‘PAY TO PLAY’ TRUMP BALLROOM DONORS GET $50 BILLION IN FED CONTRACTS. Sen. Elizabeth Warren suggested President Donald Trump is running a “pay-to-play loyalty program for wealthy donors” after a report on June 4 revealed more than half the companies that contributed to Trump’is White House ballroom project have been awarded government contracts over the last six months, totaling over $50 billion, Stephen Prager noted at CommonDreams.org (6/6).
Examining 27 publicly known corporate donors to the president’s $400 million gold-plated vanity project, the watchdog group Public Citizen found 14 of them—more than half—had received either new or expanded contracts over the past six months after donating millions to the ballroom and appearing at a lavish White House banquet in October as Trump was preparing to demolish the building’s East Wing.
Over two-thirds, 19 of the 27 companies, received government contracts since fiscal year 2021, totaling over $338 billion. At least 16 out of 27 are also either facing federal enforcement actions and/or have had them suspended by the Trump administration.
“These giant corporations aren’t funding the Trump ballroom fiasco out of the goodness of their hearts. They have massive interests before the federal government, and they hope to curry favor with, and receive favorable treatment from, the Trump administration,” said Public Citizen democracy advocate Jon Golinger, an author of the report.
By far the biggest monetary beneficiary has been the military contractor Lockheed Martin, which received $43.8 billion in new or expanded contract funding over the past six months after it pledged $10 million to fund the dance hall last fall.
Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting company that serves military and intelligence agencies and pledged at least $5 million to the project, received $4 billion in contracts over the same period.
Meanwhile, Palantir—the data-mining surveillance giant with deep ties to the Trump administration—reaped over $1 billion in contracts after giving its own $5 million donation.
“Millions to fund Trump’s bizarre fever dreams are nothing compared to the billions they’re getting back in contracts and favorable government enforcement decisions,” Golinger said. “The American people are paying the price.”
Other ballroom benefactors that have brought in more than $100 million worth of contracts over the past six months include Microsoft, Amazon, HP, and Caterpillar, while T-Mobile, Google, NextEra Energy, and Comcast have all brought in more than $10 million.
Public Citizen noted that while the White House has publicized some of the ballroom donors and others have been revealed by news organizations, not all of the companies that have contributed to the project are publicly known, since the secret funding agreement obtained by the group through a Freedom of Information Act request allows their identities to remain private.
In a statement to the Washington Post, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle suggested that critics should be grateful that Trump was soliciting donations from the wealthy for this very important undertaking.
“The same critics who are alleging fake conflicts of interest would also complain if American taxpayers were footing the bill for these long-overdue renovations,” he said, ignoring the fact that Trump has previously pressured Republicans in Congress to appropriate hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding to secure the ballroom.
Ingle added that “the donors for the White House ballroom project represent a wide array of great American companies and generous individuals, all of whom are contributing to make the People’s House better for generations to come.”
But several Democratic members of Congress have pointed to it as evidence of Trump selling out the government “to the highest bidder.”
“Corporations wrote big checks to build Trump’s golden ballroom,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Col.). “Now they’re receiving billions of dollars in kickbacks—paid for by your tax dollars.”
“Wild coincidence or taxpayer-funded corruption?” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “You be the judge.”
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) said that “the part that should make your blood boil” is the fact that many of the companies identified in the report “were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, [or] securities charges.”
“Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear,” Levin said. “That’s not a coincidence.”
“You cannot afford to donate to Trump’s ballroom, so he does nothing to improve the quality of your life,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). “But for those who can, there are billions in government contracts.”
FED SHOWS WORKING FAMILIES FALL BEHIND AS TRUMP CHOOSES TO KEEP PRICES HIGH. The Beige Book, a monthly report on consumer spending, labor markets, and inflation from the Federal Reserve’s 12 districts across the country, showed a continuation of the trend that accelerated after President Donald Trump joined Israel in attacking Iran more than three months ago, Julia Conley noted at CommonDreams.org (6/5).
The report notes that regional contacts at the Federal Reserve’s districts described middle-income households as “squeezing more life out of every dollar before deciding to spend it,” while low-income families and individuals “showed greater financial strain.”
“Overall, there were reports of increased credit card usage, fewer retail visits, and stronger demand for necessities,” reads the Beige Book.
“Higher-income households remained resilient and less sensitive to price increase,” the Federal Reserve reported, indicating a “K-shaped economy”—in which wealthy Americans are represented by the top angled line and middle- and lower-income households are represented by the line angled toward the lower right.
The report comes as peace talks with Iran are stalled and the Strait of Hormuz—a key waterway for trade, particularly for the world’s oil supply, remains effectively closed following the US-Israeli invasion. Iran’s retaliatory move has sent global oil prices soaring, with gas now costing $4.22 per gallon on average.
“Numerous contacts mentioned the conflict in the Middle East as a source of cost pressures and heightened business uncertainty,” reads the Beige Book. “Higher energy and fertilizer prices contributed to a moderate increase in food prices, especially for fresh produce.”
Manufacturers and retailers are also facing increased shipping costs, while auto repair rates and used-car financing rates “remained very high” in parts of the country.
The report was released days after the administration launched new strikes against Iran last weekend, and as Iran announced it was suspending peace talks with the US over Israel’s continued targeting of Lebanon.
Alex Jacquez, Groundwork’s chief of policy and advocacy, said “Trump is choosing to keep prices high for working families.”
“High prices for essentials like groceries and a tank of gas are busting household budgets and eliminating breathing room for middle- and low-income families,” said Jacquez. “Despite his own party’s opposition, the president is forging ahead with his reckless, costly war—and leaving working Americans in the dust.”
The Beige Book also describes a “low-hire, low-fire” job market, “with workers increasingly reluctant to change jobs because of economic uncertainty.”
“Widespread economic uncertainty from continued tariffs and persistent inflation means businesses are delaying expansion, leading cautious employees to remain in their current roles—even if it means staying in worse-paying jobs,” said Groundwork.
The Federal Reserve pointed to a contact in the construction industry in Cleveland, Ohio who said employees are “nervous and stressed, as well as a human resources firm in Richmond, Va., that reported ”that clients have explicitly slowed hiring for new roles due to uncertainty, while their existing employees seemed reluctant to leave ‘something stable’ for new opportunities.“
Jacquez said that based on the report, “Americans lucky enough to be employed full-time are losing faith in their ability to keep up with inflation as paychecks lag and the labor market stalls out.”
UNIONS CONDEMN EXEC ORDER ALLOWING TRUMP TO REPLACE FEDERAL WORKERS WITH LOYALISTS. Labor unions are warning that an executive order signed June 3 by President Donald Trump will allow his administration to replace thousands of career civil servants with “political loyalists,” Stephen Prager noted at CommonDreams.org (6/5)
The order converts around 8,000 federal workers—most of whom are at senior levels in the civil service with major influence over policy decisions—to Schedule Policy/Career (P/C) status, formerly known as Schedule F, effectively making them “at-will” employees whom the president can fire at his discretion.
While a small number, around 4,000 of the roughly 2 million federal workers, are considered political appointees, most federal employees cannot be removed purely for failing to serve the agenda of the president and can usually only be fired for issues like inadequate performance or misconduct, which involves an appeal process.
But as part of the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle what it’s described as a “deep state” of disloyal bureaucrats, a major objective of the Heritage Foundation’s right-wing manifesto Project 2025, those 8,000 employees may now be fired for “subversion of presidential directives.”
According to the US Office of Personnel Management, this could be just the beginning—with as many as 50,000 employees potentially in consideration to be rescheduled.
A fact sheet released by the White House said despite the reclassification, “these remain ‘career’ positions and the non-partisan hiring processes, competitive status, and other aspects of these roles will not change,” while “removal decisions will also be made without respect to political affiliation.”
But Trump-loyal department heads—everywhere from the Department of Justice to the Pentagon—have systematically purged employees across executive departments that are perceived as Trump’s political enemies.
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said on Thursday that “Schedule P/C is the next phase in Trump’s anti-worker agenda to replace government workers with political loyalists who answer only to him.”
“As we’ve seen from his first day in office, the president is determined to tear down the architecture of our federal government and replace it with a system of corruption to benefit powerful CEOs and billionaire union-busters,” she said.
It’s part of a broader attack on the federal workforce in Trump’s second term. Through a combination of firings, layoffs, and forced resignations, he has reduced the number of government employees by nearly 300,000, causing chaos and understaffing at many agencies. He’s also stripped more than 1 million unionized federal workers of their right to collective bargaining, though courts have blocked the implementation for some workers.
Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents more than 800,000 federal workers, said Wednesday’s order was “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.”
“The practical implications of this action are clear. Workers who once felt comfortable reporting waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at their place of employment because they were protected from retaliation will now be afraid for their jobs if they speak out,” he said. “That is a disservice to them and to the millions of Americans who rely on the federal government every day.”
DEMOCRATS SHOULDN’T FOCUS ON ‘CLIMATE CHANGE.” This year has started as the hottest on record. In the United States, the average temperature for the first four months of 2026 was 44.8 degrees, a height unmatched in data that goes back to 1895. But as climate change wreaks havoc at home and abroad, why don’t Americans care that much?
Well, they do care—just maybe not that much about “climate change,” Andrew Mangan noted at DailyKos.com (6/7)
Nearly 9 in 10 Americans say protecting the environment is important, according to a YouGov poll from March. And 62% tell the Pew Research Center that the U.S. and other nations are not doing enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change. And yet, despite that near-universal concern, only 5% call “climate change and the environment” their most important issue, per the latest Economist/YouGov survey.
