Support Our Journalism

Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Politics National News World Economy Lifestyle Store

Adam Lynch

Ed Martin, Weaponized Prosecutor For Trump Justice, May Soon Face Disbarment

Ed Martin, former interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, had to look hard, but somehow managed to find the “dumbest possible rake” to step on, as Mark Joseph Stern tells Slate. Now the former Trump appointee is in even more trouble than he was.

“On Tuesday, the disciplinary counsel for the D.C. bar announced a formal complaint against Martin for professional misconduct,” said Stern. “The charges accuse him of violating his oath to the Constitution, then interfering with the investigation into his alleged malfeasance. If found culpable, he could be suspended from the practice of law or disbarred in D.C.”

Martin’s alleged unconstitutional behavior is already a matter of public record, said Stern. But it’s what he did after receiving notice of the complaint that sets Martin’s arrogance apart from all others. Upon receiving the initial complaint, Stern said Martin “launched a pressure campaign against the D.C. Court of Appeals … to suspend the lead investigator on his case.”

This, it turns out, was a much more egregious violation of court process than what the D.C. bar was initially investigating him for. The initial complaint was all about Martin’s harassment of Georgetown University Law Center, when he sent a letter to then-Dean William Treanor warning the school to remove all traces of DEI or the Trump administration would not hire Georgetown Law grads. He even threatened that the school might lose federal funding.

But while Martin’s letter was “absurd and malicious,” Stern said it might not constitute a violation of his oath. There was even a chance that the Board on Professional Responsibility or the D.C. Court of Appeals would agree.

But instead of contesting the claim against him through the proper legal channels, Martin allegedly tried to quash the complaint by committing “a far more clear-cut ethical breach,” said Stern. “According to the charges, Martin refused to respond to the complaint, and instead wrote directly to the chief judge and senior judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals. In his letter, he requested a “face-to-face meeting with all of you to discuss this matter and find a way forward.”

The chief judge, Anna Blackburne-Rigsby, told Martin to go pound sand and follow standard procedure. But rather than take her advice, Martin reportedly told the disciplinary counsel that he was essentially “calling their manager” — and he copied Blackburne-Rigsby on the email.

Furious, the disciplinary counsel demanded Martin turn over his letter to the judges. But rather than comply, he wrote to the chief judge again, insisting “that you not only suspend Mr. Fox immediately to investigate his conduct, but also to dismiss the case against me because of his prejudicial conduct.”

“Unfortunately for Martin, the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct expressly forbid lawyers from communicating with a judge ‘unless authorized to do so by law or court order,’ which he was not,” said Stern. “There appears to be no serious dispute that Martin communicated with Blackburne-Rigsby ex parte not once, not twice, but three separate times, all in an effort to evade discipline against him.”

If proven, Stern said this behavior “is a textbook example of misconduct sanctionable by the bar. So, of course the D.C. bar’s disciplinary counsel charged Martin with violating that rule, as well as another prohibiting conduct that ‘seriously interferes with the administration of justice.’”

“The erstwhile interim U.S. attorney, then, is in a pickle of his own making,” said Stern. “Had he simply fought Fox’s complaint the right way, he may well have defeated the charges in short order. But because he allegedly tried to obstruct the investigation, he faces a separate set of charges on much firmer legal ground.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Trump Demands Passage Of Partisan Election Bill To 'Guarantee The Midterms'

Politico reports President Donald Trump ordered House Republicans Monday to pass his huge partisan elections bill a third time with even more provisions, targeting mail-in voters and vulnerable minorities.

“It will guarantee the midterms,” Trump told lawmakers, according to Politico. “If you don’t get it, big trouble, my opinion.”

Provisions that Trump wants added include targeting transgender rights in addition to curbing mail voting, even though Trump himself has voted by mail. And Trump warned the GOP to pursue passage of the law even it means abandoning the rest of their legislative agenda before the November elections.

“It’s actually a matter in a serious way of national survival. We can’t have these elections going on like this anymore,” Trump said.

Trump also endorsed a push by House Republican hard-liners to attach a must-pass spy powers extension to the SAVE America legislation in a bid to pass both together. But there is a reason Trump is asking the House to pass the bill a third time: Politico reports this would create “a nightmare for House GOP leaders who already face obstacles passing either bill.

The House has already two passed versions of what is now called the “SAVE America Act,” which would create onerous new citizenship and photo ID requirements for voting. Still, Politico reports Trump is framing the voting and transgender provisions as “proven political winners” that Democrats will not easily be able to oppose.

