Pentagon erupts over classified leak about Iran war dissent

Echo report published in The Hill by Jarod Gans

(Question❓ Has Iran surrendered yet❓)

The Pentagon is seething over a Washington Post report that top military leaders recently warned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth against extending large-scale Iran war operations.

People familiar with a classified assessment prepared for Hegseth told the Post that several combatant commanders have advised the Defense chief that prolonging operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening the U.S.’s ability to address threats elsewhere, including on U.S. soil.

The warnings appear in the August 14 edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book (SDOB), detailed by the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and the four-star commanders overseeing U.S. operations throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America, the Post reported Sunday.

Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell lambasted the report in a post on the social platform X.

“Publishing highly classified assessments from the Secretary’s orders book is a crime. It’s a betrayal of the force,” he said. “And much of what they’re publishing is inaccurate.”

Parnell said the Pentagon wants “candid” advice and disagreements are common.  “Hegseth sees them constantly (Maine Writer....but does he actually READ them❓). That’s how you run a real military. We are in great shape around the world.🤥🤥 🙄This story isn’t about readiness,” he said, alleging it is about “TDS,” an acronym that Trump and his allies often use to mean “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” (Maine Writer....duh❓And your point is...😕❓)

Washington Post military affairs reporter Dan Lamothe defended his colleagues’ work with a response to Parnell.

“Fact check: Independent journalism is not a crime,” he said. “It’s also especially important at a time when government officials are withholding key details and concerns about a war being fought on behalf of the American people with their taxpayer dollars.”

The August 14 SDOB directs some U.S. forces currently deployed in the Middle East to remain through September and others into 2027, those familiar with the document told the Post.

The heads of U.S. European, Pacific and Southern Commands, along with the Navy’s top admiral, responded with a “non-concur” — signaling their disagreement with Hegseth’s order to extend their forces, the Post reported.

The report comes as the U.S. and Iran traded fire for the first time in almost a month. The war, now in its sixth month, has drained the Navy’s budget and significantly depleted U.S. stockpiles of missile interceptors and long-range precision missals. 

Throughout the conflict, U.S. ships, personnel, aircraft and equipment have been redirected from various parts of the world to the Middle East. The sources told the Post that this has limited the military’s ability to conduct missions and ensure proper training.

In addition to Parnell, other accounts on X with links to the Pentagon weighed in to slam the Post for reporting on classified information.

(So what❓)

The account DataRepublican, which is run by Utah software engineer Jennica Pounds, a special government employee at the Defense Department, responded to Lamothe. 

Donald Trump and maga Republicans made America vulnerable to attacks on our national security- Be Afraid! Very Afraid!

Of all the responsibilities assigned to an American president, none is more important than keeping the country safe from its enemies. 

Echo opinion published in The Hill and Yahoo.com by William S. Becker

Yet, the U.S. has rarely, if ever, been as vulnerable as it is today under Donald Trump. He has become our greatest national security threat. (In other words, Donald Trump is a clear and present danger. Republicans must impeach him❗)

Let's assess how much damage Trump has done.

He launched a war of choice against Iran, a strategic and economic ally of Russia and China. The war quickly depleted America's supply of critical weapons. Experts say it will take at least three years to rebuild the arsenal. The Center for Strategic and International Studies says this has "created a window of vulnerability for a potential Western Pacific conflict."

Trump railed against NATO allies France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany for not supporting his (illegal❗) attacks on Iran, even though NATO is a defense alliance, not a war alliance. 

Iran retaliated by attacking U.S. military facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan. Trump's relationship with Saudi Arabia has been strained by the kingdom's refusal to let U.S. forces use its bases and airspace during the war.

Trump has frequently lashed out at and alienated NATO, which, at 77, is one of history's oldest security alliances. Lately, he has publicly insulted Italy's leader, told his staff during a news conference to cut off trade with Spain, and outraged Belgium by interfering with its World Cup match against the United States.  

He has threatened to take Greenland from Denmark, by force if necessary. That would obligate the alliance's other 31 members to defend Denmark against his aggression.

Trump has launched military operations against nearly a dozen countries during his two terms, including strikes against Syria, Somalia, Nigeria and Venezuela. He apparently is not inclined to stop; he has hinted that he'd like to control or annex Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, the Panama Canal, and even Canada.

Russia and China are watching closely. They undoubtedly notice that Trump has degraded the government's ability to anticipate and defend against attacks. 

Hundreds of America's top military, intelligence and security officials have either been fired or pushed out for political reasons, or because they considered the administration's orders unconscionable.

Since Trump's second term began, about 300 FBI agents who worked on national security have left the bureau. The loss has been characterized as a "purge" that has greatly depleted the FBI's capabilities.