The economy and inflation are far and away Americans’ greatest concerns, though climate change heavily affects those issues. For instance, a warmer planet means greater use of air-conditioning, which, in turn, means higher electric bills. Droughts and intense storms, both exacerbated by global warming, are raising water bills. Climate change is a pocketbook issue, but Americans struggle to make the connection.
That struggle is highlighted by a February poll from Data for Progress and the Climate and Community Institute, a progressive think tank.
The survey included what’s called a “split sample test,” wherein a random half of respondents are shown one wording of a question and the other half are shown another. In that test, half of respondents—likely voters, in this case—were asked how much they thought “climate change” affected the rising cost of living. Sixty-one percent said it impacted it “greatly” or somewhat,” while 39% said it had little or no impact.
But the other half of the sample didn’t see the words “climate change.” Instead, they were asked how much “issues like natural disasters, heat waves, and prolonged droughts” affected rising cost of living. And opinions were quite different: 80% said those things had an impact, while just 20% said they didn’t.
In fact, the share who said those issues “greatly” affected cost of living (34%) was nearly double the amount who said the same about climate change (19%).
“Climate change” is an abstract issue for many people. But a heat wave isn’t. People fear tornados, hurricanes, and floods. Palpable experiences sway voters better than concepts.
Democrats often make those types of messaging mistakes.
For example, last year, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied thousands on a speaking tour. Their message of battling corruption and pushing for an economic revolution to benefit the working class has serious national appeal, even in red areas, where the tour sometimes ventured. However, that tour’s name was not “Fighting Corruption,” “Fighting for the Working Class,” or even “Fighting the 1%.”
It was “Fighting Oligarchy.”
Yes, the word may perfectly describe the Trump administration: “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.” But it’s also a word that begs a definition, and it’s coming from a party that has bled support among those without a college degree, a group that makes up a sizable majority of the presidential electorate.
The Democratic presidential candidate has lost support with non-college-educated voters in each election since 2012, according to left-leaning data firm Catalist. It’s dropped across every racial group, with Democratic support falling by more than 10 percentage points since 2012 among Black, Latino, and AAPI voters without a college diploma.
Clearly, the star power of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez overcame that unwieldy word. But ideally, Democrats would not need to overcome their own messaging at all.
A good counterpoint comes from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, he is a democratic socialist dead-set on taking on corporate interests and aiding the working class. But he isn’t tossing out many SAT words.
Instead, during last year’s mayoral campaign, he talked relentlessly about cost-of-living issues. His primary policy planks were two- or three-word phrases: freeze the rent, free buses, build affordable housing, no-cost childcare, and more. He messaged about the cost-of-living crisis with tangible, everyday examples, like the soaring prices found at the city’s ubiquitous halal food trucks—and how he’d fix it. Wittily, he termed that particular issue “halaflation.”
As a result, Mamdani built a young, multiracial, and multicultural coalition. In the general election, he blew out his opponent Andrew Cuomo, the Democrat-turned-independent, in majority-Black and -Hispanic precincts. Seventy-five percent of voters ages 18 to 29 backed him. And even after 100 days in office, which he hit in early April, his approval rating was still 18 points above water, according to a Marist poll.
Mamdani’s simple, relentless, and tangible messaging should be the blueprint for how Democrats, moderates and lefties alike, talk about every issue—including climate change.
DOGE WANTED TO FALSELY LIST MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AS DEAD IN SOCIAL SECURITY DATABASE: WHISTLEBLOWER. A federal whistleblower has revealed plans by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency to falsely list millions of people in the Social Security database as dead in a scheme to pressure them to leave the US.
In an interview published June 5 by the Washington Post, former Social Security Administration (SSA) executive Jeremiah Schofield outlined a DOGE-concocted scheme that would have potentially cut people off from wages, banking, and government benefits by falsely listing them as dead, https://www.commondreams.org/news/social-security-doge-whistleblower(6/5).
Schofield said a DOGE employee told him in a phone call that they wanted to add 2.7 million living people to SSA’s “Death Master File,” cutting them off from essential financial services so they would either leave the country voluntarily or show up to local SSA offices to complain, where they would be promptly arrested.
“That call was one of the most disappointing calls I’ve been in in my 25-year career,” Schofield, who left the SSA in October, told the Post. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
While immigrants were the primary target of the scheme, Schofield said that the list of people created by DOGE included some US citizens and lawful permanent residents.
One anonymous former SSA employee who spoke with the Post outlined the serious ramifications for the 2.7 million people had they been added to the Death Master File.
“If you’re on the [Death Master File] you can’t have a bank account,” they explained, “you can’t get credit, so no apartment, no way to save money, no way to get paid, no way to get on insurance or carry health insurance. It has a ton of devastating effects.”
Schofield said he refused to carry out the DOGE employee’s request after consulting with SSA lawyers who said falsely marking living people as dead would likely be illegal.
The plan was ultimately shelved, and the Trump administration claimed in recent court filings that it has revoked DOGE employees’ access to SSA data.
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, said that Schofield’s whistleblower report was yet another example of President Donald Trump’s administration abusing its power and weaponizing the federal government.
“Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security,” Altman said, “but this whistleblower report is the latest evidence of how he really views it: As nothing more than a weapon to wield against his enemies.”
Altman added that removing living people from the database is essentially “financial murder.”
“It means losing access to your bank account, your health insurance, and your credit cards,” Altman explained. “It means getting kicked out of your home. It means that your life is destroyed.”
Whistleblower Aid, the nonprofit legal assistance organization representing Schofield, said their client’s claims show “no one is safe from this type of weaponization of our Social Security data.”
HOUSE GOP, PLUS 4 DEMS, VOTE TO TAKE FOOD AID FROM MILLIONS OF MOMS & KIDS. House Republicans, with the help of four Democrats, voted Thursday to approve legislation that would slash nutrition assistance for millions of young children and pregnant and postpartum women, even as food prices continue to rise nationwide and earlier GOP cuts to federal aid take hold, Jake Johnson noted at CommonDreams.org (6/5).
In a 213-210 vote, largely along party lines, House lawmakers passed an appropriations bill that would fund the US Department of Agriculture and other agencies for the coming fiscal year. The four Dems who voted with most Republicans to approve the measure were Reps. Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Adam Gray (Calif.), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), and Don Davis (NC).
The bill, if also passed by the Senate and signed by President Donald Trump, would cut fruit and vegetable benefits that young kids and pregnant and postpartum women receive under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has estimated that the cut would strip modest fruit and vegetable benefits from “nearly 5.4 million toddlers, preschoolers, and pregnant and postpartum WIC participants.” Under current law, CBPP observed, “children receive $26 monthly for fruits and vegetables, pregnant and postpartum participants receive $48, and breastfeeding participants receive $52.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said following Thursday’s vote that “while working families struggle to feed their families, Republicans are cutting funding for fruit and vegetable vouchers for women, infants, and children.”
“Working moms are already stretched thin, and Republicans are making it even harder to put dinner on the table,” said DeLauro. “The president’s tariffs have hurt American farmers, and now the Republican plan is to cut off crucial assistance that they have come to rely on even more.”
The House-passed appropriations bill would cut WIC by a total of $200 million compared to current levels, slashing $141 million in funding for fruit and vegetable benefits. The USDA’s website says that WIC “saves lives and improves the health of nutritionally at-risk women, infants, and children,” describing the program as “one of the most successful federally funded nutrition programs in the United States.”
Trump’s USDA chief, Brooke Rollins, has openly celebrated the large-scale loss of federal nutrition aid stemming from the Republican budget package that Trump signed into law last summer. That legislation included unprecedented cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), another highly effective food aid program.
The House vote to cut WIC broadly aligns with the Trump White House’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2027—but doesn’t go as far as the president envisioned. The National WIC Association noted that the House bill “cuts WIC’s fruit and vegetable benefits by about 10%, a first step toward an up to 75% cut sought by the White House.”
“The House proposal fails WIC families when they need help most,” said Georgia Machell, president and CEO of the National WIC Association. “It would force WIC to turn away eligible families for the first time in 30 years, breaking Congress’ 30-year bipartisan commitment to full WIC funding. For the families who receive WIC, it chips away at their ability to buy the very fruits and vegetables that federal dietary guidelines say all Americans should eat more of.”
SPINELESS SENATE R’S REFUSE TO BLOCK TRUMP SLUSH FUND. In the wee hours of June 5 Senate Republicans passed a $70 billion immigration enforcement funding bill on a strictly party line vote, handing President Donald Trump’s masked goons billions to continue his violent, inhumane, politically and economically damaging deportation agenda, Emily Singer noted at DailyKos.com (6/5).
What wasn’t included in the funding, however, was any language to limit the nearly $1.8 billion slush fund Trump had previously announced—which sought to dole out taxpayer dollars to people Trump said were victims of former President Joe Biden’s “weaponized” Department of Justice, including the traitors who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
While Senate Republicans had slammed the fund a few weeks ago, railing on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a closed-door luncheon about how they thought giving money to Jan. 6 traitors was wrong, they ultimately refused to adopt any amendments that would have officially killed the idea.
Instead, they apparently accepted Trump’s DOJ’s mealymouthed assertion that they will follow a court order that temporarily blocked them from giving out money from the fund.