“That should be the easiest thing to get passed that you’ve ever had,” Trump told the Republicans. “Those are best of Trump. This is the No. 1 priority, it should be, for the House.”

But Democrats have opposed the bill in unison every time Republicans tried to get it to the president’s desk, and even Republican leaders have been loath to change Senate rules to make the bill easier to pass.

Reprinted with permisson from Alternet

Florida Republicans Vow To Oust Student Leader Over 'Nazi Heaven' Group Chat

The Miami New Times reports that a local affiliate of the Florida Republican Party is begging the state party for permission to eject a secretary who created a racist group chat named “Nazi Heaven.”

Participants included some of the campus’ top conservative leaders: the county GOP secretary, Florida International University’s Turning Point USA chapter President Ian Valdes, and the former College Republicans recruitment chair. The school later told the Herald that the chat logs are now part of a criminal investigation.

“’Total N---- Death!’ wrote Dariel Gonzalez, a former board member of FIU’s College Republicans,” according to Miami New Times.

“In a different text, while discussing a Black student who reportedly left FIU’s College Republicans after being subjected to racial slurs, Gonzalez wrote that another member of the group ‘called her a n—— so she left,’” the Miami New Times reported.

The Miami Herald reported that “Miami-Dade County GOP secretary Abel Alexander Carvajal started the group chat primarily for conservative students last fall — and within three weeks it was filled with racist slurs. … In WhatsApp conversations leaked to the Miami Herald, participants used variations of the n-word more than 400 times, regularly described women as ‘whores,’ used slurs to talk about Jewish and gay people and mused about Hitler’s politics.”

The Floridian reported on Wednesday that the chat also included a message in which a participant allegedly enumerated “dozens of violent methods of killing Black people — including crucifixion, dissection, and beheading.

But now, following outcry, the Republican Party of Miami-Dade County has voted to request the 23-year-old’s resignation and remove him from his role.

In a statement posted to X on Thursday, Kevin J. Cooper, chairman of the Miami-Dade Republican Party, wrote: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms Abel Alexander Carvajal’s racist group chat. His words and actions are reprehensible and are completely inconsistent with the values of the Republican Party of Miami-Dade County. The words and actions of this individual does not speak for our Party.”

"The majority of our Party’s Board voted to request Carvajal’s resignation,” the post added. “We have commenced removal proceedings and look forward to resolution from the Republican Party of Florida.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Is Trump 'Bringing Back Religion Strongly' As He Promised Last Year? No

Religion News Service writer Yonat Shimron recalls President Donald Trump actively courting Christian evangelicals during his 2024 campaign and as president in 2025.

“We’re bringing back religion in our country, and we’re bringing it back quickly and strongly,” Shimron cites Trump saying at a National Day of Prayer event last year.

Since then, “many federal departments have held prayer services or Bible studies. Trump created a task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias, and his Supreme Court appointees continue to deliver for Christian conservatives and their allies,” said Shimron.

Despite all this, a new Gallup Poll, reveals no significant change in the importance of religion to Americans. Plus, church attendance continues to plummet. The percentage of Americans who classify religion as “very important” in their lives is still flat since its 2021 report, at 47 percent.

Religious service attendance, however, reveals churches are still very much in trouble, with 57 percent of U.S. residents saying they rarely or never attend religious services. Shiron said that number was only 42 percent in 1992.

“There’s nothing here that would represent any sort of major reversal or significant change in the trajectory of religion in America,” said Ryan Burge, a political scientist who is professor of the practice at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis.

Most polled groups continue to experience declines in the percentage who considers religion “very important” in their lives. Among the biggest declines, according to surveys, was the percentage of Black Americans who fell from 85 percent to 63 percent since 2005. Democrats fell from 60 percent to 37 percent over the past two decades.

“Republicans experienced virtually no decline with 66 percent claiming religion was still very important to them — but Burge reported an important caveat to that info: Republicans’ self-reported church attendance dropped.

“They like the idea of religion — that hasn’t changed — but they don’t actually go as much. So it’s sort of like a symbolic religion,” Burge told Religion News Service.

Women’s growing indifference appears to be matching that of men. And with American youth rejecting religious service by 61 percent, Gallup predicted generational replacement leading to a “long-term trajectory of decline.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Candace Owens' Conspiracy Claims About Erika Kirk Are Tearing MAGA Apart

Bulwark editor and MAGA-world monitor Will Sommer says the slightly less crazy wing of far-right influencers are losing their fight against the craziest one of all.

