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Hegseth Brags About Killing 'Woke' Women's Security Program Pushed By Ivanka

Hegseth Brags About Killing 'Woke' Women's Security Program Pushed By Ivanka

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Tuesday that he ended the Women, Peace and Security program within the Pentagon, disparaging the initiative that ensures women are part of peace-building efforts across the world as "woke."

"This morning, I proudly ENDED the “Women, Peace & Security” (WPS) program inside the @DeptofDefense," the embattled Hegseth wrote in a post on X. "WPS is yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops—distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING.”

Hegseth continued his hysterical criticism of the program.

“WPS is a UNITED NATIONS program pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. Politicians fawn over it; troops HATE it,” he seethed. “DoD will hereby executive [sic] the minimum of WPS required by statute, and fight to end the program for our next budget. GOOD RIDDANCE WPS!"

Of course, it was Donald Trump who in 2017 signed WPS into law. In 2019, the Trump administration touted the success of the program, which it said “aims to promote the meaningful inclusion of women in processes to prevent, mitigate, resolve, and recover from deadly conflict or disaster.”

A Women for Trump press release pointed to the passage of WPS as one of the reasons Trump was pro-woman (hah!).

What’s more, the law was written by Trump Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem when she served in the House, and was co-sponsored by Trump Secretary of State Marco Rubio when he served in the Senate.

The law was so uncontroversial that it passed by voice vote in both the House and Senate, without any lawmakers objecting to its passage.

Rubio even touted the program just a few days ago at the International Women of Courage event on April 1.

“President Trump also signed the Women, Peace and Security Act, a bill that I was very proud to have been a co-sponsor of when I was in the Senate, and it was the first comprehensive law passed in any country in the world— first law passed by any country anywhere in the world—focused on protecting women and promoting their participation in society,” Rubio said.

Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, was also very proud of WPS, celebrating its passage in 2017 and later its implementation.

"By recognizing the diverse roles women play across the spectrum of conflict — and by incorporating their perspectives throughout plans and operations — DOD is better equipped to promote our security, confront near-peer competitors, and defeat our adversaries," former Trump Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said in 2020 while touting the success of the WPS program.

But now Hegseth, an accused sexual abuser and misogynist who has attacked the inclusion of women in the military, said he's ending it.

Democrats slammed Hegseth for announcing he’s killing the program.

“Dear @PeteHegseth: Please stop spewing bullshit. The WPS program was authored by GOP Rep Noem during the first Trump Administration in 2017. It was bipartisan and signed into law by Trump. Oh, and how is your makeup today? Did you use your taxpayer-funded Pentagon makeup studio?” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) wrote in a post on X.

After it was pointed out that WPS is a Trump initiative and not a Biden one, Hegseth had to defend his decision to go after the program as part of his nonsensical war on “woke.”

“The woke & weak Biden Administration distorted & weaponized the straight-forward & security-focused WPS initiative launched in 2017. So—yes—we are ending the ‘woke divisive/social justice/Biden (WPS) initiative.’ Biden ruined EVERYTHING, including ‘Women, Peace & Security,’” Hegseth wrote.

Ultimately, this is yet another instance of the unqualified buffoon leading the Pentagon putting his foot in his mouth.

Hegseth came under fire in March when he removed web pages that celebrated diverse military veterans such as Major League Baseball legend Jackie Robinson, Civil Rights icon Medgar Evers, and even an image of the Enola Gay airplane that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan during World War II. The pages were removed because they contained references to words deemed inappropriate under the Trump administration’s effort to end diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives—the dreaded DEI bogeyman.

It certainly seems that Hegseth’s war on DEI is also why he moved to cancel WPS.

Had he done any research whatsoever on WPS to see that it was Trump who created the program, maybe he wouldn’t have yet another foot-in-mouth situation on his hands.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Mike Lawler

New York GOP Lawmaker Lustily Booed By Handpicked Town Hall Audience

In what is now a familiar scene, yet another GOP lawmaker got mercilessly booed and jeered by their own constituents at a town hall, facing a barrage of questions that all boiled down to one central theme: Why won’t Republicans stand up to President Donald Trump?

The latest victim of town-hall rage was Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, who held an event Sunday night in which he prescreened audience members to ensure they lived in his district, similar to what his Republican colleague Byron Donalds did in Florida last week.

Yet, despite Lawler’s efforts to keep out the supposed outside agitators whom Republicans have baselessly claimed are being paid by Democrats to incite scenes to embarrass GOP lawmakers, the prescreened attendees still took Lawler to task for not standing up to his party’s leader.

“What are you doing to stand in opposition to this administration, and what specifically are you doing that warrants the label ‘moderate’?” one constituent asked Lawler after laying out the ways Trump is hurting Americans, such as putting tariffs on all imports and deporting a two-year-old American citizen with cancer.

“My record speaks for itself,” Lawler replied, eliciting gasps and even laughter from the crowd. “I have been rated the fourth-most bipartisan for a reason, which is the very simple fact that, unlike many of my colleagues, I actually do work across the aisle.”

Lawler also got booed when he was defending Trump’s tariffs, with constituents chanting “blah, blah, blah” and drowning out his answer.

And in perhaps his most absurd answer, Lawler told voters not to believe that he’d vote to cut Medicaid, even though he voted earlier this month for the GOP budget blueprint that would require hundreds of billions in cuts to the lifesaving program that provides insurance to roughly 72 million Americans a year.

“When it comes to Medicaid, I have been very clear: I am not cutting benefits for any eligible recipient,” Lawler said, according to The New York Times, adding of the budget he voted for, “That is as good as the paper it’s written on.”

Lawler, for his part, is one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House.

He's one of just three House Republicans who represent districts that Democrat Kamala Harris won at the presidential level. Harris received 49.9 percent of the vote in Lawler’s district, while Trump got 49.3 percent, according to data compiled by The Downballot.

Lawler is also mulling a bid for governor of New York, which may be an even tougher climb in a blue state where Trump is deeply unpopular. According to Civiqs’ tracking poll, just 34 percent of voters in New York approve of the job Trump is doing as president, as opposed to 62 percent who disapprove.

Because of his district’s partisanship, it’s not surprising that Lawler would face blowback.

However, GOP lawmakers are being met with enraged voters even in districts and states Trump won by large margins.

It’s a warning sign for Republicans, who will be facing strong headwinds in the 2026 midterm elections if Trump’s approval rating remains as abysmal as it is now. Even more concerning for Republicans is that Trump’s approval is this low before the impact of his tariffs have really hit voters, with experts warning that empty shelves and skyrocketing prices are expected to hit in May and June.

Early polling shows Democrats with an advantage on the generic congressional ballot, which asks voters which party they'd like to see control Congress.

A Fox News poll released Friday found that Democrats hold a lead on the generic congressional ballot by seven percentage points—a large margin that suggests a sizable Democratic victory in the midterms. The poll found that 49 percent of registered voters said they'd vote for a Democrat for Congress, while 42 percent said they'd vote for a Republican.

To put that in perspective, in 2018, when Democrats won control of the House, the final generic-ballot average had Democrats up by 7.3 points, according to RealClearPolitics.

