Donald Trump continues the administration causes more cruel inhumane war against legal immigrants

Editorial echo published in The Sun Sentinel and the New York Daily News 

Donald Trump’s ever-cruel administration is wrongly trying to put up even more roadblocks to block legal immigrants from getting green cards.

A coalition of cities and state, led by New York Attorney General Tish James and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, is correctly fighting back. Cities and counties in Florida, where this cruel provision could lock tens of thousands of families into desperate poverty, should join their battle.

The change is to the so-called public charge rule, which expands a standing immigration law that was intended to restrict immigrants from getting permanent resident status if they have become reliant on public assistance programs like food stamps, Medicaid and housing assistance.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security, is proposing a rule that gives immigration officials much more latitude in determining what can be considered a “public charge,” including (potentially) public-school education and food assistance provided to American-born children and other American citizens living in their households.

Under the proposed rule, immigration authorities could use that information to deny permanent resident status to an otherwise deserving immigrant. A 2018, analysis shared by the Florida Policy Institute predicted that the state could lose as much as 💲400 million in federal money under the new rules.

In lawsuits filed in Manhattan federal court earlier this month, one by states and another by cities, New York State, New York City and their partners are asking judges to say no.

It is far too much of a stretch to expect Gov. Ron DeSantis to sign on, but Broward and Palm Beach counties and their related cities should consider joining it.

The use of public charge determinations is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it has been part of federal law since before the U.S. existed independently.

What’s different here is that the administration wants to expand this analysis beyond its original purpose as a tool to determine if someone was likely to become fully dependent on the government to whether they are subjectively likely, at some point in the future, to end up using the same public benefits that all Americans are entitled to anyway.

But, it’s an impossible standard that requires, in part, proving a negative.

James and Mamdani are right: This policy would cost taxpayers billions in lost federal revenue, which we would inevitably have to help make up.

Beyond the monetary cost, it will cost our communities dearly as fear drives people from programs that they need, whether or not the rule actually goes into effect in its current form.

As some public officials and commentators have noted, the change does not actually have to take effect to have widespread negative impact. Research has already established that Trump’s 2019, attempt at a similar rule kept people from using services they were legally entitled to, or from enrolling U.S. citizen children, whether or not it would actually have an effect on their status.

People will hear idle threats that “the government will deport you for using public benefits,” and they will act on that information, even if it’s wrong or incomplete or the benefits at issue are not germane.

Make no mistake that this is intentional fear-mongering, straight from the White House, which will keep people away from even our own state and local services.

It will be up to a federal judge whether Trump gets to enact policy by capricious decree like a king of yore. Fortunately, most judges, whomever they have been appointed by and however long they’ve served, still seem to have a concrete interest in upholding the law.

For now, everything is banking on the judges to do their job and strike down this rule down. Longer-term, it will be up to Congress to take this tool away from overzealous presidents.

This editorial was adapted from the New York Daily News. The Sun Sentinel sometimes publishes editorials that agree with our positions.

Peaceful protests in Florida against the corrupt Donald Trump administration

Echo opinion letter published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper: 

As a retired foreign service officer, I know what good staff work is. At the State Department, we made sure key leaders were never surprised.

But, Donald Trump suffers from its opposite: bad staff work.

He’s surrounded by yes-men and yes-women. No one has the courage to break through his delusional bubble and confront him with the hard facts. They tell him that the polls are lies, that everyone loves him, that he’s the best or smartest president and a shrewd dealmaker. It’s all lies, but he doesn’t know the truth.

They keep him in his bubble. It means his impulsive actions do not serve the national interest, but no one tells him that he’s destroying the very fabric of the nation.

We peacefully protest in Wilton Manors, Florida, every week. Sometimes, more than 300 show up. Trump may be in a bubble, but Americans pay the price for his mistakes. Another forever war. Inflation. Destroyed relations with allies. Deferring to Putin, Kim Jong Un, and China’s dictator.

The U.S. is a weak nation under Trump, viewed as the instigator of war, violence and chaos.

I have gone from being a loyal employee of the federal government to an anti-government activist. For any true patriot, there is no more worthwhile endeavor than challenging the lies of Trump and his corrupt cronies.

From: Michael Varga, Wilton Manors, Florida

Impeach Donald Trump: The Philadelphia Inquirer editorial gives Republicans evidence to impeach regardless of mid-term election outcomes

Echo opinion responses to The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial position calling for the Republicans to impeach Donald Trump:

As the Sunday Inquirer section described, Donald Trump’s abuses are far worse than those that led to Nixon’s resignation, and it is long past time for Trump to be removed through the constitutional process.

From: Mark Zecca, in Philadelphia

In addition to all the reasons cited in Sunday’s Inquirer demonstrating that Donald Trump is not fit for office, another factor is also his lack of compassion. 

No man or woman should ever be elected to this land’s highest office if they have no interest in governing for all.

The Trump administration and an embarrassingly compliant Congress passed the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which continues to roll out the GOP’s disdain for the weakest and most underserved Americans. The legislation’s primary objective is to further humiliate our fellow citizens already leading lives defined by struggle.
Various obsessive incoherent rants are circulating about how those who support the work requirements for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program think that we should stop giving handouts.

What many of the people with those feelings fail to acknowledge is that they themselves routinely slept in warm beds, were dressed in warm jackets, and were cared for with full stomachs before leaving for work.

The work requirements affect men and women who, in many instances, are caught in a cycle of generational poverty. For them, there has never been the money for continual, uninterrupted housing, food, or clothing. Some children may attend several different schools and are never quite able to create a path to a productive future.

