Donald Trump and maga Republicans are enabling war crimes and must be help accountable with Nuremburg trials

Echo opinion letter published in the Virginian Pilot newspaper

Donald Trump posted a message on his (Fake ❗)Truth Social threatening Iran with what can be described as civilization genocide: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” No American president in history has ever uttered anything even vaguely comparable. Even in the light of its past misdeeds, Iran has done nothing to warrant such shocking bombast, much less unilateral destructive action against a nation of 93 million people. Fortunately, at least for now, Trump backed away from his apocalyptic threat. (Nevertheless, Trump has not abandoned these destructive and dangerously crazy notions.  Rumors are he is in conflict with senior officers in the Pentagon who are upholding the Uniform Code of Military Justice and not willing to follow illegal orders.)

Iran posed no material threat to the U.S. before Trump, in concert with Israel, started a war with that nation. So far the monthlong attacks have failed to achieve any of its stated objectives, including regime change, halting Iran’s nuclear program, exhausting its weapons stockpile, loosening its grip on the Strait of Hormuz or ending its ability to attack other nations.

If his threat held any actual intent, then shame on him. If the American public views his threat as somehow acceptable or within bounds, then shame on us.

Robert Spitzer, James City County,Virginia 

Hillbilly JD Vance went to Hungary to support Viktor Orbán's failed racist government. But Hungarians voted for Tisza Party led by Peter Magyar

Why Orbán’s Loss Was So Devastating to the New Right

J.D. Vance went to Hungary to defend the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and western civilization itself. (Maine Writer: Hillbilly Vance failed again❗ So, former Marine Corps corporal JD Vance is delusional.  He believes he is an accomplished politician and an amateur philosopher. But, actually, he is a self confessed Hillbilly)

Marine enlistee JD Vance achieved the rank of corporal. Adolf Hitler also achieved this same rank when he served in the German army during World War One.

Echo essay published in New York Magazine Intelligencer by Sarah Jones.

“Will you stand for sovereignty and democracy❓” he beseeched a crowd in Budapest last week. “Will you stand for western civilization❓ Will you stand for freedom, for truth, and for the god of our fathers❓” Defy “the bureaucrats” of the European Union, he told them; go to the polls and stand with Orbán.  (Maine Writer:  But, Vance conveniently forgot to ask, "Do you stand for racism❓")

Thankfully, the Hungarian people did not listen. 

So, they ended Orbán’s 16-year-long rule and handed power to Péter Magyar, a onetime Orbán ally who ran on an anti-corruption message. Magyar’s party, Tisza, has won two-thirds of the country’s parliamentary seats, ❗a supermajority that allows it to reverse Orbán’s most autocratic assaults on the constitution and the rule of law. Vance told Fox (Fake❗) News that he was saddened, though not surprised, by the result. 

Orbán’s polling had been terrible, but the campaign speech was “the right thing to do” for such a loyal friend of the Trump White House, he added.

Orbán’s loss is a blow to Vance, who has aligned himself with the departing prime minister and his party, Fidesz. 

Also, there are similarities between the two men. Both had a Christian awakening when it was convenient, both are obsessed with fertility and both scapegoat immigrants. 

Orbán once said that Hungarians “do not want to become peoples of mixed race,” a kind of bigotry Vance echoed when he smeared Haitian immigrants in Ohio. 

Resentment is part of the Vance brand and has been since Hillbilly Elegy, (a biography about the former Marine Corporal now Trump's VP) which makes him a natural counterpart to Orbán. Both act and speak like they are populist heroes at war with the elite.

Still, Vance is one player in a much bigger game. As Orbán concentrated power, he built a sophisticated, transnational infrastructure to prop up reactionaries around the world. In the process, he became an intellectual and political hero to the American new right — a nativist and profoundly illiberal movement.

Orbán reserved his generosity for certain ideas and certain people. The conservative writer Rod Dreher abandoned the U.S. for Hungary and a role at the Danube Institute, created in 2013, to facilitate “the transmission of ideas and people” throughout Europe and the English-speaking world, including the U.S. The Orbán government funds the institute through the Batthyány Lajos Foundation, which also supports The European Conservative, where Dreher often writes. “Many contributions” to the journal try to legitimize illiberal democracies like Hungary, scholars Valentin Behr and Eve Gianoncelli have argued. TEC’s chief editor defended Augusto Pinochet and his “necessary” coup in Chile, which overthrew a democratic government and sent death squads after critics. In the world of TEC, immigrants are a danger to women, “transgender ideology” inflicts “terror” on the West, and Charlie Kirk was right about, well, everything. The journal now shares an address with the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, which also gets funding from Orbán.

Dreher is full of praise for Orbán, whom he considers “a real visionary” and with whom he shares an appreciation for The Camp of The Saints,🤢 a 1973, novel by Jean Raspail that depicts “little monsters” with “dark skin” who overtake the West. The book is “repulsive,” Dreher wrote in 2015, but he said it offers some valuable insight; Orbán went one step further and cited it when he decried “race-mixing” in 2022.