"If the House GOP is under any illusions that Donald Trump's fall in the polls won't bring them down as well—well, they are living on fantasy island,” CNN polling analyst Harry Enten said, adding in a post on X, “Polls look like April ‘05 & '17, prior to big Dem midterm gains.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Andy Ogles

Congressional Republicans Unite In Blustering Defense Of Hegseth

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is digging in after the latest bombshell report that he shared classified war plans in yet another Signal group chat—this time including his wife, brother, and personal attorney.

But instead of condemning Hegseth’s clear mishandling of sensitive military information, GOP lawmakers are circling the wagons, making the insane claim that Hegseth is being taken down by some sort of nefarious deep state within the Pentagon rather than his own bad decisions.

"The D.C. foreign policy establishment is getting desperate. They've tried to take out [Hegseth] twice. Everyone knows exactly what they're doing. It won't work. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I have full faith and confidence in his leadership," Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri wrote on X.

And Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee made a similarly absurd accusation.

“Deep State leakers inside the Pentagon are trying to sabotage [Hegseth]. They’re terrified of the bold, America-First reforms President Trump is delivering. The D.C. cartel is in full-blown panic mode. Their desperation says it all: we’re winning—and history will prove us right,” he wrote on X.

But those were far from the most ridiculous defenses of Hegseth.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, a noted douchebag who berated teenage Senate pages for taking photos in the Capitol rotunda, said that Hegseth was above reproach because he served in the military after 9/11—as if that absolves him of any wrongdoing.

"I don’t want to hear from any healthy American that was of fighting age on 9/11 who did not join the military and deploy to combat talking shit about [Hegseth]. You had your chance to serve our Nation when She needed you and you did not. Stand down, the Warriors will take,” he wrote on X.

And Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a Republican who helped push to get Hegseth confirmed despite his numerous scandals, also said that he’s sticking by the former Fox News host.

“I will lead the breach. I will lay down cover fire. I will take the high ground. I’ll expose myself to enemy fire to communicate. We must bring back integrity, focus, and put the Warfighter first inside DOD. I stand with [Hegseth],” he wrote on X.

Even the entire Republican cohort on the House Foreign Affairs Committee defended Hegseth,

“Pete Hegseth is a warfighter and he’s helping President Trump make sure our country is worthy of the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform,” they wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida tried to use whataboutism to defend Hegseth during an appearance on CNN, which—unsurprisingly—did not go well.

"Nobody was saying a word when Lloyd Austin, the previous defense secretary, disappeared for a month. Nobody could find him," Donalds deflected.

So far, only one Republican has called for Hegseth to resign: Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the most vulnerable GOP lawmakers in the House who represents a district that Vice President Kamala Harris carried in 2024.

“The military should always pride itself on operational security. If the reports are true, the Secretary of Defense has failed at operational security, and that is unacceptable. If a Democrat did this we'd be demanding a scalp. I don't like hypocrisy. We should be Americans first when it comes to security,” he told Axios.

But don’t expect other Republicans to join Bacon anytime soon.

According to Politico, Republicans are afraid that calling for Hegseth to resign will get them on President Donald Trump’s bad side.

“Everyone knows he’s a joke, but he’s the guy to do pushups with the troops,” a former congressional aide toldPolitico. “Plus, not many want to publicly say anything right now and get on Trump’s bad side.”

Now that is the definition of cowardice.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Imitating Foreign Despots, Trump Aims To Shut Democrats' ActBlue Site

Imitating Foreign Despots, Trump Aims To Shut Democrats' ActBlue Site

President Donald Trump is set to sign a presidential memorandum Thursday targeting ActBlue, the fundraising platform that powers Democratic campaigns and causes. This is Trump’s latest attempt to neuter political opposition.

It's unclear what exactly the memorandum will do, but according to Politico, it claims that ActBlue accepts foreign contributions—which the platform vehemently denies.

Of course, Trump himself has been hit with allegations of accepting Russian bribes. In fact, a political consultant who worked for Great America PAC, which backed Trump’s 2016 campaign, was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2023 for illegally accepting Russian contributions.

What’s more, Trump is currently taking in millions from cryptocurrency investors, who are buying his meme coin for a chance to meet with Trump. It’s a blatantly corrupt pay-to-play effort, in which foreigners could be personally funneling money to Trump.

“The Trump coin scam is the most brazenly corrupt thing a President has ever done. Not close,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote on X.

Similarly, Massachusetts Democrats Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Jake Auchincloss joined together to demand an investigation into Trump’s meme coin, though it’s unlikely that the Department of Justice run by the nakedly partisan Pam Bondi would actually prosecute.

“Anyone, including the leaders of hostile nations, can covertly buy these coins, raising the specter of uninhibited and untraceable foreign influence over the President of the United States, all while President Trump’s supporters are left to shoulder the risk of investing in $TRUMP and $MELANIA,” they wrote in a letter in January.

And while ActBlue is being targeted by Trump’s memorandum, the Republican fundraising platform WinRed will seemingly go unscathed, despite its many actual issues—including coming under fire after the 2020 election for tricking people into unknowingly making recurrent donations to Trump’s campaign.

But this despotic attack against what Trump deems a “political enemy” is nothing new.

For example, Trump has stripped Big Law firms of their security clearances and government contracts because they employed lawyers who have investigated him or have sued to block Trump’s illegal actions. As a result, firms have halted pro bono work that might anger Trump.

ActBlue raises massive amounts of money for Democrats and Democratic causes, taking in nearly $500 million in 2025 alone. And its lawyers have been gearing up for a fight against Trump.

“Every one of our clients is concerned about being arbitrarily targeted by the Trump administration. We are going to great lengths to help clients prepare for or defend themselves,” said Ezra Reese, political law chair at Elias Law Group, which represents many Democrats and Democratic organizations.

And ActBlue says that it will not be scared into submission by Trump's bullying.

"Nothing will deter or interrupt ActBlue’s mission and work to enable millions of Americans to participate in our democracy," ActBlue President and CEO Regina Wallace-Jones wrote in an email to Democrats.

"There is an ongoing and persistent effort to weaken the confidence of the American people in what’s possible,” she added. “This is the next version of ‘the big lie.’”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Donald Trump

Americans Oppose Trump On Immigration, Want Garcia Returned From Salvador

New polling finds President Donald Trump underwater on his handling of immigration policy, historically one of his strongest issues.

The poll, released on Wednesday and conducted by YouGov for The Economist, finds that 45 percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of immigration, while 50 percent disapprove. That's a massive swing from the previous Economist/YouGov poll on the matter. The older poll, which was fielded April 5-8, found that 50 percent approved of his handling of immigration policy, and 44 percent disapproved.

The decline may be due to Trump's policy of deporting immigrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison without offering them due process and in direct violation of a judge’s orders.

In the past few weeks, it's been reported that most of the people Trump has deported to CECOT—where inmates are packed into inhumane and overcrowded cells without mattresses, pillows, or proper nutrition, and with limited access to legal representation—have no criminal record at all.

The poll finds that a plurality of Americans (49 percent) say Trump’s approach to immigration policy has been “too harsh,” compared with the 38 percent who believe it's "about right" and five percent who say it’s been “too soft.”