So before fortunate Americans criticize those people in need of compassion, maybe advocate for the funds to help the least of our brothers instead of ignoring the taxpayer money continually spent to build monuments to honor the least trustworthy president in modern times.

From: Mary Kay Owen, in Downingtown, Pennsylvania

Donald Trump illegally offering to buy diesel from Putin is a crazy deal because it will ultimately cause harm to America's military

Trump guts diesel sanctions on Russia, helping Putin kill Ukrainians and aid Iran.

Echo opinion published in the Philadelphia Inquirer by Trudy Rubin

In trying to lower fuel prices, Donald Trump is helping fund a Kremlin terrorist who is not only out to destroy Kyiv but is helping Iran kill U.S. soldiers in the Middle East.

This weekend, Donald Trump publicly surrendered U.S. honor and security interests to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The U.S. president demanded that Ukraine “replace” President Volodymyr Zelensky with someone willing to make “a deal” with the Kremlin to (supposedly) end the war. Yet the “deal” that Trump envisions would not end Russia’s aggression but would reward it.

It would encourage the Kremlin’s unyielding demand that Kyiv surrender to Moscow’s over-lordship. And it would fuel Putin’s war chest, never mind that he has been attacking NATO members with drones, and is helping Iran destroy U.S. bases and kill American troops in the Middle East.

In a Friday phone call with Putin, the president arranged to suspend U.S. sanctions on Russian exports of diesel in the (false❗🤥) hope this will lower U.S. fuel prices before the November midterms. Even more shocking, POTUS threatened to stop sharing U.S. intelligence with Kyiv, unless Ukraine halts attacks on Russian refineries that are meant to finally drive Putin to the bargaining table.

This all happened just as a Ukrainian negotiating team arrived in Miami to discuss with their U.S. counterparts how to overcome Putin’s constant rejection of any ceasefire.

The Ukrainians were ready to discuss a two-way ceasefire over attacks on energy infrastructure, but were totally blindsided. 

Instead, Trump unilaterally declared such a ceasefire had been reached. But, it hadn’t.

Yet when Zelensky rejected the one-sided diesel deal, Trump went ballistic and called for his replacement, as if Ukraine were a banana republic whose president could be ousted overnight.

So much for the much hyped bipartisan legislation named after the late GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham that was supposed to tighten sanctions on Moscow in order to force Putin to accept a ceasefire. In effect, Trump spat on his late GOP colleague and loyal supporter.

Trump’s negotiators have already been talking with Putin’s team about big Russian business deals (that would benefit Trump’s circle of donors and supporters, of course) while demanding zero concessions from Moscow. Clearly, they just want Ukraine to bow so they can get down to moneymaking with Moscow.

And Trump’s desperation to lower diesel prices before the midterms supersedes any concerns about security for U.S. bases, NATO allies, or Ukraine.

The blinkered U.S. leader, however, has no grasp of basic economics. Lifting sanctions on Russian diesel exports will have a minimal effect at the pump; the only way to lower those prices is to negotiate an end to Trump’s misbegotten Iran war.

Meantime, Trump’s refusal to put any pressure on Moscow has killed any prospect of a genuine two-way energy ceasefire that would also halt Moscow’s destruction of civilian electricity grids and heating plants in Ukraine.

If Putin keeps getting freebies from his friend Donald, why make concessions❓

Lifting sanctions on Russian diesel exports, as Zelensky noted, not only gives Putin “more money to inflict suffering on us” but “gives him the ability to fight even more.” To add to this insanity, on the same day POTUS encouraged Putin’s aggression, he also found time to berate the Norwegian Nobel committee for not awarding him his coveted peace prize in 2026.

Few Americans are aware of the new horrors Putin has visited on Ukrainian civilians since early September. Even fewer seem aware of the Kremlin’s tight alliance with Tehran, which gave Russia its first Shahed strike drones, the same drones Iran now uses to destroy U.S. bases and kill U.S. troops in the Mideast.

Putin has returned Iran’s favor by sharing upgraded Shahed technology with Tehran; he is also helping the ayatollahs develop new supersonic missiles capable of striking U.S. warships in the Middle East theater.

To repeat, Trump’s gift to Putin will not only fund Putin’s war machine but will help Tehran kill more Americans, too.

State terror: I witnessed the beginning of Putin’s new blitz on Ukrainian civilians during a trip to Kyiv and Odesa last month and it has only gotten worse since then.

Learning lessons from its war on Ukraine, Russia now produces millions of drones and has upgraded Iran’s Shaheds with jet engines. Russia is also mass-producing cruise and ballistic missiles.

Trump facilitated Russia’s slaughter by ending almost all military aid to Ukraine and refusing to send Kyiv the Patriot interceptors that are the only weapons which destroy incoming ballistic missiles.

Yes, Patriots are in short supply since Trump wasted much of our arsenal in his illegal failing war on Iran. Yet by stiffing Ukraine, Donald Trump is aiding a Russian terrorist who is helping Iran — the very country that POTUS has labeled “the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.” Untangle that bizarre contradiction, and you can reach only one conclusion: Trump is an open accessory to Russian terrorism that also threatens the United States.

Indeed, “Russian state terrorism” is the only adequate term to describe what Putin is raining down on Ukraine. In conversations with officials from Ukraine’s largest private electricity company, DTEK, I heard worries that attacks on the grid will cut off water supplies this winter and severely disrupt sewage systems.

Russia consistently uses terrorist methods ever since Moscow invaded its neighbor in 2022. I have witnessed shattered high-rise apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, cathedrals, libraries, and markets and heard horror stories about destroyed energy infrastructure that left Ukrainians freezing last winter.

