The U.S. military has proven its mastery — in an illegal and blatantly unconstitutional and brutal cause.
Next, Trump explains, “we’re going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.” If we “don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.” Cuba and Mexico are, perhaps, after that. As Stephen Miller oozes — who is going to stop us? It’s a real world out there. “You can talk about international niceties, but we live in a world governed by strength, by force, by power,” Miller says. The strong, apparently, take what they want and the weak, in turn, bear what they must. (I think the ancient Greeks said that.)
The Western Hemisphere is reportedly ours. So is any other nation that has anything we want. The only limit is Trump’s moral compass. Imagine, if you can.
ICE continues to terrorize Democratic cities — killing a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis, because, in this new era, that’s how you look manly, lethal. We advertise for agents on TV. Give ‘em signing bonuses. Le mercenaire.
The president of the United States extorts like Al Capone. Universities, law firms, corporations, media folks, researchers, artists, nonprofits, cities (Democratic ones), states (blue ones) and countries (weak ones). If you don’t do what he wants, he’ll bring bombers and gunships to your shore to see if that changes your mind. Maybe he’ll take the money, or maybe he’ll give it to his family. The corruption is so outlandish, we’ve quit keeping track. A surpassingly gutless House and Senate bless the effort. Their only apparent actual oath is to Donald J. Trump. A supine Supreme Court utters immunity. There is, literally, nothing beyond his power. And if there was, he could hire goons to do it and then pardon them.
We have fretted, as a nation, over whether Trump would become a dictator. He has. Donald The First. Anyone who thinks he and his crew will surrender power is three shades past delusional. At least the mystery is gone. The only question is whether he will be cabined, suppressed, rejected — legally — by the constitutional democracy he seeks to undo. That will require an actual Congress, resolute state governments, faithful and independent federal courts, but, most of all, a massively engaged, courageous and patriotic citizenry. It’s not yet clear whether we can manage to deliver these undoubted and foundational requisites. I wish I knew the answer. I do know it’s the most important question we face. Maybe that we’ll ever face.https://a13dfb665532302bfc5f824632f0e1ca.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-45/html/container.html?n=0
Surveying my home — a state that I love and that counts for the nation — the North Carolina Republican Party must now denounce President Trump. If they don’t, all Tar Heels, citizens and officeholders, must abandon the party. This day. There could be no stronger proof that an institution is unfit to govern than the continued embrace of Donald Trump — the gravest single threat to constitutional democracy in American history. No patriot can support dictatorship. And no honest human can any longer pretend that’s not what is happening here.
Contributing columnist Gene Nichol is a professor of law at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Diane Ravitch's blog 