Andrew Tobias is a financial writer who watches politics closely.
He writes here about the hollow “bravery” of SusannCollins, who has carefully tailored her reputation as a moderate and a centrist. She is now running for her fifth term in the geriatric U.S. Senate.
Susan Collins had the courage to stand up against her party 61 times (61 times!) when Republicans controlled the Senate in the years since 1997, as they do now — not even counting her brave announcement this past week that she would vote against Trump’s pick for attorney general, Epstein-files-scofflaw Todd Blanche. (Look at that, Mainers! She stands up to Trump!)
The only thing is . . . according to an analysis a classmate of mine just did with the help of A.I. . . . that in 60 of those 61 instances (60!), she knew her vote wouldn’t matter, so she got permission to do it, and it was not bravery on display, but cunning hypocrisy. (Look at that, Mainers: she thinks you’re stupid!)
(The lone exception was a 2000 legislative-branch appropriations conference report defeated 28–69, with Republicans themselves almost evenly divided, so it was hardly much by way of defiance.)
Every one of her 27 votes against a Republican president’s nominee ended in confirmation. And Trump’s Big Ugly Bill? Collins was — bravely! — the sole Republican NO. But, as planned, it squeaked by when Vance broke the 50-50 tie.
She is, of course, famously ridiculed for being “concerned” about women losing control over their reproductive organs — etc. — but the only thing I think she’s really concerned about is losing to Troy Jackson.
The Texas Pulse Poll shows James Talarico leading Ken Paxton in the US Senate race, Gina Hinojosa only one point behind Governor Greg Abbott, and Vicki Goodwin leading in the crucial race for Lieutenant Governor.
If this trend continues, Texas could flip blue, which would be historic.
Polls are evanescent, but the trend from red to blue is impressive.
The confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General of the United States has been kabuki theater of sorts. We were hopeful that three Republicans had the backbone to turn down this man who has broken the Department of Justice. Surely, the Senate would not confirm a man who is so subservient to Trump. The DOJ is supposed to be at arms’-length from the President. Blanche is under Trump’s thumb.
Blanche is the one who negotiated a deal to create a $1.776 billion slush fund for insurrectionists and Trump allies as well as a sweet deal for Trump, his sons, and their business NOT to be audited by the IRS, a gift to them of at least $100 million, probably more.
I imagined that there would be outrage towards the man who refused to release the Epstein files. The guy who spent two days interviewing sexual predator Ghislaine Maxwell, then arranged for her transfer to a minimum security prison where she received special treatment, as if she were a privileged guest, not a convicted pedophile.
Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski will vote against confirming Blanche. In Collins’ case, this is a pattern. She votes against her party only when her vote is not needed.
Most shocking are the “yes” votes of Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas, and–today–Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. All three were driven out of the senate by Trump. Till is resigned because Trump threatened to primary him. The other two were primaried by Trump choices and lost.
They had reason to stand against Trump, and they had reason to have a spine. But in the end, all three caved.
And Todd Blanche will head the nation’s Justice Department, where he will continue Trump’s agenda and his vendettas.
We live in strange and dangerous times. For the first time in memory, maybe ever, the rule of law itself is under attack. Our Dear Leader has threatened judges who rule against his wishes. He and his lawless administration ignore decisions they don’t like. He installed a Supreme Court majority who were vetted by the far-right Federalist Society. That majority proceeded to overturn Roe v. Wade, despite their repeated pledges not to do so, and to gut the Voting Rights Act, terminating guarantees of equal rights for Black Americans.
At this time when the rule of law itself is disregarded by the President, who is himself ruled only by whim and self-aggrandizement, two retired judges expressed their concern in The Guardian.
Judge Michael P. Connelly and Judge Robert F. Orr wrote:
Last October, US lawyers, judges and rule-of-law advocates traveled to Warsaw as guests of the Carter Center. Neither of us was among them. But when our colleagues returned, their stories inspired us.
They told us about judges and lawyers across central Europe who had been surveilled, smeared, prosecuted and sometimes jailed for standing between political power and courts meant to remain independent.
And they kept going.
Poland’s example was especially compelling. When its government sought greater control over the judiciary, Polish judges put on their robes and marched through Warsaw. Judges from across Europe joined them in what became the March of 1,000 Robes.
Then they left their courthouses and traveled through towns and villages, explaining what an independent judiciary means to a farmer, shopkeeper, parent or business owner. They talked about law not as an abstraction, but as protection against arbitrary power.
They understood a truth Americans can no longer overlook: judicial independence cannot survive merely because judges believe in it. The public must understand why it matters.
That lesson brought us on to a bus.