Yet, Putin’s terror attacks this fall are dramatically worse than previous years, given Russian advances in weapons technology and production. and given Trump’s total second term toleration of Putin’s war crimes.

Last year, Russian strikes on cities occurred mostly at night, so Ukrainians could at least walk and work during the daytime. This year, strikes occur far more frequently and often in the daytime, meaning schools and many businesses can’t function because of the constant need to run to shelters.

I have kept the air alert notification app for Kyiv on my phone. It is designed so Ukrainians can punch in their city or town to get advance notice of imminent and critical air attacks. 

As I sit in Philadelphia, sometimes it dings every hour. Sometimes, in the evening, every 20 minutes.

When civilians rush to the shelters deep in Kyiv subway stations, they now have to descend and ascend stalled escalators, frozen due to Russian bombing of Kyiv’s electricity infrastructure. That means that the elderly and mothers with small kids are more likely to risk staying home.

In Kramatorsk, one of Ukraine’s “fortress cities” in Donbas that Russian troops have been unable to capture, the Kremlin strategy now is to make life unbearable. On Thursday, a guided Russian glide bomb targeted two buses in Kramatorsk during rush hour, incinerating 30 passengers.

Photos of the scorched bus made me recall the horrific Hamas bus bombings in Jerusalem I witnessed in the mid-1990s. Putin’s mentality is no different from that of fanatical Islamists who view civilian slaughter as a useful tool.

What is so shameful is that any patriotic president would be revulsed by such terrorist tactics. He or she would use whatever tools were available to force Putin to accept a ceasefire.

A few ways that Trump could exert pressure begin with tightening, not ripping up, sanctions against Russian oil exports as called for by the Graham Act. He could immediately green light joint U.S.-Ukrainian production of Patriot missiles, and in the meantime, encourage nervous allies to spare some of their stock with a promise of replacement from new U.S. production.

Trump could also demand that Elon Musk permit Kyiv to use Starlink connections over Russian territory so Ukraine can bring Russia to the table by more precisely targeting production sites of its drones and missiles — and its oil refineries.

I could go on, but as we know, Trump will never show Putin any backbone. The president decries Hamas but brags of his great relations with the global terrorist in the Kremlin. If this be not treason, then what is?

GOP legislators who fail to call Trump out are also complicit. For those Americans who truly oppose terrorism, the choice at the polls is clear.
In the city of Kherson, freed from Russian occupation, Russian soldiers across the Dnipro River play “human safari,” chasing desperate civilians on the street with drones that can now be targeted from longer distances. They then publish videos of the kills. Russia is now attacking cities that weren’t previously targeted, just to give civilians the feeling there is nowhere to hide. On Putin’s birthday, a Russian cruise missile hit a five-story apartment building, killing 22 civilians (including five children) as they slept in the city of Pryluky.

Such attacks are not collateral damage; they are part of a strategy designed to break the will of the population. “This is the kind of ‘gift’ Putin gave himself for his birthday,” Zelensky said Wednesday. “The killing of children, the killing of people.”

About such killings, Trump says not a word.

Republicans have a constitutional responsibility to impeach Donald Trump

THE CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT
A series of essays illuminating how Donald Trump — an out-of-control president focused on his own profiteering while ignoring and trampling the rule of law — is a clear and present danger to the republic.

Regardless of which party is in power during the next Congress, the Inquirer Editorial Board believes that impeachment should be a top priority.

In this collection of essays, The Inquirer Editorial Board is joined by experts from manifold disciplines, political affiliations and geographic locations, who write about how impeaching President Donald J. Trump is the only way to save the Constitution that gave rise to, and powers, our great nation.

What would the founders do❓ Impeachment is obviously not a matter to be taken lightly. But Donald Trump’s abuse of power combined with his erratic behavior must be confronted.

Donald Trump cut an illegal deal to buy diesel fuel with Russian President Putin but thankfully Ukrainian drones blew up the fuel depot

Echo opinion letters published in the English newspaper "Telegraph"

Donald Trump’s dealings with Russia confirm that he is unfit to lead.

This is a creepy photograph because the evil between these two demonic leaders was captured by the camera lens.

SIR – The squalid deal struck by Donald Trump with Russia’s marauding Vladimir Putin (report, October 11) is contemptible. By channeling funds to Russia in the vain hope that he can avert a mid-term electoral setback he has betrayed Ukraine and helped bolster Russia’s brutal war.

It is Donald Trump’s incompetent handling of Iran which has driven up oil prices. Sadly, it is not Ukraine which is in need of new leadership; it is the United States of America.

From Sir Gerald Howarth, in Chelsworth, Suffolk

SIR – On August 1, 1943, the United States Army Air Forces carried out a low-level, daylight raid on the Romanian oil refinery at Ploesti. Approximately one third of the attacking aircraft were shot down and 500 or so airmen were lost. Now, Donald Trump is urging Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to desist: simply, it would seem, in order to bring down the cost of diesel fuel in America and thereby enhance Trump’s chances of success in the mid-term elections.

So, if oil was a legitimate target in 1943, why is Trump insulting the memory of those 500 men, by saying that it is not a legitimate target now❓

From Rodney Salter in Watford, Hertfordshire, England

Ukraine strikes major Russian oil hub hours after Trump's deal with Putin- By Brett Erickson in Newsweek

The loading terminal of Russia's Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery caught fire overnight following reports of a Ukrainian drone strike just hours after President Trump announced a deal to supply millions of tons of Russian diesel fuel to the global market.

The incident suggests Kyiv will continue targeting Russian energy infrastructure despite pressure from the United States, with the Trump administration hoping energy costs will come down ahead of the November midterm elections.

