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Texas: The Nuttiest State Party in the Nation?

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2026 //
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Michelle H. Davis, writer of “Lone Star Left,” poses a challenge for her readers: who is the biggest nutter in the Texas Republican Party? Believe me, this is not an easy choice. Imagine being locked in a room with some of these people and trying to contest their peculiar fixations and conspiracy theories. I include this post because it will help you understand the governing party in one our most consequential states. Don’t expect normal.

Davis’s writing is so delightful, in a sardonic Texas way, that I thought you would enjoy reading her insights, maybe sending a contribution to the folks who are running against nutters. If you open the article, it contains links to candidates.

She writes:

I say nutter, you might say loon, or crank. A nutter is basically a Republican in our government who has confused a Facebook meme with a legislative agenda. Seriously, the State Legislature is full of them.


For example, last year, Wes Virdell filed a bill to make it a felony to control the weather. Virdell’s bill was aimed at chemtrails, the conspiracy theory that the government is poisoning the sky with jet contrails to manipulate the climate, the sunlight, and your mood. Virdell told the House Licensing Procedures Committee that he hadn’t planned on bringing this one, but “I had several constituents in my district ask me to file a bill related to this.” Seventeen of his House colleagues signed on as co-authors.


Or take Stan “Confederate Stan” Gerdes, who introduced the F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act, that’s the Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education Act, because he’d heard a rumor that kids were using litter boxes in his local school district. The superintendent of his own district had already told him there were no litter boxes. He filed the bill anyway.


These aren’t outliers. Every session now produces its own crop of bills built on something somebody saw on Facebook, and Texas Republicans keep handing them committee hearings, co-authors, and gubernatorial endorsements.


That’s what a nutter is. A true believer who legislates from conspiracy theory, who can’t or won’t distinguish between a hoax and a constituent complaint worth taking seriously, and who gets rewarded for it instead of being laughed out of the building.


And when you think you’ve found the looniest one in the building, Texas hands you a bigger nutter.


Montgomery County gave Cecil Bell the ax.
This is why we’re talking about nutters today. Cecil Bell was a dumb redneck and a nutter out of Montgomery County, who held his seat for 14 years. Yesterday, when I wrote about his Democratic opponent, Nicole King, in the Meet the Candidate series, I honestly didn’t check whether he lost his primary this year. I can actually do this cool party trick and recite all the Texas House members by memory. Well, not anymore.


So, Cecil Bell, after 14 years of being a QAnon nutter in Montgomery County, is out, and Kristen Plaisance (R-HD03) is in. And from what I’m hearing, she’s about three tacos short of a combo plate.

On her website, she argues that government overspending is causing skyrocketing property taxes. And she promises to end property taxes. Which really shows that she doesn’t understand ANYTHING about Texas’ state spending or how property taxes work.


And then there’s a whole bunch of deranged priorities that make no sense at all:

*Protecting and educating our children with Texas values, not federal agendas.

*Ending the weaponization of government against citizens and people of faith.

*Standing up to federal overreach and protecting Texas sovereignty.

Makes you wonder what’s going on in rural (checks notes) Montgomery County, Texas, where the white Republicans are so fearful of the feds a.k.a. Donald Trump, who they love and worship.

So, now that the primaries and the runoffs are over and done with, we’ve avoided it as long as we can; it’s time to talk about the Republicans who are no more, and their shiny new cuckoo replacements.


Congress.


These are the Republican districts only. Maybe we can flip some of them. We’ll talk about Democratic challengers in blue districts another day.


TX02: Dan Crenshaw ➡️ Steve Toth. This was a genuine litmus test for Texas Republicans, way before their convention hit. Dan Crenshaw was not a centrist or a moderate by any means. Yet, the Republican base started calling him a “RINO,” and that became the slow death of his political career.


You see, in the Republican world, they accept those among them who are criminals and pedophiles, but if you are a traitor to their cult-think, you become a RINO, a liberal, and shunned forever from Republican functions, Evangelical churches, and weekly cross burnings. It’s a recurring thing that happens in the Republican Party, sometimes for a bad vote, sometimes for aligning yourself with the wrong person, but most often it’s from internet rumors by the social media armies of the right. In Crenshaw’s particular case, I don’t know the origins of his downfall, but Toth won by being more committed to “the cause.”


New York native Steve Toth doesn’t even live in this district. Before becoming a government official, he was a pool guy. And he really hates Black people and American history.

Shaun Finnie is the Democrat running for TX02.

TX08: Morgan Lutrell ➡️ Jessica Steinmann. Morgan Lutrell decided not to seek re-election. The Republican who won the primary in this district is Jessica Steinmann, who describes herself as an “America First conservative, President Trump and Ted Cruz alum, Christian, proud wife, mother of two, and proven fighter for the America First agenda.” 🤮


On her website, she says “Trump” about roughly every five words, and her priorities seem to be to get Black people out of higher education, non-Christians out of the military, kill the planet, make sure AI isn’t regulated, and to inspect every athlete’s genitals before they can engage in sports.


Laura Jones is the Democrat running for TX08.


TX09: 🫨 ➡️ Alex Mealer. So, Republicans drew this district to be red in their racial gerrymandering last year. This seat was Al Green’s, so I don’t know whether we still call it a blue or red district. But I’ll add this caveat. I think this seat could be blue in November, and it’s not as safe as Republicans think.


California native Alex Mealer is this wacky Republican who has been wreaking havoc in Harris County for the last several years. She ran against Lina Hidalgo for County Chair in 2022 and lost. She has a history of spreading election conspiracy theories online, and now she’s running for Congress.


According to Mealer’s website, she wants to protect the petrochemical complex, bar AI regulations, and reduce flooding. It’s so stupid, it hurts. She wants to take severe actions that will lead to increased flooding and reduce flooding.


Leticia Gutiérrez is the Democrat running for TX09.


TX10: Michael McCaul ➡️ Chris Gober. After 23 years in office, McCaul, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, finally retired. Good riddance. Gober, pronounced “goo-ber,” proudly proclaims himself to be the only Trump-endorsed candidate in TX10.

Not one of these Republicans has a priority, a care, or a personality beyond, “Trump is my daddy.” Gober’s issues are the same as the rest, “stop weaponization of the fed, beat China, AI dominance.” Yet, like the rest of them, he has no policy ideas on how to do any of that, or any proof that it’s happening now or needed.


Caitlin Rourk is the Democrat running for TX10.

TX19: Jodey Arrington ➡️ Tom Sell. The only thing I’m going to miss about Jodey Arrington is calling him Frodo Baggins on his social media every time he makes a post. Seriously, you won’t be able to unsee it.