In another eye-popping finding, 50 percent of Americans believe Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a Maryland man Trump wrongly deported to CECOT—should be returned to the United States, which the Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to do. Just 28 percent side with Trump, who said he cannot and will not bring Garcia back.

The Trump administration has accused (without credible evidence) Garcia of being a member of MS-13—but that messaging appears to be failing. According to the poll, just 27 percent of Americans believe Garcia is a member of the gang.

The poll’s results are similar to a Civiqs poll conducted for Daily Kos, which found 51 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, while 49 percent approve.

The polling suggests that Democratic lawmakers' condemnation of Trump’s deportations, as well as their efforts to bring Garcia back, have hurt Trump's standing with voters—a sign Democrats should keep up the pressure.

“Approval of Trump’s handling of immigration fell 10 points over the last week,” G. Elliott Morris, the former polling director at the now-defunct news outlet 538, wrote in a post on X. “Obviously the backlash to the [Kilmar Abrego Garcia] case worked, and it would have been a mistake not to talk about this — from both a rights perspective and the POV of moving opinion against POTUS.”

For example, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland recently traveled to El Salvador to meet with Garcia, as did a handful of House Democrats, where they highlighted the dangers of deporting people to a foreign prison without due process.

“Donald Trump and his Administration are running a government-funded kidnapping program– illegally arresting, jailing, and deporting innocent people with zero due process. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is Trump’s latest victim,” Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida, one of the Democrats who traveled to El Salvador, said in a news release.

While the immigration data from the Economist/YouGov poll is bad for Trump, other data from the survey is even worse for him. A plurality of Americans (42 percent) give Trump’s first 100 days in office a failing grade.

In fact, a plurality or outright majority of nearly every demographic polled gives Trump an “F” grade, including white Americans (38 percent), every age and income demographic, and independents (46 percent). The only groups that this isn’t true for? Republicans, ideological conservatives, and Trump voters.

That’s likely because Trump has a net-negative approval rating on every issue included in the poll: jobs and the economy (-12 percentage points), immigration (-5 points), foreign policy (-14 points), national security (-3 points), education (-12 points), crime (-1 point), criminal justice reform (-6 points), and inflation and prices (-20 points).

It appears it’s just shy of 100 days in office for political gravity to pull Trump back down to earth.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

White House Reportedly Aiming To Replace Embattled Defense Chief

White House Reportedly Aiming To Replace Embattled Defense Chief

The search for a new secretary of defense is on, NPR reported on Monday, as controversy surrounding the current secretary, Pete Hegseth, continues to mount.

Hegseth is bleeding staff, with former aides going on record to say Hegseth’s leadership has led to “chaos” and “dysfunction” in the Pentagon.

And a new report in Sunday's New York Times revealed that Hegseth was sharing classified intelligence on future military attacks in a Signal chat with his wife, brother, and personal lawyer—who had neither the clearance nor the need to know about imminent military strikes. It’s the second known time Hegseth shared classified attack-planning information on an unsecured messaging app—the kind of behavior Hegseth himself has said should lead to prison time.

Publicly, President Donald Trump is sticking by Hegseth.

"Ask the Houthis how much dysfunction there is. There's none. Pete's doing a great job. Everybody's happy with him," Trump said at the White House Easter Egg Roll event, referring to the Iran-backed militant group that the military is still battling.


Trump also repeated the ridiculous White House talking point that an apparent deep state within the Pentagon is conspiring against the former Fox News host.

"It's just fake news. They just bring up stories. I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. You know, he was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people, and that's what he's doing. So you don't always have friends when you do that," Trump added.

But apparently, in the background, White House aides are starting the process of looking for Hegseth's replacement less than 100 days into his tenure.

Those who haven't blacked out the first four years Trump was in office may remember that it was a trend for him to claim he had confidence in one of his Cabinet officials immediately before firing them. For example, Trump said he had confidence in crackpot Michael Flynn as his national security adviser, only to fire him hours later.

Ultimately, polling shows voters want heads to roll over the Signal chats Hegseth was part of.

A Civiqs survey conducted for Daily Kos found that 51% of registered voters think those responsible for sharing classified information in a Signal chat should be fired.

Democrats were already calling for Hegseth to resign. But now some Republicans are joining that bandwagon, with Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska—one of the most vulnerable GOP House members in the 2026 midterm elections—saying on Monday that Hegseth should step down.

"He’s acting like he’s above the law—and that shows an amateur person," Bacon told Politico.

It’s unclear whom Trump would replace Hegseth with.

It should be hard to get someone worse than Hegseth—a racist, misogynistic, former Fox News host who was always unquestionably unqualified for the job.

However, never underestimate Trump’s ability to surround himself with the worst people.

Trump Is Vandalizing The White House In Tacky Mar-A-Lago 'Style'

Trump Is Vandalizing The White House In Tacky Mar-A-Lago 'Style'

President Donald Trump is gilding the White House, using his so-called "gold guy" to add gold touches to the Oval Office on the taxpayer dime to make the historic building look like his tacky Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, The Wall Street Journalreported.

Trump has gilded the furniture, affixed gold ornaments to the Oval Office fireplace, added gold sculptures and picture frames, and reportedly installed a gold Trump crest over the doorway into the White House. He even ordered his and Vice President JD Vance’s portraits to be reprinted with a gold border because he wanted the pictures to “catch the light,” the Journal reported.

“It’s the Golden Office for the Golden Age,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Journal.

The Journal reported that Trump also wants to add a ballroom to the White House complex where he can hold events, like he does at his Florida club, where guests pay stupid amounts of money for the chance to heap praise on the egomaniacal leader.

Trump loves his gilded Mar-a-Lago ballroom, telling guests at an event in February, “The ballroom is in top shape. We just spent a lot of money on gold. I’ve got more gold in the ballroom than anybody’s ever had in a ballroom before.”

Trump apparently wants to recreate that at the White House.

The ballroom addition is a project Trump has wanted to do since 2016, when he reportedly spoke to the Obama White House and offered to build the $100 million project—even though Trump is notorious for not paying his bills and stiffing workers. During his campaigns he even stiffed localities, refusing to pay hundreds of thousands in fees for the public safety provided for his ego-stroking rallies.

The Obama administration laughed off Trump’s offer.

“I'm not sure that it would be appropriate to have a shiny gold Trump sign … on any part of the White House,” then-White House press secretary Josh Earnest said at the time.

But in Trump’s second term in office, where he’s acting like the dictator he’s always dreamed of being, he is now serious about remaking the White House—a worrying sign from someone who has mused about staying for a third term, despite the Constitution banning such a thing.

Trump’s tacky ballroom would be in addition to his plan to pave over the Rose Garden, the beautiful green space outside the White House where presidents hold events and press conferences. Trump’s reason for that? He said women are uncomfortable when their high heels sink into the grass. The horror!

Trump is gilding the White House and turning it into a gaudy mess comes at the same time that his administration is slashing federal spending for critical social safety net programs like Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, preschool education for low-income Americans, and more. He is also cutting medical research, disease mitigation, and foreign aid, which is already having disastrous consequences and will undoubtedly lead to even more.