The Fire:  Overnight a large blaze broke out at the Novoshakhtinsk oil loading terminal in Rostov-on-Don with footage shared on social media showing intense smoke and flames emanating from the facility. 

High cost of heating oil caused by Donald Trump's illegal Iran war causes financial harm to Maine voters preparing for winter cold

Rising heating oil costs have become a central issue in Maine's 2026 Senate race, as reported by The New York Times journalist Tim Balk.
 Echo report published The New York Times from Bath Maine.
Spiking💰💰 Costs: Half of all homes in Maine rely on heating oil. The cost to fill a standard heating-oil tank reached approximately

💲1,650, which is up about 80% compared to the previous year. 

Causes: The New York Times reports that the price surge is driven by disruptions in a vital oil shipping corridor linked to the war in Iran under the Trump administration.

In the Maine Senate Race, Spiking Heating Oil Costs Put Susan Collins on Defensive:  Half of homes in Maine rely on heating oil. Rising costs driven up by President Trump’s war with Iran have become central to the state’s Senate race.

As the Senate race in Maine heats up, the state is getting cold.

And for many Maine voters, chilly weather could present a particular challenge this year: New England’s northernmost state is singularly reliant on heating oil, and the price of the product is surging because of Donald Trump’s war with Iran, which has clogged a vital oil shipping corridor.

The issue has started to move to the center of the race between Senator Susan Collins, a vulnerable fifth-term Republican, and her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson, who has blamed Ms. Collins for the rising fuel oil costs. Their contest could be critical to determining which party controls the Senate.

For Ms. Collins, who initially supported the war but has opposed it for months, the rising fuel costs pose a significant headwind as she works to fend off Mr. Jackson, voters and strategists in both parties say.

“It’s a huge issue up here,” Lance Dutson, a Republican strategist in Maine, said on Tuesday night as temperatures in parts of the state dipped into the 40s. Ms. Collins can point to her work to bring federal heating assistance funds to the state, he added, but that might go only so far in assuaging an “emotional electorate” facing deep financial strain because of the price increases. (Also, this oil assistance is not fee, who will help to pay for the deliveries and how much will people who need help actually receive❓)

In Maine, the cost to fill a standard heating-oil tank as of Wednesday was $1,650, up roughly 80 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state governments in securing federal money for heating bills.

Although sticker-shocked consumers across the country are feeling the economic impact of the Iran war — when they fill up their car’s gas tank, grab a six-pack of beer at a liquor store or buy some tomatoes at the supermarket — the spiking costs of heating oil are felt uniquely in the frosty northeast.

Just 3 percent of U.S. households use heating oil to warm their homes. But 50 percent of homes do in Maine, according to the state. (The price of natural gas, used to warm most American homes, has remained relatively flat.)

Speaking in the lodge-like hall of the Maine Maritime Museum in coastal Bath one night this week, Mr. Jackson told voters gathered for a town hall-style event that he did “not know how people are going to heat their homes” this winter.

He scoffed at the efforts of Ms. Collins to lobby the Trump administration for the emergency release of oil from strategic reserves, arguing that she was too close to Trump and had “turned her back” on working-class Mainers.

“No one’s going to just sit there and freeze to death — they’ll do things to try and heat their home,” Mr. Jackson said. Referring to the pride Ms. Collins has expressed in her efforts to secure federal funds for fire stations, Mr. Jackson added, “It’s a good thing that Susan Collins got all those fire stations, because we’re going to have a lot of fires.”

Some in the crowd laughed. One woman in the back muttered that the line was not funny.

Ms. Collins tried to get ahead of the issue.  For example, last month, in September, she joined Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, in writing a letter to Donald Trump urging the administration to secure the emergency release of heating oil. And she pushed the federal government to increase its funding for heating assistance, joining a bipartisan letter from senators and backing a call by Gov. Janet Mills of Maine, a Democrat, for more federal support.

“I have repeatedly urged the Administration to use every tool available to increase supply and bring down energy costs,” Ms. Collins said in a statement last week.

But in recent years, federal heating assistance programs have not kept up with rising prices. Earlier this year, Donald Trump tried to eliminate a federal program to help poor Americans cover their heating and cooling bills, arguing that the United States needed to prioritize military needs.

Debbe Kelley, 70, an engineer in Windham, Maine, said she thought fuel oil costs, layered on top of broader inflation, had become the most pressing issue in the Senate race.

“The issue that’s going to affect most Mainers is how they’re going to afford to get by this winter,” Ms. Kelley, wearing a long coat, a woven teal alpaca scarf and a dark hat, said as she braced herself against the fall wind outside the town hall in Windham, the sort of politically divided town that could be critical to determining the Senate race.

Ms. Kelley, a Democrat, said that she planned to vote for Mr. Jackson, and that she knew political independents who had voted Republican in the past but were being drawn toward Democrats by the economic conditions. She said it had cost her $1,982 to fill the tank of her house with fuel oil.

“A lot of people are struggling,” Ms. Kelley said. “It’s going to be a very tough year for Maine.”

Donald Trump is weirdly obsessed with Abraham Lincoln envy

Trump Is Locked in a Posthumous Feud With Abe Lincoln
A complete timeline of this shockingly active (and bizarre) rivalry.

Published in New York Magazine The Intelligencer by Margaret Hartmann. 

Donald Trump has serious beef with every living former president. While the Bidens, Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas have made a big show of their post–White House chumminess, Trump’s vicious smears and elaborate conspiracy theories against his predecessors have left him excluded from the ex-presidents club. 