Last month, shortly after the United States celebrated its 250th birthday, the Justice in Motion tour traveled from western Pennsylvania through Ohio and into Michigan. Thirty sitting and retired judges, lawyers and advocates handed out pocket constitutions, met students and asked a question Americans do not consider often enough: what does the rule of law mean in everyday life, and what happens when we take it for granted?
In Columbus, we did something neither of us imagined during our years on the bench. We put on our robes and marched from the federal courthouse toward the supreme court of Ohio, carrying purple flowers, an international symbol of judicial independence.
American judges do not ordinarily march in the streets. Nor should they. The judiciary derives much of its legitimacy from restraint. Judges do not campaign for particular outcomes or answer criticism with press conferences. They speak through their decisions. But these are no ordinary times.
And our Polish colleagues taught us that silence can carry its own risk.
Our march was not about Democrats or Republicans, nor about defending particular judges or decisions. It was about defending the system that allows legal disagreements to be resolved according to law rather than political power.
One of us was elected to the supreme court of Ohio as a Democrat. The other was elected to the supreme court of North Carolina as a Republican and is now an independent. Through two long careers, we have disagreed about plenty.
That is precisely the point.
The rule of law is not a partisan possession.
Both sides enter a courtroom with the right to be heard. Judges must apply the law to the facts without regard to which party is more powerful, popular or politically useful.
Sometimes judges get it wrong. That is why we have appellate courts. Sometimes courts issue decisions that elected officials or citizens strongly dislike. That is unavoidable in a constitutional democracy.
The answer is appeal, legislation where constitutionally permissible, or constitutional amendment. It cannot be intimidation, retaliation for unpopular rulings or the suggestion that compliance with lawful court orders is optional.
Once adherence to judicial decisions depends upon whether the politically powerful agree with them, we have left the rule of law behind.
In Wooster, Ohio, about 150 people gathered across from the historic courthouse. The discussion was not about red America or blue America. It was about ordinary life.
The rule of law is why you can deposit money in a bank and expect it to be there tomorrow. It is why contracts mean something, property can be protected and an individual citizen can enter a courthouse and challenge the government.
These protections seem ordinary only because generations before us built institutions strong enough to make them ordinary. When the rule of law works, it is almost invisible.
Judges are trained – rightly – to exercise restraint. During our years on the bench, we spoke through our rulings. That tradition is essential to maintaining confidence in an impartial judiciary.
But restraint should not be confused with silence about the survival of the institution itself.
When judges are threatened because of their rulings; when an adverse decision is answered not with an appeal but with demands for retaliation; when courts are judged legitimate only when they produce politically desired outcomes, those who understand the system have an obligation to explain what is being lost.
Our Polish friends understood this before we did. Their circumstances differ from ours, and comparisons should be made carefully. But the lesson travels well.
The rule of law does not defend itself. Neither does an independent judiciary. Constitutions are pieces of paper unless citizens and public officials possess the courage and habits necessary to honor them.
Four days on a bus will not persuade a nation. The purpose was more modest: to begin conversations, one community and one citizen at a time, about institutions Americans have been fortunate enough to take for granted.
That work belongs not only to judges and lawyers, but to all of us.
The rule of law is not something judges possess. It is something citizens inherit.
And every generation must decide whether to preserve it.
What’s giving us hope now
Justice Robert F Orr (retired): What gives me hope is the scope of individuals and groups now focusing and talking about the rule of law and the independence of our judiciary. Our bus trip had a great mix of backgrounds and experience both in the judges participating and meeting us at stops as well as the young people who amplified the message across various media platforms. It’s genuinely a national movement.
Justice Michael P Donnelly (retired): What gives me hope is the genuine appreciation we encountered during the bus tour for the role of an independent judiciary in protecting individual rights and civil liberties. The people we met understood that these freedoms, defended at great sacrifice throughout our history, cannot be taken for granted – and that each generation must be willing to stand up for them.
Michael P Donnelly is a retired justice of the supreme court of Ohio
Robert F Orr is a retired justice of the supreme court of North Carolina. Both participated in the Justice in Motion tour organized by the Democracy Rising Collaborative and Keep Our Republic
Bo French is an uber-bigot who is running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission. Don’t be misled by the title. The Railroad Commission has very little to do with railroads. It oversees the oil and gas industry in Texas and wields enormous power over an essential industry.
You might want to learn about Bo French, because he is running for an important statewide seat. Also because he voices the sentiments of the dark underbelly of American political life.