Worse, as Trump demands austerity from the country, he’s reportedly planning to spend tens of millions on a grotesque military parade in Washington, D.C., to celebrate his own birthday.

Trump is taking a page out of Marie Antoinette's playbook. "Let them eat cake!"

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Donald Trump

New Polls Show Voters Rapidly Turning On Trump Over Economy

Less than 100 days into his new term, President Donald Trump and his Republican Party are hemorrhaging public support as his policies thrash the economy, threaten Americans’ Social Security and Medicaid, and blow up the rule of law.

Trump's approval rating is now well underwater, with 54 percent of registered voters disapproving of the job he’s doing as president, compared with just 42 percent approving, according to Civiqs’ tracker. Voters seem to be deeply repelled by his handling of the economy, inflation, and even immigration—an issue he's usually held an advantage on.

This is terrible news for Republicans both for critical upcoming gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia in November, and for the rest of the GOP in the 2026 midterms.

For example, a Morning Consult poll released Tuesday morning found that for the first time since 2021, more voters trust Democrats on the economy than they do Republicans, by a 46 to 43 percent margin.

"That three-percentage-point edge for Democrats—their largest since April 2021—underlines a stark unraveling for the GOP, which had come off the 2024 election with a double-digit advantage on the matter," Morning Consult wrote.

The evaporation of Republicans’ edge on economic issues comes as they defend the tariffs Trump has levied on nearly every country in the world. Those tariffs are threatening to explode inflation, sink the country into a recession, and cost thousands of Americans their livelihoods.

Even worse for Republicans is that Morning Consult found congressional Democrats are now viewed more favorably than congressional Republicans.

"For the first time since just before the 2024 election, the average voter is more likely to hold positive than negative views about Democrats in Congress (47 to 46 percent). It leaves them more popular than Republicans in Congress, whose favorability ratings are now 10 points underwater," Morning Consult reported.

A new poll conducted by YouGov for the University of Massachusetts at Amherst also finds similarly poor results for the GOP. In it, voters overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump's handling of inflation (33 percent approve, 62 percent disapprove), trade (36 percent approve, 58 percent disapprove), jobs (38 percent approve, 53 percent disapprove), and foreign affairs (36 percent approve, 53 percent disapprove). The poll also finds just 50 percent approve of his handling of immigration—often his strongest issue in polling—while 46 percent disapprove.

Meanwhile, a Quinnipiac University poll from last week found Trump underwater on immigration, with 45 percent approving of his handling of it and 50 percent disapproving.

“Despite what you’ve probably heard, Trump’s immigration agenda isn’t actually popular,” G. Elliottt Morris, a reporter who led the now-defunct news outlet 538, wrote in a post on X. “While Americans tend to approve of ‘the way he is handling immigration’ in abstract, they are very negative on the details.”

For example, voters strongly disapprove of Trump’s policy of deporting undocumented immigrants without criminal records, Morris found. They also strongly oppose sending such immigrants to foreign prisons.

Trump is refusing to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant from El Salvador that Trump sent to that prison known as CECOT, despite an order from the Supreme Court to do so.

“The media narrative is that ‘Trump is popular on immigration.’ But as we can see, that is not really true,” Morris wrote in a blog post. “On the specifics of his policy, and especially on the on-the-ground implementation, Americans are mostly opposed to what his administration is doing. (And the data above should probably be considered an overestimate, since the polls I've used are old and conducted before the Abrego Garcia news.)”

Ultimately, Trump is not immune to political gravity. And if voters have already soured on his agenda less than 100 days into his term, things could get even uglier for Trump and his party if he doesn’t reverse course.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

President Volodymyr Zelensky

Blaming Zelensky For Ukraine War, Trump Attacks Media And Spews Fake History

President Donald Trump is victim-blaming Ukraine after Russia carried out a missile attack on civilians at a Palm Sunday celebration in the city of Sumy, killing at least 34 people, including two children.

On Sunday night after the bombing, Trump said in an interview on Air Force One that the ballistic missile attack was “a mistake" and a “horrible thing”—even though a ballistic missile attack has to be directed and thus could not have been a benign error as Trump suggested.

But on Monday morning, Trump’s tone grew angry as he blamed former President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the attack that Russia carried out, writing in one of his embarrassing Truth Social missives:

The War between Russia and Ukraine is Biden’s war, not mine. I just got here, and for four years during my term, had no problem in preventing it from happening. President Putin, and everyone else, respected your President! I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS WAR, BUT AM WORKING DILIGENTLY TO GET THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION TO STOP. If the 2020 Presidential Election was not RIGGED, and it was, in so many ways, that horrible War would never have happened. President Zelenskyy and Crooked Joe Biden did an absolutely horrible job in allowing this travesty to begin. There were so many ways of preventing it from ever starting. But that is the past. Now we have to get it to STOP, AND FAST. SO SAD!

Let’s set aside the fact that it’s sociopathic to bring everything back to the 2020 election, which Trump still says was rigged, even though it wasn’t. To again blame Biden and Zelensky for a war that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is 100% responsible for is sick and twisted—and raises questions about why Trump refuses to assign Putin any fault for his actions.

Trump dug in later on Monday as well. In the Oval Office, Trump told reporters, “[Zelensky is] always looking to purchase missiles. … Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know you can win a war. You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”

Trump has repeatedly blamed Zelensky over Putin.

In February, Trump repeated Russian propaganda when he ridiculously accused Zelensky of being a “dictator” for not holding an election in his war-torn country.

Later that month, Trump attacked Zelenskyy in a disgraceful Oval Office ambush, in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance teamed up on Zelensky to demand he be more grateful for American aid in the war.

And on March 31, Trump threatened Zelenskyy with “big, big problems” if Zelenskyy were to back out of a minerals deal.

Trump’s change of tone on Monday over the horrific attack Russia carried out on Ukrainian civilians is likely a response to an interview Zelensky gave to 60 Minutes, which aired on Sunday night.

"I believe, sadly, Russian narratives are prevailing in the U.S.,” Zelensky said. “How is it possible to witness our losses and our suffering, to understand what the Russians are doing, and to still believe that they are not the aggressors, that they did not start this war? This speaks to the enormous influence of Russia's information policy on America, on U.S. politics, and U.S. politicians.”

That clearly pissed off Trump, who demanded CBS News lose its broadcast license for airing the segment. Trump wrote on Truth Social:

They [“60 Minutes”] are not a “News Show,” but a dishonest Political Operative simply disguised as “News,” and must be responsible for what they have done, and are doing. They should lose their license! Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as headed by its Highly Respected Chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior. CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Trump is angry that he hasn’t been able to end the war on Day 1, as he repeatedly promised during the campaign.

Worse for Trump is that his embrace of Putin and attacks on Zelensky are losing him support from voters.

A Gallup survey released on March 18 found that 46 percent of Americans believe the United States is not doing enough to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s attacks—a 16-percentage-point increase since December.

An NBC News poll from about the same time found that 61 percent of registered voters side with Ukraine over Russia. Yet a plurality (49 percent) thinks Trump sides with Russia over Ukraine.