But there’s always a bigger nutter, and the Republican running for this district, Tom Sell, is absolutely one. For one, on his website, he says he wants to “Stop Sharia Law,” which is a dog whistle for bigotry for people who can’t even define Sharia Law. He also says he wants to “Stop Leftwing radicals from injecting woke politics into the US military.” Wtf does that even mean? No gay people in the military? No women? No Black people? Who knows with these fuckers.


Kyle Rable is the Democrat running for TX19.


TX21: Chip Roy ➡️ Mark Teixeira. Virginia native Chip Roy is another Republican who fell to the RINO bug. Which is pretty funny, considering he’s also a screwball who spent the last six months trying to convince Texans there was an invasion of “Marxists and Muslims.”


Teixeira is a Maryland native and a former Texas Rangers baseball player who is now retired from sports, during which he earned roughly $213 million over his 14-year playing career. He wants to get into Republican politics and stick it to the little guy. According to his website, he loves Trump, fossil fuels, and incarcerating marginalized communities. He also believes in superstitions, the boogie man, and “Cultural Marxism.” Another out-of-touch, rich, white guy from some other state than Texas, looking to continue to make sure that Texas remains the state with the highest poverty, most uninsured, and most children living with hunger.


Dr. Kristin Hook is the Democrat running for TX21.


TX22: Troy Nehls ➡️ Trever Nehls. Twin Wisconsin natives, Troy and Trever Nehls, are two peas in a pod. Corruption? They like it. Women? They hate them. Trump’s boots? They kiss it. Talk like they’re lost in the woods without a flashlight? Both of them do it.


Honestly, the Nehls brothers’ politics are as identical as their hatred for liberty and freedom for Texans. We think we’re switching them out, but they may have been playing the swicharoo on us this whole time, and continue to plan on doing so. 🤷🏻‍♀️


Marquette Greene-Scott is the Democrat running for TX22.


TX23: Tony Gonzalez ➡️ Brandon Herrera. While this story was going on, I didn’t talk about it much because it’s sad as hell, and there were plenty of other outlets who were glad to drop all the juicy details. Gonzalez had an affair with a staffer, whose husband discovered the affair, and this led to the staffer’s suicide by self-immolation.
But there’s always a bigger nutter.


North Carolina native Brandon Herrera also goes by the moniker “The AK Guy,” as in “armalite rifles.” He’s a gun manufacturer who only moved to Texas in 2023 with the specific intent to run for Congress. He’s also a popular YouTuber who makes shooting videos, including the recreation of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. On his YouTube channel, he has also joked about veteran suicide, glorified Nazis, and mocked the Holocaust.


The Congressional district he’s running for is where the massacre in Uvalde happened. One time, at a campaign event, he left an unexploded grenade at a restaurant, and the restaurant had to call the bomb squad. He wasn’t charged, as it was chalked up to an “accident,” and some Texas police are right-wing dipshits, too.


Katy Padilla Stout is the Democrat running for TX23.


TX38: Wesley Hunt ➡️ Jon Bonck. Wesley Hunt ran for Senate and lost. Oh well. Goodbye. Hopefully, we don’t hear from him again. The Republican looking to replace him is Jon Bonck, short for “bonkers,” because he put out a whole ad saying that “we need Christians like Trump and Ted Cruz in Congress.”


Trump, the pedophile rapist, is the Christian values he looks up to. And this is from his website:

Faith belongs in public life? What? These people have legit never read the Constitution, never read the Federalist papers, and the only people they listen to are their pastor and Trump. This bonkers guy is very, very weird.


Melissa McDonough is the Democrat running for TX38.


We’re going to have to do a Part Two.


This was longer than I expected, and we still have the Legislative races to go through. So, we’ll do part two. I’m not exactly sure when.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Ethics, Extremism, Ignorance, Republicans, Texas

The Lunatic Fringe of the Texas GOP Won!

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2026 //
1

Michelle H. Davis of “Lone Star Left” closes out her coverage of the Texas Republican convention. Her incisive reporting demonstrates the lunacy and cruelty that now dominate Texas Republicans. Well, at least they didn’t adopt a resolution to give the death penalty to any woman who dared to have an abortion. That’s something.

She writes:

The Republican Party of Texas is a party of hate and a party of cruelty. They were built in smoky back offices and pulpits in the early 1970s on the Moral Majority and the New Right. Then, they conquered Texas through the shady legal maneuverings of Tom DeLay and Karl Rove. The men at the top built an empire of corruption and theft. Theft of our water, theft of our clean air, theft of our labor. 

Texas Republicans have long had everything they’ve wanted. For decades, the rich have gotten richer, and the poor have gotten poorer. But it’s not enough. They have to keep people voting for them somehow. Dumb down education. Appeal to the most extreme elements. That’s all they have left. 

In 1964, the John Birch Society found its moment at the Republican National Convention. Barry Goldwater didn’t fully embrace them. But he didn’t reject them either. When Nelson Rockefeller stood at that podium and named the John Birch Society alongside the Ku Klux Klan as examples of extremism that the party should refuse, the crowd booed him off the stage. Goldwater then declared, “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”

Goldwater was a total shit.

The Birchers never went away. And over the next sixty years, what was once considered the lunatic fringe became the Republican mainstream. The “deep state.” The “new world order.” Conspiracies about globalists, infiltrators, and enemies within. It’s the same playbook.

Which brings us to the 2026 Republican Party of Texas Convention.

The “Abolish Abortion” plank failed the final vote in the platform. That’s the one that would have handed the death penalty to any woman who received abortion care. Any woman. A minor. A rape survivor. Doesn’t matter. But don’t mistake that for a victory, because the men who stood on that convention floor and pushed for it are still on the ballot. Including: 

  • Rep. Bret Money (R-HD02). You can donate to his Democratic opponent, Fatima Muse, HERE. 
  • Rep. David Lowe (R-HD91). You can donate to his Democratic opponent, Yisak Worku, HERE. 

But what did pass on the platform? 

Banning IVF. Banning Sharia Law. 

In 2026, the Birchers write the Republican Party platform. 

Why IVF? Well, because they say this is a person:

But, actually, that ⬆️ is a mouse embryo I found on Google. But if women who are struggling with fertility are not allowed to have IVF in Texas anymore. 1- It will eventually spread to other states, and 2- what kind of repercussions will come from this? 

America already has a history of this. 

  • The Indian Adoption Project, beginning in the early 1950s, adopted Native children out primarily to non-Indian families to reduce reservation populations. By the time Congress finally acted, approximately one-third of all American Indian children had been removed from their homes. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 was the legislative response, and the right has been trying to gut it ever since.
  • Between 1998 and 2008, nearly 30,000 Guatemalan-born children were adopted by US parents. The US Embassy in Guatemala knew as far back as 1995 that birth mothers’ lives were threatened if they tried to reclaim their children. Guatemala shut it down in 2008.