Last week Bo French, the Republican nominee for the Railroad Commission of Texas, sent out a bizarre fundraising email. Framed as a reminder of the 108th anniversary of the Communist overthrow of Russia, the email included an AI-generated image of his Democratic opponent, Jon Rosenthal, smiling in the chambers where the country’s then-ruling Romanov family was executed in 1918. Rosenthal, French’s campaign continued, has “much in common with the Marxist revolutionaries who brutally executed” the Romanovs, and has plans for his own “infernal revolution” of Texas. “My opponent has spent his time in office mocking Christianity, the Virgin Birth, and Christian Communion, while voting against religious liberty and for the spread of Islam,” the email continued.
If you’re wondering what, exactly, a century-old Russian coup has to do with the railroad commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, then you’re likely not alone. But among a small audience—those attuned to white supremacist dog whistles—the accusation almost certainly perked up some ears.
You see, Rosenthal is Jewish. And while French did not explicitly name the Bolshevik revolutionaries who overthrew Russia a century ago, the email appears to be nodding to an antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims there is a Jewish Communist cabal intent on controlling the world and stamping out Christianity. Known as Judeo-Bolshevism, the theory was crucial to Adolf Hitler’s rise and a key justification for the Holocaust. It remains central to the worldviews of many modern fascists, who maintain that communism—and, by extension, immigration—are tools used by Jews to destroy the West and white people.
In a statement to Texas Monthly, Rosenthal called French’s post “true to form.” The Texas House member from the Houston area and longtime mechanical engineer in the oil and gas industry continued: “While I’m working on substantive solutions for the people of Texas and our energy grid, his whole campaign is about pejorative and racist attacks.”
Neither French nor his campaign responded this week to numerous requests for an interview, or to clarify whether he intended to invoke the conspiracy theory. But his other recent posts make clear he has a deep familiarity with esoteric racist views that were once largely confined to fringe corners of the far right.
This week, in response to a video that purported to show nonwhite people trespassing in a restricted part of Yellowstone National Park, French posted a quote from “The Camp of the Saints”—an obscure French dystopian novel that depicts immigrants as diseased, feces-eating hordes and has enjoyed a recent resurgence among the global white nationalist movement. “Your universe has no meaning to them,” French wrote on X to his 80,000 followers, without revealing the source of the quote. “They will not try to understand. They will be tired, they will be cold, they will make a fire with your beautiful oak door . . .”
Citing fears of “gay race communism,” an impending “massacre of heritage Americans,” and the nation ending up like modern South Africa, French has called for the United States to “be Rhodesia,” the African pseudostate in the sixties and seventies in which Black people were violently oppressed by a ruling white minority. Rhodesia has inspired numerous racist killers—most infamously Dylann Roof, the self-described “Last Rhodesian” who massacred nine Black congregants at a South Carolina church in 2015.
“We are all Rhodesians now,” French wrote in January.
It wasn’t long ago that such views were largely relegated to the online backwater of the neo-Nazi movement or manifestos left by fascist mass shooters, according to Wendy Via, a veteran researcher of the far right and cofounder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “They are well-known to people who study extremism,” Via told me. “But they’re not well-known to even your average racist. These are the ideological basis for the white supremacist movement.”
Even if they’re not yet widely accepted, she said, such views are slowly being normalized by President Donald Trump, the scaling back of moderation on many social media websites, and the proliferation of the “great replacement” theory—which claims there is an intentional, often Jewish-driven, effort to demographically replace white people in Western countries. In May, for instance, Greg Bovino, the former Border Patrol commander-at-large under Trump, spoke to a global conference of neo-Nazi-affiliated activists and extreme far-right political figures who had gathered in support of the “remigration” movement, which seeks to forcibly remove people of color, including legal citizens, from their countries. (Detractors have another name for such efforts: “ethnic cleansing.”)
In Texas, French has been a key purveyor of similarly extreme rhetoric, and he helped make anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant bigotry mainstream in the broader state GOP. He’s called for 100 million people—nearly a third of the American population—to be deported, and for two nonwhite Texas House members to be stripped of their citizenship and removed from the country. He wants some Native Americans—“third world savages”—to be kicked out of America too. French says Texas needs to “ban Islam” and “round upevery Muslim” for deportation. Last week he toldhis followers it was “time to go round up all the Chinese and send them packing!” McCarthyism and the Christian Crusades, he argues, didn’t go far enough. And this week he referred to America’s “not in labor force” population—an economic term for nonworkers that includes retirees, students, and those with serious handicaps—as “low IQ parasites.”
When Donald Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service for $10 billion, it was a breathtaking display of arrogance and greed. An independent contractor leaked Trump’s tax returns in 2019, along with the returns of other very wealthy people.
A few things to know about this event: the individual who leaked tax returns was convicted and sent to prison. The leaking of tax returns occurred while Trump was President. Trump was expected to release his tax returns as other presidents had done since —, but he never did.