However, even Trump has been wishy-washy about whether he is actually giving up on the reparations, telling reporters on Wednesday when asked if the fund is dead or just on hold, “I’d have to ask the lawyers. I don’t know.”
“The weaponization fund, as far as I’m concerned, was a beautiful thing,” Trump added. “I love it. I think it’s so important.”
What’s more, the DOJ has since said that they will merely use regular channels to give reparations to insurrectionists and others who helped Trump try to steal the 2020 election.
Yet Republicans folded anyway, refusing to anger their Dear Leader—likely out of fear of being on the receiving end of Trump’s retributive actions.
Ultimately, just three Republicans voted to put limits on the slush fund—GOP Sens. Jon Husted of Ohio, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, and Susan Collins of Maine. That’s far less than the 25 Senate Republicans who spoke out against the corrupt reparations fund at the closed-door luncheon with Blanche.
Notably, all three of the Republicans who voted to limit the fund are up for reelection this fall and facing more competitive races than expected, thanks to Trump’s immense unpopularity. The fact that they voted to block the fund shows they are acting like they know they are vulnerable this fall, confirming recent polling that shows Husted, Sullivan, and Collins trailing their Democratic opponents.
OVER 80% OF US VOTERS SUPPORT ENDING DARK MONEY GRIP ON DEMOCRACY. The Brennan Center for Justice on June 2 published a poll showing that American voters believe the country faces a serious corruption problem, and supermajorities support taking major action to end the role of dark money in US politics, Brad Reed noted at CommonDreams.org (6/4).
The poll, which surveyed 2,000 registered voters across the country, found 79% support “a constitutional amendment to restore limits on money in elections.” The proposal would essentially overturn the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which opened the door to unlimited corporate spending in US elections.
The poll further found that 85% of Americans support “mandatory disclosure for all federal campaign contributions and spending”; 81% support “the creation of a new federal ethics enforcer”; and 69% support “a constitutional amendment limiting the president’s pardon power.”
Support for these anti-corruption measures was widespread across both political parties, with 84% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans backing the amendment granting government the power to regulate and limit campaign spending. The proposed mandatory disclosure law drew even more widespread support, with 88% of Democrats and 85% Republicans registering approval.
The poll found Republican voters far less inclined to support proposals that would specifically limit presidential powers, but even in those instances, a majority of Republicans favored a law limiting presidential pardon powers and a law that would let the US Congress and state governments sue the president for alleged violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause that bars presidents from receiving foreign gifts.
Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, wrote that he was struck by Americans’ widespread support for the poll’s proposed reforms, noting that “it’s hard to find a set of proposals with a wider bipartisan appeal.”
Waldman also noted that voters see corruption as why the government has become unresponsive to key voter concerns about housing and affordability.
“Policymakers should understand that the public’s conception of what has gone wrong goes far deeper than super PACs or White House ballrooms or even slush funds,” he wrote. “To them, it is a system that is fundamentally misfiring. A government that is not performing. And there is a willingness to name names and assign blame.”
‘BLOCK BLANCHE’ CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED AFTER TRUMP SAY’S HE’LL NOMINATE ACTING A.G. TO LEAD DOJ. In a letter to US senators Thursday, more than two dozen legal and advocacy groups expressed their commitment to “the rule of law and the independence of federal law enforcement” as they urged the Senate to reject President Donald Trump’s impending nomination of acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche to officially take the helm of the Department of Justice, Julia Conley noted at CommonDreams.org (6/4).
Considering that Blanche previously directly represented Trump as his defense attorney in three separate criminal cases, said the groups, which form the Not Above the Law Coalition, “Blanche as attorney general would represent a new low, and an unprecedented corruption of the institution itself.”
“In 2023, Blanche left his law firm to become Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney across three concurrent cases: the hush money trial, the federal classified documents case, and matters related to January 6th,” wrote the coalition, which includes Democracy Defenders Fund, End Citizens United, and Public Citizen. “For two years, he had one job: Keep local, state, and federal investigators away from his client Donald Trump, and in particular, to shield Trump from the Justice Department.
“Now he controls that very federal agency,” said the organizations, noting that he still operates as “Trump’s lawyer.”
Since joining the administration—first as deputy attorney general serving alongside former Attorney General Pam Bondi, and then taking over for her in an acting capacity after she was fired—Blanche has refused to recuse himself from all matters pertaining to Trump, considering his former work representing the president; boasted that the FBI “cleaned house” after firing career prosecutors who had been involved in investigating Trump; filed motions to vacate seditious conspiracy convictions of several people who attacked the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; and created a since-blocked $1.8 billion “slush fund” meant to disburse money to Trump’s allies due to what the president views as unfair prosecutions.
Blanche has also played a major role in weaponizing the DOJ against Trump’s “perceived enemies,” including the Southern Poverty Law Center and former FBI Director James Comey, both of whom he obtained indictments for.
AT LEAST 97 PARDONED INSURRECTIONISTS HAVE BEEN CHARGED WITH OTHER CRIMES: ANALYSIS. On the first day of his second term last year, President Donald Trump delivered a mass pardon to more than 1,500 people who were charged with crimes related to the violent riot at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Brad Reed noted at CommonDreams.org (6/4).
An analysis published Thursday by Lawfare associate editor Katherine Pompilio finds that at least 97 of these pardoned Trump supporters have been charged with other crimes, including serious alleged offenses such as grand larceny, fraud, and plots to assassinate law enforcement officials and politicians.
The analysis also documents 14 instances of pardoned Capitol rioters being “charged with sex crimes or crimes related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM),” while “at least six” have been charged with domestic violence.
Some of the pardoned rioters have been charged with more minor offenses, including public intoxication, possession of drug paraphernalia, and property damage.
The most notable finding is that at least five of the repeat offenders committed crimes after being freed from prison as a result of Trump’s actions, suggesting that his pardon “may have actively facilitated criminal conduct.”
The most infamous case involves Andrew Paul Johnson, a Capitol rioter who was freed from prison after receiving the Trump pardon and has since been sentenced to life in prison on charges related to child molestation.
“The criminal conduct for which he was convicted took place both before and after his pardon,” the analysis notes.
Other repeat offenders who committed crimes after being freed by Trump were Zachary Alam, who was convicted of felony and grand larceny months after being pardoned, and Ryan Nichols, who was arrest last month for allegedly “threatening a person with a gun in a church parking lot,” the analysis finds.
According to a June 4 report from The New York Times, the Lawfare analysis more than doubles the number of documented instances of pardoned rioters who have been charged with crimes beyond January 6-related offenses.
“A previous study of January 6 recidivism found that at least 40 defendants faced other criminal charges, with 12 taking place after Trump’s clemency order,” reported the Times. “The Lawfare study found 19 criminal cases that occurred after the clemency.”
Donald Trump has been lying all his political life and much of his personal life. And he apparently doesn’t care what damage his lies do.
The latest manifestation occurred June 5 when the counting process in the California primary election showed Democrats leading in the open primaries for governor and Los Angeles mayor — which shouldn’t have been a surprise in a blue state surrounding deep blue LA.
Republicans hoped Democrats would split their votes for governor among 62 candidates in the all-comers “jungle primary,’ where the top two votegetters will meet in the runoff for the general election on Nov. 3. Team Red saw the chance to promote Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and political commentator Steve Hilton to the runoff, shutting out the Dems. But the top votegetter in the governor’s race appears to be Democrat Xavier Becerra, former state attorney general, with 27.7% of the vote on June 8, with 82.9% of the ballots counted. That left a race for second place between Hilton, with 25.1% and Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire environmental activist and founder of Farallon Capital, with 22.4%.
In the LA mayor’s race, with 80% of the votes counted, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass was leading with 34.3% and progressive Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman, a Democrat with 28.5% of the vote, overtook former reality TV character Spencer Pratt, a Republican with 25.8%, for second place in the “jungle primary,” The open primary for mayor put 17 candidates of all parties and independents on the ballot, with the top two votegetters going into the Nov. 3 general election runoff. Voters had to mail in their ballot or turn them in at voting places by June 2, and a lengthy counting process was expected.
Trump sat for an interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker in Chippeway Falls, Wis., June 5 for “Meet the Press,” but the discussion didn’t get far after Welker challenged Trump about his repeated lies that the 2020 election was rigged, the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol was staged by the FBI, and his new unfounded claims that new election rigging was happening in California.
Trump was agitated when Welker asked him about the $1.8 billion fund he sought to get the federal Treasury to pay people claiming they were victims of politicized prosecutions. His Justice Department agreed with Trump’s lawyers to set up the fund to settle the president’s lawsuit against the IRS, but acting Attorney Generasl Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, backed off amid court challenges and pushback from Republican senators.
Trump told Welker he still wants to establish the fund.
“If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve,” he said. “People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed. Many suicides, think of it. People have committed suicide because a bunch of thugs went after them. … If they get it approved, that’s great. If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed.”
Trump said the 172 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers were victims of “dirty cops” in the FBI who ushered the protesters into the building (while Trump was president, by the way).
Asked if he was OK with the Jan. 6 protesters getting taxpayer dollars, Trump replied, “Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen with the weaponization fund. I love the idea, because people like you, the fake dirty press, the crooked press, people like stupid Biden, he’s not smart enough to know what’s going on, but people that surrounded him, surrounded his beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, what they did to the lives of people, they destroyed people. They sent people to jail who did nothing wrong.”
When told there was “no evidence of weaponization,” Trump replied, “There’s tremendous evidence. There’s nothing but evidence.”