He is hardly alone. A Hatewatch investigation found that American conservatives Christopher Rufo, Michael O’Shea, and Jeremy Carl signed contracts with the Batthyány Lajos Foundation in 2022, thus committing themselves to defending Orbán’s pronatalist policies, among other subjects — possibly while violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. 

Pronatalist summits in Budapest attract American conservatives worried about our own U.S. national birth rate. The U.S.-born post-liberal theorist Gladden Pappin leads the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, a state-owned entity. The Orbán government has become such a beacon for the American right that the Danube Institute’s István Kiss has addressed the Tennessee legislature; State Senator Rusty Crowe introduced a resolution praising the “estimable” Hungarian think tank for its “respectful conservatism.” Magyar claimed on Monday that the Orbán regime has funded CPAC’s conferences in Hungary❗

Orbán showed allies what is possible, and they admire him for his audacity, since they know their goals can only succeed under illiberal conditions. If the press questions policy or investigates corruption, muzzle it and flood the market with propaganda. 

If the goal is hierarchy and racial purity, reproductive coercion must become a national policy. 

As the new right flexes its strength here, it pivots toward Orbán or an Orbán-like strategy. The chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, often threatens to censor the press.  Florida 

Governor Ron DeSantis is transforming the New College of Florida into a reactionary bulwark — his own version of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, perhaps. The new right understands, as did Orbán, the importance of a brain trust. Someone has to write the policy and skew the data.

But, pseudointellectualism can only take a movement so far. 

Orbán had not completely destroyed Hungarian democracy, so his ambitions were riskier than his allies understood. Orbánism didn’t work either as policy or as an illiberal strategy. Hungary’s birth rates are falling again. The GDP per capita is “well below” the OECD average. Corruption further weakened whatever political or moral authority the Orbán regime might have had with voters. And, Orbán could not buy true popularity for the journals and media outlets he funds. TEC is still “niche,”as Euronews put it, and the regime’s investment in Dreher never made much sense. His most influential period is long over, and he seems ready to move on. After Orbán’s loss, he said he may move to Vienna. Then he complained about his ex-wife and her “ambush divorce.”

The new right will survive Orbán. It might leave Budapest or start a new think tank, but it still has patrons, and ideas are notoriously hard to kill. For Americans, there’s always the Claremont Institute or the Heritage Foundation — a domestic ecosystem that is more durable than the Orbán regime. 

An army of fellows and contributing editors will pump out white papers and commentaries and graphs for decades to come. But, guess what ❓ They can’t make people agree, or even respect them, and that matters — for now, anyway.

Illiberalism tends to lose its shine. Vance spoke at a TPUSA event in Georgia. The arena was nearly empty. “Although I did vote for Trump,” a young Catholic told the Associated Press. “I am not a Trump supporter anymore.”

Orbán is no philosopher, sprinkling reactionary thought like fairy dust on the people of Europe and North America. His efforts have been strategic. As he financed the global right, he assaulted the Hungarian public sphere and became more and more autocratic. Reporters Without Borders calls him “a predator of press freedom” for his efforts to squeeze independent media out of Hungary and says that Fidesz and its supporters control roughly 80 percent of the country’s news outlets. Fidesz rewrote the Hungarian constitution, allowing the party to expand and then pack the constitutional court with allies, and it reshaped electoral law so it could more easily control Parliament. The Orbán government targeted the Central European University over its links to George Soros, the liberal Jewish philanthropist, and forced it to leave the country. To raise the country’s birth rate, Orbán restricted abortion rights while passing financial incentives for childbearing — but only for heterosexual couples. The government banned Budapest’s annual Pride parade, or tried to; Hungarians turned out anyway.

Orbán showed allies what is possible, and they admire him for his audacity, since they know their goals can only succeed under illiberal conditions. If the press questions policy or investigates corruption, muzzle it and flood the market with propaganda. If the goal is hierarchy and racial purity, reproductive coercion must become a national policy. As the new right flexes its strength here, it pivots toward Orbán or an Orbán-like strategy. The chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, often threatens to censor the press. Governor Ron DeSantis is transforming the New College of Florida into a reactionary bulwark — his own version of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, perhaps. The new right understands, as did Orbán, the importance of a brain trust. Someone has to write the policy and skew the data.

But pseudointellectualism can only take a movement so far. Orbán had not completely destroyed Hungarian democracy, so his ambitions were riskier than his allies understood. Orbánism didn’t work either as policy or as an illiberal strategy. Hungary’s birth rates are falling again. The GDP per capita is “well below” the OECD average. Corruption further weakened whatever political or moral authority the Orbán regime might have had with voters. And Orbán could not buy true popularity for the journals and media outlets he funds. TEC is still “niche,”as Euronews put it, and the regime’s investment in Dreher never made much sense. His most influential period is long over, and he seems ready to move on. After Orbán’s loss, he said he may move to Vienna. Then he complained about his ex-wife and her “ambush divorce.”