“I cannot recall a moment in history when American public opinion and voters’ views of a president, as to which country they are more aligned with, have been more in conflict with each other,” Jeff Horwitt, a Democratic pollster who jointly conducted the poll with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, told NBC News.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Republicans Sing Praise Of Trump Tariffs As Economy Spirals

Republicans Sing Praise Of Trump Tariffs As Economy Spirals

Republicans celebrated after President Donald Trump's half-baked "pause" on his "Liberation Day" tariffs led the stock market to rise, calling Trump a “genius” and his trade war debacle the “art of the deal.”

But those same Republicans had egg on their faces not even a day later, when the market once again plunged after investors realized that Trump's 90-day "pause" wasn't a pause at all, but rather a 10 percent tariff on nearly every country, as well as an insane 145 percent tariff on China.

"I think America needs to recognize we're in a remarkable moment. We have an actual genius of an entrepreneur and one that loves our country," GOP Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah wrote on X on Wednesday.

Owens did not amend his comment when the market tumbled not even 24 hours later, reflecting Trump’s chaotic tariff policy that amounts to a $4,000 tax hike on every U.S. household.

Not to be upstaged by Owens, GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas—who once ridiculously claimed that Trump was the picture of health—posted on X that Trump is the “UNDISPUTED MASTER of the art of the deal!"

"The days of America being taken advantage of by China and other nations are OVER! The Trump era is all about POWER and WINNING!" he wrote.

According to the GOP, it’s considered “winning” when the stock market collapses just one day later.

Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona agreed "100%" with a batshit-crazy X post from creepy White House adviser Stephen Miller.

"You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history,” Miller wrote.

And GOP Rep. Mike Lawler of New York posted a graphic on Wednesday declaring that the “stock market posts third biggest gain in post-WWII history."

Too bad that gain was nearly erased one day later. Not to mention, the temporary gain didn't even make up what was lost after Trump’s “Liberation Day” anyway.

Similarly, GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York wanted in on the action of praising Dear Leader, scrounging up one of Trump’s X posts from 2014.

"Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks,” he wrote.

Also paying homage to Trump’s The Art of the Deal, GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida posted a meme calling the short-lived stock market boost the "art of the deal."

Meanwhile, other GOP lawmakers have tried to criticize the few Republicans who have stood against Trump’s tariffs.

"See? Trust the President. He understands trade and economics and NEGOTIATIONS better than his critics give him credit for. The critiques from certain Senate Republicans were premature, to say the least," Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas wrote on X.

The Republicans who have actually been right are those like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who have said that tariffs are bad because they are a tax on consumers and will lead us to economic calamity.

“Tariffs raise the prices of goods and services. Even those who obstinately deny that basic fact will soon realize that the tariffs are a tax on the American people, whether while paying for groceries or looking at their investment portfolio,” Paul wrote in National Review op-ed.

You know things are bad when Democrats agree with Rand Paul.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Trump Tariffs Are Already Throwing Americans Out Of Their Jobs

Trump Tariffs Are Already Throwing Americans Out Of Their Jobs

On Thursday —one day after President Donald Trump’s self-branded "Liberation Day"— 900 auto workers in Michigan and Indiana were “liberated” from their jobs, thanks to Trump’s new tariffs.

Stellantis NV, which manufactures Ram trucks and Jeeps, announced on Thursday that 900 U.S. workers across five facilities were being temporarily laid off, directly citing Trump’s 25% tariffs on imported cars as the cause.

"With the new automotive sector tariffs now in effect, it will take our collective resilience and discipline to push through this challenging time. But we will quickly adapt to these policy changes and will protect our company, maintain our competitive edge and continue delivering great products to our customers,” Antonio Filosa, chief operating officer of Stellantis North America, said.

The news broke as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared on CBS News to declare that employment will boom because of Trump's sweeping tariffs.

"You're going to see employment leaping starting today," he said.

Meanwhile, economists were lighting their hair on fire to warn just how damaging Trump's tariff policy will actually be.

“Monstrously destructive, incoherent, ill-informed tariffs based on fabrications, imagined wrongs, discredited theories and ignorance of decades of evidence. And the real tragedy is that they will hurt working Americans more than anyone else,” Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, wrote on X.

And, with approximately 134 million households across the United States, Trump’s tariffs will amount to a $5,000 tax increase on every household, according to Wolfers.

The stock market is also responding in kind, with the markets losing more than 3% of their value since Thursday's opening bell.

Democrats, for their part, are calling on their congressional Republican counterparts to stand up to Trump and demand that he rescind his tariffs and put an end to the economic destruction.

"Trump’s idiotic economic policies are driving the world toward a global downturn. Instead of lifting a finger to stop it, House Republicans canceled votes after less than 24 hours of work this week & went home—refusing to stand up to Trump while American families pay the price," Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York wrote on X.

In a surprising move, four Senate Republicans joined Democrats in rebuking Trump’s tariffs on Canada Wednesday, but the House is not expected to move on that legislation, which Trump said he would veto anyway.

And on Thursday, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa joined Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington in introducing a bill that would require the president to notify Congress of tariffs, allowing Congress 60 days to approve or deny them.

“For too long, Congress has delegated its clear authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce to the executive branch. Building on my previous efforts as Finance Committee Chairman, I’m joining Senator Cantwell to introduce the bipartisan Trade Review Act of 2025 to reassert Congress’ constitutional role and ensure Congress has a voice in trade policy,” their news release said.

But even if this passes in the Senate, it’s difficult to see it passing in the House or avoiding a veto from Trump, who has shown no signs of lifting his tariffs.

“I don't think there's any chance Trump is gonna back off his tariffs,” Lutnick said on CNN. “This is the reordering of global trade.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Reacting To Trump Economic Policies, Consumer Anxiety Surges

Reacting To Trump Economic Policies, Consumer Anxiety Surges

President Donald Trump's foolish and chaotic economic policy is paralyzing the economy and causing consumer sentiment to plummet—ratcheting up the odds that the United States descends into a full-blown recession, experts said Friday.

The warnings came as the University of Michigan said that consumer sentiment dramatically fell in March, dropping 12 percent from February as consumers of all political stripes said they expect the economy to get worse in the coming year, according to data released by the University of Michigan.


“Republicans joined independents and Democrats in expressing worsening expectations since February for their personal finances, business conditions, unemployment, and inflation,” the University of Michigan said in its monthly survey of consumers. “Consumers continue to worry about the potential for pain amid ongoing economic policy developments. Notably, two-thirds of consumers expect unemployment to rise in the year ahead, the highest reading since 2009.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta said Friday that it expects the U.S. economy will have shrunk 2.8 percent in the first three months of 2024—marking a steep decline since Trump took office, when the bank predicted the economy would continue on a growth trajectory.

Even worse is that inflation ticked up in February for the fourth straight month, increasing 0.4 percent even before Trump's idiotic tariffs go into place—which economists say will only worsen the price increases.

Ultimately, the new data points have economists fearing that Trump's policies are going to send the economy off a cliff as both companies and consumers scale back because they are spooked by Trump's chaos.