This isn’t all that surprising; Trump’s not one to put aside a good vendetta for the sake of national unity. What is remarkable, though, is that throughout his presidency, Trump has also been actively feuding with Abraham Lincoln.

This rivalry is obviously one-sided, as the 16th president has been dead for 161 years and is better than Trump by just about every measure. That actually seems to be the root of it: In Trump’s mind, Lincoln remains the one obvious exception to his claims of being the greatest president of all time.

I’ve always said I can be more presidential than any president in history,” Trump said in 2019. “Except for Honest Abe Lincoln when he’s wearing the hat.”

Trump talks about Lincoln like he’s a Republican frenemy who might dare to challenge him in the next election, not a long-dead, widely revered historical figure. Though the current president often makes a show of paying homage to “Honest Abe,” Trump regularly lashes out at him too. Trump has disparaged Lincoln’s (nonexistent) poll numbers, downplayed the importance of the 13th Amendment, and blasted his predecessor for not using Art of the Deal tactics to prevent the Civil War.

Here’s a guide to all of Trump’s bizarre attempts to wrap himself in Lincoln’s glory while subtly taking down the “Great Unifier.”

I’ll ‘heal the divisions’ like Lincoln … starting by suing my accusers.

During a 2016, speech at what he called the “hallowed ground” of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, then-candidate Trump claimed that, if elected, he would look to unify the nation like the 16th president.

“President Lincoln served at a time of division like we’ve never seen before,” he said. “It is my hope that we can look to his example to heal the divisions we are living through right now. We are a very divided nation.”

Then, just like Honest Abe, Trump slammed the “totally rigged” political system, attacked the media for misreporting his crowd size, and said of his many sexual-assault accusers, “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

January 2017: During a 2016, speech at what he called the “hallowed ground” of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, then-candidate Trump claimed that, if elected, he would look to unify the nation like the 16th president.

“President Lincoln served at a time of division like we’ve never seen before,” he said. “It is my hope that we can look to his example to heal the divisions we are living through right now. We are a very divided nation.”

Then, just like Honest Abe, Trump slammed the “totally rigged” political system, attacked the media for misreporting his crowd size, and said of his many sexual-assault accusers, “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

‘I don’t know if it’s ever been done before.’

The night before his first inauguration, Trump held a concert at the Lincoln Memorial. He gave Abe a vigorous salute, then started bragging about his own historic achievements.

“This started out tonight being a small little concert, and then we had the idea, Maybe we will do it in front of the Lincoln Memorial,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s ever been done before, but if it has, very seldom. And the people came by the thousands and thousands.”

There have actually been a good number of historic musical performances at the national monument. But sure, no other president has serenaded Abe with the Rolling Stones’ “Heart of Stone.”

‘I can be more presidential than any president’ … except Lincoln.

July 2018: ‘I beat our Honest Abe’ in the polls.

In the summer of 2018, Trump started referring to a “new poll” that had him “over 90 percent,” making him “the most popular Republican in history of the Party.”

During a trip to the U.K., the president bragged about this to The Sun, saying, “You know, a poll just came out that I am the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party. Beating Lincoln. I beat our Honest Abe.”

A few weeks later, even Trump seemed doubtful — with good reason. There were no polls in the 1860s, and we never got to the bottom of what survey he was referencing. 

(See 🤥Trump's lie here.)

September 2018:  The Gettysburg Address was initially ‘ridiculed,’ just like ‘the weave.’
Trump noted, accurately, that some people panned Lincoln’s famous speech when he was alive. Trump suggested that someday people would recognize his oratory genius too.

“You know when Abraham Lincoln made the Gettysburg Address speech, the great speech, did you know he was ridiculed?” Trump said at a Montana rally. “Fifty years after his death, they said it may have been the greatest speech ever made in America … I have a feeling that’s going to happen with us. In different ways, that’s going to happen with us.”

October 2019:  Lincoln in ‘the hat’ is ‘a tough one to beat.’

“I’ve always said I could be more presidential than any president in history. Except for Honest Abe Lincoln when he’s wearing the hat,” Trump said at a rally in Texas. “That’s tough. That’s a tough one to beat.”

May 2020:  ‘I believe I am treated worse’ than Lincoln.

Lincoln is, famously, one of the few U.S. presidents who was killed in office. Yet, Trump has asserted on numerous occasions that he thinks he has it even worse.

Donald Trump made this claim on Twitter in 2019, citing Newt Gingrich. (Trump wasn’t alone in likening himself to Lincoln. Gingrich compared Trump to the “Great Emancipator” in his 2017 book, and Dinesh D’Souza made a whole movie about Trump’s ostensibly Lincoln-y qualities.)

The following year, Trump elaborated on this point during a socially distanced Fox (Fake❗)News interview at the Lincoln Memorial.

“I am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen. The closest would be that gentleman right up there,” Trump said, pointing to the marble statue of Lincoln behind him.

“They always said, ‘Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln,’” Trump continued. “I believe I am treated worse.”

June 2020: ‘I’ve done more for the Black community than any president,’ except (possibly) Lincoln.

Up to this point, Trump’s comparisons to Lincoln were largely silly and subjective. Then, in June 2020, he got into a one-sided fight with Abe over which of them had done more for Black Americans.

Initially, Trump exempted Lincoln from comments suggesting his policies, such as the First Step Act, were more significant than enforcing Brown v. Board of Education or passing the Civil Rights Act.

But, ultimately, he landed at Trump’s contributions to the Black community: great; Lincoln’s: “questionable.”

“So I think I’ve done more for the Black community than any other president, and let’s take a pass on Abraham Lincoln ’cause he did good, although it’s always questionable,” he told Fox News’ Harris Faulkner. “You know, in other words, the end result.”