The new right will survive Orbán. It might leave Budapest or start a new think tank, but it still has patrons, and ideas are notoriously hard to kill. For Americans, there’s always the Claremont Institute or the Heritage Foundation — a domestic ecosystem that is more durable than the Orbán regime. An army of fellows and contributing editors will pump out white papers and commentaries and graphs for decades to come. But they can’t make people agree, or even respect them, and that matters — for now, anyway.

Illiberalism tends to lose its shine. Vance spoke at a TPUSA (Turning Point USA) event in Georgia. The arena was nearly empty. “I did vote for Trump,” a young Catholic told the Associated Press. “I am not a Trump supporter anymore.”

Donald Trump lost his friend Viktor Orban in a Hungarian democratic election!

Here’s How to Defeat Trumpism

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by The Editorial Board: The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Trumpism❗

Budapest, Hungary:  Peter Magyar’s landslide victory in Hungary this week offers inspiration to Americans hoping to overcome Donald Trump’s corrupt, authoritarian approach to politics. The key question is precisely how Mr. Magyar conducted such a successful opposition campaign.

He faced long odds. Viktor Orban had been prime minister for 16 years, during which he changed election rules, installed loyalists in once-nonpartisan government jobs, undermined judicial independence, repressed political opponents and hounded independent media and universities. 

Orban tilted the political system in his favor, yet Mr. Magyar nonetheless crushed Mr. Orban in voting on Sunday. 

Indeed, Mr. Magyar’s party appears to have won a two-thirds❗ supermajority in Parliament and 53 percent of the popular vote, compared with 38 percent for Mr. Orban’s party.

Hungary is obviously a very different country from the United States. But, Orban’s rise and his (mis) use of power were long models for Donald Trump. Now, Orban’s demise can be a model for America's Democratic Party and any other party that is trying to defeat an authoritarian right-wing threat, as evidenced by Trumpism.

Two aspects of Mr. Magyar’s campaign strategy were especially important. First, he focused on the bread-and-butter issues that often guide the decisions of swing voters, and not just in Hungary. In the United States, these voters soured on Trump after his first term and helped elect Joe Biden in 2020, only to become frustrated with inflation and they voted (wrongminded 🙄💢)  in 2024, to return Trump to office.

The campaign platform of the party Mr. Magyar leads, Tisza, was titled “Foundations of a Functional and Humane Hungary.” 

The campaign strategy criticized the inefficiency of government services. Its agenda included tax cuts for working-class families, expanded health care, increased pensions, larger child benefits and a pay increase for support staff members at schools. It said it would help pay for these programs through both a wealth tax on the very rich and the recovery of European Union transfer payments reduced because of Orban’s anti-democratic policies. Mr. Magyar’s party spread its campaign themes in innovative ways through social media, making Orban’s state-run media messaging look old and tired.

Crucially, Mr. Magyar made corruption a core campaign issue. 

Mr. Magyar spent more than 20 years as a member of Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party, rising to senior roles in state-controlled institutions. But Mr. Magyar quit Fidesz in early 2024, to protest a scandal involving the government’s pardon of a well-connected former official who had sexually abused boys. Mr. Magyar said he was disgusted by the corruption, and he gave a viral interview in which he claimed that “a few families own half the country.” He then joined the Tisza party and rose to become its leader.

On the campaign trail, he linked Orban’s corruption to Hungarians’ frustration with their stagnant living standards. 

In his victory speech on Sunday night, Mr. Magyar promised a country where citizens could rely on their government to help provide good medical care, a decent family life and a dignified retirement. What should matter, he said, was not political connections but the kind of person somebody was.

It is easy enough to imagine an American version of this strategy.  Trump, like Orban, used his office to enrich himself, his family and his friends. He issued pardons to political allies who have committed violent crimes, including one accused of sexually abusing children after receiving his pardon. He cut taxes for the affluent and made it harder for working-class Americans to receive health care. (Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins 😔supported this horrible policy❗) Trump's illegal war in Iran has increased gas 💲prices.

Trump's populism is fake. It serves a small slice of wealthy, well-connected people at the expense of most Americans, and it leaves him and his party (including Senator Susan Collins) politically vulnerable to an opposition that can credibly use government as a force for good. Mr. Magyar’s victory highlights the Democratic Party’s need to develop an ambitious agenda that goes far beyond criticizing Trump and charts an alternative vision for the country. Democrats do not yet have that agenda, but many in the party ​recognize that they need one.