“It’s clear that Ben Shapiro and his ilk have lost … control of the MAGA audience,” said Sommer. “They are powerless to stop [MAGA influencer Candace] Owens from terrorizing their friend’s widow, from pushing antisemitism, and generally from acting as a thorn in the movement ahead of the midterms. After more than a decade of conspiracy theories, and voting for the country’s arch conspiracy-theorist to be president, the audience will really believe in anything.”

For weeks, Ownens — who is famous (and sued) for spreading some of the most raucous conspiracy theories peppering the MAGA community — has been claiming that Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, had something to do with her husband’s assassination last year. Owens has been promising a new series tackling Erika Kirk’s alleged connection. And her audience, said Sommer, has been eating it up, despite Owens’ conspiracy-slinging influencer rivals warning viewers away from her.

Most recently, Sommer says Owens laid out an underwhelming array of “her most damning evidence,” which includes one of Erika Kirk’s relatives being arrested for working in an illegal numbers racket nearly 100 years ago, and Kirk being born in a civilian hospital that was originally a military hospital during the Civil War.

Additionally, Erika Kirk once dressed as a “bee” in a photo taken of her back when she worked in daycare.

“It was nonsense,” said Sommer, but the conspiracy-loving MAGA audience adores it all, no matter how hard the rest of MAGA frenzies.

“I think it’s safe to say [Charlie] would rather take a dozen bullets to the neck than watch his wife go through this, face a living assassination,” podcaster Liz Wheeler said Wednesday, reports Sommer.

“F—— you, motherf—— !” said former FBI director Dan Bongino to Owens and her followers Tuesday. “You deserve to feel the little licks and the flames of hell on every inch of your body. F—— you!”

But the MAGA universe, which is famous for fearlessly saying anything without evidence, appears to be powerless against a MAGA queen who is willing to invite a million-dollar lawsuit from an international leader.

In fact, Owens' MAGA competition has “already started to waffle,” according to Sommer. Owens critic Ian Miles Cheong has already admitted that his rival has won the audience.

“That could be because any attempts to attack Owens only makes her stronger,” Sommer said. “Fellow Daily Wire host Michael Knowles made that very point this week when he complained that the real problem is conservative hosts bringing more attention to Owens in their attempts to defend Erika Kirk.”

And Sommer said Owens’s supporters are just as nutty and retaliatory as Owens, having “seized on an apparently fraudulent memo that purported to show figures like Laura Loomer and Bongino coordinating on a message that Owens was ‘Satanic’ and ‘evil.’”

“Loomer, for one, has threatened to sue another X user for promoting the bogus document,” said Sommer.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Karl Rove's Warning: Trump Has Set Up Republicans For 'A Shellacking'

Veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove knows how to win elections. He says he also knows what losing them looks like, and he says Trump is on his way to losing big.

Strangely, the Republican Party’s master of partisan politics claims Trump is being too partisan, as indicated by the direction he took at his State of The Union speech.

“Almost everything the president said energized his MAGA hard core. But they aren’t enough to stave off a shellacking this fall,” Rove told the Wall Street Journal.

“Mr. Trump should have fixated more on those of his 2024 voters who have since become disenchanted: Those represented by his approval rating’s almost 8-point slide in the RealClearPolitics average since re-entering office,” said Rove. “That isn’t a large slice of the electorate, but those swing voters will decide which party controls Congress for Mr. Trump’s final two years in the White House.”

Trump’s speech, like Trump himself, was “angry, pugnacious, and hence less effective,” said Rove. And the information he delivered — and has been delivering for months — is simply not making a convincing case to the centrist voters Trump and his Republican Party need to nab a November victory.

“For them, the president’s speech almost certainly didn’t sound based in reality,” said Rove. “Many Americans, especially swing voters, are pessimistic about the economy. At the end of 2025, 12-month inflation was at 2.7 percent, near its 2.9 percent level the December before Mr. Trump took office.”

Comparatively, the economy that former president Joe Biden handed Trump “started off gangbusters in 2025” with 3.8 percent growth in the second quarter and 4.4 percent in the third.

“But [it] slowed to a crawl with 1.4 percent in the fourth,” Rove said. “The congressional Joint Economic Committee says the U.S. lost 108,000 manufacturing jobs last year. And all this took place amid growing public concern over the effect of artificial intelligence on jobs, utility bills, kids and the future.