The Evangelical Christian adoption movement has a documented history of manufacturing an “orphan crisis” to justify removing children from living parents in developing countries. Even Erika Kirk had an orphanage in Romania, which she was later accused of sex trafficking children out of. 

Banning Sharia Law? 

First of all, they already tried this in the 2015 Legislative session during the last time Muslim panic swept the state of Texas. During that time, Beth Van Duyne, the then-mayor of Irving, was directly responsible for the statewide outrage and upset. This was simialar to the Muslim panic after 9/11. Maybe, not that bad. But the Republicans go back and forth between which marginalized group they hate most each year. This year, it happens to be Muslims. 

When you Google “What is Sharia Law,” you get a lot of different answers, so hear it directly from Rep. Salman Bhojani (D-HD92): 

From the Republicans’ perspective, it really boils down to ignorance and bigotry. Just like the “Show Me Your Papers” bill. Just like the DEI bans. Same rhyme, different verse. 

All the Texas transplants, pretending to be Texans. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, we love our transplants. They add to the vibrant culture that makes our state so unique. But nothing chaps my hide more than a bunch of dudes that moved here in their 40s rambling on about how THEY represent Texas values more than ME. Like, sirs, I have a grandfather and a great-uncle in the square the day JFK got shot, and they were both born in Dallas.

And all of these Republicans, the wealthy ones, who came here to get into politics or nepo-baby their way into their daddy’s corporation that came to Texas for the low taxes, they think the Texas spirit is all about taking as much as you can for yourself, while screwing everyone else at the bottom, and hurting anyone different from you. 

Senate Majority Leader Tan Parker, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, stood at that podium and invoked the Alamo. He talked about faith, family, liberty, and the God-given right of free people to govern themselves. He said Texas is proof that freedom works. 

Parker has been rated as one of the most dangerous anti-choice legislators in Texas. He’s endorsed by both Texas Right to Life and Texas Alliance for Life. His legislative priorities in 2025 centered on capital markets packages and making Texas a hub for financial services, because when women are dying from abortion ban complications, and Texas has a maternal mortality rate that rivals that of developing nations, but Parker’s focus is on helping rich people move their money here faster. 

The man flew in from Pennsylvania, wrapped himself in the Texas flag, invoked the memory of the men who died at the Alamo, and has spent nearly two decades making life harder for the working Texans he claims to represent.

Same thing with Dannie Goober yesterday. 

The rest of the planks we covered mostly passed. 

The full platform will be posted on the Republican Party of Texas website in the coming weeks. Read it. Share it. Make sure every voter in your life knows exactly what these people are planning.

Because we already know what’s coming in the 90th Legislative Session. They’ve written it down for us. Frozen embryos have more rights than the mothers who made them. Muslims are the designated enemy of the cycle. A Texas that looks less like the state we love and more like the fever dream of a John Birch Society pamphlet from 1962.

They are telling us exactly who they are.

The question is whether we’re going to let them keep doing it.

We can stop them by flipping the Texas House. Democrats need a net gain of just 14 seats to break Republican control, and the candidates to do it are on the ballot right now. 

The line in the sand is at the ballot box.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Gender, History, Ignorance, Republicans, Texas

The GOP in Texas: Pissing on Texans Since 1998

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2026 //
3

The greatest mystery in Texas is why people who aren’t rich continue to elect Republicans, who do nothing for them other than to whip up culture war issues.

Michelle H. Davis reports on the latest state convention of the Texas Republican Party. You should read this to understand their thinking, or lack thereof. One candidate promises to investigate George Soros. Another asks the audience how they feel about Texas becoming a Muslim state. The big event was that hard-right Governor Greg Abbott brought an elephant to parade around, and the elephant pissed before he left the convention. Davis thought the act was symbolic of what Republicans do to ordinary Texans.

She is very witty writer. You will enjoy reading her account of the very unserious swindlers who run the state.

She writes:

Undoubtedly, by now, you’ve seen the biggest news of the Republicans’ Convention. Governor Abbott closed his speech by bringing out an elephant, which promptly peed all over the floor. It was performance art. A perfect representation of what the Republican government in Texas has been doing to the people for years. 

It’s rumored that some of the people in the front rows could hear Abbott cackle, “Ha! It’s raining,” as the incident occurred. 

Attendance for the Republican Party of Texas’ (RPT) Convention was way down. Notably, at one point yesterday, only 38 people were watching the live stream. (And one of them was me, lol.)

Then, if you follow the Texas Democratic Party on social media, you may have seen this meme they shared of Senator Bettencourt’s quote on the polling environment. 

The Convention has thus far been a disaster. Today is the final day. I’ll have the report on that tomorrow, which means we’ll be pushing out our Meet the Candidate article this week to Monday (stay tuned). Yesterday, they elected the new Chair of the Republican Party of Texas. 

D’Rinda Randall, new Republican Party of Texas Chair. 

So, this is really interesting. And it’s also a lot to unpack. First, you have to understand that the RPT elects a new Chair every two years. And by the time their cycle is up, they always have some faction against them, and they get pushed out. Abraham George is out. Before him, it was Allen West. Before him, it was James Dickey. And so on. Typically, Republicans break their own bylaws to elect their favored chair. I’m not sure if that happened this time. My emails are open. 

Randall was the Vice Chair under Abraham George. Like with the Democratic Party, the Chair and Vice Chair must be of opposite genders. Randall is the first Republican woman to chair in Texas since 2003. Stick a pin in that, we’ll circle back around. 

The Vice Chair who was elected to serve under Randall is David Covey. You may remember that Covey ran a multi-million dollar campaign against Dade Phelan (R-HD21) in 2024, had Trump’s endorsement, and still lost. He was a loser. 

Now, it’s important to understand where the Republican Party is with women’s rights in 2026. Not just women’s rights, but with women being seen as people. 

Check out this report from CBC News earlier this week at the Erika Kirk Christian National Convention in San Antonio, where a bunch of women said they were willing to give up their right to vote:

Dumb-dumbs. Who even puts that garbage in their head in the first place? The same people who add to the Legislative priorities:

  • To impose the death penalty on any woman who receives abortion care, even minors and rape survivors.
  • To ban IVF.
  • To ban all egg and sperm donation clinics.

It’s all connected. 

Don’t you find it strange that at the same time, Republican women are talking about freely giving up their right to vote, the willingness to sacrifice their lives for an ectopic pregnancy, and that all of a sudden, the Republican Party of Texas would elect its first woman in over 20 years? 