Faulkner, who is Black, pushed back, noting, “Well, we are free, Mr. President. He did pretty well.”

Trump replied, “But we are free. You understand what I mean. So I’m gonna take a pass on Abe — Honest Abe, as we call him.”

Trump, who repeatedly defended the Confederacy, says he's done more for black community than any president with possible exception of Abraham Lincoln but then adds of Lincoln: "He did good although it's always questionable, you know, in other words, the end result."

July 2020:  People didn’t know Lincoln was a Republican ‘until I came along.’ A few months into his presidency, Trump said of Lincoln, “Most people don’t even know he was a Republican.”

Three years later, Trump gave himself credit for preserving this arcane bit of Lincoln lore.

“People don’t remember, nobody ever heard of it until I came along, nobody remembered it for a long time, or they didn’t use it, at least. 

I use it all the time: Abraham Lincoln was a Republican,” Trump said in July 2020. “You know, you say that and people say, ‘I didn’t know that,’ but he was Republican. So we’re doing a great job.”

October 2020:  I’ve ‘always competed against’ Lincoln.

During a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump dropped a greatest-hits album of his Lincoln commentary with a new bonus track.

“You know we’re the party of Abraham Lincoln, a lot of people don’t know that,” Trump said. “The great Abraham Lincoln, a man that I’ve always competed against. I said, ‘I can be more presidential than any president ever, except for the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln when he’s wearing the hat.’”

July 2021:  A Washington-Lincoln ticket would struggle to ‘beat me.’  Shortly after losing the 2020, election, Trump talked to Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker for their book I Alone Can Fix It. 

During the interview, he bragged that if it weren’t for the pandemic, even two of our greatest presidents couldn’t have defeated him.

“I think it would be hard if George Washington came back from the dead and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice-president, I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me,” Trump said.

December 2022:  ‘This is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time, better than Lincoln, better than Washington.’

This is how Trump kicked off a video announcing he was dropping a collection of NFT trading cards.

January 2024:  Lincoln ‘could have negotiated’ to prevent the Civil War.  In his most pointed Lincoln criticism to date, Trump suggested at an Iowa rally that if Abe were truly a great president, there wouldn’t have been a Civil War.

“So many mistakes were made” ahead of the war, Trump said. “See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you. I think you could have negotiated that. All the people died. So many people died.”

Did Lincoln willfully ignore the lessons of The Art of the Deal because he wanted to secure his legacy❓ Well, Trump insinuates, you decide❗

“Abraham Lincoln, of course, if he negotiated it, you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was,” Trump said. “He would’ve been president, but he would’ve been president, and he would have been — he wouldn’t have been the Abraham Lincoln.”

April 2024:  ‘Never fight uphill, me boys.’

During a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, “vicious and horrible” yet “beautiful in so many ways.” 🙄


Then he lamented that Confederate General Robert E. Lee is “no longer in favor” and recalled his famous directive “Never fight uphill, me boys” — which Lee never said.

This wasn’t directly about Lincoln, but it does feel like Trump was trying to one-up the former president by including a (IMO, cheap) pirate impression in his Gettysburg Address.

October 2024:  I’m ‘tougher on the border’ than Lincoln.

While bragging about receiving the endorsement of a Border Patrol union at a North Carolina rally, Trump claimed a group official told him he’s the “greatest president there’s ever been,” even better than Washington or Lincoln.

“He said I’m tougher on the border than Abraham Lincoln, right, than Honest Abe,” Trump added.

October 2025:  A gaudy marble bathroom is ‘appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln.’

Trump gutted the White House’s Lincoln Bathroom, then claimed the floor-to-ceiling marble was accurate to the 1860s. But the real Lincoln used an outhouse before he came to Washington. And he was furious when his wife overspent on White House renovations, saying she’d wasted money on “flub dubs for this damned old house.”

Trump’s AI seance with Abe:  Trump posts a lot of weird AI-generated art on Truth Social (the image of him escorting a swole, handcuffed alien around a military base comes to mind). 

During the summer, he repeatedly shared this shot of himself hanging with (imaginary) rivals Washington and Lincoln with no commentary.

September 2026:  ‘Donald J. Trump is six times more popular than Abraham Lincoln.’  In more highly dubious polling news, Trump claimed he is now more popular than “any other President”. But, it turns out Trump misunderstood a report from CNN’s Harry Enten that said when Republicans were asked which president they most admire, 53 percent answered Trump, 18 percent said Ronald Reagan, and 8 percent said Lincoln. Trump did, actually, come out ahead of Honest Abe, but that does not mean he’s “six times more popular” than “any other president.”

In the media’s defense, Trump has given us some reason to think his perspective on Honest Abe is a tad odd.

Measles diagnosed in Pennsylvania has reached 1000 confirmed infections all preventable with vaccine

Echo Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial

The fear and hope of Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak | Editorial
Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put countless Americans in unnecessary danger. 

Vaccines still hold remarkable power to protect us.

Pennsylvania reached a total of more than 1,000 confirmed measles cases this week, the largest U.S. outbreak in the generation since the disease was all but eliminated from this country. Based on the illness’ fatality rate and the five measles-related deaths recorded in the state as of last week, up to five times as many Pennsylvanians may have been infected.

Sadly, this is likely a mere harbinger of what America faces in an era of unprecedented misinformation and political recklessness.

Measles is both highly preventable by vaccination and highly contagious among the unvaccinated: 99.6% of Pennsylvania’s confirmed infections have been of people who were not vaccinated.

