Pay special attention to the 4th, writes Robert Reich today. “Whenever he tries to shoot the messenger, the message is worth your attention. For example …” https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-4th-axiom-for-interpreting-trump

Reported by Rebecca Santana of the Associated Press yesterday, ICE has been breaking into homes under the authority provided by a secret memo of May 12, 2025, signed by the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, saying that federal agents do not need a judge’s warrant to force their way into people’s homes. Two ICE whistleblowers provided the memo to Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), explaining that they were shown the memo. At least one long-time employee resigned rather than

Last Saturday a transgender woman saw a bleeding man running from an angry crowd, stopped to let him into the car, and whisked him away. As reported in The Washington Post, 22-year-old Gottsche had no idea who he was, just a man in trouble. Turns out the man was Jake Lang, one of the Jan 6th rioters who was pardoned by Trump on his first day in office. Lang had showed up to counter-protest at an anti-ICE rally when the crowd turned ugly. Gottsche opposes the presence of thou

“Bonkers” says Heather Cox Richardson in her January 18th blog. As our allies push back against Trump’s bizarre demand for Greenland, the mad dictator revealed his frustration in a long screed on his Truth Social media account. In his quest to complete his vanity project of ‘owning’ Greenland (and perhaps renaming it to ‘Trumpland’), the president is placing tariffs on all goods from the countries currently protecting Greenland. This extortion is nothing new and his modus ope

This is the classic attitude of the bully on the playground. Yet unbelievably, Trump said these very words Thursday when he saw two rings and a golden hockey stick he coveted during a Florida Panthers hockey team ceremony. Unfortunately his take-what-you-want attitude extends to more than just baubles. He has had his jealous eye on Greenland for years. In yesterday’s letter, Heather Cox Richardson explains the disastrous consequences of such a grab. A radical weakening of the

This week Trump continued his affordability tour, bragging about how his policies are bringing down prices. Not true. In fact prices in December were up 2.7 percent over last year, with food prices up 3.1 percent. In his piece on Tuesday, Robert Reich points out the fallacies in Trump’s policies that doom them to failure. 1. Trump: Americans aren’t paying for his tariffs. - Of course they are! The cost increase is passed on to the consumer by the companies that import the goo

Here’s just one from the Chicago Tribune this morning. “After more than five years in Chicago under TPS (Temporary Protected Status), Luis Jose Castro decided to return to Venezuela. Without protection and with little hope of obtaining asylum, he felt trapped. He also longed to see his two children and his parents who live there. “More than anything, he said, he wants to see his ailing father. ’It’s not worth it (staying here), I feel persecuted and I have never felt persecut

Last Friday the Administration released a a video of the Minneapolis shooting, captured by the shooter himself, to bolster the claim he acted in self-defense. In fact, it shows just the opposite, as detailed by Heather Cox Richardson. Why the total disconnect on the part of Trump officials? Because they are trapped in an authoritarian bubble Their mandate is to deliver a message directed at all of us, “an American exercising their constitutional rights must submit, without qu

Yesterday an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good as she was driving away from ICE agents on a residential street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Heather Cox Richardson reports on the actual event captured on four videos filmed by bystanders. The videos completely disprove postings by DHS and Trump, claiming that the officer shot in self-defense. Yesterday Trump deployed federal agents and officers to Minneapolis, with plans to up the number to 2,000. Minneapoli

Yesterday Donald Trump bragged on social media that Venezuela would be providing 30 million to 50 million barrels of “High Quality” oil to the U.S. at market price. Today on substack, Paul Krugman pointed out some problems. He writes, “The vast wealth Trump imagines is waiting there to be taken doesn’t exist.” In 2010 under Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s reported oil reserves tripled, not because of new discoveries or exploration, but because Chavez reclassified the country’s Orino