Of course, the Republican rumor mill is going wild with conspiracies. Before we jump on that bandwagon, we’ll have to see how they can cannibalize each other in the coming months. 

The keynote speakers woke up, showed up, and said nothing.

One of yesterday’s keynote speakers was Ken Paxton, and he looked awful. He might have been hungover. He shuffled out on stage, slouching, looking like he just woke up, no excitement, no energy, just, “I’m here.”

The speech itself was a masterclass in saying nothing for eight and a half minutes. Trans panic. Biden. Chuck Schumer. Open borders. The radical left. You’ve heard it. You’ve heard it a thousand times. He called James Telerico “Low T-arico,” “Sixgender Jimmy,” and “Talifreako.” He was like a middle schooler who thinks he’s the funniest kid on the bus.

He didn’t talk about the cost of living. He didn’t talk about gas prices. He didn’t talk about the rising unemployment rate. Or the increasingly difficult access to healthcare. 

Paxton, who hails from North Dakota, said the words “Texas values,” then he talked about culture war garbage. It’s hard to believe that anyone takes this man seriously. 

Or Dan Patrick, who, besides, said on stage, Talarico was going to hell, came out wearing a black pleather jacket and matching boots. 

Of course, it will never beat this jacket ⬇️, but it was a close second.

Black pleather turtleneck and matching boots, in June, in Houston, and explained, unprompted, that it was his “time travel suit.”

Sir, it is 95 degrees outside, and you look like a community theater villain.

He ran two campaign ads on the convention floor. The first one was Paul Revere warning colonists that the British were coming, except the British were James Talarico, an 8th-generation Texan, unlike Danny, who is from Maryland. The second one was the Alamo. Because nothing says “I’m in touch with modern Texas voters” like reaching back to 1836.

Then he recited the Alamo, the lyrics to a Johnny Cash song from 1960. He just said them, without rhythm, not singing them. He stood on that stage in his time-travel turtleneck, performed a Johnny Cash song, and presented it to the delegates of the Republican Party of Texas as a history lesson. It was really weird. 

He called Democrats “socialist, leftist, communist, and idiots,” in that order. He declared that the entire transgender rights movement is just a plot to make Republicans argue with each other. 

This is the Lieutenant Governor of Texas. This is a man who is one heartbeat from the governorship. This is who shows up in a pleather turtleneck and recites Johnny Cash and condemns his political opponents to eternal damnation in front of a live audience.

Texas values, from the mouth of a Marylander.

But peel back the costume and the lyrics, and you find a frightened man. He spent a big chunk of that speech begging Republicans not to stay home and doing the math out loud. Talarico starts at 45%. He only needs six more points. If Republicans aren’t unified, if rural turnout softens, if the sore losers stay home. Dan Patrick knows exactly what happens.

The man in the time travel suit is scared.

Good.

And speaking of weird. 

Mayes Middleton, for those keeping score at home, is a billionaire from Galveston who has purchased every office he has ever held. State rep. State senator. And now, Republican nominee for Attorney General of Texas, because when you have that kind of money, the next rung on the ladder is just another check to write.

You may remember Mayes from my piece on where that money actually came from.

At the Convention, Middleton took the stage and delivered what can only be described as a greatest hits collection of things that are not real problems in Texas. I don’t know what else to expect from nepobaby billionaires who have only ever harmed their own lives. He announced he will investigate George Soros on day one. He announced he will “attack Sharia law” as organized crime.

He compared Nathan Johnson and James Talarico to Santa Anna. Somehow, the Democrats are to the left of Santa Anna. He said that. Out loud. Into a microphone.

And then, because he apparently needed you to know he is a relatable family man, he told a story about his four-year-old daughter calling him “MAGA Mayes” after watching too much TV. He thought that was charming. 

His opponent, Nathan Johnson, is a Dallas state senator with a long legislative record. Middleton’s record is a checkbook. But in the Republican Party of Texas in 2026, that’s apparently enough.

The only nepo-baby more out of touch than Mayes Middleton is Bo French. Yes, also a nepo-baby. Republicans love electing men with soft hands. 

Bo French is the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner, which, if you don’t know, regulates the oil and gas industry. It does not regulate Muslims. It does not regulate DEI. It does not regulate the Green New Deal. It regulates oil and gas.

Bo French does not appear to know this.

He asked the crowd (and this is a direct quote), “Do you want Texas to become a Muslim state?” At a Railroad Commissioner speech. He just needed you to know that was on the table. That was a concern he had about the Railroad Commission.

He cited Genesis. He cited Proverbs 14:34. He explained that God’s command to exercise dominion over the earth is actually a mandate for responsible oil and gas extraction. The Bible, Bo French has determined, is pro-drilling.

The bar was on the floor, right next to the elephant puddle.

Low attendance. A new party chair elected amid swirling conspiracies. A hungover Senate candidate workshopping middle school nicknames. A Lieutenant Governor in a pleather time travel suit who performed Johnny Cash and sent a man to hell. A billionaire who has never earned anything listing things that aren’t real problems. A Railroad Commissioner candidate who is very concerned about the Muslim takeover of oil and gas regulation. And an elephant that peed on the floor while the Governor of Texas watched.

This is a party that is performing. And the performance is getting sloppier, louder, and more desperate by the year, because underneath all of it, Dan Patrick’s math is right. They know how close this is. They know what’s coming. And they have nothing to offer the people of Texas except fear, nicknames, and Johnny Cash lyrics they didn’t write.

Meanwhile, Texans are losing farms and losing access to healthcare. Paying more for everything. And the people responsible for that spent three days in Houston talking about George Soros and Sharia law and what gender God is.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 2026 Republican Party of Texas.

They’ve been pissing on you for years and calling it rain. The elephant just finally did it in front of everyone.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Elections, Extremism, Gender, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Lies, Republicans, Texas

Tennessee: Lawsuit Opposes Ban on Religious Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2026 //
0

Melissa Brown of Chalkbeat wrote about a lawsuit in Tennessee that challenges the state’s ban on religious charter schools. Since the state is currently paying tuition at religious schools with vouchers, the lawsuit seeks to overturn the ban. The state is not defending the ban, inasmuch as its Republican leadership wants to pay tuition at religious schools.

Brown writes:

A Tennessee lawsuit challenging the Knox County Board of Education over the state’s religious charter school ban is heading to trial after a federal judge denied the board’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. 

The Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville sued the school board last year after the local district asked it to affirm it planned to open a non-religious school, per state law. 

In federal court filings, the school board argued Wilberforce never actually submitted a charter school application, nor has it targeted state officials in its lawsuit, despite the school board following state law enforced by the Tennessee Department of Education. The board had asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit entirely.