Now, the administration has diverted 260 FBI analysts to focus on a "priority investigation" of the 2020, election. Their task is to find proof of Trump's six-year fantasy that he won against Joe Biden.

The Department of Homeland Security is preoccupied with White House adviser Stephen Miller's goal of deporting 1 million immigrants this year, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as "racist and draconian" rather than related to homeland security. Meanwhile, there has been a sharp drop in morale at the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired 15 senior officers while the U.S. is at war.

Trump, who prefers to follow his gut rather than facts, has hollowed out the government's vital intelligence agencies and replaced career experts with political loyalists. He recently named Bill Pulti, a housing developer, as acting director of National Intelligence.

Pulti immediately fired more than 50 intelligence experts and promised more, leading to speculation that he would declassify allegations that China has interfered with elections so that Trump could declare a national security emergency and manipulate the rules of the midterm election.  

Last November, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, warned that the Trump administration had created a "deepening threat to our security" by purging a third of the nation's cybersecurity experts in other agencies besides the FBI, reassigning up to 45 percent of FBI agents to help round up immigrants, and forcing thousands of security experts out of government for political reasons.

In March, after U.S. airstrikes killed Iran's supreme leader, ABC News reported that the Trump administration intercepted an encrypted message that appeared to be "an operational trigger" from Iran to its "sleeper assets." Iran, Russia, China and North Korea are suspected of having secret operatives on U.S. soil.

Dr. Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism expert at the Washington Institute, calls this a heightened security environment. "If there were ever a time where Iran (was) going to pull out the stops and try to do something, now would be it," he warns.

China and Russia undoubtedly see that Trump is preoccupied with building monuments to himself and showing signs of cognitive decline. Insofar as he seems concerned about enemies, they are his imagined "enemies within," his political opponents and people on the left.

Under the circumstances, the most important thing Congress can do to strengthen national security is to remove Trump from office as soon as possible.

William S. Becker is co-editor of and a contributor to "Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government for the People"" and a contributor to "Democracy in a Hotter Time." He previously served as a senior official in the Wisconsin Department of Justice. He is currently executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

Donald Trum and maga Republicans like Senator Susan Collins support chaotic Iranian war and Americans pay the cost

Does anyone in America know what Donald Trump is doing in the Strait of Hormuz? Does Trump himself know❓

Reported in The Hill and Yahoo News by Max Burns

So Chief.....has Iran surrendered yet❓

On Sunday, he boldly announced “Project Freedom,” his scheme to escort commercial ships through the shuttered strait. He then swiftly reversed course just two days later, declaring that the strait would remain closed, even as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was selling Project Freedom to the press. 

While Hegseth touted a plan that no longer existed, Trump again changed his timeline for ending his increasingly unpopular war in Iran.

Trump’s impulsive and contradictory actions in Iran have confounded his generals, his Cabinet and the public since the war began 10 weeks ago. Trump is now so bogged down that he is confounding himself, too. It is time for Congress to exert some constitutional authority and wrap this debacle up before regular

Americans endure even more financial suffering.

Trump has clearly lost the plot of what has become a staggeringly expensive conflict without any clear strategic goal. In fact, the only measurable result of Trump’s Iran strikes has been a spike in the cost of gasoline by more than 50 percent since March. The cost of jet fuel rose so much so quickly that Spirit Airlines had no choice but to declare bankruptcy and liquidate 17,000 previously well-paying American jobs.

Great Depression bread lines😓😔😒😠😟

“For the first time in my life, I have no idea how to face what comes next,” former Spirit Airlines employee Jorge Luis Camacho lamented in a GoFundMe fundraiser, posted shortly after the company shuttered. “Bills have to be paid, and financially, I have nothing.”

Camacho and his former Spirit coworkers will have a hard time finding new work in an economy battered by the Iran war. A Goldman Sachs report published in March estimated that Trump’s war is costing the U.S. economy more than 10,000 jobs each month, with losses concentrated in the leisure and hospitality industries, retail and manufacturing. The economic uncertainty wrought by Trump’s war is now the most potent job-killer in the country.

Indeed, the Iran War may well be remembered for little else besides the rolling job losses and financial hardship it inflicted on working-class Americans who were already grappling with rising consumer prices. Bank of America reports that credit card spending has surged roughly 4.3 percent in March, the most in more than three years, as consumers pile on debt to pay for basic necessities like gasoline. Unsurprisingly, consumer confidence has collapsed to the lowest level ever recorded as most Americans prepare for the worst.

Then there’s the day-to-day expense of running a war without end. The conflict has drained more than $72 billion in taxpayer funds at a time when Republican leaders say there simply isn’t any cash available to extend healthcare subsidies for the 22 million Americans facing skyrocketing premiums. And that’s before Trump heads to Capitol Hill with hat in hand to ask for $80 billion to $100 billion more in war funding.