Welker replied, “Well, it’s not been presented in a court of law.” Trump replied, “The election was rigged. It was a dirty election. … And it’s happening right now in California.”
Trump claimed that because the results had not been officially decided after three days of counting by election workers in California, the nation’s largest state, with millions who vote by mail, “They’re cheating on the election.”
“Do you have evidence to support that?” Welker asked.
“All I have to do is look … and I listen,” Trump replied.
“But that’s not evidence,” Welker countered.
After talking over Welker’s continuing questions, Trump concluded, “Your elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked. … And so is ABC and CBS and CNN. … You’re a one-sided crooked network. Sorry. Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
When Welker pleaded that “I traveled all the way to Wisconsin” to meet him, he replied that he had given her enough time. “You ought to straighten out your press, because you know what? … A country can never be great with a dishonest press.”
And the country gets even less with a dishonest president.
When it comes to contempt for the truth, Trump is in a league of his own. Republican members of Congress must be held to account for allowing Trump’s disgraceful behavior.
The Washington Post’s fact-checking staff of four, led by Glenn Kessler, counted 30,753 false or misleading claims made by Trump in his first term.
Kessler noted in his Jan. 23, 2021, wrapup of Trump 1.0, Trump started his first day in office on Jan. 20, 2017 with 10 misrepresentations and five more on the second day.
“Over time, Trump unleashed his falsehoods with increasing frequency and ferocity, often by the scores in a single campaign speech or tweetstorm. What began as a relative trickle of misrepresentations … built into a torrent through Trump’s final days as he frenetically spread wild theories that the coronavirus pandemic would disappear “like a miracle” and that the presidential election had been stolen — the claim that inspired Trump supporters to attack Congress on Jan. 6 and prompted his second impeachment.”
After Trump lost the 2020 election — and yes, Joe Biden beat Trump fair and square, as judges, including those appointed by Trump and other Republicans found no widespread fraud in more than 60 cases brought by the Trump team — the Post scaled back its fact-checking department. Kessler continued through 2024, but when Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Post decreed that the opinion pages would be less confrontational, Kessler chose to accept a buyout in January 2025 as Trump was returning to the White House and the Post no longer has a regular fact-checking column.
No other news outlet has taken up the comprehensive fact-checking role the Post performed in Trump’s first term, but Linda Qiu noted in The New York Times Jan. 20, 2026, that in the first year of his second term Trump continued to rely on inaccurate superlatives and evidence-free assertions to justify his policies. The administration has dismissed media fact-checks as “hoaxes” or “fake news.”
The press can tell the truth, but only Republicans can stop Trump from lying., by calling him out on them. — JMC
From the July 2026 issue of The Progressive Populist
TRUMP THREATENS USING ‘ARMY’ TO RIG MIDTERM ELECTIONS. President Donald Trump is being criticized for his call for an “election integrity army” to fight against Democrats concerned about voter suppression, Oliver Willis noted at Daily Kos (5/11).
In a post to his Truth Social account on May 10, Trump fumed that former Attorney General Eric Holder plans to work with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to stop efforts to suppress the vote in the upcoming midterm elections. Trump lied and claimed that “unhinged” Democrats “will no doubt try to suppress Republican voters.”
Trump praised the Republican Party’s use of an “election integrity army” during the 2024 election cycle and added, “We will be doing the same again in 2026, but it will be much bigger and stronger.”
US Rep. Norma Torres (D-CA) called out Trump’s post, “The only thing ‘unhinged’ here is a President calling for a private ‘army’ to hover over legal voters. This blatant attempt to bully Americans out of their right to vote is pathetic. Our democracy doesn’t belong to anyone.”
Trump’s post was in reference to the April 29 announcement by Senate Democrats that they have launched a task force to protect the election and had enlisted Holder and election attorney Marc Elias.
“We know that some on the extreme right will try to rig the system,” Schumer said in a Senate speech. “Donald Trump said it, he said he can’t win the election except by rigging it. That’s more or less what he said.”
As evidence, Schumer noted Trump’s use of the FBI to raid a Georgia election office and seize 2020 election ballots, the election he has continually lied about and claimed he won.
Trump’s post comes as poll after poll shows Democrats surging ahead of Republicans in the congressional races, where control of the House and Senate are up for grabs. Voters have been looking for an outlet to express their displeasure with Republican mismanagement of domestic and foreign policy, and the midterm races seem to be the target.
Instead of correcting course, Republicans have instead tried to rewrite the borders of congressional districts to lock in their power. Voters have rebuffed these efforts in several states and Republicans have retaliated via conservative-led courts in states like Virginia to overturn the will of the people.
The GOP has a long history of voter suppression, with policies and rhetoric designed to lower turnout in areas that have historically favored the Democrats—particularly among younger voters and voters of color.
Democrats are hoping that a repeat of past trends, when increased turnout has usually meant a Democratic win, will give their party the majority this year and grant them power of oversight of Trump.
TRUMP IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN BENEFITS REAL CRIMINALS. Drug dealers can thank President Donald Trump for getting law enforcement off their backs. A new analysis by Reuters reveals that his decision to redirect resources toward executing his anti-immigrant policies in Minnesota lowered federal law enforcement’s ability to tackle real crime, Oliver Willis noted at Daily Kos (5/7).
Between January and the end of April, only eight people were charged with gun or drug offenses by federal prosecutors, according to court records reviewed by the news outlet. Compare that to the 77 who were charged during the same period in 2025.
Many of the 2026 cases are questionable as well. Among the prosecutions pursued by federal authorities is the case pending against journalist Don Lemon, whose purported crime was documenting a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a church. Another 17 cases were for alleged violations of immigration law, like people returning to the U.S. after the government had deported them.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty told Reuters that Trump’s actions are leading to a flood of federal-level cases coming into her office, which doesn’t have the same prosecutorial resources as federal agencies.
“It’s a public safety issue that they’re not doing the types of prosecutions they should be doing,” she told the outlet, further noting, “You can’t tell me that sex trafficking and drug trafficking and that kind of thing is less important than people going into a church to protest.”
Data assembled by Reuters echoes previous findings about Trump’s immigration focus effectively assisting real criminals.
For instance, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, released data this past October that showed FBI agents have been reassigned from investigating crimes like terrorism and have instead been deployed for immigration enforcement.
Last year, a study from the libertarian Cato Institute revealed that federal resources meant to fight against child predators are instead being used on immigration issues. Similarly, this past July, an internal memo from the Department of Homeland Security detailed how agents previously tasked with securing the border against the spread of illicit materials like fentanyl are instead being used as manpower for Trump’s deportation agenda.
This diversion of resources is happening in tandem with the hollowing out of the Department of Justice, where experienced prosecutors and other investigators have been purged and loyalty to Trump has become a litmus test.
Meanwhile, the anti-immigration deployments in the U.S. are causing crime problems of their own.
Moriarty recently announced that ICE agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., who was part of the Trump-ordered “Operation Metro Surge” in Minnesota, is being charged for allegedly drawing a firearm on two people amid a traffic dispute.
At the same time, people have repeatedly disguised themselves as ICE agents as cover to commit crimes, since the agents are often masked.
Other criminals, like many of the convicted Jan. 6 rioters whom Trump pardoned, are being convicted of new crimes, such as child molestation.
FUEL PRICES HAVE SPIKED MORE IN ‘ENERGY INDEPENDENT’ U.S. THAN IN NATIONS THAT HAVE MOVED AWAY FROM OIL AND GAS. Average gas prices in the United States are quickly climbing toward $5 per gallon this week as US President Donald Trump’s war with Iran shows little sign of resolution.
Where average prices were about $2.98 the day before the war’s launch, they had shot up to $4.48 as of May 5, according to AAA’s gas price tracker, as Iran’s restriction of ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz has squeezed global oil shipping and the shipping of other fuel sources like liquefied natural gas (LNG), causing global price hikes.
And while Trump has touted America’s supposed “energy independence” as an ace in the hole, achieved by ratcheting up fossil fuel production while canceling solar and wind power projects, data shows that the US has been hit harder by the price shocks than any other major economy in the world, with those that have embraced renewable energy being especially resilient, Stephen Prager noted at Common Dreams (5/5).
Although the US leads the world in oil production by a large margin, data from JP Morgan Commodities research, analyzed by MarketWatch, showed that between Feb. 23 and April 27, the US experienced a 42% increase in gas prices, the fifth-highest in the world.
“The spike in US gasoline prices over the past two months has outpaced everywhere except Southeast Asia, the region most dependent on oil from the Persian Gulf,” explained Yahoo Finance geopolitics reporter Jake Conley.
Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader and managing director at CIBC Private Wealth, explained to MarketWatch that while increased fuel production gives the US a “buffer,” oil is a global market and “it doesn’t operate in a vacuum.” She said, “Global tightness and domestic bottlenecks still show up in gasoline prices.”
Meanwhile, some of the countries that have best survived the price hikes include France and Spain, which derive large shares of their power from nuclear energy and renewables, respectively.
Craig Hanson and Jessica Isaacs, a pair of researchers at the World Resources Institute, explained last month that while a mix of factors is at play, countries less reliant on fossil fuels generally “find themselves in a better position to withstand the current crisis.”
“Every country has homegrown access to at least two clean energy resources—the sun shines, and the wind blows just about everywhere at some point,” they said. “The same cannot be said of oil and gas, where production is concentrated in a small number of countries and exposed to geopolitical disruption.”