Federal Judge Kathleen Williams made clear that she found the lawsuit fishy, since it was not an adversarial proceeding. As she pointed out, when Trump sued the IRS, he was essentially suing himself since he was in charge of the department he was suing. She was coming close to the conclusion that the lawsuit had no adversary and was possibly a fraud on the court.
Before she issued a ruling, Blanche and Trump announced that they had reached a settlement: Trump would drop his suit in exchange for the Justice Departnent agreeing to set up a fund of $1.776 billion to pay people who had been unfairly targeted and harmed by the federal government. They also agreed that the IRS would not audit Trump or his family (it was never clear whether the agreement covered audits up until 2026 or audits past and present.) Since Trump owed the IRS about $100 million, this piece was very important to him.
Judge Williams issued a ruling and declared the entire agreement void. She said that Blanche and Trump could not even call what they had done a “settlement,” because the terms they agreed to had no legal force.
Senators from both parties were outraged by the slush fund, which they believed would give payouts to the January 6 insurrectionists, as well as Trump friends such as Rudy Giuliani and others who helped his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Acting Attorney General Blanche assured them that the slush fund was dead but he refused to put it in writing.
When Trump nominated Blanche to be the Attorney General of the United States, two Republican senators said they would block him unless he produced a letter revoking his agreement with Trump.
Friday’s dismissal of the Department of Justice case against David Hearn for vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool came days after Hearn’s lawyers asked for transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to the indictment. The lawyers noted that the government’s only witness testified that the pool was already damaged before Hearn went near it, and that the witness could not quantify the cost of any damage Hearn might have done over and above the cost of repairing the existing damage. The lawyers told the court there were “irregularities in the government’s presentation of the evidence to the grand jury” that “call into question whether the grand jury was misled.”
The Department of Justice has been caught repeatedly misleading grand juries or committing misconduct in getting indictments. Hearn’s lawyers were suggesting that the Department of Justice engaged in the same misconduct in the indictment of David Hearn for damaging the bottom of the reflecting pool.
In their filing, they noted that a judge and former federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia had recently stated that “[g]enerations of presidential administrations and public officials” have reinforced the idea, called the “presumption of regularity,” that public officials do their jobs properly, operate in good faith, and follow correct procedures. But, the judge noted, “In just six months, the President of the United States may have forfeited the right to such a presumption.”
On July 28, J. David McSwane, Pratheek Rebala, and Carla Astudillo of ProPublica reported that judges across the country are calling out lawyers for the Department of Justice, questioning whether they can be trusted to tell the truth and whether they are operating according to centuries-old norms. Judges have called behavior by Department of Justice lawyers “unlawful,” “unethical,” “unseemly,” and otherwise dishonest.
The degradation of the Department of Justice, which is charged with defending the rule of law for the American people, into an instrument of Trump’s political wrath has been illustrated in the fight over the confirmation of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to attorney general.
Before going to the Department of Justice, Blanche was Trump’s personal attorney. He led Trump’s criminal defense team in the case of falsifying records to cover up hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, as well as his defense against the two cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith: the one indicting him for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the one indicting him for retaining classified documents after leaving office.
Since he took over for former attorney general Pam Bondi, Blanche has openly flouted the law in order to do Trump’s bidding. He secured indictments against people Trump perceives to be enemies, including former FBI director James Comey for posting on Instagram a picture of seashells arranged to form the number “8647.”
On July 29, Devlin Barrett and Alan Feuer of the New York Times reported that the Secret Service agents who interviewed Comey in May 2025 were told to send a summary of that interview as quickly as possible to Trump on Air Force One. Trump’s close involvement in the case, the authors wrote, “is one of the most glaring examples to date of the degree to which Mr. Trump now directs federal law enforcement actions.”
On July 28, Comey’s lawyers filed motions to throw out on the grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution the federal charges Blanche brought against him. They noted that Trump had repeatedly made it clear he wanted Comey indicted, even going so far as to put his former special assistant Lindsey Halligan into office as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, where she indicted Comey just four days later. (That appointment was later found to be invalid.) The filings from Comey’s lawyers appear to show that FBI officers engaged in warrantless surveillance of Comey.
Like the lawyers in the Hearn case, Comey’s lawyers suggested that “irregularities in the grand jury process influenced the grand jury to return an indictment.” Like Hearn’s lawyers, they asked the court to “disclose the transcripts and audio recordings of all proceedings before the grand jury in this case” or to review them himself to make sure they followed the law. In a previous case against Comey, they note, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick found that the government’s actions raised “genuine issues of misconduct” that were “inextricably linked to the government’s grand jury presentation.”