At some point, enough has to be enough, even for the spineless MAGA gophers currently clogging up the Congress.

It appears at least a few Republicans are beginning to realize how economically (and politically) disastrous Trump’s war is shaping up to be. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) recently pushed for a War Powers Act vote in the Senate; her moment of courage was dampened by Republican leader John Thune flatly ignoring the request. That hasn’t stopped Murkowski from building support for the vote from Republicans including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), John Curtis (R-Utah) and Todd Young (R-Ind.).

If Murkowski and her colleagues are trying their best to steer their party away from an electoral disaster, they’ll still likely run headlong into House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) absolute resistance to anything that could be viewed as Trump criticism (But, wait❗ What happened to Johnson's pledge to govern according to the Bible❓) . Johnson has so far resisted calls to rein in Trump’s war powers, even as the most recent Ipsos poll found a growing majority of Americans souring on the war.

Republicans are currently caught in the trap of defending a war their own leader doesn’t seem to understand — and just like Hegseth this week, they increasingly finding themselves defending policies, only to discover that Trump has already abandoned them and reversed course.

Who is on first❓

Donald Trump is not mentally well. News media that reported President Biden's physical health must investigate Trump's declining cognition

It seems strange and troubling that the mental capacities of Trump, almost 80, are yet to command a rigorous and concerted examination from more mainstream news organizations.

Echo opinion essay published in the Boston Globe by 

Are mainstream news media finally ready to examine Trump’s mental fitness❓

"Trump is undergoing a 'significant decline' in his mental faculties, citing alleged dementia and saying the president is 'a man who is clearly insane', ” Ty Cobb.  "He often engages in late-night or early morning posting sprees, churning out dozens —sometimes hundreds — of so-called 'truths' and 're-truths' over a span of a few hours."

A recent New York Times story and prominent MAGA defections could be signs of the dam breaking.  (Maine Writer opinion- Donald Trump obviously has multiple personality disorders, pathological narcissism and a sociopathic problem with being civil and lacking appropriate emotional reactions to people who are struggling.  He threw paper towels to survivors of the category four hurricane Maria, when they were overwhelmed by the storm's disaster. He stooped to another low by expressing happiness about the death of the highly respected former FBI director Bob Mueller. Trump said, "Good, Im glad❗🤢) These and many other examples are symptomatic of mental illness and age related declining cognition.)

By Jill Abramson, is a former executive editor of The New York Times, teaches journalism at Northeastern University and is a contributing Globe Opinion writer.

Donald Trump’s obvious signs of mental decline have not received the national news media attention that would be commensurate with the problems they pose to the world. Hopefully, that’s beginning to change.

Peter Baker, reporter for The New York Times, dug deeply into the president’s erratic, bizarre, and dangerous behavior, social media posts, and other statements for an article released this week. Baker’s article was chock-full of recent examples, including Trump’s threat to annihilate Iran (dangerous), his since-deleted AI-generated Truth Social post portraying himself as Jesus and his fight with Pope Leo XIV (bizarre), and his out-of-the-blue discourses about Sharpies and White House drapes (erratic). The article showed definitively a president in decline and — though it stopped short of saying it — a man who, many believe, is losing his mind.

The news media were accused of helping cover up former President Joe Biden’s slipping mental acuity until a halting, disastrous debate performance put it on national display and forced Biden out of the 2024, election.

It seems strange and troubling that the mental capacities of Trump, almost 80, are yet to command a rigorous and concerted examination from more mainstream news organizations.

But, often, they lack the reporting muscle to investigate what happens inside the Trump White House or to pierce government stonewalling. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has put unprecedented pressure on the media, making government reporting more challenging, even as some Trump administration anti-free press moves are withering in the courts.

The Times story could be a sign of the dam breaking. So, too, are the defections of MAGA celebrities like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said, “President Trump has gone mad” and called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked.

Ty Cobb, a former White House attorney during the first Trump administration, has also publicly stated that Trump is undergoing a “significant decline” in his mental faculties, citing alleged dementia and saying the president is “a man who is clearly insane.”

Though the traditional press, cable, and television networks no longer enjoy the reach, trust, or influence they once had, global publications like the Times can still set the news agenda. 

With an increasingly atomized news media landscape, it isn’t surprising to see the online subscription Substacks of individual journalists, other online sites, and the foreign press stepping up to fill gaps left by traditional the lack the reporting muscle to investigate what happens inside the Trump White House or to pierce government stonewalling.  (Check my Juliana LHeureux Substack post about Donald Trump's age related disabilities, at this link here)

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has put unprecedented pressure on the media, making government reporting more challenging, even as some Trump administration anti-free press moves are withering in the courts.