“Renewable resources like wind, solar, and geothermal have zero fuel costs, and the fuel cost of nuclear power is quite low. Again, the same cannot be said of fossil fuels, which have costs set by volatile global markets,” they added. “These two advantages are why some of the world’s clean energy frontrunners are faring better than other countries amidst the Iranian energy crisis.”
TRUMP COUNTERTERRORISM STRATEGY PUTS ‘ANTI-FASCISTS’ ON PAR WITH ISIS, AL-QAEDA. The Trump administration May 5 released an official counterterrorism strategy that puts “anti-fascist” organizations on par with terrorist organizations such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda, Brad Reed noted at Common Dreams (5/6).
In outlining its strategy, the document argues that the US faces three “major type” of terrorist threats: “Legacy Islamist Terrorists,” such as al-Qaeda and ISIS; “Narcoterrorists” that sell illegal drugs; and “Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists.”
When it comes to the purported domestic left-wing threats, the document says the administration will “prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.”
“We will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home,” the document adds, “identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa, and use law enforcement tools to cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent.”
The document makes no mention of the threat posed by members of right-wing groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, many of whom received pardons from Donald Trump in 2025 for their role in violently storming the US Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
A report published last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that, while left-wing political violence has grown since Trump’s first election in 2016, it “remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers.”
Journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on May 5 that the strategy “is the brainchild of White House counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka, an eccentric figure I have reported on, who last year hinted at terrorism charges being levied for political opponents of the administration.”
Digging into the details of the document, Klippenstein said it was essentially a strategy for prosecuting “pre-crime,” which he noted “aims to build cases against people for what they might do, most ominously based on speech or beliefs.”
At the end of his analysis, Klippenstein warned that the document makes clear “the global War on Terror has come home.”
The counterterrorism strategy document builds on the framework established by National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by Trump in September that demanded a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
Rights groups have for months been sounding the alarm about the implications of NSPM-7, which they said could be used to initiative a widespread crackdown against the Trump administration’s critics.
WHY WON’T GOP LAWMAKERS ABANDON TRUMP? LOOK TO INDIANA. President Donald Trump is getting more unpopular by the day as his war in Iran leads to ballooning gas prices here at home. But if you think that would give GOP lawmakers cover to vote against Trump’s wishes, you’d be wrong. The results in Indiana’s primaries May 5 show why, Emily Singer noted at Daily Kos (5/6).
Trump endorsed primary challenges against a set of seven Republican state senators in the Hoosier State, seeking revenge for those senators refusing to heed his demand to redraw Indiana’s congressional maps and further rig the state in favor of Republicans. Trump-aligned groups spent millions against them as well.
And it paid off. Five of those seven Republicans lost their primaries May 5 by large margins. One of the seven, state Sen. Greg Goode, beat his Trump-backed challenger. Sen. Spencer Deery was ahead by two votes May 11, with eight provisional ballots remaining.
Those results show that even though Republican support for Trump has fallen, it has not fallen enough for Trump-skeptical lawmakers to survive primaries when Trump endorses against them. Trump’s die-hard MAGA base simply remains too loyal to him.
“Almost every day I get asked some version of the question, ‘So with Trump’s approval so low when will House Republicans finally break from him?’ I always reply by saying it’s not going to happen. Below is the reason why,” Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania wrote in a post on X, referencing Trump’s successful revenge campaign in Indiana. Meanwhile, Trump’s team is taking a victory lap.
“Hey @RepThomasMassie….you are next,” Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 campaign manager who helped spearhead the revenge effort in Indiana, wrote in a post on X. LaCivita is referring to Trump targeting Massie in Kentucky’s May 19 primary because Massie helped lead the charge to force the Trump administration to release the Epstein files.
But while Trump and his aides may be riding high after May 5 results, it may be little more than a pyrrhic victory.
In November’s midterm elections, Republicans in competitive districts will need to create distance from their unpopular leader if they want to win over the broader electorate. Yet they know they can’t do that if they want to first win their GOP primaries. Thus they are locked in a catch-22: forced to suck up to Trump to win a primary election but then forced to distance themselves from him to win a general election.
AFTER MORE PRIVATE SOCIAL SECURITY DATA EXPOSED BY TEAM TRUMP, WHERE WILL GOP ‘DRAW THE LINE’? A newly reported failure of the Trump administration’s ability to handle sensitive private information in the social programs it is tasked with operating triggered a fresh wave of anger over the weekend after it was revealed that healthcare providers’ Social Security numbers were made public as part of a faulty Medicare portal rollout, Jon Queally noted at Common Dreams (5/3) .
The Washington Post discovered the compromised database and alerted the administration before publishing a story about it May 1, after efforts had been made to protect the sensitive information from further compromise.
According to the Post, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year created a directory to help seniors look up which doctors and medical providers accept which insurance plans, framing it as an overdue improvement and part of the Trump administration’s initiative to modernize health care technology.
But a publicly accessible database used to populate the directory contains some of the providers’ Social Security numbers, linked to their names and other identifying information. For at least several weeks, CMS made the database available for public use as part of its data transparency efforts.
While the reporting noted that the files were “not immediately visible to users who [visited] the provider directory,” lawmakers and experts said the compromised information would be a treasure trove for fraudsters.
Critics pounced on the new reporting, calling it “yet another mess-up by the Team Trump” and only the latest evidence that the administration cannot and should not be trusted to protect the nation’s most successful anti-poverty programs or the sensitive personal data of the American people who entrust the government with that information.
“Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data,” said Social Security Works, an advocacy group that serves as a public watchdog for the nation’s social programs.
MORE THAN 50 ELECTION DENIERS VYING TO OVERSEE VOTING ACROSS US. As President Donald Trump continues to push Republicans to aggressively gerrymander ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, a new analysis has found more than 50 candidates running for key offices who have in the past engaged in efforts to nullify election results, Brad Reed noted at Common Dreams (5/4).
As reported by NPR May 4, election watchdog States United Action has released a report showing that election-denying candidates are running for offices in 23 states where, if victorious, they would have a direct role in certifying future elections.
States United classifies election deniers as candidates who meet one of five criteria: Falsely claiming that Trump won the 2020 election, spreading conspiracy theories about the election results, refusing to certify the 2020 election, supporting litigation to overturn election results, and refusing to concede a race after being defeated.
In total, States United found at least 53 such candidates running for positions this year, including secretaries of state and governorships, that would put them in position to try to block or impede the certification of elections.
The threat is particularly acute in Arizona, where election deniers are running for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general.
This prospective Arizona election denial ticket is headlined by MAGA hardliner Andy Biggs, who voted against certification of the 2020 election results as a US congressman and who is running to unseat incumbent Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
States United CEO Joanna Lydgate told NPR that her organization is tracking election deniers running for office to “provide voters with the most accurate information possible” and “understand exactly what these candidates stand for and whether they fundamentally believe in free and fair elections in this country.”
As election deniers are trying to win key offices throughout the US, the Trump administration is working to get more directly involved in purging voter rolls ahead of the midterms.
According to a report from CNN, “Republicans and the Trump administration are now testing the scope of the federal law that imposes that ban on ‘systematic’ removal programs within three months of an election, as President Donald Trump pushes for more aggressive reviews of voter rolls for non-citizens and other ineligible voters.”
What this means is that states could in theory purge voter rolls just weeks ahead of elections, giving people removed from the rolls almost no time to file challenges.
Wren Orey, director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Elections Project, told CNN that purging voter rolls less than three months before an election means there’s a high risk that “voters won’t have adequate time or notice to be able to provide the documents that they’ll need ahead of the election.”
“Maybe their birth certificate doesn’t meet the requirements,” Orey explained. “Maybe they don’t have one handy, maybe they don’t have a passport. That could take months to get.”
Brent Ferguson, the senior director of strategic litigation at Campaign Legal Center, told CNN that he was particularly disturbed by the Trump White House’s involvement in this effort to manage voter rolls.
“It sets up a situation where the federal government itself is the actor trying to purge voters from the rolls in the days before the election,” Ferguson said, “which is clearly illegal.”
TRUMP OFFICIAL CELEBRATES 4.3 MILLION DRIVEN OFF FOOD AID. US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on May 2 openly celebrated millions of people losing their food assistance, which experts say is a direct result of the Republicans’ 2025 budget law that slashed funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by $186 billion over a decade, Brad Reed noted at Common Dreams (5/4).
In a social media post pointing to preliminary data from her department, Rollins boasted that there were now “4.3 million off SNAP and counting!”
“Under President Trump, Americans are getting back to work!” Rollins added. “Healthy employment numbers mean less reliance on government programs. Leaving benefits for those who truly need them. America is back in business!”
In reality, the unemployment rate is currently higher than when President Donald Trump took office in February 2025 and there has been almost no growth in net employment since the president announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs just over a year ago.
The Associated Press published a fact check of Rollins’ claims about SNAP, finding that Republicans’ cuts to the program were far more likely responsible for the historic drops in enrollment than any purported improvement in the economy.
Caitlin Caspi, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut who studies food insecurity, told the AP that current job creation numbers are nowhere near strong enough to explain the massive number of Americans losing access to SNAP.
“We’re not seeing a linear kind of drop-off,” Caspi said. “We are not seeing, if you look at the unemployment rates, things that might be an indicator that a strong economy was driving this change. We don’t see, for example, a pattern of decline in unemployment that would match the pattern of decline in SNAP participation.”
Caspi’s analysis was echoed by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which last week published an analysis finding that “economic conditions haven’t been improving as the number of people receiving SNAP has plummeted in recent months, representing the sharpest decline in decades.”