“There is no other conclusion possible other than the Trump 2.0 economic policies are frightening consumers as much as they do corporations,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FwdBonds, CNN reported. “The economy is going to stall out if not something worse if Washington policymakers are not careful.”

Meanwhile, Washington Post economic columnist Heather Long said that consumer sentiment falling off a cliff could lead Americans to stop spending—which could plunge the economy into recession as the economy is largely dependent upon consumers opening their wallets.

"This is one of the scariest charts I've seen in awhile," Long wrote in a post on X of the consumer sentiment index. "In the 'vibe-cession' under Biden, people gave the economy poor grades. But they were generally optimistic about their personal finances (esp the rich). Under Trump 2025, people at all income levels are worried they will be worse off in a year. This is the type of situation that causes people to really pull back on spending. This is what is different than 2023 or 2024."

Forbesreported in February that consumer spending makes up about 70 percent of the U.S. economy. From the report:

When spending grows, so does the economy. The economy slows when consumers keep their money in their pockets. When spending increases, companies see more business and eventually need more help. As spending trails off, companies eventually postpone hiring. If markets get worse, executives eventually lay off workers.

So if consumers actually stop spending—either because of real or predicted price increases from Trump’s tariffs—that could lead to economic disaster.

Ultimately, amid the negative news about the economy, the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday plummeted more than 700 points as of press time, continuing the market's plunge that began when Trump first started announcing his tariff intentions.

“Republicans are raising costs, crashing the economy and driving us into a recession,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a post on X. “What happened to bringing about the golden age of America?”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Elon Musk

How Trump And Musk Wrecked Social Security Program In Just Two Months

President Donald Trump and co-President Elon Musk's cuts to the Social Security Administration's workforce and operations have caused massive problems for the popular social safety net program that 73 million Americans depend on to afford their basic cost of living.

The Washington Post published a bombshell report on Tuesday, detailing the problems Musk has caused at the Social Security Administration through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

From the report:

The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.[…]

The turmoil is leaving many retirees, disabled claimants and legal immigrants who need Social Security cards with less access or shut out of the system altogether, according to those familiar with the problems.

The problems are thanks to a myriad of choices Musk has made to how the agency runs.

The Social Security Administration plans to cut roughly 7,000 employees—or 12 percent of its workforce—which current and former Social Security officials say could make it impossible for the program to keep up with the needs of the tens of millions of Americans who receive and apply for benefits annually.

“Everything they have done so far is breaking the agency’s ability to serve the public,” Martin O’Malley, who served as Social Security commissioner under former President Joe Biden, told The New York Times.

Musk and his DOGE bros also changed the way recipients can verify their identities to the agency, nixing the ability to do so over the phone and requiring the elderly and disabled people who receive benefits to do it either online or in-person. That’s an incredible burden for a population that is not as computer literate as others. It could also burden recipients who live in rural areas or areas with poor internet access. Going in person would be even more of a burden since many elderly and disabled recipients cannot travel to offices—if they could even get an appointment.

A memo obtained by the newsletter Popular Information said the new identity-verification procedure would lead an additional 75,000 to 85,000 weekly visits to agency offices. In turn, that would lead to “longer wait times and processing times,” the memo said. Already, wait times for appointments can be more than a month.

Musk has had it out for Social Security since his buddy Trump put him in charge of finding waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.

Musk criticized the social safety net program as a “Ponzi scheme.” He lied that the program is rife with fraud—lies that have led eligible people to lose benefits. He also helped force out the acting Social Security administrator and replace him Leland Dudek, an unqualified hothead who has acted vindictively since taking over.

For example, Dudek canceled a contract that allowed new parents in Maine to apply for Social Security numbers for their newborn infants at the hospital—a move that would have forced those parents to travel to a Social Security office to obtain. He seemingly did it to punish Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who stood up to Trump at a meeting with governors.

Dudek also threatened to shut the entire Social Security Administration down because he was mad that a judge blocked DOGE officials from accessing Americans’ sensitive personal information as they sought to prove Musk’s baseless lies that the agency is rife with fraud.

Musk isn’t the only Trump administration official attacking Social Security.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick disparaged the program and accused anyone who has had problems receiving benefits as being "fraudsters."

"Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who's 94, she wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She thinks something got messed up and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise screaming, yelling, and complaining. And all the guys who did PayPal, like Elon knows this by heart, right? Anybody who's been in the payment system and the process system knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen,” Lutnick—who is a billionaire and could easily ensure his mother-in-law wouldn’t face financial ruin if her Social Security check went missing—said on a podcast.

Musk’s attacks on the overwhelmingly popular social safety net program goes against Trump’s claim that he would protect Social Security if elected.

And breaking Social Security is politically moronic. It is one of the most popular programs in the country.

Eighty-seven percent of Americans ages 25 and older believe that Social Security should be a priority for the nation, regardless of governmental budget deficits, according to an October 2023 poll from Greenwald Research for the National Institute on Retirement Security, a nonpartisan research organization. And a more recent poll, conducted by Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that 67 percent of Americans believed the government spends too little on Social Security. Only six percent said too much is spent on the program.

What’s more, older voters who receive Social Security benefits are among the most reliable voting blocs in the country. That means a backlash from those voters could sink Republicans chances in the 2026 midterm elections. In 2024, Trump won voters ages 65 and older by just one percentage point, according to exit polls, so even a modest backlash from that voting group could heavily damage Republicans next November.

And the signs that the backlash is coming are already showing up. Older voters are packing into Republican lawmakers’ town halls to demand they stand up to Musk’s DOGE cuts.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Pete Hegseth

Bone Stupid: Trump Officials Leaked Military Secrets On Phone App

Democrats are aghast after the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic reported that he was accidentally added to an unsecure text chain in which Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and multiple other top national security and Trump administration officials discussed planning a military strike in Yemen.

The Trump administration says the text chain—in which the officials were discussing not only whether to strike the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group, but how and when they would do it—is authentic. They are looking into how Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was added to the thread.

But the fact that the Trump administration officials were discussing classified and highly sensitive military plans on a messaging app is the real problem.

Goldberg reported that Hegseth was discussing information that, “could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.”

He also reported that multiple national security lawyers said Waltz “may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of ‘national defense’ information.”

From Goldberg’s report:

All of these lawyers said that a U.S. official should not establish a Signal thread in the first place. Information about an active operation would presumably fit the law’s definition of “national defense” information. The Signal app is not approved by the government for sharing classified information. The government has its own systems for that purpose. If officials want to discuss military activity, they should go into a specially designed space known as a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF—most Cabinet-level national-security officials have one installed in their home—or communicate only on approved government equipment, the lawyers said. Normally, cellphones are not permitted inside a SCIF, which suggests that as these officials were sharing information about an active military operation, they could have been moving around in public. Had they lost their phones, or had they been stolen, the potential risk to national security would have been severe.

And on top of that, Goldberg reported that by using an app like Signal—where texts are set to disappear—the Trump officials could also have been violating federal record laws.

“If you read one article today, make it this one,” Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) wrote in a post on X of Goldberg’s report. “Total incompetence, yet again. And putting our national security at great risk.”

Democrats are now demanding information and threatening to launch investigations.