With the earliest coverage of Trump’s mental decline often coming from new media, a sea change is visible. But writers on Substack and other new media platforms are not necessarily bound by traditional sourcing rules and reporting techniques. Because they may not have firsthand sources inside the White House who actually witness the president’s behavior, they tend to rely on opinion polls showing that a majority of the public doubts Trump has the mental capacity to govern, or medical experts who also lack firsthand knowledge.

That hasn’t prevented an array of mental health professionals from commenting on Trump’s apparent decline. In 2017, forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee published an anthology, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” with essays by 27 psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals describing the danger that they felt Trump’s mental health posed. A new edition, “The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 50 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Warn Anew,” came out in 2025.  Recently, Dr. Vin Gupta, a medical analyst for NBC News, discussed the Trump family history of dementia, stating that he was observing a “trend line” with the president and “it seems like it’s getting worse.”

STAT, a health news site that shares a parent company with The Boston Globe, provided early coverage of Trump’s potential mental decline. Some Substacks have also smartly addressed the topic of Trump’s mental challenges.

John Ellis, editor of the News Items Substack newsletter and a former columnist for Globe Opinion, cited a recent poll showing a majority of Americans believe Trump “lacks the mental sharpness to serve effectively” as president. Given that concern, he says, it’s odd that mainstream news organizations have not attacked the story more aggressively. “It is arguably the most important story in the world,” he told me.

Former New Yorker and Daily Beast editor Tina Brown, who has also written smartly about Trump’s mental health, said on her Substack, Fresh Hell, that “Trump’s psychosis is our biggest national export.”

During his first term in 2018, Trump boasted of scoring 100 percent on a 10-minute cognitive test administered by his doctor. (More recently, he said he aced two other cognitive tests.)

It was laughable when Trump in 2018, reacted to a negative portrayal of himself in Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” by calling himself a “very stable genius.” Now, when he is leading an illegal war of his own choosing and his troubling utterances and actions pile up, his apparent lack of mental fitness is no laughing matter.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must reject evilism spewed by Tucker Carlson and antisemite Nick Fuentes

"Tucker Carlson is fog," writes John Mac Ghlionn in this interesting political analysis published in the Boston Globe.

John Mac Ghlionn contributes regularly to US News & World Report, Spectator World, and The Hill.

Tucker Carlson recently chose to interview the evil Nazi

Nick Fuentes, a man loathed by most of the American left and by a substantial share of the American right. Fuentes is widely understood, across ideological lines, as toxic. 

Fuentes has spoken admiringly of figures like💢 Hitler and Stalin, flirted openly with antisemitic ✡️conspiracy theories, rejected the legitimacy of liberal democracy, argued that women shouldn’t have the right to vote, and spoken approvingly of political violence and ethnic nationalism. None of this is ambiguous. None of it requires interpretation. Fuentes has said disgraceful things. Full stop.💢❗

But, politically speaking, the evil Fuentes is a much easier problem for Republicans to handle than Carlson is. 

Fuentes is an threatening evil flare 🔥in the night sky. 

Evil, crude, and easy to track. Everyone knows where he stands. He doesn’t pretend to be a loyal party man. He has withheld support when it suited him, including refusing to back Trump in 2024. He attacks Trump directly, in plain language, without deflecting blame onto lower-level figures.

So, it allows the maga Republicans to say, “That’s not us,” 🤥and (sort of❓) mean it.🙄 Fuentes functions, in this sense, as a kind of ideological quarantine zone. He is visible, legible, and — crucially — containable.  (Except that Fuentes continues to attract attention making him dangerous. "Evil is as evil does". His evilism is like an evil magnet that catches metal nails.) 

Carlson is weirdly different. Not because he is “worse” in the moral-ranking sense people enjoy arguing about online, but because he is more structurally dangerous to the GOP. 

Fuentes is outside the house, shouting. Carlson is inside the house, rearranging furniture, insisting he is only “asking questions” while he does it.

Before going further, I should be explicit about where this criticism comes from.

I write this as a conservative who regularly watches Carlson — his YouTube clips, his long-form interviews, his podcasts. This is not the view of a drive-by critic or a partisan adversary. It comes from sustained exposure. And that exposure has become increasingly frustrating. 

Carlson says one thing and then does another. (Ugh❗ "who  knew"❓) He gestures toward restraint and then indulges provocation. He flirts with accountability and then retreats into ambiguity. When viewers notice the contradiction, he waves it away — cackles, shrugs, insists they’re imagining things. What he sells as misunderstanding is, in fact, gaslighting, and any attentive viewer can see it.👀

There’s an old principle here. The better enemy is often the one you can see. The threat you can name. The real trouble is the fog that rolls in quietly and convinces you it’s just “weather.”

Carlson is fog.

He is the kind of “dissident” who wants insider access and outsider swagger, Establishment proximity and anti-Establishment theatrics. He throws stones from behind the wall and then acts surprised when people notice his name etched into them.