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But U.S. District Judge Charles E. Atchley, Jr. in late May ruled Wilberforce didn’t have to submit an actual application to challenge an “allegedly unconstitutional barrier” to applying. 

Neither party has commented on the lawsuit. 

Tennessee officials have left the Knox County board on its own to defend the state law, which Atchley noted in his May opinion. 

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti declined to intervene in the lawsuit earlier this year, months after he published a legal opinion that argued there was “no compelling interest” in excluding religious charter schools from participating in a “public benefit.”

Skrmetti’s office is also currently paying Wilberforce’s main attorney $400 per hour in a separate case to help Tennessee defend its criminal abortion ban against ongoing legal challenges.

The legal fight over religious charter schools in Tennessee – and the lack thereof from state officials – signal major changes may be on the horizon for the state’s charter landscape. 

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This spring, lawmakers signed off on a new state law that now allows religious colleges and universities to operate public charter schools. Though the new law currently blocks those institutions from providing religious curriculum in their charter schools, it opens the door to a new class of charter operators in the state that could quickly stand up religious charters if the state’s religious charter ban law were to fall. 

And now public dollars are flowing to private religious schools through Tennessee’s voucher program, which is paying millions in private school tuition. 

In its lawsuit, Wilberforce focuses in part on this program, arguing the public education funds now funding private religious tuition support the case that religious charters should be included in public funding.

“This enshrined hostility to religious charter schools stands in marked contrast to Tennessee’s recent support of religious schools through its Education Freedom Scholarship Program,” a Wilberforce attorney argued in court documents last year.

A full trial on the lawsuit is scheduled for January 2027, and a group of Tennessee parents and non-religious charter school officials have also intervened in the lawsuit to oppose Wilberforce’s claims. 

They have argued opening the door to religious charter schools will result in charter schools being “classified and treated as private schools,” which could effect on things like Tennessee’s public school funding formula and disability protections. 

Categories Charter Schools, Religion, Republicans, Separation of church and state, Tennessee

U.S. House Defies Republican Leaders, Votes for Sanctions on Russia, Aid for Ukraine

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2026 //
2

Half a dozen Republicans and one independent joined Democrats to authorize a start to aid to Ukraine and sanctions for Russia. They defied not only the Republican leadership, but Trump, who does not want to help Ukraine and has eased sanctions on Russia.

This has been a bad couple of days for Trump. He lost his $1.776 billion slush fund for his allies; Congress will not pay $1 billion for his ballroom; the House passed a War Powers Act to limit his war in Iran. It takes just a few Republican votes to block his authoritarian wishes.

Robert Jimison of The New York Times reported:

Defying Republican leaders, the House voted on Wednesday to take up a bill to impose sweeping new sanctions on Russia and provide additional aid to Ukraine, after a bloc of G.O.P. defectors joined Democrats in an effort to ratchet up pressure on Moscow more than four years into the war.

The bill, which still must win passage in the House, faces a difficult path to enactment, given divisions in the Senate over a sanctions package and objections from the White House. President Trump has repeatedly signaled he does not want Congress constraining his flexibility to negotiate directly with Moscow, and could veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.

Still, the 218-to-204 vote to take it up, in which six Republicans and one independent who normally votes with them crossed party lines to side with Democrats, sent a clear signal of bipartisan pressure on the matter. It added to a growing list of issues on which the Republican-led Congress has in recent weeks shown a greater willingness to challenge Mr. Trump, including the war with Iran, his push to fund a new White House ballroom and a bid to create a federal fund to benefit his political allies.

The legislation’s centerpiece is a broad package of sanctions targeting Russia’s oil and gas sector that is aimed at striking at the Kremlin’s primary source of wartime revenue. Lawmakers in both parties have argued for more than a year that sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies have failed to fully sever the energy revenues that continue to bankroll Moscow’s war effort.

The bill would expand restrictions on financial institutions that conduct business with sanctioned Russian officials and state enterprises and seek to crack down on entities that help Moscow evade existing sanctions. It also would target international organizations, companies, banks and governments that continue doing business with sanctioned Russian entities, provisions primarily aimed at actors in China, Central Asia and other jurisdictions that have helped Russia circumvent Western restrictions.

And the legislation would eliminate a sanctions waiver President Trump approved earlier this year that provided limited relief.

It would authorize roughly $1.8 billion in direct spending and more than $8 billion in loans for Ukraine’s war effort as the country continues to face deadly bombardment in Kyiv and other areas.

The bill languished for more than a year as Republican leaders on the House Foreign Affairs Committee declined to take it up, preventing lawmakers from debating and amending it.

That prompted Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the committee’s top Democrat, to turn to a procedural maneuver known as a discharge petition, which allows rank-and-file lawmakers to bypass the leadership and force a bill to the House floor if it gains the support of a majority of members.

The bill must pass the House and pass the Senate. Trump might veto it.

But it shows that Trump’s iron control of his party is slipping.

Categories Democrats, International, Republicans, Trump

Dallas Morning News: How Low Can Texas Republicans Go?

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2026 //
10

The editorial board of The Dallas Morning News is conservative. But it is not MAGA. It does not traffic in lies and conspiracy theories. It adheres to a basic standard of civility, the kind that enabled members of different parties to compromise and occasionally agree on bipartisan legislation. Not now, but not so many years ago.

This is the editorial board’s view of the primaries on Tuesday.

Well, that was telling.  

Given a choice between John Cornyn, a man who spent his career governing as an honest, deeply conservative representative, or Ken Paxton, a man whose personal and professional dishonesty is so manifest that the mother of his own children can’t endorse him, Texas Republicans said, “we’ll take the second guy.” 

It somehow gets worse. Given the choice between Jim Wright, an experienced railroad commissioner who openly favored the oil and gas industry, or Bo French, a conspiracy-mongering bigot, Texas Republicans said, “give us the bigot.” 

We would set up the same comparison for the Texas attorney general runoff between “MAGA” Mayes Middleton and Chip Roy, except we wouldn’t know who to compare as the better of the two. Both debased themselves as lickspittles of the president while doing all they can to drive division against immigrants, Muslims and any other group they could demonize to stir fear and hatred as a path to power. 

What happened Tuesday night in Texas tells us so much about what the deep base of the Texas Republican Party has become. It should shock every person of good conscience and be an awakening for conservatives who still believe this party and its current leadership can serve the traditions of independence and liberty that Texas was founded upon. 