“Yet the president claimed ‘prices are plummeting downwards,’ They generally aren’t,” assured Rove. “His tariffs, he opined, will ‘substantially replace the . . . income tax,’ and ending fraud in federal spending will produce ‘a balanced budget overnight.’ They won’t. Here, Mr. Trump sounded as out of touch as Joe Biden did when he kept proclaiming ‘Bidenomics is working.’”

Rove said Republicans must instead offer “more substance” and “display more empathy,” as well as properly focus on the economy” if they hope to pull through in November.

“They better get cracking,” warned Rove. “Time’s a-wasting.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

'National Review' Demands That Trump Explain Why He Protects Epstein Cronies

National Review writer Noah Rothman admits Democrats are tearing President Donald Trump to shreds for clinging to friends and confidants of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Rothman pointed to a recent X post by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) — which accused Trump of protecting child abusers and claiming that in her home country of Somalia, child predators are executed — to argue that Trump is carrying the kind of baggage that could bring down an entire administration.

“The president and his allies have not been able to leverage reckless remarks like these, render them liabilities and impose a political price on their expostulators,” Rothman wrote. “They don’t even seem to be trying. It’s not at all clear why.”

Trump’s “onetime aide and federal convict, Steve Bannon,” was “chummy with Epstein long after the child abuser was convicted of his crimes,” reports Rothman. “Indeed, even on the eve of Epstein’s final arrest, Bannon was committed to making a documentary about the former financier explicitly designed to rehabilitate his image.”

So why on earth, demands Rothman, would Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer be lobbying an appeals court to drop charges against Bannon to erase his conviction for obstructing the House's January 6 investigation?

“Behavior like this is the augur in which conspiracy theories bloom,” warned Rothman.

Similarly, Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick “maintained surreptitious relations with Epstein long after he repeatedly claimed (once, under oath) that he cut the pervert off, (after 2005),” according to what Rothman told CNBC.

But the so-called ‘Epstein Files’ made Lutnick out to be a liar by revealing that in December 2012, Epstein invited Lutnick to lunch on his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The two also had business dealings as recently as 2014, according to CBS News.

Any retaliation the Trump administration makes against Democrats’ Epstein accusations, said Rothman, “will be limited by the administration’s efforts to shield those in Trump’s orbit with deeper ties to Epstein from accountability.”

“Certainly, figures like Bannon and Lutnick, who are guilty not of mere association but of misleading law enforcement, lawmakers, or the public, complicate the White House’s efforts to indemnify the president,” said Rothman. “It’s not at all clear why these two replaceable components in the MAGA machine are worth the effort."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Grand Jury Squashes Trump-Ordered Indictment Of Democrats, Including Kelly

A Washington D.C. grand jury has again refused to acquiesce in President Donald Trump’s quest to prosecute his political foes, with the paper calling the rejection “a remarkable rebuke” from ordinary citizens, The New York Times reports

The Times reports: “Federal prosecutors in Washington sought and failed on Tuesday to secure an indictment against six Democratic lawmakers who posted a video last fall that enraged President Trump by reminding active-duty members of the military and intelligence community that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders, four people familiar with the matter said.”

The Times additionally reports it was already remarkable that the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington — led by Trump ally Jeanine Pirro — even authorized prosecutors to approach a grand jury with an indictment of the six members of Congress, all of whom had served in the military or the nation’s spy agencies.

It is rare for grand jurors to snub prosecutors’ indictment requests, considering prosecutors get to dominate the jury with one-sided arguments leading up to their decision. However, the Times reports it has happened with increased frequency with Trump’s Justice Department “as his appointees push ahead with questionable cases.”

It is doubly surprising considering the president of the United States accused Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and the other legislators of seditious conspiracy and said they could potentially be put to death. The U.S. Department of Defense later announced that it was launching an investigation into Kelly for participating in the video warning active-duty troops to not follow illegal orders from Trump and also threatened to court martial the NASA astronaut.

But the jury apparently disagreed on all counts and refused to indict any of the legislators incriminated by Trump.

Trump’s targets also Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and four colleagues in the House: Jason Crow (D-CO) Maggie Goodlander, (D-NH), Chrissy Houlahan (D-P) and Chris Deluzio (D-PA).

Kelly is already suing the Pentagon over its attempts to punish him.

'No Rizz': Young MAGA Voters Are Repelled By JD Vance As Trump Fades

Bulwark Publisher Sarah Longwell and the site's “False Flag” editor Will Sommer have been analyzing the critical youth MAGA vote that helped put President Donald Trump over the finish line a little more than a year ago, and they report their enthusiasm is waning for Trump’s preferred replacement.