This isn’t an abstract concern. In late December, more than a dozen senior staffers left the Heritage Foundation to join a new group founded by former vice president Mike Pence. Their exit followed internal turmoil sparked by the growing influence of right-wing media figures pushing antisemitic and extremist narratives. Carlson became a central flashpoint because he occupies a uniquely powerful position within conservative media — powerful enough to force institutions to choose sides.

The rupture was not really about Carlson alone. It was about what he represented, and what defending — or refusing to defend — him signaled. Editors, donors, board members, and allied organizations faced an uncomfortable choice: Was Carlson still an asset to be shielded or a liability to be contained? The fracture followed those answers. Some closed ranks around him, viewing criticism as Establishment overreach. Others stepped back from him, driven less by ideological disagreement than by their instinct for institutional survival.

The Heritage Foundation bombshell came shortly after Turning Point USA’s annual youth conference — intended as a unifying celebration honoring Charlie Kirk — devolved into a public brawl over the future of Trump’s movement. Ben Shapiro used the stage to deliver a scathing attack on Carlson and his allies, calling them “grifters and charlatans” trafficking in conspiracy theories and falsehoods. 

Carlson took the stage soon after and fired back, escalating the confrontation before thousands of young conservative activists. That moment mattered because it revealed real fault lines in the conservative coalition. Internal division creates opportunity, especially for figures like Carlson, who thrive on provocation and plausible deniability.

The pattern was evident in Carlson’s recent trip to Qatar, when he headlined the Doha Forum, interviewed Qatar’s prime minister, and then announced he was buying property in Qatar “to make a statement,” insisting he’s “an American and a free man” who will live wherever he wants. That’s a remarkable posture for a man whose brand is built on warning Americans about hostile ideologies, foreign money, and the slow-motion sabotage of the West.

Qatar is not some harmless foreign backdrop for a trolling gesture. Rather, Qatar is a hostile regime that has long operated as a banker, broker, and diplomatic shield for Islamist terror networks, including Hamas and Hezbollah. It hosts Hamas’s political leadership, funds aligned groups, and functions as a key back channel in conflicts that have spilled Western blood. Whatever one thinks about Israel, Gaza, or Middle Eastern politics more broadly, Qatar sits at the center of the reality being ignored.

The problem becomes clearer in Carlson’s treatment of Israel and Jews. This is not a defense of Israel or of Christian Zionism, both of which are legitimate subjects for debate and criticism. The issue is Carlson’s insistence on having it both ways. He regularly says he “likes Israel” even as he repeatedly singles it out for scorn, derides Christian Zionism, and peppers his commentary with remarks about Jews that are clearly designed to provoke. 

In the eulogy for Charlie Kirk, Carlson likened Kirk to Jesus and invoked shadowy “people in power” conspiring in lamplit rooms, “eating hummus,” to silence truth-tellers. 

The implication was unambiguous, even if it went unnamed. When challenged, Carlson retreats behind the claim that he isn’t antisemitic  ✡️. It’s a familiar routine: push the line, gauge the reaction, deny intent.

Fuentes, by contrast, dispenses with pretense. He calls himself an antisemite ✡️ and means it. 🤢 His views are abhorrent, 💢but they are unmistakable. He doesn’t hide behind irony or implication. Republicans don’t have to guess where he stands. With Carlson, they are invited to 

pretend there is nothing to see. This is why Fuentes is useful as a foil and why Carlson is the real bellwether. The test isn’t whether conservatives denounce a 27-year-old shock merchant. That part is easy. The real test is whether conservatives will confront Carlson’s far more consequential pattern of deception and evasion.

This is what makes Carlson dangerous in a way Fuentes isn’t. Fuentes doesn’t have institutional leverage. He can’t tilt committee staffers. He can’t normalize a new foreign-policy fashion among influencers who actually shape the party’s mood. He can’t blur the line between “America First” and “Qatar First” while still being treated, by many, as a serious man.

Tucker Carlson can. He has a second kind of leverage, too: family adjacency to real power. His son, Buckley, works for Vice President JD Vance.

That doesn’t mean Carlson dictates policy through his son. It means Carlson’s ecosystem overlaps with the governing ecosystem. The “outsider” is not outside. He is in the wiring. He is close enough to touch the current.

And what does Carlson do with that position? He almost never fires cleanly at the top. He rarely, if ever, says “Trump is wrong, and here is why.” Instead, he attacks the perimeter: appointees, advisers, agencies, “neocons,” “globalists,” nameless operators — anyone who can be blamed without forcing a direct break with the one man whose coalition he still wants to influence.

It’s how you remain “inside” and “against” at the same time. It’s how you get to market yourself as a martyr while still dining at court.