“Only one word for this: FUBAR,” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), who served as an Army intelligence officer in Iraq, wrote in a post on Bluesky, referring to the military slang term to describe something as “Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.” “If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self.”

Only one word for this: FUBAR. If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self.

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— Pat Ryan (@pkryan.bsky.social) March 24, 2025 at 5:11 PM

Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA) also said he will demand an investigation.

This article completely exposes the Trump Administration's incompetent and irresponsible methods of handling our national security.

[image or embed]

— Rep. Salud Carbajal (@carbajal.house.gov) March 24, 2025 at 5:30 PM

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who lost both of her legs while serving in Iraq, was aghast at the recklessness of the Trump administration officials.

Pete Hegseth, the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in history, is demonstrating his incompetence by literally leaking classified war plans in the group chat... Hegseth and Trump are making our country less safe.

[image or embed]

— Tammy Duckworth (@duckworth.senate.gov) March 24, 2025 at 7:54 PM

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said, “Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime – even if accidentally – that would normally involve a jail sentence.”

And Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) connected the incompetence of the Trump administration’s national security officials to the Trump giving co-President Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency bros access to Americans’ personal information.

“The Trump Administration, which just committed one of the biggest and most incompetent national security breaches in history, is also giving Elon Musk and his team of unvetted lackeys access to every American's personal information,” Beyer wrote, putting in stark terms just how much trouble we all are in with these fools leading the federal government.

Ultimately, there is so much irony to this story.

First, almost every member of that chain criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, citing national security concerns.

“Talk about a DOUBLE STANDARD: Biden’s sitting National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sent top secret emails to Hillary Clinton’s private account and the DOJ didn't do a DAMN THING about it,” Waltz—who is responsible for adding Goldberg to the text chain in which they were recklessly discussing military operations—said in a 2023 appearance on Fox News. “No wonder Americans are losing faith in our justice system.”

“Seems like every day there are new revelations on how Hillary's private email server put national security at risk,” Rubio wrote in a 2016 tweet.

"Hillary Clinton put some of the highest, most sensitive intelligence information on her private server because maybe she thinks she's above the law, or maybe she just wanted the convenience of being able to read it on her Blackberry,” Rubio also said at a campaign event for his failed presidential bid in January 2016. “This is unacceptable."

Even more ironic is that just last week, Hegseth reported that the Department of Defense was going to be investigating who leaked his plan to brief co-President Elon Musk on the United States' plans for war with China—another thing that makes Americans less safe as there is no reason Musk should be privy to that information.

Given that Hegseth is discussing confidential military plans via Signal, maybe he should look in the mirror for why that information leaked.

Worst of all, as Democrats lambast the Trump administration officials and call for investigations, Republicans have been virtually silent—even though they would be screaming to the heavens if a Democratic administration had done anything even remotely similar.

As of press time, few Republican lawmakers have commented. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) posted on X, “Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels—and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period. Safeguards must be put in place to ensure this never happens again.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Semafor’s Burgess Everett that it, “Sounds like a huge screw up. I mean, is there any other way to describe it?”

We can guarantee that Cornyn would’ve had much stronger words if it had been Biden administration officials doing the same.

And Trump himself used the age-old excuse that he hadn’t heard the news in order to avoid commenting on it.

“I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. ...You're telling me about it for the first time,” Trump told reporters on Monday.

If the commander in chief did not yet know about the fact that his top aides were putting the country at risk by discussing military operations via text message, then that’s a scandal in and of itself.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Top GOP Senator: Republican Threat To Impeach Judge Is 'Idiotic'

Top GOP Senator: Republican Threat To Impeach Judge Is 'Idiotic'

Egged on by wannabe dictator Donald Trump, House Republicans are pushing GOP leadership to let them embark on impeachment proceedings against federal judges who dare to rule against their Dear Leader—a time-consuming and destined-to-fail effort that harms the rule of law and could even wound the Republican Party in elections moving forward.

Multiple Republican lawmakers have filed articles of impeachment against four federal judges who recently ruled against the Trump administration.

“Congress has the constitutional power to impeach rogue activist judges—and we intend to use it,” Republican Rep. Brendan Gill of Texas, who filed articles of impeachment against a federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to turn around planes that were deporting alleged Venezuelan immigrants to a gulag in El Salvador, wrote in a post on X.

House Republicans are pushing for the impeachments to move forward even as Politico reported that some GOP lawmakers view the effort to be “idiotic.”

“You don’t impeach judges who make decisions you disagree with, because that happens all the time,” Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told Politico in early March. “What you do is you appeal, and if you’re right, then you’re going to win on appeal.”

Even Chief Justice John Roberts warned that impeachment is not the way to handle disagreements with judicial decisions.

“We are going to keep the impeachments coming,” Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee wrote in a post on X. Ogles himself filed articles of impeachment against a judge who ordered the Trump administration to restore websites it had taken down to comply with Trump's executive order targeting “gender ideology extremism.”

But complicating things for Republican leadership is that Trump blessed the impeachment efforts on Tuesday, saying that the judge who tried to block his effort to deport immigrants without due process is a "Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama."

“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” Trump wrote in a deranged Truth Social post.

Co-president Elon Musk, who has threatened to fund primary challenges to Republicans who don’t do what Trump says, also wants judicial impeachments.

“This is a judicial coup. We need 60 senators to impeach the judges and restore rule of the people,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Tuesday after another federal judge ruled against the Trump administration, this time on its attempted ban of transgender troops.

Given that GOP leaders acquiesce to all of Trump's wants, no matter how immoral or unconstitutional, his demand puts them in a difficult place of having to choose what’s right or to make their Dear Leader happy.

“Everything is on the table,” Russell Dye, a spokesperson for House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, toldPolitico. An unnamed spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson also told Politico that judges “with political agendas pose a significant threat” and that Johnson "looks forward to working with the Judiciary Committee as they review all available options under the Constitution to address this urgent matter.”

But as aides for Johnson publicly said all options are on the table, top GOP aides privately admitted the impeachment route is stupid and will take up time the House needs to pass the rest of Trump’s destructive and unpopular agenda.

“It’s never going to happen,” an unnamed senior Republican aide told Politico. “There aren’t the votes.”

Plus, forcing Republicans to vote on impeachment could be politically damaging for the GOP.

Polling from February—when Republicans began crowing about impeaching judges who ruled against Trump—showed that voters want Trump to follow court orders.

"This court issue is a big loser for Trump," CNN's Harry Enten wrote in a post on X, referring to a Washington Post poll from February. "The belief that Trump must follow court orders is more popular than Mother Teresa: 84% of all adults, 92% of Dems, 82% of Indies & 79% of the GOP."

Other polls have similar findings, including an NBC News survey released Wednesday. It found that a 43 percent plurality of voters believe the president and executive branch have too much power, as opposed to 28 percent who believe the Supreme Court and judicial branch have too much.

The cherry on top of this for GOP leaders is that their members would be taking potentially damaging votes on impeachment for nothing. The charges would be disposed of in the Senate, where there is no way on earth that two-thirds of the chamber would vote to convict and remove judges. Republicans have just 53 votes there. To impeach a judge, they’d need 14 Democrats to also join in.