Polls suggest Trump is deep in cold water and that his lame-duck chapter may already be underway, even before the 2026 mid-terms — primarily because of the expectation that his Republican Party will be trounced and his GOP Congressional majority evaporated.

Youth helped put Trump in the White House a second time, but Bulwark surveys of young voters who swung from Biden to Trump last time feel less enthusiasm for electable Republicans and more passion for unelectable boors and white nationalist firebrands — if, indeed, they feel anything at all.

“Like, he doesn't give you all the heebie-jeebies at all?” demanded one female respondent, speaking of Vice-President JD Vance, who has already announced his intent to run for president in Trump’s absence at the next national election.

“I shouldn't judge a book by its … cover or whatever. But I just kind of like — it’s one of those, like, feelings like — eeyuck — I don't know,” said another.

“They're just creeped out by Vance or find him boring, weird, and like no rizz, no rizz,” said Longwell.

No rizz is modern slang used to describe someone who lacks charisma, charm, or appeal — particularly in romantic or social contexts. The term suggests that a person is unable to attract others or lacks the magnetism needed to impress or seduce someone.

Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio got middling to slight enthusiasm from young Biden-to-Trump voters, which looks bad for Vance. However, young MAGA men appeared to be throwing their attention to even more controversial candidates like Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback, who coddles white nationalism and Holocaust denialism while demanding a “ho-tax” from Only Fans users.

“I don't know if you've heard of Fishback. He's trying to run for governor of Florida. I really like what he's doing. He's young. He's very articulate in terms of what he says. And he's focusing on the people of Florida in particular,” said one survey respondent, who had not been asked about Fishback in the survey.

Other respondents echoed his enthusiasm, to the surprise of survey organizers who had not had Fishback on their radar. This, said Longwell, is unfortunate for the Republican Party because critics consider Fishback the kiss of death for centrist-minded Independent voters.

“Fishback is sending a clear message to white nationalist groups: “I’m your guy,’” Political Research Associates senior research analyst Ben Lorber told the Miami Herald.

Longwell pointed out that Fishback is “polling in the low single digits — in actual Florida, like with actual Floridians — he is not doing that well, but he's clearly getting a lot of attention online.”

“This is a guy who, in terms of actual accomplishments in life, is just about at nothing,” said Sommer, who also described Fishback as “insanely racist”. “And he has this kind of insane, twisted backstory. He was at a hedge fund. He got fired from the hedge fund because he was focusing too much on his anti-woke high school debate startup. And basically, he engaged in all this subterfuge where he had people posing as reporters or angry investors at the hedge fund. And as a result, he's ended up with what I think is going to be ... $2 million plus debt to the hedge fund over legal fees.”

“He's getting his car seized by U.S. Marshals. He's spending on all these luxury goods and he bought a Cartier watch, wore it to a deposition and the hedge fund said, ‘well, wait a minute, you know, we got to seize that.’ So … this guy is at like the very low level of success in life. And I should say also, there are these allegations in court that he had a relationship with a 17-year-old at his high school debate star.”

“It’s definitely a bad sign for where the MAGA movement is headed,” concluded Sommer.

“Yeah, it's a really bad sign,” Longwell agreed.

Watch the Bulwark podcast at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

'It's A Tsunami!' CNN Analyst Says Democratic Lead Dooms GOP In Midterm

CNN data analyst Harry Enten reports Democrats are enjoying a rare double-digit lead ahead of the midterms that is all but guaranteeing them control of the House after November.

“Take a look at party identification — those who identify as Democrats or Republicans — and look at the margin that Democrats have now versus where it was a year ago,” said Enten, referring to young adults in the "Gen Z" cohort between the ages of 18 and 29. “It goes from plus six points in 2024 to plus 20 points [in 2025].”

Enten said this is the generation that’s becoming a bigger size of the electorate with each year, and they are moving not just away from the Republican party but specially away from President Donald Trump.

“This is not just about party identification,” said Enten. “I mean, look at the hard results on the ground. Look at Trump's net approval rating among Generation Z and compare it where we were at the beginning of 2025.”

In 2024, Trump had Generation Z’s approval by plus ten points, and had made gains among Generation Z going from 2020 to 2024.

“Now he is 32 points underwater,” said Enten. “That is a 42-point swing in less than a year. So, what we're seeing in party identification isn't just staying there. It's moving over and affecting how Generation Z feels about the president himself.”