I have grown disillusioned with the right — fed up with evasions, with the Epstein nonanswers, with the reflexive closing of ranks whenever accountability might cost something. This isn’t the opposition talking; it’s disappointment from someone who once believed Trump could actually Make America Great Again. I was wrong. The second term has been more erratic, not less. The promised draining of the swamp never happened; power simply reorganized itself. Tucker Carlson didn’t oppose the marshy makeover. He learned how to thrive within it. And that is why he poses a greater danger to Republicans than Fuentes.

Liberals may be tempted to dismiss this as a family quarrel on the right. That is a mistake. Trump is already a volatile leader, and he still has three years left in office. Internal divisions within his coalition are widening, not narrowing. As Trump's political opposition pressure mounts, he lashes out more frequently, targets more erratically, and governs more impulsively.

Republicans will not win in the midterms in 2026 — and continue to govern after 2028 — when they  continue to blindly support Donald Trump like lemmings heading off a cliff.  Fuentes is an evil marginal figure who is easy to reject, but Carlson is ambitious, he aspires to be a powerful media figure who presents himself as a truth-teller while slowly expanding what the wrongminded Republican party is willing to accept, excuse, and blindly defend.

Zuckerberg's kowtow to Trump ignores what happened to Justin Trudeau who knelt before the cult leader but came away with nothing

Canada  Trudeau to Trump about his outrageous annexation plans: ‘Not a snowball’s chance in hell’. The Canadian leader struck back at the president-elect’s insane internet taunts.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau struck back Tuesday at more than a month of social media taunting from President-elect Donald Trump, saying there wasn’t “a snowball’s chance in hell” of Canada becoming America’s 51st state.

Trump has used the “51st State” jab repeatedly since Trudeau and Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc dined with his team at his Florida compound in late November during the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend. (So, 💢proof positive❗ that Trudeau wasted his Canadian money by trying to kowtow to the orange monster in Mar-A-Lago). 

Trudeau accepted an invitation from Trump after the president-elect threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian imports from the U.S. unless it did more to stop the flow of illegal drugs and migrants across their shared border.

Trudeau’s team has regularly dismissed Trump’s comments — which regularly include referring to the prime minister as “Governor Trudeau” — as good-natured joking.

The joke apparently wore off on Trudeau after Trump expanded on why Canada ought to become a state during his Mar-a-Lago press conference, a typically free-flowing event in which Trump said he would use “economic force” on Canada.

In an afternoon post on X, Trudeau wrote: “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States. Workers in communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly also weighed Tuesday with her own X posting: “President-elect Trump’s comments show a complete lack of understanding of what makes Canada a strong country. Our economy is strong. Our people are strong. We will never back down in the face of threats.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also responded defiantly to Trump on X taking aim not only at the president-elect but his domestic political opponents. “We are a great and independent country,” he wrote, noting that Canada supplies the U.S. billions of “high-quality and totally reliable energy” while buying billions of dollars of U.S. products.

“Our weak and pathetic NDP-Liberal government has failed to make these obvious points.”

During his press conference, Trump forcefully reiterated his opinion that the U.S. needed to acquire or otherwise annex Greenland from Denmark and take control of the Panama Canal to protect U.S. security interests.

Asked whether he was considering military force to annex and acquire Canada: “No. Economic force because Canada and the United States, that would really be something.”

He also recalled his recent conversation with Canadian hockey legend Wayne Gretzky in which he urged him to run for prime minister because he would be a shoo-in. Trump recalled Gretzky asking him whether he should be running for prime minister or governor, to which Trump said he replied: “Let’s make it governor. I like it better.”

Trudeau announced his intention to resign on Monday but will stay on until his Liberal Party selects a new leader. He also shut down Parliament until March 24 to spare his minority government a confidence vote that would force an election.

The Conservative opposition accused Trudeau of putting his own party’s interest ahead of the nation’s at a time when Canada was facing an economic threat from the U.S.

“We’ve got Cabinet ministers who are supposed to be preparing for the incoming U.S. administration, supposed to be dealing with the economic challenges that they themselves have caused,” said Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer.

“Rather than doing that, they’re going to be calling backroom insiders, and well-connected senior Liberals to raise money and build power coalitions within a political party.”

In other words.....kneeling before the cult leader Donald J. Trump is a meaningless and demeaning excercise.  

Senator Susan Collins is rightly criticized for her wrongminded response to Donald Trump felonies

Maome Senatpr Susan Collins, R-Maine, has incorrectly stated that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg campaigned on a promise to prosecute former President Donald Trump, according to fact-checkers at the Poynter Institute.  Reported in The Hill and Central Maine.com.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) raised eyebrows and triggered a barrage of criticism when she echoed former President Donald Trump’s claim that he was the victim of political persecution after a jury found him guilty of 34 felony charges relating to hush money payments to a porn star.