Because it’s Ken Paxton’s Texas GOP now. It’s Trump’s Texas. Remember that Paxton is the man Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick saved from what looked like certain conviction in an impeachment trial right after a $1 million donation and $2 million loan from West Texas Christian conservatives flowed Patrick’s way. This is the man whose top deputies, people who devoted their lives to movement conservatism, decided he was so corrupt they abandoned their careers to alert law enforcement. This is a man who pretends to be the moral authority of this state even after his wife filed for divorce on “biblical grounds.” Read that as infidelity. That’s your Texas Republican Party now. 

Regular readers of this page hopefully know a few things about us by now.  

We seek to support a thoughtful conservatism grounded in limited government, the expansion of free enterprise, the power of capital to lift people into wealth, the fundamental importance of faith and family to living a good life, a belief in an ordered society where laws are respected and enforced from the border to Main Street, and a strong suspicion of movements that would upend the traditions that have defined our country and our common humanity for generations. 

We hope for a democracy where good, if imperfect, people with different points of view are elected, take office and find ways to work out their differences through compromise that respects both the majority’s will and the minority’s rights. 

We believe the founders of our nation and our state would have wanted nothing less. That was the sort of natural freedom they sought to enshrine, a freedom rooted in the protection of individual rights and the promotion of shared responsibility for democratic norms and a basic decency toward one another. 

The people who are being elected to represent Republicans in this state cannot represent that sort of conservatism. They cannot represent the values that a majority of Texans believe in. 

Don’t take our word for it. Take theirs. Paxton and Middleton have told us repeatedly where their loyalty lies. It is not to the people of the state they seek to represent. It is to a man who governs not on the basis of conservative principles but on his daily whims. This is the fundamental promise these candidates have made to Texas voters. We will do whatever President Donald Trump tells us to do. 

John Cornyn tried to play this game. We can’t help but believe he will spend a lot of days in regret for what the end of his political career looks like. He did all he could to appease the president’s ego, and it wasn’t enough. So many good conservatives have had to learn the hard way that it is never enough. He will take and take until there is nothing left.  

We try to imagine one of the men who founded this state, one of those who rode into Texas when it was still a wild and dangerous land where people had the thought that, if they could survive, they could prosper. We try to imagine the sacrifices along the way, the hard winters and blistering summers. The decision to fight for independence from Mexico. The stubborn streak of self-reliance and persistent belief that Texas is still, somehow, its own place. 

None of that squares with who these men are. The men who won the GOP’s nomination Tuesday night are not their own men. They are, by their own admission, wholly servile. It is their entire political identity. The tough talk veneer goes only as far as Trump will let them go. There is nothing in them that is independent, that is their own, that is Texan. 

We know that most of the people who cast their ballots for Paxton, Middleton and French don’t give a fig what this page says. So many of them long ago tuned out people who still insist on asking questions, who see places for compromise, who believe our neighbors who might be a little different from us are still our neighbors, deserving of our respect and love. 

There is a word for what happened in this state Tuesday, and that is shameful. 

Texas deserves better than people who truck in lies and bigotry. But that’s what we got. 

Where we go from here is hard to say.  

My observations:

If there are enough old/fashioned, principled Republicans and independents, Texas has a good chance of turning blue. At the top of the Democratic ticket are two excellent candidates: James Talarico for the U.S. Senate and Gina Hinojosa for Governor.

Texans need fresh leadership. It needs leaders who have not been bought by oil money and White Christian nationalists. It needs leaders who want to solve problems, not engage in bigotry and culture wars.

Talarico would bring a fresh air of honesty and candor to D.C. and a deep commitment to improving the lives of working people and those in need. Hinojosa has the same commitment to helping those who need help and a passionate commitment to public schools. Her own children are public school students. Like many states, Texas has underfunded its public schools and its teachers. Hinojosa understands that Texas needs to educate all its children well. That’s at the top of her agenda.

Talarico and Hinojosa have a chance to change Texas. They represent youth and the future.

Categories Dallas, Elections, Republicans

South Carolina Senate Republicans Say NO to Trump!

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2026 //
0

South Carolina has 7 Congressional seats. one is held by a person who is Black, Rep. Jim Clyburn. Trump urged the South Carolina legislature to redistrict and turn every seat into a Republican district.

The SC House passed a bill to redistrict. The SC Senate rejected the bill. Twelve Republicans joined 12 Democrats to say no.

Some said they wouldn’t pass the bill because early voting had started and the election was underway. Some must have felt that it was wrong to eliminate the only district with a Black Congressman.

Whenever any Republican has the spine to say NO to the Grifter-in-Chief, it’s a good day for democracy.

Categories Elections, Republicans, South Carolina, Trump

Why the Voting Rights Act Was Passed: Watch LBJ Explain

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2026 //
4

The U.S. Supreme Court recently rendered the Caillais decision, which effectively gutted the historic Voting Rights Act. As soon as the decision was released, the Southern states that once formed the Confederacy began to redraw district lines to eliminate Black representatives from Congress and the state legislature. In some of those former-slave states, there is likely to be no Black representation of the state in Congress.

The Confederacy rises again, thanks to the six members of the Supremr Court appointed by Republicans. Once again, Justice Clarence Thomas votes to strip rights from Black people.

Please read this commentary by teacher Ken Bernstein. He includes a speech by President Lyndon B. Johnson, explaining why the Voting rights Act was necessary for our democracy.

This decision makes the case for Supreme Court reform, either by enacting an age limit, term limits, or enlarging the Court.

Categories Civil Rights, Elections, Injustice, Racism, Republicans

Georgia: Republicans’ $100 Million Primary for Governor

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2026 //
0

Today is primary day in Georgia. Jack Hassard offers as good an analysis of the Republican primary as you will see anywhere. Actually, better. Four men are running for the Republican nomination. They all rely on culture war issues, the red meat that gets voters excited, like immigration, crime, and low taxes. Most certainly, they are all conservative Christians. Sadly, none of them addresses the issues that matter most: the closing of hospitals, healthcare, education, the environment. They all embrace Trump, of course.

He blogs as “Citizen Jack.” He is a professor Emeritus of Science Education at Georgia State University.

Citizen Jack writes:

The Georgia primary is today, Tuesday, May 19. The three weeks of advance voting ended on Friday. Although  I didn’t vote on the Republican ticket, I’ve suffered through the continuous bombardment of TV ads by four white Christian pro-Trump men running to be on the November ballot for governor. 

No Limit on Spending

The Republican primary for governor in Georgia has become one of the most expensive and combative races in state history. Right now, according to AJC’s Greg Bluestein, the quad has spent over $100 million in the primary.  Attorney General Chris Carr, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, and billionaire businessman Rick Jackson are flooding television screens with nearly identical messages: they are Christian conservatives, loyal to Donald Trump, committed to cutting taxes, and determined to crack down on undocumented immigrants.  Here is what they’ve pored into the local TV stations. 