From her unique vantage point as a Texan, Michelle Davis of LoneStarLeft describes the devastating impact of Big Oil - Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron - all headquartered in Texas. Big Oil has corrupted the state’s government. It has dragged the U.S. into foreign entanglements in pursuit of oil. It has hidden the catastrophic environmental and health costs of fossil fuels. It has made Texas the largest contributor to climate change in the United States and, ironically, t

That’s just one of the things Heather Cox Richardson had to say in her letter yesterday. Without consulting Congress, the UN, Venezuela’s neighbors, or even the oil companies who presumably stand to benefit, Trump launched a unilateral strike against Venezuela in the early hours of Saturday, January 3, and captured president Maduro and his wife. He then informed the American people by calling in to Fox & Friends and announcing that the U.S. will “run the country until such ti

On December 23, the Supremes finally stepped up. The Court issued a preliminary rejection of Trump’s justification for deploying National Guard troops to Chicago. In a post yesterday on Truth Social, Trump announced that he is withdrawing the troops from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland. No mention of the Supreme Court decision. He claimed that crime had been “greatly reduced” by the National Guard’s presence and left the door open to future deployments. On December 28, the

Thanks to the 2025 passage of bills by the Republican-controlled legislature, the following laws go into effect on January 1: House Bill 9 raises business inventory tax exemption from $2,500 to $125,000 reducing local tax revenues by an estimated $442 million in FY 2027 if local governments do not increase tax rates to compensate. Senate Bill 8 requires sheriffs in counties with jails to commit local law enforcement's cooperation with ICE under the federal 287(g) program. Sen

For the last 40 years, America has been on a downward spiral which has undermined its very foundations. Under cover of the myth propagated by Ronald Reagan, who blamed ‘Welfare Queens” for the country’s economic woes, America’s wealthiest began to quietly strip away rights of ordinary citizens to fair treatment. In his piece on Sunday, Robert Reich spells out what’s happened: “Deregulation, privatization, free trade, wild gambling by Wall Street, union-busting, monopolization

At a December 8 news conference, Gov Greg Abbott, Lt Gov Dan Patrick, and Turning Point USA’s Joah Thifault announced a partnership to create “Club America” chapters of Charlie Kirk’s right wing organization on every high school campus in the state. The Governor didn’t go so far as to require the clubs’ formation, but he did threaten “meaningful disciplinary action” against any who stood in the way. This just three months after SB-12 went into effect banning LBGTQ clubs from

For readers who don’t have a Washington Post subscription, below are excerpts from a Post article today about how the administration plans to hold 80,0000 immigrants pending deportation. “The Trump administration is seeking contractors to help it overhaul the United States’ immigrant detention system in a plan that includes renovating industrial warehouses to hold more than 80,000 immigrant detainees at a time, according to a draft solicitation reviewed by The Washington Post

As reported yesterday by Heather Cox Richardson, the Trump administration effectively killed a 60 Minutes story last Sunday on its renditions of migrants to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. How? Officials simply refused repeated requests to comment. This was the excuse Bari Weiss used to pull the story from the broadcast, just hours before it was scheduled to air. Weiss, outspoken critic of the far-left and TV news broadcasting neophyte, was hired by Trump-loyalist and n

“Texas has been treated as the private property of oil executives, hedge fund managers, megachurch power brokers, and political dynasties, and we are done pretending that theft is tradition. (Texas) is sustained by the people who labor here, who raise families here, who patch roads, staff hospitals, teach kids, harvest crops, and keep communities alive in places the powerful never visit.” So begins a manifesto published yesterday by LoneStarLeft author Michelle H. Davis. She

Trump’s rant last night not withstanding, the picture for America is not rosy. As reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the jobless rate rose last month to 4.6%, up from 4.4% in September, and 4.0% last January. Almost no jobs have been added since April. Unemployed now are 710,000 more Americans than there were in November, 2024. More than 37% of Trump voters in 2024 say the cost of living is the worst they’ve ever seen. A poll released last Friday by respected AP/NORC