“It's a stampede,” said CNN host Erin Burnett. “It's a tsunami!”

“It’s huge,” agreed Enten, “but I'll tell you something you don't know: Why is party ID so important? I mentioned that Democrats gained amongst them overall on party ID. If in fact their lead, which they currently have, holds until the midterm election — I went back and looked at every single midterm election since 1982, when Democrats hold the lead on party identification, they go on, in fact, to gain House seats.”

“They only need to gain a few house seats in order to gain control,” said Enten. “So, at this point, the Democrats lead on party identification bode very, very well for the midterm elections 100 percent of the time since 1982.”

With White House East Wing Ruined, Trump Now Plans To Wreck West Wing

Fresh off of demolishing the East Wing of the White House, President Donald Trump is now considering tampering with the West Wing and building a one-story addition, reports The Daily Beast,

“Despite previously declaring that the project would ‘not interfere’ with the existing White House building, the president’s lead architect revealed on Thursday that another level could soon be built above the West Wing Colonnade — the iconic columned walkway connecting the Oval Office to the Executive Residence at the White House,” the Beast reports.

Trump’s chief architect Shalom Baranes announced the plans while presenting updates to the National Capital Planning Commission on Thursday, arguing that adding another story to the West Wing would “reinstate the symmetry around the central pavilion of the White House,” and balance out new renovations to the now-destroyed East Wing.

Baranes added that Trump also plans to make his $400 million ballroom as tall as the White House’s main mansion itself, shattering long-standing tradition that additions not dwarf the main building serving as a seat of the executive branch.

The Daily Beast reports the White House is making its case to the planning body reviewing the proposed ballroom, which Trump has “stacked with the president’s aides and allies.”The National Trust Preservation Committee, meanwhile, is seeking to halt further construction until a “legally mandated review process” could take place, while the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization has filed a lawsuit, accusing the administration of refusing to release information on whether it removed or released asbestos when it demolished the East Wing.

Despite public outcry, the Trump insists he has the authority to duck decades of procedure and carry out his destruction and renovations, which he claims will be funded by U.S. billionaires, many of them seeking presidential favors.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

'Earthquake!' 2025 Democratic Sweep Elects Miami's First Woman Mayor

Democrats notched two major special election wins on Tuesday night, and observers on both sides of the aisle are suggesting the races could be a bellwether for what the GOP can expect in the 2026 midterms.

In Miami, Florida, Democrat Eileen Higgins won the city's mayoral race, marking the first time in nearly 30 years a Democrat has held the position. Republican businessman Emilio González, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, lost the race by nearly 20 points.

MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, who has been described as Trump's unofficial "loyalty enforcer," wrote on her official X account that Higgins' victory meant that "a bright red city in a bright red state just went blue."

"President Trump’s Presidential library will now be constructed under the control of a rabidly anti-Trump Democrat who supports soft on crime policies," Loomer wrote. "Midterms will be a bloodbath."

"If a Republican had been elected Mayor of NYC under a Biden administration it would have been (rightly) viewed as an earthquake," TV producer Tom Brennan wrote. "Things are VERY bad for the Republicans under Trump."

"Dear Republicans. Stop fighting each other and realize the commies are rapidly gaining ground," tweeted Blake McClellan, who is the chairman of the Forsyth County, Georgia Republican Party.

Georgia also saw a Democratic victory in a red state House of Representatives district. CNN reported that Democrat Eric Gisler flipped Georgia's 121st House District from red to blue, despite Trump winning the district last year by double digits. Vote Hub analyst Zachary Donnini wrote on X that Gisler's victory came about despite Republicans carving up the state's legislative districts to give the GOP an advantage.

“A Republican gerrymander just backfired in Georgia,” Donnini wrote. “Despite splitting Athens into three conservative-leaning districts, Democrats flipped Trump+12 GA HD-121 — turning one of those engineered red seats blue tonight.”

Columnists were already sounding alarms on GOP hyper-aggressive gerrymandering that split what they through were dedicated Republican voters into blue districts to dilute Democratic votes. The wake-up call first sounded off following nationwide victories by Democrats in November.