But never put it past Republicans to do stupid things in the name of subservience to Trump.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

State Sen. Justin Eichorn

GOP Legislator (And MAGA Zealot) Busted For Alleged Solicitation Of Minor

A Minnesota Republican state lawmaker was arrested on Monday for allegedly soliciting a minor for prostitution, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

State Sen. Justin Eichorn was arrested after he communicated with police department officers who were posing as a 16-year-old female, MPR reported.

In a scene that sounds straight out of a To Catch a Predator episode, Eichorn set up a time to meet up with who he thought was a 16-year-old girl, but when he showed up, he was instead met by police who placed him under arrest.

“As a 40-year-old man, if you come to the Orange Jumpsuit District looking to have sex with someone’s child, you can expect that we are going to lock you up," Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said in a statement announcing Eichorn's arrest, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

In what should come as no surprise, Eichorn has fashioned himself a protector of children during his time in the Minnesota legislature.

In 2021, he came out against a bill that would move away from teaching an abstinence-based sex education curriculum to children in Minnesota schools.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my elementary age kids learning this stuff. Before you know it, they’ll be reading kids 50 Shades of Grey. This discussion is better had at a more mature age. Thankfully, the Senate will work to stop this and other crazy ideas,” Eichorn said in a Facebook post at the time.

Eichorn is also an anti-abortion zealot who wants to ban abortion in Minnesota under the guise of protecting children.

This is not the first time Eichorn has been in the news in recent days.

Just this weekend, he was met with cheers from Make America Great Again influencers when he and three other Minnesota Republican state senators introduced a bill to classify “Trump Derangement Syndrome”—which MAGAs coined to describe people who oppose Trump's actions—as a mental disorder.

The bill defines "Trump Derangement Syndrome" as "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump." The bill states that Trump Derangement Syndrome "produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior."

The bill further says that TDS sufferers have "verbal expressions of intense hostility toward President Donald J. Trump" and exhibit "overt acts of aggression and violence against anyone supporting President Donald J. Trump or anything that symbolizes President Donald J. Trump."

State Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy slammed the bill as "wasteful, frivolous and shameful," and said it was "possibly the worst bill in Minnesota history," according to a report from CBS News.

Looks like Eichorn should have been more concerned with his alleged proclivities for underage girls than with people who oppose Trump.

Ultimately, Eichorn is just the latest Trump supporter arrested or accused of sex crimes.

Last week, Robert Morris, a televangelist and former member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, was indicted and charged with “five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child stemming from incidents that date back to the 1980s,” according to a news release from Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

“In December 1982, Morris was a traveling evangelist visiting in Hominy with the family of the alleged victim, who was 12 at the time. The indictment alleges Morris’ sexual misconduct began that Christmas and continued over the next four years,” the news release states.

Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was also accused of raping an adult woman, but he was confirmed as the head of the Pentagon in spite of those allegations.

There’s also former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Trump’s failed attorney general pick whose nomination went up in flames amid uproar over Gaetz’s alleged sexual exploits with underage girls. Trump is reportedly upset that he didn’t fight to get Gaetz confirmed, and reportedly said he believed Republican senators would have looked past Gaetz’s sexual deviancy had his nomination moved forward.

And Trump himself has been accused of sexual assault by dozens of women and was found liable for sexually abusing former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.

MAGA attracts some real creeps.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Mahmoud Khalil

ICE Detention Of Khalil Is 'Unprecedented, Illegal' Attack On Free Speech

On Monday, President Donald Trump bragged about taking steps to deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, saying the Columbia University graduate student who organized anti-Israel protests last year is "the first arrest of many to come."

"We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. "Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country—never to return again. If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply. Thank you!"

Khalil was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on Saturday, who said they were taking him into custody because the State Department had revoked his student visa. However, Khalil is a legal permanent resident with a green card who had not been charged with any crimes before his arrest.

After his arrest, the Department of Homeland Security said that Khalil led “activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization” and that he will now be deported because that violates an executive order Trump signed on January 30 that says the Trump administration will “deport Hamas sympathizers and revoke student visas.”

“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a post on X.

In an appearance on Fox Business on Monday, Trump border czar Tom Homan defended Khalil’s deportation, and said the United States can deport legal permanent residents.

"Absolutely we can," Homan said. "Did he violate the terms of his visa? Did he violate the terms of his residency here? Committing crimes, attacking Israeli students, locking down buildings, destroying property, absolutely. Any resident alien who commits a crime is eligible for deportation."

But Khalil wasn’t arrested for any of those aforementioned crimes.

Arresting and deporting someone over speech that does not align with the administration’s policies is a terrifying slippery slope. Today it’s Palestinian activists, but next it could be anyone who criticizes Trump or Republicans.

“This arrest is unprecedented, illegal, and un-American,” the American Civil Liberties Union, which defends the right to free speech in the United States, said in a statement on Monday. “The federal government is claiming the authority to deport people with deep ties to the U.S. and revoke their green cards for advocating positions that the government opposes. To be clear: The First Amendment protects everyone in the U.S. The government’s actions are obviously intended to intimidate and chill speech on one side of a public debate. The government must immediately return Mr. Khalil to New York, release him back to his family, and reverse course on this discriminatory policy.”

Even anti-immigration right-wing activists have said they take issue with Khalil's arrest and deportation for that reason.

"There’s almost no one I don’t want to deport, but, unless they’ve committed a crime, isn’t this a violation of the first amendment?" far-right commentator Ann Coulter wrote in a post on X.

Ultimately, the move is one of many free speech crackdowns Trump and the Republican Party have taken since he was sworn in on January 20.

Trump has targeted law firms who have either defended Democratic officials or sued Trump.

On Thursday, he signed an executive order that revoked security clearances of lawyers at the law firm Perkins Coie and barred them from federal government buildings “when such access would threaten the national security of or otherwise be inconsistent with the interests of the United States.” In the order, Trump attacked Perkins Coie for “representing failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton,” and for defending Fusion GPS which he said “manufactured a false ‘dossier’ designed to steal an election.”

“This is dangerous as hell,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said to the Wall Street Journal of Trump’s attacks on law firms. “If you defend other people’s rights, even if it’s your job, the president of the United States will retaliate against you.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) received a letter from the Department of Justice in February demanding he “clarify” comments he made calling co-President Elon Musk a "dick."

“This sounds to some like a threat to Mr. Musk—an appointed representative of President Donald Trump who you call a “dick”—and government staff who work for him. Their concerns have led to this inquiry,” Ed Martin, interim United States attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote in the letter.

“So if you criticize Elon Musk, Trump’s DOJ will send you this letter,” Garcia wrote on Bluesky. “Members of Congress must have the right to forcefully oppose the Trump Administration. I will not be silenced.”

Martin also threatened Georgetown University Law School, saying that if the school continues to teach classes related to diversity, equity, and inclusion that his office would not hire students from the school.

And House Republicans censured Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green for saying during Trump's joint address to Congress on March 4 that Trump had "no mandate" to cut Medicaid. Republicans are also threatening to remove Green from his House committee assignments over his protest.

With all these moves, fascism is no longer a threat: It’s here, and it’s terrifying.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.