With two of America’s super-spreaders of anti-vaccine disinformation, Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running the federal government and its health agencies, vaccination rates for measles and other diseases have continued to decline. The worst consequences will disproportionately befall vulnerable communities, such as the state’s highly unvaccinated Amish enclaves, and vulnerable people within them, such as the very young and immunocompromised people the disease has killed.

Kennedy is doing for America what he did for Samoa, the Pacific island nation where he infamously fueled anti-vaccination sentiment during a visit in 2019, shortly before a measles contagion there killed 83 people. Two years later, he appeared in Lancaster County, the epicenter of the current outbreak, to also stoke unfounded suspicion of vaccines.

As health secretary, Kennedy has hardly failed to add some qualification or confusion to his every mention of the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella, which is widely administered, safe, and effective. A recent poll by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center found that fewer than one in three Americans believe he supports the MMR shot. Further undermining confidence in the vaccine, Trump issued an executive order in August calling for it to be split into three shots that aren’t available in the United States while making false claims about the safety of the combined dose. The order also endorsed Kennedy’s attempt to reduce the number of school vaccinations recommended by the government, which was blocked by a federal judge.

Even without legal force, the administration’s anti-vaccination message is unmistakable and corrosive. With 95% vaccine coverage thought necessary to confer population-level protection, known as herd immunity, every additional doubt is dangerous.

Measles outbreaks in Pennsylvania, Texas, South Carolina, Utah, and, most recently, New York — which led Governor Kathy Hochul to declare a state of emergency this week — are the predictable result of the Trump administration’s campaign to discredit the vaccine. Tellingly, Kennedy has responded to Pennsylvania’s plight with even more of the misinformation that caused it, denying the role of the disease in the deaths. 🤥🤥🤥😡

Fortunately, even without the assistance of a responsible federal government, states such as Texas and South Carolina have contained their outbreaks, partly by taking advantage of the accompanying interest in vaccination to boost collective immunity. 

Although the spread of measles to 39 Pennsylvania counties is alarming, Pennsylvania health officials say 53,000 doses of the MMR vaccine were administered to residents last month, roughly double the average, with state pop-up clinics and other facilities boosting the numbers.

The recommended two doses of the vaccine confer a lifetime of prevention for 97% of those who get them. Given the state of our federal health infrastructure, that is a considerable comfort.

Republicans have a moral and legal responsibility to impeach Donald Trump

 The Case for Impeachment: Trump’s contempt for the rule of law subverts democracy.

Echo opinion published in The Philadelphia Inquirer

A politicized Department of Justice erodes the rule of law when a president uses it as a tool to favor some Americans and a cudgel to punish others.

We the people and the rule of law

A breathtaking disregard for the principles and institutions that have underpinned the foundations of our free society for 250 years.

This essay is part of a series called “The Case for Impeachment,” to illuminate how Donald Trump has trampled the rule of law and is a clear and present danger to the republic.

As we celebrate 250 years of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, one bedrock principle of the founding era is now on shaky ground — the rule of law.

John Adams famously wrote that we are “a government of laws, and not of men.” The rule of law means that we, the people, through our elected representatives, enact laws, and that all of us are equally obligated to follow them.

When I served as a U.S. attorney, independence meant not just liberty from the rule of a monarch, but freedom from partisan politics. Now, during our Semiquincentennial, Donald Trump seems to think otherwise.

His scowling face appears on a banner on the building that houses the U.S. Department of Justice. In that same building, Trump declared himself America’s chief law enforcement officer, a shocking departure from chief executives in the post-Watergate era.

Ignoring norms and policies, Trump and his appointees at the Justice Department have injected strongman tactics into the administration of the law. Attorney General Todd Blanche has pointed to language in the Constitution that vests the executive power in a president of the United States to argue that Trump has the authority to direct all executive branch agencies, including the Department of Justice. But Blanche overlooks another provision of Article II, which requires the president to “take care” that the laws be executed “faithfully.”

Instead, we see Trump and his cronies use the DOJ to reward his allies and punish his enemies. In Trump’s first month back in office, he granted pardons to more than 1,500 defendants who were convicted of crimes relating to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

That was followed by the dismissal of bribery charges against then-New York Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for an agreement to support Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. 

Calling the deal a “quid pro quo,” Danielle Sassoon, Trump’s own appointee as interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, resigned, as did eight other Justice Department lawyers.

The department’s Antitrust Division recently approved Paramount’s 💲111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros., but only after the parent company of CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and gutted 60 Minutes after both were critical of Trump.

Baseless charges:  For those who have crossed Trump, the powers of the Justice Department have been used to attack. Baseless charges in the Eastern District of Virginia against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who secured a judgment against Trump’s company in a civil fraud case, and former FBI Director James Comey, who led the agency during its investigation into connections between Trump’s 2016, campaign and Russia, fizzled as courts found that the interim U.S. attorney who brought them was appointed illegally.

Undeterred, prosecutors later indicted Comey again for threatening to kill the president by posting online a photo of seashells spelling out the numbers “8647.” That case remains pending.

Other targets of prosecutors included Jerome Powell when the former chair of the Federal Reserve refused Trump’s demands to lower interest rates, members of Congress who participated in a video accurately stating that illegal military orders may be disobeyed, and members of the intelligence community who investigated Russian election interference in 2016.

A politicized Department of Justice erodes the rule of law when a president uses it as a tool to favor some Americans and a cudgel to punish others. Over time, people tend to grow cynical about the law and lose trust in its stewards, making it more difficult to obtain compliance and hold offenders accountable. Our society becomes less safe and less just, allowing the powerful to prey upon the vulnerable.