The second lesson may be harder for Democrats — and center-left parties in Europe — to absorb. Mr. Magyar, who identifies as center right, won partly by avoiding the social progressivism that dominates elite left-leaning circles and alienates many voters. He ran as an economic progressive and a cultural moderate if not conservative.

He used patriotic symbols like the flag and benefited from having a last name that means “Hungarian.” (Imagine a candidate named “Joe American.”) He portrayed himself as a nationalist and suggested he might expel Slovakia’s ambassador over its treatment of Hungarians living there. He campaigned in rural areas that Mr. Orban’s previous challengers had overlooked. Mr. Magyar promised not to send troops or weapons to Ukraine. He declined to attend a Pride march in Budapest, making it harder for Orban to paint him as captive to L.G.B.T.Q. activists.

On immigration, which has shaped recent elections around the world, Mr. Magyar called for even tighter restrictions than the Orban government had imposed. He said he would keep a border fence, repeal a guest-worker program and allow no guest workers from outside the European Union. Tisza’s party platform claimed that guest workers “drive down wages, inflate real estate prices and cause social problems.” (Unlike in the United States, crime rates among immigrants in Europe tend to be higher than among native citizens.) Immigration is vital to electability in many countries because it is the issue on which mainstream politicians have most sharply diverged from public opinion, permitting many more arrivals than voters want.

We certainly do not endorse all of Mr. Magyar’s tactics, and we hope no American politician would feel the need to avoid a Pride march. Yet anyone who opposes Orbanism should examine the full Hungarian campaign, not only the convenient parts.

Mr. Magyar is one of many contemporary politicians who have won elections with a mix of economic progressivism and social moderation. Other national candidates have done so in the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark and elsewhere. In the United States, as we have documented, congressional Democrats who have won tough races in recent years almost all offered feisty economic messages while rejecting far-left positions on crime, immigration and other subjects. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton each used a similar approach to win the presidency twice. Only deep blue areas tend to elect down-the-line cultural progressives.

The success of the more heterodox approach is no mystery. In the United States and much of Europe, it is consistent with public opinion. Most voters are frustrated by slow-growing incomes and want the government to help. They are also unhappy with an elite cultural progressivism that has moved rapidly to the left on many difficult questions. They are looking for politicians who authentically share their outlook.

If the stakes involved only the outcome of individual policy issues, these debates would have less urgency. But they involve the health of democracy itself. In many countries, a radicalized political right has taken an authoritarian turn and sought to entrench itself in power while using state power to enrich its allies and repress its critics. Too often, the mainstream left has aided the far right’s rise by clinging to positions that are supported by only a narrow slice of the electorate.

Orban’s defeat is not nearly the end of the story, not even in Hungary, where his allies will continue to work in many parts of government. But his defeat is significant. Many people assumed he was unbeatable. He was Vladimir Putin’s biggest ally inside the European Union and the original 21st-century model of Western illiberalism. Mr. Trump openly admired him, and Vice President JD Vance traveled to Hungary last week to campaign for him.

Mr. Magyar thoroughly defeated this far-right giant. The free world should take an honest look at how he did it.

Donald Trump launched America into an illegal war with Iran and now the world is immersed living in "The Scream" painting by Poster

(Editor’s note: This editorial repeats profanity. We quote it verbatim because of the significance of the source.)

Echo opinion essay published by the Sun Sentinel's Editorial Board.

"The Scream" by Edward Munich Poster

Donald Trump talks like a genocidal maniac

Barry R McCaffrey  General, USA, Ret., "This is a continuing story of a great nation fallen mesmerized into the hands of a charlatan. We hope there are growing signs of revulsion by the American people. Bizarre. Madness. Who are these people standing with this man." 

Sun Sentinel opinion:  Never in our history has a leader made such a ghastly threat like Donald Trump did when he warned that 'a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.'

Fortunately, he backed down. Sudden wisdom, or cold feet❓

To some, it was just another TACO Tuesday (Trump Always Chickens Out). It’s preferable to think that he got wisdom rather than cold feet. Regardless, it was the right choice.

But still, it’s only an "on again off again" frail truce with Iran, a 14-day pause on what would have become — and might yet be — a monstrous war crime and an indelible stain on our nation.

It is encouraging that the Trump administration and Iran both claim victory, which would be an excuse to call off the war.

There are unconfirmed reports that some U.S. commanders were refusing to carry out genocidal orders, and that would be good news, too. (Illegal orders❗)

But the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Donald Trump seems to believe he can call on the magician 🔮🙄in Ali Babba to "open Sesame" the Strait of Hormuz.  Even following a surprise announcement by Donald Trump, who claimed the Strait of Hormuz was fully opened, and the stock market subsequently closed the April 17 week in the green, his fake proclamation fell apart by Saturday April 18, when Iran announced control over the Strait.)

Congress must intervene❗

Congress must use the respite to take Trump in hand, with a war powers resolution and a serious investigation of his mental fitness. Regardless of whether impeachment is possible, it needs to be pursued.