Collins, a Republican who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, repeated Trump’s talking point that the New York City prosecutor, Mr. Bragg, who filed the charges campaigned for his job on “a promise” to prosecute Trump, even though that claim has been discredited by fact-checkers.

“It is fundamental to our American system of justice that the government prosecutes cases because of alleged criminal conduct regardless of who the defendant happens to be. 

Senator Susan Collins is Maine's senior US senator

In this case the opposite has happened,” she said in the statement. “The district attorney, who campaigned on a promise to prosecute Donald Trump, brought these charges precisely because of who the defendant was rather than because of any specified criminal conduct. The political underpinnings of this case further blur the lines between the judicial system and the electoral system, and this verdict likely will be the subject of a protracted appeals process.”

Maine Writer-Obviously Senator Collins ignores the reason why Donald Trump was found guilty for commiting 34 felonies.  Reminder❗  

Donald Trump had a one night sexual encounter with porn actress Stormy Daniels and subsequently tried to cover his sin using hush money he illegally took from his campaign donations to prevent havign to pay this self inflicted penalty with his own money. 

If Trump had paid Stormy Daniels with his own personal check, none of this trial would have happened to him. Instead, he supported having the money come from his personal "fixer" Michael Cohen, who took out a second mortage on his home for the purpose of paying the hush money on behalf of his "boss" Trump.  

Then, Trump illegally signed a series of checks, while he was sitting in the Oval Office, for the purpose of using his campaign donations to reimburse Cohen for this expense. Trump lied on several levels.  Trump said Stormy Daniels lied about the sexual encounter, but this denial was never given while under oath.  

Second, just telling a lie about what Stormy Daniels testified to under oath was not a felony.  Rather, the felonies were the signed checks Donald trump signed to reimburse Michael Cohen for the $130,000 he paid to Stormy Daniels. In fact, the checks were fraudulent because the premise was that he was paying for legal services when there were no invoices attached.  #Guilty!

Collins was one of seven Senate Republicans to vote to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting insurrection in 2021, and said earlier this year she would not endorse Trump, even if he won the GOP nominee for president.

Congressman Jamie Raskin rightly calls the GOP a "cult"

Published in The Hill: Congressman Jamie Raskin: The GOP is reduced to a ‘cult of authoritarian personality’: Echo report by Tara Suter.

Congressman from Maryland Jamie Raskin has been part of the Democrat judiciary team in the Trump impeachment inquiry and the impeachment itself.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said Wednesday the GOP is being “reduced to a cult of authoritarian personality” after former President Trump nearly swept the Super Tuesday Republican primary states. (Shame on the Republicans for intransient views in support of a criminal who is indicted for sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll and facing 91 indictments in three states and the District of Columbia, who is charged with misappropriation of money received from donors, to divert to payments made to a porn star Stormy Daniels, to cover up that he paid to have sex with her.)

“[I]t is disgraceful that a great political party, much less Abraham Lincoln’s party, a party of liberty and union, should be reduced to a cult of authoritarian personality in league with autocrats and kleptocrats and dictators all over the world,” Raskin said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”

Raskin’s comments came as Trump’s last GOP primary rival, Nikki Haley, dropped out of the race Wednesday. However, she didn’t endorse Trump and said he’d have to earn the backing of her supporters.

“I applaud Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, The Lincoln Project, all of the Republicans who are standing up for the Constitution, but what we’ve seen in this election, and we’ll have to follow what happens with Nikki Haley, is the Republicans break, but they can’t bend,” Raskin continued.

“In other words, there’s no ability to accommodate other views because everybody has to follow Donald Trump, like he is a self proclaimed a monarch.”

Haley, Trump’s former United Nations ambassador, stepped up her attacks on Trump as the campaign wore on, and he often viciously attacked her with nicknames like “birdbrain.” Trump also at one point said donors to Haley were barred from his MAGA movement.

“At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away,” Haley said Wednesday in remarks from Charleston, S.C. “And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing.”

January 6, wall like insects or alien monsters, climbing insurrectionist terrorists invading the U.S. Capitol.

Raskin was a leading figure in Trump’s second impeachment for his role in the January 6 Capitol attack, and served on the House January 6 committee alongside Kinzinger and Cheney. 

Now, Raskin is the ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, making him a chief defender of President Biden amid GOP probes into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Harvard University continues to face criticism about antisemitism

Echo report by Elizabeth Crisp, published in The Hill:

Larry Hogan former Maryland governor

Larry Hogan pulls out of Harvard programs over ‘anti-Semitic vitriol’ on campus.

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) dropped out of two fellowship programs at Harvard amid the fallout after the university’s reaction to Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel earlier this month.