As a society, administering the law evenhandedly is essential to the legitimacy of our experiment in democracy. 

We the people must demand a president who pledges to abide by important restraints that have guided prosecutors for the past five decades, and even to codify them into the Code of Federal Regulations to make them more difficult to brush off.

These regulations should make it clear that a president may communicate with the Justice Department about subject matter priorities, but not cases; that prosecutors must refrain from considering partisan politics in charging decisions; and that prosecutors may seek an indictment only if they believe the evidence is sufficient to obtain and sustain an indictment, and not just to “name and shame” a president’s rivals, as Ed Martin said when he was appointed to lead the department’s “Weaponization Working Group.”

Criminal prosecution is intended to protect the public and deter criminal conduct, not to exact revenge for a president who sits above the law.

Our Declaration of Independence was a renunciation of a king. As Thomas Paine wrote at the time of the founding, “In America, the law is king.”

Barbara McQuade, a professor of practice at the University of Michigan Law School, served as U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010, to 2017, and is the author of “The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government.”

Donald Trump puts American strategic oil reserves at risk of depletion just to support his illegal Iran war policy that drove up energy costs

Echo opinion letter published in The Mercury News, a California newspaper.

Consequences will outlast Trump’s illegal Iran war
Re: “How the war in Iran is complicating Trump’s agenda at home” (Aug. 8).

America is burning through its oil insurance policy. 

For the first time since 1983, America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve have fallen below 300 million barrels. 

That should be a flashing warning⚠ light, not another statistic to shrug off. In fact, the corrupt Trump administration repeatedly tapped the reserve to soften the consequences of an energy crisis intensified by its own policies and confrontation with Iran. That may provide temporary relief, but it exposes a troubling inability to understand second-order effects: actions abroad disrupt supply, disrupted supply raises prices and Washington responds by draining the emergency stockpile meant to protect us from the next crisis.

The SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) is national insurance, not an endless political pressure valve. With oil above 💲80 and gasoline above 💲4 a gallon (💲6 in California), America now has less strategic cushion precisely when geopolitical risk is elevated.

Trump's failed policies have consequences. Eventually, the reserve runs out before the consequences do.

From Akeem Mostamandy in San Jose, California

Excellent opinion for the overriding reason to defeat Senator Susan Collins

Maine Writer:  Of course Donald Trump is on the ballot❗

The reason Maine must retire Susan Collins from the U.S. Senate | Opinion published in the Portland Press Herald:

The vote comes down to President Trump by Peter L. Murray, a Maine attorney and a member of Maine Lawyers for the Rule of Law. He lives in Portland, Maine.

As the fall campaigns continue to heat up, the former State Senator Troy Jackson-Susan Collins contest has rightfully commanded the most attention of Maine voters.

Susan Collins has represented our state in the Senate for nearly 30 years. She is a veteran among her colleagues and chairs the Appropriations Committee, an important committee for her constituents back home.

Collins has claimed, with some justification, to be a voice for moderation among the baying of her MAGA cult fellow senators. 

In her campaign, she stresses her experience, her political savvy and what she has done for the state of Maine in terms of business for the Bath Iron Works, other federal projects and earmarks.

Her opponent, Troy Jackson, has no such federal track record. His experience so far has been entirely within the state of Maine, where he has worked for conventional Democratic priorities and on improving the lot of working people. He is earnest, dedicated and politically straightforward.

All this having been said, there is one overarching and compelling reason why we Mainers must retire Susan Collins and elect Troy Jackson to the U. S. Senate. Our country is under the domination of a dangerous chief executive. 

So far, the Republican majorities in Congress have failed to restrain any of his erratic and destructive excesses, both in foreign policy and domestic administration.

Donald Trump has felt free to levy war, impose irrational tariffs, antagonize our international allies, oppress and terrify immigrants on American soil, kill civilians abroad without trial and even undertake bizarre construction projects in Washington, all in violation of the law and the Constitution, with a supine and quiescent Congress totally failing to raise effective objection or control. Unless countered and restrained, he will continue this kind of behavior for another two years with who-knows-what consequences.

Only by electing Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate is there any hope of activating our constitutional checks and balances to prevent our country from going further off the rails at the hands of of this modern Caligula.

In the Senate, it is very close. The change of a single Senate seat can spell the difference between a Senate that will bow to the will of Donald Trump and one that will stand up against his worst impulses. Even if Susan Collins imagines that she would not follow the president’s line on every vote, she would be counted as a Republican in determining the leadership of the Senate and in generating its majorities on most legislation.

It has been repeatedly pointed out that regardless of her protestations of independence, she has voted with the president so far over 90% of the time. Those who argue that Susan Collins’ seniority will enable her to do more for the state of Maine need to keep in mind that her seniority will only count if the Republicans maintain control of the Senate, which will mean further chaos and destruction at the hand of an errant president.

We must vote for Jackson, because a vote for Collins is a vote for Trump. We cannot afford to weigh the relative expertise and experience of the two candidates. For this one time, we have to vote based solely on party affiliation.

Persons who wish the status quo to continue, and perhaps worsen, as the president becomes ever more erratic and irrational, can vote for Susan Collins. The rest of us, Democrats, independents and, yes, Republicans who are concerned and horrified by the current presidency, must support her Senate challenger and make sure that he takes her place.

Our experience with or under our current chief executive shows us the urgent need for reform of our constitutional structure to prevent such a political leader from asserting and misusing such power ever again. But in the meantime, in the current crisis, we here in Maine owe it to our country to do everything we can to help restore the effectiveness of our existing checks and balances by retiring Susan Collins and electing Troy Jackson to the United States Senate.