The nation and the world have long since become accustomed to Trump’s loutish behavior, coarse vocabulary and disrespect for the dignity of his office and America’s reputation.

But his increasingly erratic conduct of late commands the attention of Congress, because it bears unmistakable signs of worsening mental decay in someone who can singlehandedly order the use of nuclear weapons.

A telling symptoms of dementia is a loss of inhibition. Until now, presidents appreciated the power of their words, and whatever their private thoughts, none ever spoke so venomously as Trump at war.

No president has disgraced our nation with such vulgarity as his social media post on the Christian faith’s holiest day, Easter Sunday:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Whether our nation is at the whims of a madman is a question Congress should pursue.

Israel’s hidden role

The other is the extent to which Trump was led into the crisis by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who craved U.S. support for another war with Iran.

In a remarkable exposé, the New York Times described in detail how Trump secretly received Netanyahu at the White House on Feb. 11, for a hard sell on what a war might accomplish.

Netanyahu and his team framed a “near-certain victory,” (lunacy❗) the Times said. “Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.”

According to the Times, CIA Director John Ratcliffe told Trump some of it was “farcical” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also his national security adviser, called it “bullshit,” but Trump eventually wore down all the internal doubters except for Vice President JD Vance. Pete Hegseth, his self-styled secretary of war, was all for it.

Despite the fake truce that took effect, Hegseth threatened ground operations to seize Iran’s enriched uranium. 

So much for certain victory. None of it happened.

Trump’s outbursts bespoke the frustration of a thoroughly incompetent ruler who began a war with no plan for how to conduct or conclude it and was unprepared for Iran’s resistance.

War: What is it good for❓

Trump's illegal war's main accomplishments are to inflate energy prices, depress the stock market, destabilize the world’s economy, betray Ukraine by waiving sanctions against Russia’s oil, replace one fanatic Iranian ayatollah with another, and harden Iran’s dictatorship and nuclear ambitions.

Congress should also scrutinize how Hegseth, a man far out of his depth, has been demoralizing and destroying the Department of Defense, purging it of anyone who might question illegal orders or represent diversity. His purge of senior officers who are Black or female has been conspicuous.

His dismissal of General Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff early in his term, along with two subordinates, was without precedent. George reportedly opposed the attack on Iran.

Republican senators praised George for his service, but they failed to condemn Hegseth.

In his farewell letter to his troops, George said they deserve “leaders of character.”

So do we all.

P.S. Maine Writer question❓  Has Iran surrendered yet❓

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. 

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 hearing from angry Republican Catholics who are disgusted by his obsession with His Holiness Pope Leo

A president cosplaying as Christ and trashing the pope crosses a moral red line | Echo Opinion published in the Miami Herald by Mary Anna Mancuso.

I’m a Republican. I’m also Catholic. And this weekend, both of parts of my identity were at odds when President Trump attacked Pope Leo, the first American pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Trump called Leo, “WEAK on Crime and terrible for Foreign Policy,” in a post on Truth Social on Sunday evening. He then boasted it was because he was in the White House that Pope Leo is in the Vatican. But Trump didn’t stop there, in the same post, he made it political saying, “I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA.”

More troubling was the AI-generated image Trump shared on Truth Social depicting himself as Jesus Christ. When a sitting president borrows sacred religious imagery and attacks the head of the Catholic Church, it’s not just political rhetoric but blasphemy. The image has since been deleted after backlash, but the point remains: Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo are morally wrong. 

No other American president has ever done this.

Catholics believe the pope is the successor to St. Peter, the spiritual leader of more than a billion worldwide. 

But, here in South Florida, this isn’t some distant theological concept — it’s personal. The Archdiocese of Miami is home to roughly 1.3 million Catholics, the single-largest religious group in South Florida. That’s more than a number, it’s families across Miami-Dade County, and 30% of adults, according to Pew Research. 

You don’t have to be Catholic to understand that the pope’s role is moral, not political. Criticizing the pope isn’t new, it’s happened for centuries. Catholics have debated and disagreed with Church leaders before. But, morally, this is different from theological differences. Treating the papacy as a political opponent to be mocked crosses a line as red as the pope’s vestment.

When the president ridicules a spiritual leader, it makes the office of the presidency look small, not powerful. When every institution is treated as political and something to be conquered, nothing is left above politics. Democracy requires shared ground — institutions that are beyond the reach of one man’s ambition. The Catholic Church is one of them.

For two millennia, the church outlasted empires and survived wars. And it’s always emerged from centuries of political turmoil with its mission intact. Indeed, the Catholic Church will outlast Trump’s insolence, too. 

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was “disheartened” by Trump’s comments, saying, “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.” GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said, “I saw a lot of Republicans commenting in it last night. Some saying he’s just trolling, and others saying it’s anti-Christian. 