Hogan, who left office earlier this year at the end of his term, had agreed several months ago to take part in leadership fellowships at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

In a letter to the university, which Hogan posted publicly online, the moderate Republican said he would no longer participate after more than 30 student groups signed onto a joint statement blaming Israel for the attack.

“I cannot condone the dangerous anti-Semitism that has taken root on your campus,” he wrote. “This horrific terrorist attack was the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust and it should be universally condemned as exactly what it is: Pure evil.”

The statement, which most of its signers have since disavowed, said they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

“Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum,” they wrote the day of the terror attack, which left more than 1,400 dead. “For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to ‘open the gates of hell,’ and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced.”

The statement drew national backlash, with companies vowing that they would not hire any of the students, who were not individually named, upon graduation.

Harvard didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment. In an Oct. 9 statement, school President Claudine Gay condemned Hamas’s violence.

“Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership,” she wrote. “We will all be well served in such a difficult moment by rhetoric that aims to illuminate and not inflame.”

Hogan said the students’ statement amounted to “hate speech,” and he didn’t feel like the university had sufficiently denounced “anti-Semitic vitriol” from the students.

“This is not a decision I have taken lightly, but it is my hope that it may help further spur you to take meaningful action to address anti-Semitism and restore the values Harvard should represent to the world,” he wrote in his letter.

Donald Trump speaks from a dangerous fascist dictionary

Donald Trump is never shy with his language but recently, the editor Alex Kingsbury argues, his violent speech has escalated. 

Opinion echo published in the The New York Times and The Hill:

In the last few weeks alone, Trump suggested his own former general was treasonous, said that shoplifters should be shot and exhorted his followers to “go after” New York’s attorney general. Kingsbury says he understands why voters tune Trump out, but stresses the need to pay attention and take action for the sake of American democracy.

1. The mention of Clinton’s name prompted calls of “lock her up” from the crowd. “Yeah. I agree with you. I used to just be quiet on that. I agree with you 100 percent,” Trump said, endorsing calls to jail his political opponent. Trump, at one point, meandered into attacking his 2016, rival, who is a recurring figure in his speeches even four years later.

2.  Trump chief of staff said the president thought Pence ‘deserves’ chants of ‘hang Mike Pence’ on January 6, ex-aide testifies. The jaw-dropping remarks came during the sixth public hearing by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob.

A noose is seen on makeshift gallows as supporters of US President Donald Trump gather on the West side of the US Capitol in Washington DC on January 6, 2021.

3.The former guy Donald Trump and Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona suggested that outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Mark Milley was a traitor who deserved to be executed.

Gen. Mark Milley USA-Ret

Trump corroborated on FOX News the reason for the government's 37 count federal indictment

This blog falls under the heading of "you can't make this stuff up"- On Fox News, Bret Baier certainly nailed the former guy to the political wall: 

And then, there is this picture taken of an exhibition where someone created a mock bathroom on the Donald Trump star, on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Reported in Forbes by Mark Joyella:  "When Asked about the documents and why Trump hadn’t simply returned them when he was asked to, the former president said he was 'too busy'.”

Former Republican Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie and now a presidential candidate opposing Donald Trump said this, reported in The Hill by Julie Mueller:

"GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie 

suggested that the former guy, President Trump, should have “skipped a couple of rounds of golf” to go through boxes containing classified materials after Trump said he did not have time to do so in response to a subpoena."


Cristie said, “none of this would’ve happened to [Trump] or to the country if he had just returned the documents.”

“Last night, I think the worst moment for him was that — talking about the fact that he just didn’t have time to go through these boxes … in response to a grand jury subpoena, yet he told the government and had his lawyer certify that he had returned all of the documents that were responsive to the subpoena,” Christie argued. “That is obstruction of justice.”

Reported in VOX by Li Zhou: Trump’s Fox News interview was a defense attorney’s nightmare. The former guy ( i.e., president) offered a confusing, and likely damaging, defense about his latest indictment, for his concealment of government classified and secret documents.

In a tense Fox News interview, the former guy Donald Trump offered a confusing defense in response to his recent indictment, touting his right to keep sensitive documents and effectively admitting that he held onto them even after he was supposed to return them.

Trump’s interview follows a 37-count indictment that’s centered on his decision to take classified national security documents after leaving the White House, for which he was arraigned in court in Miami last week.

“I have every right to have those boxes,” Trump told Fox News host Bret Baier as part of their conversation, while claiming that these documents were “declassified,” a point the indictment rebuts. “This is purely a Presidential Records Act. This is not a criminal thing.”

Trump’s statements, many of which were meandering and difficult to follow, both provided a muddled defense, and may have offered fodder to reinforce some of the charges against him. 

By acknowledging that he had the documents in his possession and that he had reasons for not returning them promptly, Trump’s statements corroborated allegations he’s charged with regarding mishandling these materials.