  • Chris Carr: Put in $4 million, raised $400,000, 2 million on hand
  • Bert Jones: Put in $16 million, raised &200,000, $2.1 million on hand
  • Rick Jackson: Put in $80 million, raised only $200,000, $7. million on hand. 
  • Brad Raffensperger: Put in $6 million, raised $217,000, $2.5 million on hand.

What They Avoid Saying

What is striking is not merely what these candidates say, but what they avoid discussing. 

Education funding, hospital closures, rising health-care costs, retirement insecurity, environmental threats, public transportation, affordable housing, and gun violence barely appear in their ads or debate rhetoric. 

Instead, the Republican field has narrowed Georgia’s future to culture-war symbolism and tax-cut promises.

That narrowing says a great deal about the current direction of Georgia Republican politics.

Chris Carr

Carr presents himself as the polished establishment conservative. As attorney general, he has aligned himself closely with national Republican priorities and emphasized law enforcement and conservative social policies. His campaign argues that lower taxes and a pro-business climate will keep Georgia economically strong. But Carr rarely discusses the deep inequalities beneath the state’s economic growth. 

Georgia continues to rank poorly in maternal mortality, rural health access, and educational equity. Thousands of Georgians live in counties with limited medical services, and many public schools remain underfunded. Carr’s campaign offers little indication that those issues are central to his agenda.

Brad Raffensperger

Raffensperger occupies a more complicated position. Nationally, he became known for refusing Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. Yet in the governor’s race, Raffensperger has attempted to reposition himself as a conventional conservative Republican emphasizing tax cuts, Christian values, and public safety.   His strategy appears designed to reassure Republican primary voters who still distrust him for defying Trump. Disappointingly he claimed he blocked Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams from trying to make it legal for illegal immigrants to vote. Simply not true, Brad. And he borrowed a campaign strategy used by Governor Kemp–a shotgun. 

Among the four major candidates, Raffensperger is perhaps the least inflammatory rhetorically. Yet even he has largely avoided bold proposals on expanding health care, addressing climate risks, or improving public education. 

His campaign reflects the reality that Republican primaries increasingly punish policy moderation and reward ideological conformity. Rather than using his independent reputation to broaden the debate, Raffensperger has mostly adapted himself to the same narrow framework as his rivals.

Bert Jones

Jones has campaigned as the most openly Trump-aligned candidate. Backed by Trump himself, Jones emphasizes immigration enforcement, conservative cultural themes, and tax elimination.   His ads frame politics as a battle between “real Georgians” and threatening outsiders. Yet Georgia’s economy depends heavily on immigrant labor in agriculture, construction, hospitality, and logistics. Harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric may energize parts of the Republican base, but it risks deepening division while ignoring practical economic realities.

Jones also promotes eliminating the state income tax, a popular Republican talking point. But candidates rarely explain what services would be reduced to compensate for the lost revenue. Georgia relies on income tax revenue to fund schools, universities, transportation, and public safety. Promising massive tax cuts without explaining the consequences may be politically effective, but it is fiscally evasive.

Rick Jackson

Jackson, the billionaire outsider, has poured enormous sums of personal wealth into the race and attempted to position himself as a businessman who can “fix” government.   Like the others, he stresses deportation policies, conservative Christianity, and tax reductions. 

Yet Jackson’s campaign has already been shadowed by reports that undocumented workers were employed at his property despite his hardline immigration message.   The contradiction highlights a larger pattern in modern Republican politics: immigrants are politically useful as targets even while the economy quietly depends on their labor. Jackson has the most offensive immigrant ad of the four candidates. He uses one case to demonize and lie about immigrants. 

More broadly, Jackson’s candidacy reflects the growing influence of billionaire self-financed campaigns. When wealthy candidates can spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising, elections risk becoming less about democratic participation and more about financial saturation. That trend distances politics from the everyday concerns of working Georgians struggling with housing costs, child care, medical debt, and stagnant wages.

“Across all four campaigns, one theme dominates: symbolic politics over practical governance.”

There Are Real Issues 

Georgia faces serious long-term challenges. Rural hospitals continue to close. Teachers leave the profession because of burnout and low pay. Metro Atlanta struggles with traffic congestion and housing affordability. Climate change threatens coastal communities and increases severe weather risks. Yet these issues receive little sustained attention in the Republican primary.

Instead, voters are offered simplified narratives centered on religion, fear of immigrants, tax reduction, and loyalty to Trump. Christianity itself becomes less a moral framework than a campaign brand. Faith is invoked constantly, yet there is little discussion of poverty, health care access, or social responsibility — concerns traditionally associated with religious ethics.

The candidates’ silence on environmental issues is particularly revealing. Georgia’s coastline, water systems, and urban air quality face increasing pressure from development and climate change. Younger voters increasingly care about sustainability and clean energy, yet Republican candidates seldom mention these topics except to criticize federal regulations.

The same absence exists around retirement and aging. Georgia’s population is growing older, and many retirees face rising housing and medical costs. None of the leading Republican campaigns have made retirement security a central issue.

In the end, the Republican primary reveals a party focused more on ideological signaling than comprehensive governance. The candidates compete aggressively over who is most conservative, most pro-Trump, and toughest on immigration. But governing a complex and rapidly changing state requires more than slogans and tax pledges.

Georgia’s future will depend on schools, hospitals, infrastructure, environmental stewardship, and economic fairness as much as partisan identity. A campaign that neglects those realities risks serving political ambition more than the long-term interests of Georgians.

Categories Democracy, Economy, Elections, Environment, Georgia, Health, Immigration, Republicans, Trump

GOP Reacts to Saturday Night Chaos with Demand to “Build the Golden Ballroom!”

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2026 //
4

The Meidas Network summarized the events post-Saturday night.

Politico pointed out that Republicans have taken to social media to blame Democrats for “divisive rhetoric that fuels violence. So stop calling Stephen Miller a fascist, stop calling ICE “Brown Shirts” or the Gestapo, stop calling out Trump’s authoritarianism. .

And they all agree that Trump’s armored golden ballroom must be built, even though future White House Correspondents dinners would never be held in that ballroom.

Meidas writes:

Trump’s has been oddly quiet…and the MAGA machine is doing the work for him

Let’s start with the silence. Donald Trump’s approval rating is sitting at 33%. His approval on the economy is 30% — worse than Nixon’s numbers at the time Nixon resigned. And oddly enough, Trump this morning has essentially vanished from his own social media feed. His last post was about renaming ICE to “NICE” — National Immigration and Customs Enforcement — so the media would have to say “NICE agents” all day. A random account called @alyssamariiee11 floated the idea, so naturally, Trump ran with it.