When you divide your own party it is self destructive. To me it was a gaudy and juvenile post.” Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, called it “inappropriate and embarrassing.” 

These are not liberal critics. These are Republicans telling Trump he went too far. And the post’s deletion suggests the White House knew it, too. On Monday, Leo told reporters he is “not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the Church works for.”

“We are not politicians,” Leo said. Leo didn’t mince words and conservatives must defend that distinction. A president who portrays himself as Christ while treating the pope as a political enemy is doing more than attacking a religious leader. Trump is claiming authority that no American president is meant to have. But the deletion of the image wasn’t an act of contrition. There hasn’t been an apology or statement issued. Under pressure, Trump retreated — which is telling. It shows the backlash worked and that a line still exists. And it means Americans — including conservatives and Christians who support Trump — will not follow him past it. The papacy isn’t a political target, and Jesus Christ isn’t a brand. Any president who refuses to acknowledge that diminishes the office he holds. 

Mary Anna Mancuso is a member of the Miami Herald Editorial Board. Her email: mmancuso@miamiherald.com

Donald Trump and maga Republicans wrecking America's reputation in Europe anti-American sentiment rising

I just got back from Europe. Anti-American sentiment is on the rise
Opinion essay echo published in the Los Angeles Times by Robin Abcarian.

It was midday just before Easter in Paris. 

My niece and I walked past the city’s famous opera house, where tourists were relaxing on the wide steps. French soldiers armed with assault rifles strolled around, a comforting sight given the warnings about Iran-backed sleeper cells and potential retaliatory attacks. 

A busker with a guitar and a microphone entertained the crowd with a Coldplay cover.

Between songs, he asked, “Anyone here speak English?” Unbelievably, not a single hand went up.

The busker shrugged, turned both thumbs down in the universal gesture of disapproval, and said, “America, eh?” I felt him.

A couple of days after I got home, I saw a social media post that reminded me of that moment. “Honestly,” wrote @_thatambitiousgirl, “I don’t know how anyone could even feel comfortable traveling as an American outside of the U.S. right now.”

Anti-American sentiment is on the rise, and it sucks being from a country whose presidents do things like threaten to end a “whole civilization,” invade Middle Eastern countries based on lies about weapons of mass destruction, or insert themselves into pointless conflicts in faraway lands. 

In college, I had friends who sewed Canadian flags onto their backpacks because they didn’t want to be associated with America’s misadventures in Southeast Asia.

Polls show that half of Europeans view Donald Trump, who has threatened to withdraw from NATO, as an enemy rather than an ally. He has managed the neat trick of telling our allies they are useless while castigating them for not rushing to help with his poorly planned and illegal war on Iran. “This is not our war,” the German defense minister said pointedly last month. “We have not started it.”


Quite simply, with the assent of the Republican Party, Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the world order as we’ve known it in our lifetimes, while also managing to make life harder for Americans at home.

“We’re worse off in every way, and officially a global pariah,” said the New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie on Facebook this week. “Awesome. Love that.”

Anyway, I was glad to see that someone I know, the novelist Erin Zhurkin, responded thoughtfully to @_that ambitiousgirl’s Instagram post.

Donald Trump is a Republican wrecking ball

Been an American abroad for 20 years now,” wrote Zhurkin, whose Russian-born American husband is an executive with Renault. “Six countries so far. People are in general curious and grateful that I can see my country from all sides….I try to represent the heart of the US, which I believe is about being open to all people and finding commonalities rather than differences.”

This, truly, is the heart of the matter.

 In the fall of 1967, my family moved from Northridge to France, where my father had a year-long Fulbright teaching scholarship at the University of Pau. Before we got on the airplane, my mother sat the four of her rambunctious kids down.

“It’s very important that you not be ‘Ugly Americans,’ ” she told us. We were too young to have read the classic 1958 novel she was referring to, but we understood that we were to be curious and respectful and maybe not yell, as we unfortunately did, “Yuck, this is NOT a hot dog,” during our first meal in Paris.

One winter evening in Pau, my parents took us to an anti-war demonstration, as they had done many times in Los Angeles. The locals we marched with were chanting something we couldn’t quite make out. It sounded to our American ears like “Yohn-kee go ohm.” We figured it out pretty quickly, and frankly, it was unsettling.

Zhurkin had a similar experience in Moscow, in the early 1990s, at a kiosk near Red Square. “An older Russian lady looked at me, and in a thick Russian accent said, ‘Yankee, go home,’ ” Zhurkin told me by phone from Ljubljana, Slovenia, where she and her family had moved in September from Seoul. “It opened up this whole feeling inside of me that there is something about my country that may not be as wonderful as it seems. It was a huge, perspective-breaking moment for me.”

Years later, Zhurkin was living in Paris. Trump had just been elected to his first term.