Blanche’s indictment of Comey to please Trump colors another of his actions: he backed the deal Trump made with the Department of Justice to establish a $1.776 billion slush fund to pay off those convicted of committing crimes surrounding Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Blanche put his name to the second half of that deal that seems to be being eclipsed by the slush fund but is clearly Trump’s main interest: an agreement between Trump and the Department of Justice promising to drop any pending claims against Trump, his oldest sons, or the Trump Organization for past illegalities in tax returns, and promising not to conduct audits of Trump’s tax returns.
That slush fund/nonprosecution deal has been a sticking point for Blanche’s Senate confirmation to attorney general, as two Republican senators—John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina—want him to put in writing that the deal is as dead as he claimed it is in his confirmation hearing before they agree to support his nomination. But he has refused to do so. On Thursday, Trump suggested he was willing to withdraw Blanche’s nomination until Cornyn and Tillis are out of office, leaving him as acting attorney general.
Then, at 7:03 Friday morning, Trump threw a monkey wrench into this fight by posting that in fact, he emphatically supports the slush fund. He appears to reject the idea that it is dead, and seems to be counting on Todd Blanche to implement it, exactly as critics have said.
Trump seems to have been thwarted from getting his way quietly by putting Blanche in as attorney general without any promise to kill the slush fund and its accompanying promise not to prosecute Trump or his associates for crimes associated with their tax filings. And so, on Friday, Trump filed notice that he and the rest of the parties to the “agreement” will appeal the July 13 ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams. She said that the suit that led to the $1.776 billion slush fund and the accompanying nonprosecution promise was filed to “manipulate the judicial process.” Williams said the Justice Department could not claim the deal it made with the Trumps was a judicial agreement.
At 7:32 Saturday morning, Trump posted: “If Senators Cornyn and Tillis, both upset because I wouldn’t Endorse them (they lost, and quit, respectively!), aren’t going to approve Todd Blanche, one of the most respected professionals, according to everybody, in the Country, to be the United States Attorney General, then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard to get the Anti-Weaponization Bill, which takes care of those who have been so badly treated by the Crooked Joe Biden (and Obuma!) Administration (I get nothing, although I was treated horribly!), PASSED. Todd Blanche was a voice of reason! It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT”
After Richardson had posted her commentary, near midnight last night, CNN reported that Todd Blanche released a written statement declaring that he was rescinding the slush fund. This was what Senators Cornyn and Tillis had demanded, and it appeared that they are likely to vote to confirm him tomorrow.
The document released Sunday also limits the addendum to that agreement that offers the president and members of his family immunity from tax investigations — a sticking point for Cornyn. The senator wanted Blanche to explicitly acknowledge that it applies only to past tax investigations against the president and those listed in the IRS lawsuit.
The Sunday order says the measure “applies by its terms only retroactively” and that it applies only to “the named parties in the lawsuit” referenced in the agreement.
Bottom line: Blanche abandons the slush fund but reaffirms that the IRS will not audit Trump or his family or the Trump Organization for any tax cheating in the past. As Heather Cox Richardson wrote, this was Trump’s main interest, not the slush fund.
So if Cornyn and Tillis are satisfied, Trump gets what he wanted: freedom from having his tax returns audited retroactively. This saves him at least $100 million, possibly much more.
And if Blanche is confirmed, Trump gets what he’s always wanted; his Roy Cohn in charge of the Department of Justice, pursuing his enemies and defending Trump’s actions.
The New York Times recently quoted a group called “Third Way,” which attacked Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the winner of the Michigan Democratic Senate primary.
Robert Reich writes that this portrayal of “Third Way” is “moronic bullshit.” He explains that Third Way is composed of corporate executives and financiers. He writes “There’s no ‘middle’ between neofascist corporatism and democracy.”
The kind of corporate BS now cropping up all across America
Friends,
The statements seem as belligerent as Pete Hegseth on a bad hair day.
“We are preparing for the next war that is coming,” says Jonathan Cowan.
Cowan is president of Third Way, described by The New York Times as a “leading centrist Democratic group.” Cowan’s Third Way is preparing a $15 million war chest to “discredit democratic socialism.”
Pointing to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Michigan Senate primary last week, Cowan warns that “it is deeply troubling to see radical, far-left candidates winning in places that are potential presidential swing states.”
Well, I find it deeply troubling that faux centrist groups are declaring war on progressives in the pages of The New York Times, without revealing who they really are.
If you bother to look at the funding sources of Third Way — those that have been made public, that is (Third Way is structured as a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization that’s not legally required to publicly disclose its donors) — you’ll find a Star Wars cantina of billionaire megadonors, Fortune 500 CEOs, corporate dark money bundlers, and giant corporations.