Instead, CBPP pointed the finger squarely at the GOP’s budget law as the biggest culprit behind the decline.
“The deep cuts to federal funding for SNAP are shifting significant new costs to states,” wrote CBPP, noting that the GOP law “also dramatically expands SNAP’s already harsh and ineffective provision taking away people’s benefits for not meeting the work requirement.”
EXPERT PUTS TRUE COST OF IRAN WAR AT $72 BILLION — NEARLY 3 TIMES HIGHER THAN PENTAGON SAID. The Pentagon’s official estimate of the direct financial cost of the US war on Iran is a nearly threefold undercount of the actual price tag of the war, according to an expert analysis published May 5.
Stephen Semler, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, produced the new cost estimate for the Popular Information newsletter. Accounting for armament use, troop deployments, and other factors, Semler estimated that the US government spent $71.8 billion on the Iran war over the course of 60 days—an average of $1.2 billion per day, Jake Johnson noted at CommonDreams (5/5).
“Like the estimates from Pentagon leadership and unnamed officials, this figure refers only to direct war costs—near-term expenses for military operations, munitions, and the like—and not indirect costs, which include broader economic impacts, interest on the national debt, and longer-term expenses like veterans’ care,” explained Semler, who argued that the Pentagon’s $25 billion cost estimate suffers from “incomplete accounting of damaged or destroyed military assets, the exclusion of costs outside the department (including billions of dollars in State Department-funded military aid to Israel), and a flawed method for tracking munition expenditures.”
Semler, who detailed his methodology in a separate post, accused top Pentagon officials of attempting to deliberately mislead lawmakers and the American public about the true cost of the war, which is historically unpopular.
“The $25 billion war cost given by Pentagon Secretary [Pete] Hegseth and acting Comptroller [Jules] Hurst before Congress was a lie,” Semler wrote Wednesday. “It was a denial of the Iran war’s spiraling costs, one of several foreseen consequences of the Trump administration’s decision to go to war. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz is another predictable consequence.”
Semler’s analysis was released days after unnamed Trump administration officials told CBS News that they believe the actual US cost of the Iran war is roughly double the estimate offered under oath by Pentagon leaders.
“US officials familiar with internal assessments suggested the war’s price tag is closer to $50 billion so far,” CBS News reported. “Much of the gap is accounted for by munitions that have been used and need to be replaced. For instance, the Pentagon has lost 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones—sophisticated unmanned aircraft that can cost $30 million or more apiece—underscoring how quickly the financial toll has mounted. Taken together, the higher estimate reflects not only the tempo of operations but also the often unseen costs of attrition, as material lost in the field reshapes the ledger.”
Ongoing efforts to calculate the costs of US-Israeli war—which has killed thousands, displaced millions, sent global energy markets into chaos, and sparked fears of a worldwide food crisis—come as Trump continues to threaten Iran with an even more aggressive bombing campaign, which would send the conflict’s price tag soaring further.
The Supreme Court has effectively neutered the Voting Rights Act, as the six conservative justices ruled states can gerrymander legislative districts to maximize partisan advantage as long as they don’t express the intention of removing Black or Brown elected officials. The conservatives demand proof of intentional discrimination against minority voters rather than just discriminatory outcomes. That enables a multitude of sins.
The April 29 decision in the case of Louisiana vs. Callais makes it easier for states to dismantle “majority-minority” districts, which were previously protected to ensure minority communities could elect their preferred candidates.
President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to make it illegal for segregationists, mainly in the South, to use threats of violence and bureaucratic hurdles to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Black voters to cast ballots. Nowadays, Republicans have jeered that most of those segregationists were Democrats, but in the past 61 years, most of of those Southern Democrats have become Republicans and they now form the backbone of Donald Trump’s support.
Chief Justice John Roberts has spent much of his legal career dedicated to overturning the Voting Rights Act. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1979, he clerked for Judge Henry Friendly of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and in 1980 for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist before Roberts was named a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith in 1981, in the new administration of Ronald Reagan. Roberts concentrated on the scope of the Voting Rights Act, especially Sections 2 and 5, which Roberts and other Reagan aides believed intruded on states’ regulations. He became associate White House counsel in 1982, entered private appellate practice in 1986 and returned to the White House in 1989 as deputy solicitor general under Ken Starr in George H.W. Bush’s administration. In appearances before the Supreme Court Roberts argued against policies that afforded special benefits to minority groups.
Roberts finally got his shot at the big time in 2003, when President George W. Bush named Roberts to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and he was promoted to the Supreme Court in 2005 after the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist. In 2013 Chief Justice Roberts voted with the majority in Shelby vs. Holder to strike down requirements that states and localities with a history of racially motivated voter suppression obtain federal preclearance before enacting changes to their voting laws.
In 2023 Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joined the liberal justices in Allen v. Milligan, a 5-4 decision holding that Alabama’s congressional redistricting plan violated Section 2 of the VRA. Writing for the majority, Roberts ruled that Alabama must draw an additional majority-minority district. Writing for himself and the three liberal justices, Roberts also wrote that “[t]he contention that mapmakers must be entirely ‘blind’ to race has no footing in our §2 case law.”
But after Trump returned to the White House in 2025, he once again upset the world economy with arbitrary tariffs, paid by U.S. consumers. Stock markets were unsettled until the Supreme Court told Trump the tariffs were illegal. So Trump joined with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iran, resulting in a spike in gas prices. many American voters realized they had been taken in by the grifter. Democrats started overperforming by more than 10 points to win special elections in unexpected places. As Trump became concerned he might lose control of Congress, he ordered Texas Republican leaders to gerrymander five additional Republican districts.
That set off a gerrymandering war, as Gov. Gavin Newsom called on the California Assembly to suspend the state’s independent redistricting commission and create five more Democratic districts in California. Republicans called foul, and persisted after Virginia Democrats approved a map that created four more Democratic districts (which a Republican-dominated state Supreme Court overruled). So Florida Republicans passed a map to eliminate four Democratic seats.
Roberts returned to form with the Callais ruling, which found it was illegal for lawmakers to create a second majority-Black Congressional District in Louisiana. The ruling, written by Justice Sam Alito, immediately impacts the mid-term congressional elections in November, with states in the South postponing primary elections, even in states where voting had begun, to allow the states to redraw maps to reduce the number of competitive seats with Democratic majorities and potentially boosting Republican seats. As of May 11, Democrats have gained six Democratic seats and Republicans have gained 14 seats, for a net gain of eight Republican seats.
The Supreme Court ruling may allow seven Republican-dominated Southern states to gerrymander Congressional districts with Black majorities into Republican-majority districts, but Democrats may gain support from independent voters and moderate Republicans who are upset with Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran, which has spiked the cost of fuel. Democrats still are likely to flip enough seats to regain the House majority in the midterm election in November.
In the Senate, where Republicans now hold a 53-47 majority, Democrats have a chance to flip at least four votes to regain control, with opportunities in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas and high hopes of hanging onto Senate seats in Georgia, where Sen. John Ossoff (D) is seeking re-election after a 1-point runoff win in 2021, and Michigan, where Gary Peters (D) is retiring in a state that leans Democratic.
The longest odds for a Democratic flip are in Texas, where state Rep. James Talarico, a former public schoolteacher, now Presbyterian seminarian who can talk about economic fairness and the liberal side of the Bible, narrowly leads Republicans Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton, who are in a nasty runoff that will be decided May 26.
Democrats also hope Iowa is turning around from the state Trump won by over 13 percentage points in 2024. With Republican Sen. Jodi Ernst stepping down, two Democrats, state Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zack Wahls, are running in the June 2 primary to face the likely Republican nominee, U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson. Both Democrats narrowly led Hinson in an April poll by Echelon Insights.
With Trump’s war of choice in the Middle East causing fuel prices to spike and groceries ever higher, this isn’t shaping up to be a normal election year. Democrats need to settle feuds and close ranks to regain control of Congress and make Trump’s last two years in the White House as miserable for the “GOP’ as Trump and his Republican enablers fear. — JMC
POPE LEO SWATS AWAY TRUMP’S BLASPHEMOUS MELTDOWN. Pope Leo XIV, the first pope born in the United States, showed off his Chicago roots April 13 by refusing to stoop to President Donald Trump’s level after Trump attacked the pontiff in an unhinged late-night social media frenzy, Oliver Willis noted at Daily.Kos.com (4/13).
“I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the Church works for,” Leo told reporters.
The pope has repeatedly denounced Trump’s war in Iran, rooting his criticism in the Bible’s opposition to killing and unjust war. Previously, Pope Leo noted, “God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.” He has also condemned “absurd and inhuman violence” and “the blasphemy of war.”
Leo’s latest rebuke of Trump came after the president posted a 334-word screed on his Truth Social account on Sunday, April 12, attacking the pope as “WEAK on Crime.”
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country,” Trump fumed.
He added, “Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!”
Trump’s post was followed up with another featuring an apparently AI-generated image of Trump depicted as Jesus Christ, healing a man with his touch.
The Bible defines blasphemy—one of the most serious crimes in the Christian faith—as the promotion of a false doctrine and leading Christians away from following the teachings of God and Jesus.
Trump’s decision to depict himself as a god-like figure also signals that Trump’s mental state makes him unfit to lead the country. Several Democrats have called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked and for Trump to be removed from office, citing his inability to execute his position.