“After widespread defeats in last week's off-year elections, Republicans should realize they made a bad bet by following President Donald Trump's lead on mid-decade redistricting,” said Bloomberg columnist Mary Ellen Klas. “Desperate not to lose the House in the midterms, the president sought to rig the game. He pressured legislatures in red states to create new Republican-leaning districts, and lawmakers duly redrew their maps. That weakened some safe red seats, but the GOP assumed that it would hurt Democrats more. [The November] results demonstrate the folly of Trump's gamble.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Pam Bondi's Attack On Free Speech Sparks Bipartisan Fury

Critics are destroying U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi for demanding businesses fire or punish employees who exercise free speech — after years of defending businesses’ right to deny customers with whom they disagree.

While speaking to Fox News on Monday, Bondi demanded a print business allow a customer to print posters for slain MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk.

“If you want to go and print posters with Charlie's picture for a vigil, you have to let them do that. We can prosecute you for that. We have right now our civil rights unit looking at that,” Bondi told Fox.

But social media exploded at Bondi’s claim, with critics reminding Bondi that Republicans have championed businesses’ right to deny services to LGBTQ customers.

“Republicans fought hard for years for the right of businesses to refuse any job they want even if it was on the grounds of legally protected civil right status. They were also always lying. It was always a deliberate and knowing lie,” wrote Kyiv-based journalist Anthony Bartaway, on X.

“Masterpiece Cakeshop, there's a call on hold for you,” wrote First Amendment lawyer Adam Steinbaugh, referring to a Colorado cake shop that the Supreme Court declared had a right to deny service to a same-sex wedding.

“Declaring that a private business refusing to print a vigil poster for the President's friend is a civil rights violation is an interesting legal argument,” said news anchor Kyle Clark, also referring to Masterpiece Cake Shop, in Colorado.

Other free speech enthusiasts pounced on Bondi’s comment: “This is psychotic,” posted Reason magazine reporter Billy Binion on X. “The federal government cannot, in fact, prosecute you for refusing to print a message you disagree with — which was core to Republicans' ideology until all of 5 seconds ago. I am speechless.”

Binion later added that Bondi is “saying things on national television that someone would be able to debunk after taking intro to civics. It is not a good look for our country.”

“Fact check: they cannot, in fact, prosecute you for refusing to print Charlie Kirk's picture for a vigil,” posted First Amendment and defamation lawyer Ari Cohn, adding, “Pam Bondi's competence to practice law is very much in question.

Earlier, Bondi attempted to create a difference between “hate speech” and “free speech,” and warned that the federal government will “absolutely target” hate speech, to which commenter Robert Sterling responded “policing hate speech is not the government’s role.”

Free speech legal advocate organization TheFire.org also slapped Bondi’s comment, pointing out on X that “there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Justice Department Erases Damning Report On Far-Right Violence

404 Media reports the Department of Justice has taken down a study showing white supremacist and far-right violence outpaces “all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism” in the United States.

The DOJ website hosted the study, conducted by the National Institute of Justice, until September 12, 2025.

In its place is the message: “The Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs is currently reviewing its websites and materials in accordance with recent Executive Orders and related guidance. During this review, some pages and publications will be unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”

The report What NIJ Research Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism revealed that “Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.”

The document reports “far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists,” since 1990, “including 227 events that took more than 520 lives.”

In this same period, the report claimed, “far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.”

“We don’t know why the study about far-right extremist violence was removed recently,” writes 404 Media reporter Emanuel Maiberg, “but it comes immediately after the assassination of conservative personality Charlie Kirk, accusations from the administration that the left is responsible for most of the political violence in the country, and a renewed commitment from the administration to crack down on the ‘radical left.’”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Leavitt Delivers White House Platform To A Plagiarist And Fabricator

The New York Times reports Podcaster Benny Johnson has been a regular in the Oval Office since President Donald Trump and his aides invited right-wing entertainers into the press room. What’s less regular is his honesty.

The day after Trump announced the federal takeover of law enforcement in Washington, the White House invited Johnson to the press briefing, where he told Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and the rest of the press corps about recording murders on a camera outside his home, and that his “house was set ablaze in an arson” attack.

Claims by critics that Washington wasn’t dangerous, he said, were “lies.

But the Times reports police records showing no murders on Johnson’s block since at least 2017. And his home was not burned. It was a neighbor’s house that caught fire, according to the city’s fire department in 2021.

“Such details didn’t stop Ms. Leavitt from leapfrogging off his comments to promote the president’s federalization of Washington’s law enforcement,” writes Times reporter Ken Bensinger.