“I could not get into a taxi without someone asking me why I would let this happen, as if it was all me,” Zhurkin said. “They’d say, ‘I can’t believe you Americans are so stupide.’ I was like, ‘Look, I didn’t vote for him.’” Still, she said, “I feel like I am apologizing all the time.”

By the time President Joe Biden was elected in 2020, Zhurkin said, her family had moved to Ireland, where the vibe was much more “Thank God you guys got your act together.”

Maybe in the not-too-distant future, we will again. And then we can start to put this long national hideous nightmare behind us.

Bluesky: @rabcarian
Threads: @rabcarian

Donald Trump needs psychiatric care and behavioral health counseling. He creates evil and Republicans must remove him from office!

Re: “Donald Trump talks like a genocidal maniac” — Sun Sentinel Editorial, April 8, 2026.

I hope Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine will find somebody to read this echo opinion letter to her, published in the Florida Sun Sentinel.

Thank you for your excellent editorial about Donald Trump’s un-fitness for office.

Trump revealed a murderous philosophy shared by other 20th century dictators: genocide. On social media he threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight” unless Iran agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz and end hostilities (a war Trump himself unilaterally and illegally launched against Iran).

Trump's hideous statement was condemned around the world, and it should have shaken every American to their core.

Such an evil threat cannot be dismissed just because he failed to carry out his apocalyptic blackmail threat. 

Just the fact that he made such a dangerous declaration, and is capable of such thinking, is proof about his sociopathic mind.

As the former Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an expert on tyranny and genocide, put it, “Whatever happens tonight, or any other night in this war, is now legally defined by Donald Trump's dangerous statement.”

Snyder says Trump practices “sado-populism,” using threats and cruelty to subdue his perceived opponents while sabotaging democracy by “destroying institutional trust.” Trump has spoken. 

We must repudiate Donald Trump. Americans must reject his tyranny. #ImpeachTrumpNOW  #25thAmendment

From — June S. Neal, in Delray Beach, Florida

Donald Trump is crazy! Full Stop! He must be removed from office, impeached or by 25th Amendment- NOW!

Echo opinion letter published in CAPTimes, a Wisconsin newspaper:

Dear Editor: Donald Trump agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran. It's been fragile, the details sketchy at best. But for now he has backed off from his draconian threats to Iran.

Those threats to destroy Iran's non-military infrastructure of bridges, power plants and water desalinization systems, if carried out, would be considered war crimes under the Geneva Convention.

Of course there are those who would say that Trump's draconian threats to end the civilization of Iran is just Trump being Trump. Just a negotiating technique.

But, I contend, and it's of utmost importance for everyone to remember, that Trump knows, the Iranians know, and we should all know, that in any real serious negotiation such as the one between the United States and Iran, there is no place or purpose for the completely idle threat. He really thinks he might blow Iran into "smithereens." When we consider that, along with Trump's escalating psychological instability, think malignant narcissism, we can only conclude the president is not well. Not well at all.

This incompetence makes Trump now totally unfit to carry out the duties of the presidency, and not only puts our United States system of government in crisis mode, but also puts the rest of the world on existential standby.

The time for invocation of the 25th Amendment should be at hand. There has never been a more pressing moment in our country's modern history when that has been more apparent and important.

From Bill Walters in Fitchburg Wisconsin

Republicans like Senator Susan Collins are enabling Donald Trump's war crimes. GOP must stop Donald Trump's insane tranny

Echo Editorial Opinion published by The New York Times:

Four Ways Trump’s War Is Weakening America

When Donald Trump attacked Iran on February 28, 2026, we called his decision reckless. 

Donald Trump is inept, corrupt a dunce in KKK attire

Trump went to war without seeking congressional approval or the support of most allies. He offered thin and contradictory justifications to the American people. He failed to explain why this naïve attempt at regime change would end better than earlier attempts by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

In the six weeks since, the recklessness of his war has become clearer yet. He has disdained careful military planning and acted on gut instinct and strange wishfulness. 

After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel predicted to  Trump that the attacks would inspire a popular uprising in Iran, the director of the C.I.A. countered that the notion was “farcical,” The Times reported. But, Trump proceeded nonetheless. 

Without consideration for the consequences, Trump was so confident that he assembled no plan to respond to an obvious countermove available to Iran: causing a spike in oil prices by blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Nor did he develop a feasible strategy for securing the enriched uranium that Iran can use to rebuild its nuclear program.

Last week, Trump careened from illegal and immoral threats about erasing Iranian civilization to a last-minute cease-fire that accomplishes few of his announced war aims. Iran continues to defy a central part of the deal and block most traffic from crossing the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s irresponsibility has left the United States on the cusp of a humiliating strategic defeat.

As we have emphasized, Iran’s regime deserves no sympathy. It has spent decades oppressing its people and sponsoring terrorism elsewhere. And the current war, combined with the June attacks by the United States and Israel and other Israeli operations since 2023, weakened Iran in important ways. Its navy, air force and air defenses have been degraded, and its nuclear program has been set back. Its murderous network of regional allies — including Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria’s fallen government — has been eroded.