Odd that The New York Times chooses to describe Third Way as a “leading Democratic centrist group” without revealing that it’s simply a Trojan Horse for corporate America.
Third Way senior vice president Matt Bennett has even conceded that “the majority” of Third Way’s donor support comes from the group’s board of trustees, most of whom are from the finance sector. (That’s the same Matt Bennett, by the way, who helped stage the infamous “Dukakis in a tank” photo-op that helped sink Dukakis’s 1988 presidential campaign.)
At this point in his article, Reich identifies the members of the board of Third Way, each of whom is a corporate titan.
Oh, and Third Way’s honorary co-chairs have included West Virginia’s former Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona’s former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Enough said about its governing structure.
In 2020, Third Way claimed that Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All plan would add more than $13 trillion to the federal deficit, although most other analyses — including one by the Koch-funded Mercatus Center — found that Sanders’s plan would save trillions while providing healthcare to millions of uninsured Americans.
Well, of course Third Way attacked Bernie’s plan. Among Third Way’s donors are pharmaceutical giant Amgen, pharmacy benefit manager CVS Health (which acquired health insurance giant Aetna in late 2018), and health products and drug company Baxter International.
Other corporate donors to Third Way are or have been members of the GOP-aligned American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate bill mill that links lobbyists with state lawmakers. Amgen, Baxter Healthcare, CVS Caremark, DuPont, and trade groups the Consumer Technology Association and NCTA – The Internet and Television Association are members.
Third Way donors have also given money to the Republican Attorneys General Association, which helps elect Republicans who fight federal environmental and other regulations. Among them, Entergy, Facebook, Google, and Reynolds American, according to tax records.
After the Democrats’ 2024 election losses, Third Way argued that the party should reduce its dependence on small-dollar donors. In a five-page memo of “takeaways” from the election, Third Way asserted that small-dollar donors’ preferences “may not align with the broader electorate.”
The memo stopped short of naming alternative funding sources, but the implication was clear: Less grassroots support means more reliance on big checks from super PACs and wealthy donors, which is exactly what Third Way prefers.
The memo also included calls to curb “far-left influence,” adopt a “pro-capitalist” stance, and stop “demonizing wealth and corporations.”
***
So, please, disregard whatever you may hear from Third Way or any other so-called “leading Democratic centrist group.”
And pay no attention to headlines about “Democratic centrists preparing for war” against a “rising Left.”
Instead, focus on what’s really happening.
Voters want people in power who are going to fight for them, and not for the super-wealthy or big corporations and Wall Street.
This is especially true now — when the bottom 90 percent of Americans are struggling to pay the bills, a record portion of the nation’s wealth is in the hands of the richest one-tenth of one percent, big corporations and Wall Street have never been as powerful, Washington has been taken over by legalized bribery and corruption, and there’s no “center” between democracy and neofascism.
L.C. Francis authors the blog “L.C. Francis Open Society for History and Civics.” In this post, he imagines how Benjamin Franklin would react if he could time-travel to the present day. He titled this one “A Republic in a Costly Costume.”
His subtitle is:
Benjamin Franklin visits Washington and finds the experiment alive, wounded, witty, dangerous, and leaning toward the very monarchy it was built to resist.
“Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech; a Thing terrible to Publick Traytors.” — Benjamin Franklin, writing as Silence Dogood, No. 8, published in The New-England Courant, July 1722.
Dear Friends,
Yesterday, I wrote about Adams and Jefferson, two bitter friends who died on the Fourth of July, fifty years after the Declaration. But for weeks, another question has been on my mind: what would one founder think if he returned for America’s 250th birthday?
On this Sunday morning, after the fireworks have quieted and the crowds have gone home, I did not want to hand you another stack of bad news. I did not want to build another time machine just for cleverness. I chose Benjamin Franklin because, of all the Founders, he might be the least surprised by what he found in Washington in 2026.
Franklin was intimately aware of monarchial tendencies because he had known kings, ministers, courtiers, printers, mobs, frauds, scientists, diplomats, and men who mistook applause for wisdom. He would not arrive appalled by our foolishness. He would arrive amused, worried, and already reaching for his pen, because sometimes a Republic needs to hear the truth from a man who understood both human weakness and the strange miracle of self-government.
I visualized him observing the ruined East Wing, the ballroom adjacent to the People’s House, the painted Reflecting Pool, attacks on the press, a craving for royal attention, and an occupant of the People’s House who is more eager to be admired than to serve our Republic.
Then Franklin writes home…Hope you find this insightful & enlightening.