Meanwhile, the White House Correspondents Dinner incident, where a lone individual breached a security perimeter before being stopped, has become the latest Trump regime talking point factory. Rather than address inflation, the economic freefall, or the catastrophic war in Iran, the entire MAGA congressional caucus has been deployed with one singular mission: demand Dear Leader a ballroom.

The Ballroom Brigade

I want you to understand what’s happening here. While Americans are struggling to pay rent, while we are in a jobs recession, while this administration loots the public treasury for its right-wing billionaire benefactors — the Republican Party is spending its media time in a coordinated push for a White House ballroom. This is not a coincidence. This is the talking point. They all have it.

Rep. Pat Fallon says a ballroom is something they can “completely control.” Rep. Michael Rulli says “we gotta build that ballroom as soon as possible.” Rep. Mike Lawler calls it “imperative.” Speaker Mike Johnson says it’ll have seven-inch-thick glass and be “a very safe environment.” Rep. Warren Davidson, perhaps the most unhinged of the bunch, calls the entire situation a “flex” directed at Iran…that gathering every top official in American government in a non-secured hotel was some kind of geo-strategic message rather than a security failure.

And then there’s Rick Scott, who told the cameras that Democrats “want President Trump, Republicans murdered all across this country, capitalists murdered.” That is a sitting United States senator. On television.

Rep. Scott Perry added that the whole incident stems from Democrats calling Trump a threat to democracy and comparing people around him to Nazis. Tom Emmer wanted everyone to know that despite all evidence to the contrary, he’s hearing “positive feedback” from somewhere about Trump’s Iran war. And Kash Patel, who should be spending his time running the FBI, not doing cable hits, told the world this was something “the movies don’t even write about.”

Journalist Mehdi Hasan’s response to all of it: “I think I’m gonna have an aneurysm.” Honestly, Mehdi, same.

One social media user put it simply: the GOP’s ability to completely hijack news cycles with this kind of nonsense, while gas prices surge and corruption runs unchecked, is infuriating. And they’re right. That is the strategy. Create a noise machine loud enough that you don’t have to answer for anything real.

The ballroom doesn’t even having anything to do with the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, because the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is an event held by the private organization the White House Correspondents’ Association, not the White House. The entire narrative is a complete non sequitur. But that doesn’t stop the MAGA drones from repeating it ad nauseam like shoddy computer software that just got a new update.

Oh, Melania…

In Trump’s absence, Melania stepped up this morning with a social media post attacking Jimmy Kimmel, calling his monologue about their family “hateful and violent rhetoric” and demanding ABC take action. She called Kimmel a coward who “hides behind ABC.”

MeidasTouch’s Adam Mockler reminder her of a recent post made by her husband following the death of Robert Mueller: “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

“[T]his your husband?” replied Mockler.

As Mockler went on to write, “MAGA authoritarianism is pretending the president is ‘joking’ when he makes death threats, but comedians are somehow ‘shaping public policy’ when they make jokes.”

By the way, Sunday was Melania’s birthday — and if you noticed, Donald didn’t publicly post a happy birthday message.

Who did wish Melania a happy birthday? Paolo Zampolli — the man who introduced her to Trump back in 1998 and who once reportedly explored starting a modeling agency with Jeffrey Epstein. Zampolli, currently serving as a U.S. ambassador for cultural affairs in this administration, posted a birthday tribute featuring an AI-generated Mount Rushmore with Melania’s face replacing all four presidents. It was weird.

Germany calls out Trump’s Iran “humiliation”

Now to what actually matters internationally. While Trump’s congressional supporters spend their day lobbying for granite and bulletproof glass, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — speaking publicly today — delivered one of the most direct indictments of Trump’s foreign policy failures I’ve seen from a Western ally.

Merz said the United States has “absolutely no coherent strategy whatsoever” in its conflict with Iran. He said this entire situation is, at minimum, “ill-considered,” and directly compared it to the failures in Afghanistan and Iraq — 20-year quagmires that the U.S. stumbled into and couldn’t exit. He pointed out that the Iranians are either negotiating brilliantly or refusing to negotiate brilliantly, and either way, they’re winning. He noted that making American officials travel to Islamabad only to leave empty-handed is the humiliation of a nation.

Merz didn’t stop there. He said Europe has offered to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz once hostilities end, and offered to deploy German minesweepers to clear mines from the strait. But first, he said, the fighting has to stop — and he doesn’t see how that happens any time soon given that Iran is “proving to be much stronger than initially thought” and the Americans have no convincing path to a negotiated exit.

This is the chancellor of one of America’s closest allies, speaking at a school, saying publicly that the United States is being humiliated. And he’s right.

Iran and Russia Meet

Making matters considerably worse, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi is currently in Moscow, where he met with Sergey Lavrov and Vladimir Putin as part of a pre-planned three-country visit that also included Oman and Pakistan. What Araghchi said while there should be front-page news everywhere.

He declared that Iran and Russia are “strategic partners,” that Russia has “always supported” Iran, and that their cooperation will continue. He added that the world has now seen “Iran’s true power in confronting America,” and declared the Islamic Republic a “stable, steadfast, and powerful system.”

Putin, for his part, praised the Iranian people for “fighting with courage and valor” and said Moscow will do everything in its power to help Iran through this period.

This is happening while Trump invites Russia to the G20. While Trump sucks up to Putin in Alaska. While Trump bombs Iran. All three of these things are happening simultaneously. The so-called strategy, if you can call it that, is collapsing in real time.

Katie Phang sues the DOJ over Epstein Files

Finally, important news from within the MeidasTouch family. Our host and legal analyst Katie Phang has filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump DOJ, accusing it of brazen violations of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The suit alleges the DOJ missed statutory deadlines, over-redacted documents — including materials referencing Donald Trump — and withheld key records from the public. Katie is asking the court to order full disclosure, strike the unlawful redactions, and appoint a special master to oversee compliance.

Scott MacFarlane Reports

Journalist Katie Phang Files Suit Against Justice Department Over Epstein Files Release

A former Justice Department prosecutor has filed a federal civil lawsuit, on behalf of journalist Katie Phang, against the Trump Administration, alleging the Administration is violating federal law by withhold and redacting documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files.

This is what independent journalism looks like in 2026. You don’t just report on the corruption, you fight it in court. I’m proud to have Katie on this network. Subscribe to her YouTube channel and follow this lawsuit closely.

More to come. Stay focused, and subscribe to the MeidasTouch podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Categories Accountability, Republicans, Trump
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