Yet, these successes cannot mask the ways in which the war has weakened the United States. 

We count four main setbacks for America’s national interests that are the direct result of Trump’s carelessness. These setbacks likewise weaken global democracy when authoritarians in China, Russia and elsewhere were already feeling emboldened.

The most tangible blow to the United States and the world is the increased influence that Iran secured over the global economy by weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz. About 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows through the strait, which is next to Iran’s southern shore.

Before the war, Iran’s leaders feared that blocking traffic would invite new economic sanctions and a military attack. Once the attack happened anyway, Iran closed the strait to nearly all traffic except its own ships. The policy is inexpensive because it mostly involves a threat, namely that a drone, missile or small boat may blow up a tanker. Forcibly reopening the strait, by contrast, would require an enormous military operation potentially including ground troops and an extended occupation.

Trump’s lack of foresight about the strait reveals glaring incompetence. The two-week cease-fire does not bring back the status quo because Iran is still limiting traffic and has threatened to impose tolls as part of a final peace deal. The war has shown Iran’s leaders that controlling the waterway is a real possibility. Eventually, other countries are likely to develop alternatives, including pipelines, but those solutions will take time. For now, Iran appears to have won diplomatic leverage that it could have only dreamed of six weeks ago. The only apparent way to change the situation would be for a global coalition to demand the strait’s reopening — the sort of coalition that Trump is distinctly unsuited to lead.

The second setback is to America’s military standing around the world. This war, together with recent U.S. assistance to Ukraine, Israel and other allies, has burned through a substantial portion of the stockpile of some weapons, such as Tomahawk missiles and Patriot interceptors (which can shoot down other missiles). Experts believe the Pentagon used more than one-quarter of its Tomahawk missiles just in the war against Iran. Returning the stockpile to its previous size will take years, and the United States will have to make tough choices about where to maintain its military strength in the meantime. Already, the Pentagon has pulled missile defenses from South Korea.

The war also revealed that the U.S. military is vulnerable to new ways of warfare. 

For example, America used billions of dollars’ worth of high-tech munitions to destroy Iran’s traditional air and naval forces, while Tehran used cheap, disposable drones to halt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and hit targets in the region. The world saw how a country that spends one-hundredth of what the United States does on its military can seek to outlast it in a conflict. It is a reminder of the urgent need to reform America’s military.

The war’s third big cost is to America’s alliances. Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada and most of Western Europe refused to support the United States in this war — unsurprisingly, given Mr. Trump’s treatment of them. When he demanded their help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, most allies declined. These countries will remain allies in important ways, but they have made clear that they no longer consider the United States a reliable friend. They are working to build stronger relationships with one another so that they can better resist Washington in the future. “Perhaps the greatest long-term damage to the United States from the Iran war will be in its relationships with allies around the world,” Daniel Byman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington wrote on Wednesday.

The situation in the Middle East is more nuanced. Iran’s decision to attack its Arab neighbors during the war may draw those countries closer to the United States. But that prospect is uncertain. Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries have been damaged economically by the war and feel abandoned by Mr. Trump’s cease-fire. The past six weeks have given them reason to question his judgment and his understanding of their interests.

The fourth setback is to America’s moral authority. For all the flaws of this country, it remains a beacon to many around the world. When pollsters ask people where they would move if they could, the United States is consistently the runaway No. 1 answer. America’s appeal stems not only from its prosperity but also from its freedom and democratic values. Mr. Trump has undercut those values for his entire political career and perhaps never more than in the past week, when he made odious threats to erase Iranian civilization. Trump's (whiskey) secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, made a series of bloodthirsty remarks, including a threat to offer “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”

Those would be war crimes. Trump and Hegseth have embraced a brutal approach to armed conflict that the United States led the world in rejecting after World War II. By doing so, they have undermined the foundations of America’s global leadership, which claims to place human dignity at the center of an argument for a freer and more open world.

Our New York Times editorial board has long opposed Mr. Trump’s approach to politics and governing. Yet we take no pleasure in his failures over the past six weeks. For one thing, there have been deaths, injuries and destruction, in Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere. At least 13 U.S. service members have died in the war.

It is also a mistake for any Americans, including Trump’s critics, to root for this country to fail. We all have a stake in the nation that he leads. So does the rest of the free world. There are no other democracies with the economic and military strength to counter China and Russia. When America is weaker and poorer, as this war has made us, authoritarianism benefits.

The best hope now may sound naïve, but it remains true. Trump(and Republicans like Senator Susan Collins) must at long last recognize the ineptitude of his impulsive, go-it-alone approach. 

Trump must involve Congress and seek help from America’s allies to minimize the damage from his failed Trump Iran World War.