Dispatch on the Status of Our Republic
Washington City July 5, 2026
My Esteemed Friends,
Having been conveyed, by means I cannot explain, into a future age that corresponds to 250 years from our time, and finding myself in the city your posterity has raised for the administration of the Republic, I have thought it prudent to send you a few observations before I am returned, if I am permitted to be returned to our time.
Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson will be pleased to hear that our Republic still exists in form. Elections take place, courts at the national, state, and local levels continue to interpret the law, newspapers continue to publish, and the public debates with such fervor that I almost thought the entire nation was a printing press.
Yet I confess that the condition of the Executive office gave me pause.
We once quarreled with George III because no free people should be governed by the vanity of one man. I now find, to my astonishment, a chief magistrate who appears to regard that monarch not as a warning but as an interior decorator. He favors ceremony, obedience, personal loyalty, public flattery, and buildings large enough to persuade small minds that greatness has occurred.
I had hoped your descendants would remember that we rejected monarchy not because crowns were uncomfortable, but because men wearing them became so.
The President’s residence, also called the People’s House and meant as a duty-bound home, has been significantly transformed. A wing was removed, and a ballroom was added. Donors gather nearby, contractors appear pleased. The words reflect public service, but the atmosphere feels like courtly flattery. I’ve strolled through Versailles and seen men bow so deeply they could pick pockets unnoticed. Now, even the Potomac seems to have acquired a touch of French elegance.
I am told this is all done for greatness. I have found that when a man must constantly proclaim his greatness, the evidence is usually still under construction.
As a printer, I paid especially close attention to the press, and this issue grew more serious the longer I spent in this era. The current President doesn’t just dislike criticism; all public figures dislike it, though some handle it more gracefully. This gentleman, with a countenance the color of an apricot or a persimmon, seems to believe himself to be the reincarnation of the courts of France and, therefore, the press should praise him, obey him, change geography in his favor, and apologize whenever inconvenient facts emerge.
One news service was punished for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico on command, as though a president could improve geography by signing it in a larger hand. Broadcasters have been threatened. Reporters are treated as enemies when they ask questions rather than bring incense. Lawsuits are brandished like royal decrees. It reminded me of old George III, though fairness requires this confession: George was born into a monarchy. He did not have to assemble one from wounded vanity, public entertainments, donor money, and several coats of gold paint.
Permit an old printer to be plain: a free press is not an ornament of liberty. It is one of its tools. A government that fears printers has already confessed more than printers have written.
I also observed that nearly every citizen carries a small glowing glass into which he may speak a question and receive an answer before his own judgment has had time to put on its shoes. This instrument is astonishing. It fetches a fact, composes a letter, translates a tongue, summarizes a book, and offers counsel with the confidence of a lawyer who has not yet found the statute. Much of what it provides is helpful, though some is incorrect. Its rapid delivery might lead a lazy mind to equate speed with wisdom.
I say this as one who loved invention: no machine, however clever, can spare a Republic the burden of discernment. A device may gather the lightning, but only judgment can make the rod.
Nevertheless, I do not lose hope.
I observed citizens carefully counting votes. I saw judges trying to keep the law from becoming a command. I saw teachers, librarians, clerks, veterans, reporters, and ordinary Americans doing the quiet work no ballroom can replace. They receive little applause, which may be why their service remains valuable.
When we gave the people a Republic, I warned that keeping it would be their burden. Upon further reflection, after visiting our Republic for the first time in 250 years, I would only add this: beware the man who loves the symbols of our country more than its restraints. Beware the patriot who attacks the press, flatters himself with marble, and treats public office as family property. George III lost America by misunderstanding Americans. It would be a poor anniversary indeed if Americans returned the favor by misunderstanding George III.
Tell our friends in Philadelphia that the Republic has not failed. The forms remain: elections, courts, printers, laws, and that blessed American habit of arguing with everyone within reach.
But the balance has shifted toward one man’s office in a manner that would please Mr. Hamilton, satisfy much of Mr. Adams, send Mr. Jefferson searching for ink and a quill, and prompt Paul Revere to get back on horseback. The President now stands so enlarged that many citizens seem less interested in restraining him than in being near enough to admire the glow.
This is the warning I carry home: a Republic may keep its papers and still lose its posture. If the people do not soon pull power back toward Congress, the courts, the press, the states, and themselves, they may wake to find they have not crowned a king but have trained themselves to obey one.
Our democratic experiment continues, but it now dangerously leans toward the very thing we crossed an ocean of trouble to resist.
I remain, as ever, Your affectionate friend and humble servant, B. Franklin
P.S. I hope this dispatch finds you in good health and, if possible, in better shade than I presently enjoy, for the heat here is dreadful. I am told the current chief magistrate has intellectual doubts that the climate itself can change, which is a curious position in an age that can weigh the stars, split the atom, and yet still offends itself by consulting a thermometer.