Trump’s post about the pope was condemned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “I am disheartened that the President chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, the conference’s president, said in a statement. “Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls.”
Trump’s missive also drew a statement from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who wrote on X in Persian, “Your Excellency Pope Leo XIV (@Pontifex), on behalf of the great nation of Iran, I condemn the insult to Your Excellency and declare that the desecration of Jesus (peace be upon him), the Prophet of peace and brotherhood, is unacceptable to any free person. I wish glory for you from Allah.”
Trump’s attack on the pope may have been triggered by a segment that aired on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, April 12. In the segment, Catholic bishops aired their criticisms of Trump echoing the Pope’s statements, particularly on immigration and the war.
Speaking about the attack on Iran, Cardinal Robert McElroy told the outlet, “In the Catholic teaching this is not a just war.”
Reacting to the controversy, CNN data analyst Harry Enten speculated on X, “Maybe Trump’s jealous of the Pope? ... It’s a blowout favoring the Pope in terms of popularity in America. The Pope’s net popularity rating: +34 pt. Trump: -12 pt.”
Enten also noted that among Catholics who were polled, a majority agreed with the pope in opposing the war.
While Trump has long had the support of conservative Christian voters, his grip on Christian doctrine has been shaky, at best. Trump infamously referred to the Bible verse Second Corinthians as “Two Corinthians,” and has hawked a tacky Trump-branded Bible and other schlocky trinkets.
Trying to bait the leader of Catholicism into an online flame war has failed spectacularly, but it’s right in line with Trump’s ever-growing list of screwups.
‘DESIGNED TO BACKFIRE’: TRUMP SLAMMED FOR CLOSURE OF HORMUZ STRAIT AS IRAN TALKS FALTER. US President Donald Trump on April 12 announced a military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz as Vice President JD Vance’s negotiating team failed to gain the trust of their Iranian counterparts, who have been burned by the United States before and are loath to surrender sovereignty over their nuclear program, Brett Wilkins noted at CommonDreams.org (4/12).
Trump announced in an early morning post on his Truth Social network that, “effective immediately,” the Strait of Hormuz—which was open before the president launched his illegal war of choice—would be closed to all shipping. Around 20% of the world’s oil passed through the waterway before the war.
“At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘There may be a mine out there somewhere,’ that nobody knows about but them,” Trump wrote. “THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted.”
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran,” the president continued, referring to one of the concessions reportedly in the cease-fire agreement with Iran that he approved last week. “No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”
“Iran will not be allowed to profit off this Illegal Act of EXTORTION,” Trump added. “They want money and, more importantly, they want Nuclear. Additionally and, at an appropriate moment, we are fully ‘LOCKED AND LOADED,’ and our Military will finish up the little that is left of Iran!”
Responding to Trump’s post, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, said: “So get this. Trump wants to open the Strait of Hormuz by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Blow up the world economy to punish Iran. Make sense?”
Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, also took to social media, writing that “a blockade is an act of war, so Trump is announcing he will reenter the US into a war has been illegal under domestic and international law and has been disastrous for US interests, regional security, and the people of Iran.”
In a social media post, journalist Séamus Malekafzali said: “I have legitimately never heard of a more insane, designed-to-backfire policy under this administration; maybe ever. Not only attempting to blockade Iranian ships, but ANY ship that goes through the Strait of Hormuz by paying the toll.”
While Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended a UFC match in Miami, Vance was left with the task of marathon negotiations with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan.
“We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vance told reporters after the talks. “That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”
Iran’s government was willing to make unprecedented concessions regarding its nuclear program up until the US and Israel began bombing the country on Feb. 28. Every US administration since that of former President George W. Bush—including Trump’s—has concluded that Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran gave its assurance that it would not build nukes in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action it signed in 2015 during the presidency of Barack Obama. Trump unilaterally scrapped the agreement, which was also called the Iran nuclear deal, during his first term despite—some say because of—Iran’s full compliance.
Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf blamed the US for the breakdown in talks.
“My colleagues on the Iranian delegation Minaab168 raised forward-looking initiatives, but the opposing side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations,” Ghalibaf said in a social media post. The Iranian delegation was named after the town where 168 children and staff at an elementary school were massacred in a US cruise missile strike on the first day of the war.
“Before the negotiations, I emphasized that we have the necessary good faith and will, but due to the experiences of the two previous wars, we have no trust in the opposing side,” Ghalibaf explained.
Just hours before Trump announced his decision to bomb Iran in February, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, the mediator of talks between the US and Iranian governments, said that a “peace deal is within our reach,” prompting Iranian officials and others to accuse the Americans of acting in bad faith. Similar accusations were leveled when the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in the summer of 2025 amid ongoing nuclear negotiations.
“America has understood our logic and principles,” said Ghalibaf, “and now it’s time for it to decide whether it can earn our trust or not?”
HUNGARIAN VOTERS END 16 STRAIGHT YEARS OF ORBAN’S FAR-RIGHT RULE. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán April 12 conceded defeat to conservative lawmaker Peter Magyar in parliamentary elections that ended 16 years of increasingly authoritarian Christian nationalist rule amid overt interference from the Trump administration and alleged covert meddling by Russia, Brett Wilkins noted at CommonDreams.org (4/12).
“The election result is not final yet, but it is understandable and clear,” Orbán said. “The election result is painful for us, but clear. The responsibility and possibility of governing was not given to us. I have congratulated the winner.”
“We will serve our country and the Hungarian nation from the opposition,” he added.
Magyar, who leads the socially conservative but democratic Tisza Party, said on social media that “just now, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has congratulated me on our victory in a phone call.”
Tisza is projected to win 135 seats in the 199-seat Országgyulés, or Parliament, with nearly half of all votes counted, according to the national election office. Orbán’s Fidesz party is projected to control 57 seats.
Magyar had promised that “step by step, brick by brick, we are taking back our homeland and building a new country, a sovereign, modern, European Hungary.”
Domestic and international critics have long accused Orbán of systematically eroding Hungary’s democratic institutions, tightening his grip over the country’s political system, and consolidating control over much of the media to strengthen Fidesz’s rule.
After serving a single term as prime minister from 1998-2002, Orbán was elected again in 2010 and served four consecutive terms, thanks to passage by Fidesz-led lawmakers of the so-called “Fundamental Law” and other illiberal measures.
Human rights deteriorated markedly during Orbán’s tenure, especially for LGBTQ+ people, migrants, women, and Roma. The European Union has withheld billions of dollars in funding in response.
EU leaders have condemned Orbán’s rule, calling his government a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy.” Orbán describes it as “illiberal democracy,” while touting its universal appeal to international conservatives, including US President Donald Trump.
European leaders also bristled at Orban’s warm personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, although the Hungarian leader did condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and voted along with the rest of the 27-nation EU to impose economic sanctions on Moscow.
Russia is accused of trying to influence the outcome of the election in favor of Fidesz via a coordinated online disinformation campaign. At a massive election eve rally and concert in Budapest, thousands of attendees chanted in unison, “Russians go home!”
Trump and senior members of his administration had openly backed Orbán, with the president promising “to use the full economic might of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s economy” if the prime minister was reelected.
US Vice President JD Vance traveled to Budapest the week before the election to campaign for Orbán. While decrying what he called “disgraceful” interference by the EU—of which Hungary is a member—Vance added that he wanted to “help as much as I can possibly help” to secure Orbán’s reelection.
Orbán has accused Ukraine of election interference, although he has provided no evidence supporting his claim.
Responding to alleged foreign meddling, Magyar said on social media that “this is our country.”
“Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow, or Brussels—it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares,” he insisted.
Numerous world leaders congratulated Magyar.
“Europe’s heart is beating stronger in Hungary tonight,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on social media. “Hungary has chosen Europe. Europe has always chosen Hungary. Together, we are stronger. A country reclaims its European path. The Union grows stronger.”
TRUMP’S MILITARY MURDERS 5 MORE PEOPLE IN ‘LAWLESS’ BOAT BOMBING. The United States military has killed five more people suspected of drug smuggling in the latest boat bombing operation that many international law experts consider to be acts of murder, Brad Reed noted at CommonDreams.org (4/13).
In an April 13 social media post, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced it had “conducted two lethal kinetic strikes on two vessels” that it had deemed to be run by “designated terrorist organizations.” As with the dozens of other boat bombings the Trump administration has conducted since last September, the military did not provide evidence that the vessels were involved in drug trafficking.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” SOUTHCOM said. “Two male narco-terrorists were killed, and one narco-terrorist survived the first strike. Three male narco-terrorists were killed during the second strike.”
SOUTHCOM said that it had alerted the US Coast Guard to conduct a search and rescue operation of the lone survivor of the two strikes, although it provided no further details.
According to NPR, the US has now killed at least 168 people with its strikes on suspected drug boats, which began in September and have since continued despite being denounced by human rights organizations such as Human Rights and Amnesty International.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser with the US Program at the International Crisis Group, took note of the latest boat strike by remarking, “The lawless killing spree at sea continues.”
A coalition of rights organizations led by the ACLU last year sued the Trump administration to demand it release documents that provide legal justification for its boat-bombing campaign.
The groups said that the Trump administration’s rationales for the strikes deserve special scrutiny because their justification hinges on claims that the US is in an “armed conflict” with international drug cartels akin to past conflicts between the US government and terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaeda.
Before President Trump’s Pentagon began conducting the lethal boat strikes last year, drug trafficking in international waters was treated as a criminal offense, with law enforcement agencies and the US Coast Guard intercepting boats suspected of carrying drugs and arresting suspects.