Johnson’s history does not suggest honesty, Bensinger adds. He got his start in media in 2011 at right-of-center website The Blaze before jumping to BuzzFeed News in 2012, where he was fired two years later, after editors discovered plagiarizing in 41 of his articles. Johnson apologized, but the Times reports three years later, his plagiarism continued at conservative news site the Independent Journal Review. He was suspended and then demoted after assigning an article that falsely implied that Obama had influenced a federal judge’s ruling that adversely affected Trump. Johnson also had to retract an article that falsely attributed information to Antifa.

And then, last fall, the Times reports, federal prosecutors revealed charges against two Kremlin operatives who had paid $10 million to a company called Tenet Media to produce video content as part of an influence operation. Johnson was one of the influencers contracted by Tenet to create that content.

He described himself as an unwitting victim of the Russian scheme.

More recently, the Times reports, Johnson gained nearly three million new subscribers to his YouTube channel from April to July of this year, while also showing a suspicious drop in total monthly views of his videos by more than 40 million — an overt suggestion of manipulation.

“Clearly we’re dealing with an administration that’s far more focused on narratives than truth, and this conduct is consistent with that,” Freedom of the Press Foundation Director Seth Stern told the Times. “It is awful that real journalists who attempt to report real news and feel constrained by the pursuit of truth and don’t make stuff up are no longer able to get the access they once had.”

Read the New York Times report at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Maryland Governor Mocks President 'Bone Spurs' In Social Slapdown

President Donald Trump spent early-morning hours scrolling the internet for ammunition to use against his latest political enemy, the Daily Beast reports

Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has been publicly ragging the president over his faulty recall of their interactions as part of his attack on Trump’s gerrymandering and threats to deploy National Guard tropps to blue states.

The Beast reports Trump responded over the weekend with a social media rant in which he threatened to pull federal funding from Baltimore. This prompted the governor to mock the president’s physical ability and lack of military service.

“President Bone Spurs will do anything to get out of walking — even if that means spouting off more lies about the progress we’re making on public safety in Maryland,” Moore posted on social media. “Hey Donald, we can get you a golf cart if that makes things easier. Just let my team know.”Moore is a combat veteran who served in the U.S. Army, while Trump received five military draft deferments and did not serve.

In response to the dig, Trump made an inexplicable claim earlier this week that Moore had called him the “greatest president of my lifetime” when they met in 2024. Moore quickly dispelled that claim. On Wednesday, he also slammed Trump’s “absolutely comical memory,” a label that Trump apparently took seriously enough to research a response on hours later. The Beast reports that just after 2 a.m. that night, Trump reposted a year-old article from The Hill about Moore apologizing for mistakenly claiming on a 2006 White House Fellowship application that he had received a Bronze Star.

“But is that the end of his political career. He was very disrespectful to the Office of the President!” Trump complained in a Truth Social post.

Moore was deployed to Afghanistan from August 2005 to March 2006, and had listed the Bronze Star on his application among his many other honors, despite never having received that particular award.

Moore called it an “honest mistake” on social media, saying: “My deputy brigade commander felt comfortable with instructing me to include the award on my application for the Fellowship because he received confirmation with the approval authority that the Bronze Star was signed and approved by his senior leadership. In the military, there is an understanding that if a senior officer tells you that an action is approved, you can trust that as a fact.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

        About The National Memo
    
The National Memo is a political newsletter and website that combines the spirit of investigative journalism with new technology and ideas. We cover campaigns, elections, the White House, Congress, and the world with a fresh outlook. Our own journalism — as well as our selections of the smartest stories available every day — reflects a clear and strong perspective, without the kind of propaganda, ultra-partisanship and overwrought ideology that burden so much of our political discourse.
TAGS

Created By

RebelMouse

About Masthead Terms of Service Privacy Statement Advertise Contact

Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Sign up for our Daily Newsletter and never miss a story.

Do you think Trump’s influence is weakening within the Republican Party?

'Losing it': Trump family member says Trump’s rooftop jaunt shows 'cognitive decline'

'Just a show': CNN takedown shows Trump claim about red states is 'not based on the data'

Trump just discovered a terrifying secret weapon

Trump officials are promising 'explosive secrets' — but it’s all an act: ex-DOJ prosecutor

'Most illegal': Judges 'absolutely flabbergasted' by Trump’s 'overreach'

Voters who fueled Trump in 2024 'will not be there in 2026': CNN senior analyst

'Tool of politics': DOJ alumni rip Trump appointee for violating department 'protocols'

'We didn’t hear it there': Fox News host tries and fails to prove Trump’s claim

'Spiraling': Ex-Trump staffers say newest Epstein comments make him look 'really guilty'

About The National Memo