Andy Spears reports that the Walmart billionaires are supporting MAGA Marsha Blackburn in the race for Governor of Tennessee.
The Waltons of Arkansas are totally committed to eroding public schools and privatizing public funding, so Blackburn is promising to expand state support for vouchers.
Spears writes:
The youngest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton is now on the Marsha Blackburn bandwagon.
The latest campaign financial report indicates that pro-Blackburn Team Tennessee PAC received $100,000 from Walton in the last reporting period.
The Walton family has long supported private school discount coupons – otherwise known as school vouchers. These schemes divert funds from working-class families to wealthy families to use as tuition discounts at private schools.
Walton joins payday predators Advance Financial, Pennsylvania billionaire and privatization advocate Jeff Yass, the CEO of Jimmy John’s, and General Motors in supporting Blackburn and her reverse Robinhood economic and education agenda.
Blackburn has pledged to further expand Tennessee’s $300 million school voucher scheme if the 74-year-old career politician wins the Governor’s race.
Last week, Trump gave an address to the nation about malign attempts by foreign powers to influence our elections. He said that China was meddling in our elections, but the documents he released pointed to Russia’s efforts to help him. When he ran against Biden in 2020, the documents showed, Russian propaganda tried to portray Joe Biden and his son Hunter as recipients of foreign bribes; multiple investigations never produced any evidence for these claims.
Ironically, MSNOW points out, Trump has eliminated the federal agency that helped protect election security. You have probably never heard of that agency (CISA), so he correctly assumes that you won’t notice.
Now the Department of Himeland Security says it will offer election security only to states that hand over their voter rolls.
It’s important to remember that the U.S. Constitution gives states the power to control their elections, not the President or any federal agency.
President Donald Trump says he is worried about foreign interference in U.S. elections. That was the reason he gave when he released declassified intelligencedocuments last week that ended up undercutting his own baseless claims about rigged elections.
In his primetime address on July 16, Trump said the U.S. “must take urgent action” to protect voting infrastructure against foreign actors. But shortly after taking office last year, Trump gutted a key agency designed to protect America’s elections from exactly that.
It’s called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — an office created during Trump’s first term. CISA is one of the main federal partners for states on election security, sharing intelligence on potential threats to voting infrastructure and providing quick regional support.
After Trump returned to office, the cyber agency housed under the Department of Homeland Security took a major hit. Elon Musk’s DOGE fired more than 100 workers, including election security advisers. More than 600 others were placed on administrative leave, were reassigned or took buyouts.
Now the Trump administration is telling states they will only receive resources if they hand over voter rolls to be screened through a new federal database that a judge recently deemed unlawful in its current form.
That database is known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, which experts and a federal judge are concerned has a high error rate that could disenfranchise voters.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said CISA will release an “election infrastructure plan” in the next 30 days — barely three months out from the midterms, which will determine which party controls Congress.
“If they participate in the SAVE program, we’ll provide the resources and training to support state election integrity,” Mullin said last week. “We’re not trying to change the outcome.”
‘They’re flying blind’
Multiple current and former senior election and national security officials told MS NOW that they could not recall a time when the federal government held back resources and money meant to secure America’s elections.
And multiple state election officials have said they are not receiving any briefings on possible foreign threats to election security from the federal government. Such briefings were once a regular occurrence, they said.
During the first Trump administration, “we were collaborative — carrots rather than sticks,” said one of the former officials, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. The second Trump administration is “very much focused on sticks.”
One election official in a swing state said the difference from 2024 is stark, saying that “it’s every state for themselves.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity over concerns about retaliation from federal officials. During the last cycle, the state official said they had a regional federal cybersecurity expert “on speed dial” who could “see the whole puzzle.”
That doesn’t exist anymore, and without it, the state election official said, “we’re less informed on the pattern of the attackers and are slower to respond.”
“I’ve literally never heard anybody effectively say ‘to keep you safe, you have to give me what I want,’” said the swing state election official, referring to DHS threats to withhold resources if states don’t hand over sensitive voter data.
The risks compound at the local level, they added: “Does [a clerk’s] laptop have the IT infrastructure to defend against an attack from Iran? That’s what keeps me up at night.”
Cait Conley, a West Point graduate and combat veteran who served as the senior adviser to the director of CISA during the Biden administration, accused Trump of gutting the agency and sowing doubt about the security of U.S. elections in his speech last week.
“If Donald Trump were truly concerned about election security, he would not have fired hundreds of federal workers whose jobs were to secure our elections,” she said. Conley is now running for Congress in New York as a Democrat.
Diane Ravitch's blog 