Trump’s bombings of boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have been called “extrajudicial killings” by advocacy groups including Amnesty International.
JUDGE TOSSES TRUMP’S $10 BILLION WALL STREET JOURNAL SUIT OVER EPSTEIN REPORTING. A Florida-based federal judge on April 13 dismissed President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its reporting on a “bawdy” birthday letter the Republican allegedly gave to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Jessica Corbett noted at CommonDreams.org (4/13).
Trump denies writing the letter or drawing the outline of a naked woman around the text. He sued the journalists behind the July report—Joseph Palazzolo and Khadeeja Safdar—and the newspaper, plus its parent company News Corp, chief executive Robert Thomson, and founder Rupert Murdoch.
The US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subsequently subpoenaed the Epstein estate for all materials that now-imprisoned co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly compiled for the dead financier’s birthday book, including the letter attributed to Trump—and in September, the panel published those documents online.
US District Judge Darrin P. Gayles, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, found that Trump’s “complaint fails to adequately allege actual malice.” However, Gayles also gave Trump the opportunity to amend his filing within the next two weeks.
While The Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the president intends to continue the case.
“President Trump will follow Judge Gayles’ ruling and guidance to refile this powerhouse lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and all of the other defendants,” the spokesperson said. “The president will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in Fake News to mislead the American People.”
CNN noted that despite the legal battle, “the 95-year-old Murdoch has maintained a cozy if complicated relationship with the president, including multiple meetings at the White House in recent months.”
The suit over the birthday letter to Epstein—whom Trump was publicly friends with in the 1980s and ‘90s until a reported falling out in the early 2000s—is just part of a sweeping effort by the president and his political enablers “to undermine and chill the most basic freedoms protected under the First Amendment,” as the advocacy group Free Press put it in a December analysis.
In addition to the Journal case, examples included Trump’s legal battles with the BBC and The New York Times, the White House taking control of the presidential press pool, the administration blocking The Associated Press from the Oval Office over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, ABC temporarily suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel following comments from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair, and the Pentagon’s legally contested media policy.
Such attacks continue. In March, as the costs of his unconstitutional war on Iran mounted, Trump floated “treason” charges against media outlets that he accused of reporting false information about the conflict.
AMERICANS ARE DOWN ON DEMOCRATS — UNTIL THE ALTERNATIVE IS THE GOP. You may have heard the Democratic Party is facing a crisis: The brand is weak. Poll after poll shows Americans view the party no more favorably than the Republican Party, despite the GOP having a generally reviled leader in President Trump, Andrew Mangan noted at DailyKos.com (4/12),
Those are just the toplines, though. And the funny thing is, when surveys get more specific, a different pattern emerges: Americans trust the Democrats a lot more than the Republicans.
A recent YouGov poll showed that familiar topline: 38% of Americans viewed the Democratic Party favorably, and 38% viewed the Republican Party favorably.
But then it asked which party Americans trust more across 29 issues, ranging from the environment and education to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. On 12 issues, neither party is more trusted than the other, or a party’s advantage is within the poll’s margin of error.
Of the remaining 17 issues, the Democratic Party has an edge on 14.
Many are the typical areas of strength for Democrats: health care, democracy, and abortion. Their biggest leads come on LGBTQ+ issues (25 percentage points), the environment (23 points), and vaccines (21 points)—areas in which the GOP is particularly hostile.
Compare that with the Republican Party, which Americans trust more on only three issues: the military, Venezuela, and crime.
But there is also the issue of magnitude.
Democrats have double-digit advantages on a dozen issues, including the Epstein investigation (19 points) and sweeping policy areas like civil rights (18 points) and education (14 points). But Republicans have a double-digit lead on only one issue—and barely. By 10 points, Americans trust the GOP more than the Democrats to handle crime.
For the public, there seems to be a disconnect. They don’t like the Democratic Party, but when the only realistic alternative is the Republican Party, well, a lot of them trust Democrats just fine.
Party preference is far from the only area where this disconnect shows up.
In 2024, just ahead of the presidential election, 55% of Americans wanted to decrease the number of immigrants allowed into the United States, according to Gallup. It was a shocking topline—and it crumbled quite a bit when Americans were asked exactly what types of immigrants should not be allowed into the country.
For instance, should a 13-year-old boy and his family fleeing war be allowed into the United States? Only 20% of voters would turn them away, per a Data for Progress poll fielded in January 2025. And notably, Gallup’s data also swung back hard in 2025, with the share wanting less immigration falling 25 points, to just 30%.
The disconnect also turns up when it comes to government regulation.
Since 2006, a plurality of Americans has consistently said there is too much government regulation, according to Gallup data. In 2024, 42% said there was too much, while just 27% said there wasn’t enough. The share wanting more regulation has never seen more than 31% support since Gallup first began asking the question, in 2001.
However, more specificity begets more support.
Another new YouGov poll asked Americans about their thoughts on the level of regulation for 42 different industries. And when it comes time to pick, which industries do Americans think need deregulation? The answer is … none.
Yes, there is not a single industry for which the share of Americans in favor of less regulation is higher than the share that wants more regulation.
In fact, shocking majorities of Americans want higher regulation of some industries. Nearly 80% want increased regulation of artificial intelligence, and at least 60% want more for social media, health insurance, pharmaceuticals, cryptocurrency, and gambling.
But not only that, there are 25 industries where the share wanting more regulation is meaningfully higher than the share that wants regulation to remain as is. That includes industries as divisive as firearms. A majority of Americans (57%) want more regulation of the gun industry, while only 14% want less regulation and 20% want the level of regulation to remain the same.
For 12 industries, the pro-status-quo share is larger than the share that wants increased regulation, but the difference is statistically meaningful for only seven. And there is just one industry (fashion) for which a majority of Americans want the level of regulation to remain as is.
What all of this tells us is that Americans often think in sweeping terms—I don’t trust the Democratic Party, I don’t like red tape, etc.—but when forced to think things through, they like their other options even less.
NEW EVIDENCE BOLSTERS CLAIM US LIED ABOUT ANOTHER IRAN AIRSTRIKE MASSACRE. New information published April 10 by the New York Times further suggests that the US military may have lied when it tried to pin the blame for a February airstrike that killed 21 people in Iran on the Iranian government, with evidence indicating that the US carried out the attack with a new missile designed to inflict maximum casualties, Brett Wilkins noted at CommonDreams.org (4/11).
While much of the world knows about the February 28 massacre of around 175 children and staff at the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab—and about how President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the slaughter—the strike that hit a sports hall and playground in Lamerd on the same day, the first day of the war, received far less media coverage.
Munitions experts and the Times concluded that US-made Precision Strike Missiles, or PrSMs—pronounced “prism”—struck the residential area of the southern Iranian city. Developed by Lockheed Martin, PrSMs are airburst weapons, exploding above their targets and blasting 180,000 lethal tungsten pellets in every direction. Video footage of the Lamerd strike shows multiple airbursts.
The Times verified the identities of 21 people killed in the strike. At least five victims were children, the youngest of them just 2 years old. Helma Ahmadizadeh, 10, and Elham Zaeri, 11, were attending volleyball practice at the sports hall when it was bombed. Helma survived the strike with no visible injuries. However, she told her coach that she felt something enter her body. A medical examination at a local hospital revealed a small object in her body. She subsequently died.
“A young boy, Ilia Khatami, was killed alongside his coach, Mahmoud Najaf,” the newspaper said. “The Times confirmed their deaths, and the death of a second boy, Abdul Mosavar Rahmani, who was from Afghanistan.”
The 2-year-old, Avina Barzegar, was mortally wounded by a small object while she was playing outside her home. Video posted on Telegram shows her being treated in a local hospital before she died.
Local officials said 100 other people were injured in the attack.
Pentagon officials previously denied US responsibility for the attack following the March 29 publication of a Times investigation that used video analysis to identify PrSMs as the missiles used in the strike. US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins issued a statement on March 31 calling reports that the US carried out the attack “false” and suggesting that weapon used in the strike was an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile.
The Times’ latest analysis is “based on new video footage of detonations, new photo evidence of the damage, a missile-trajectory assessment, and the perspectives of multiple experts, including three US government officials.”
Findings include distinctive damage patterns consistent with tungsten pellet dispersion from a PrSM airburst, the discovery of a third detonation site consistent with a PrSM, a strike trajectory indicating the missile was launched from where US forces are based, and the sports hall’s proximity to an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base. The Minab girls’ school is also located very close to an IRGC base.
Critically, Iran does not have any missiles in its arsenal that function in a similar manner to PrSMs.
“The problem is that CENTCOM chose as an alternative a very identifiable missile,” Amaël Kotlarski, who leads the weapons team at the defense intelligence firm Janes, told the Times. “And the Hoveyzeh’s distinct features aren’t seen in the video.”
Shahryar Pasandideh, another military analyst consulted by the Times, said “there is no public information to suggest that Iranian cruise missiles, including the Hoveyzeh, are equipped with an airburst fuse, let alone an airburst fuse and pre-formed tungsten pellets.”
After the Minab massacre, Trump claimed that Iran had somehow acquired a US Tomahawk missile and used it to blow up the school.
An earlier investigation by the BBC Verify also concluded that the Lamerd strike was carried out using US PrSM missiles.
More than 3,000 people have been killed over 42 days of US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to medical officials there. This figure reportedly includes over 1,300 civilians, hundreds of whom are women and children.