This Texas Republican stalked Trump to get his endorsement—and flopped

Posted on August 5, 2025 by Alex Samuels

To win President Donald Trump’s endorsement amid a rough GOP Senate primary, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did what most of us would be too embarrassed to do: He stalked Trump.

CNN reports that Paxton made an unannounced visit to Trump’s golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland, last month, where he just happened to bump into the president. It’s unclear if Trump was expecting the pop-in, though they reportedly spoke about the primary, where Paxton is challenging incumbent John Cornyn from the right.

It’s not the only time Paxton has gone out of his way to win Trump over. Earlier this summer, a pro-Paxton political action committee aired its first TV ad in Palm Beach, Florida—right where Trump could see it from Mar-a-Lago—and far from Texas.

It’s the kind of pandering and political theater Trump has come to expect. In today’s GOP, making another man the centerpiece of your brand is seen as a strategic move, not an embarrassing one. Paxton flew 4,500 miles just to kiss the ring.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, shown in January.

But Paxton’s gotta do what he’s gotta do to win this messy primary. And with Rep. Wesley Hunt eyeing a run, it could get even more volatile. But despite his cross-continental pilgrimage, Paxton has nothing to show for it. Trump hasn’t endorsed anyone, and sources close to the president say he’s holding back for now. He’s got time too: The primary isn’t until March.

Cornyn and Paxton, longtime rivals, are now in what’s becoming one of the marquee Republican showdowns of the 2026 midterm cycle. The two have never been allies. Cornyn has long viewed Paxton as a scandal magnet and legal risk, while Paxton paints Cornyn as a swampy moderate out of step with the MAGA base. The animosity runs deep, fueling an increasingly sycophantic race to win Trump’s favor.

Paxton might have the upper hand with the GOP grassroots—at least for now. Numerous public and private polls show him leading Cornyn in the primary. But he also carries baggage. He’s in the middle of a high-profile divorce after his wife accused him of adultery, a saga that could turn voters off as it becomes more public. He was also impeached by the Texas House in 2023 on charges of abusing his office to benefit a political donor—though he was later acquitted by the Senate.

Then there’s Paxton’s role in enforcing Texas’s near-total abortion ban. In March, his office filed the state’s first criminal charges under the law, arresting a Houston-area midwife and one of her employees. While that may appeal to hard-line conservatives, it could alienate suburban voters who have trended away from the GOP in recent years.

Trump’s team is watching the race closely, according to CNN, since the outcome could influence control of the Senate in 2026. With Republicans bracing for a possible loss of their House majority—despite aggressive gerrymandering—their Senate majority takes on increased importance. A flawed nominee like Paxton could give Democrats a shot in flipping the seat next November.

“Winning is all that matters to the president,” an anonymous Republican strategist close to the White House told CNN. They also emphasized that loyalty isn’t the key to unlock Trump’s endorsement—it’s supposedly electability.

Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas, shown in 2023.

That’s why Cornyn may still have a chance. He’s a seasoned fundraiser, aligned with Senate leadership, and has never lost a statewide race. While Trump’s style may seem more compatible with Paxton, a messy general election in a state slowly turning purple might make Cornyn the safer choice.

There’s also the wildcard of Hunt, who could split the pro-Trump vote. A Black Iraq War veteran with ties to both MAGA activists and the GOP establishment, Hunt could force Trump to pick sides sooner than planned—or decide not to endorse at all. Hunt’s entry would only escalate the scramble for Trump's backing.

Still, Paxton leads most polls of the primary, and if he wins, it’ll likely boost Democrats’ chances of flipping the seat. Former Rep. Colin Allred has announced his campaign, and there are whispers that state Rep. James Talarico might join him in the primary. Texas has long been a white whale for Democrats—tantalizingly close in some cycles but always just out of reach. They believe a damaged GOP nominee like Paxton could tip the scales.

That’s exactly what national Republicans want to avoid. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and others have endorsed Cornyn, worried that nominating Paxton could jeopardize the seat—and the Senate majority.

Meanwhile, Trump is in no rush. As Texas Republicans trip over themselves to prove who's more loyal, he’s sitting back and soaking it in—relishing the spectacle of grown men groveling for his approval.

Bigoted congresswoman wants to spread hate across her home state

Posted on August 4, 2025 by Alex Samuels

Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of the most hateful Republicans in Congress, just announced her campaign for governor of South Carolina in 2026.

In a video posted to social media Monday, Mace strongly aligned herself with President Donald Trump, despite once being one of his most vocal critics. The clip includes footage of Trump calling her a “fighter.”

She has reportedly been in contact with the White House about her plans, though it’s uncertain if she will receive Trump’s “complete and total” endorsement.

Not long ago, that might have seemed impossible. After Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Mace criticized Trump, saying, “I hold him accountable for the events that transpired.” One day after barricading her office, she told The State newspaper, “I can’t condone the rhetoric from yesterday, where people died and all the violence.”

Her former staffers say her behind-the-scenes reaction was even more theatrical. According to The Washington Post, Mace considered filming herself confronting the insurrectionists so that she could get punched and go viral as one of the fiercest anti-Trump Republicans. Her team talked her out of it. When asked about the story later, she deflected: “What you write doesn’t pass for real journalism.”

Despite her supposed outrage, Mace never voted to impeach Trump and soon stopped trying to distance herself from him. Trump repaid her wobbliness by endorsing a primary challenger in 2022—Katie Arrington—but Mace survived. By the next year, she’d morphed into one of his staunchest defenders.

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, left, greets President Donald Trump as he arrives to address a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 4.

If that sounds like a political transformation, it wasn’t. Mace hasn’t changed; she’s just adjusted her approach. Her brand is whatever keeps her relevant. In 2023, she called herself “pro-transgender rights.” A year later, she introduced a resolution to ban trans women from using women’s restrooms at the Capitol—targeting incoming Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly trans member of Congress. She also promoted broader legislation affecting all federal buildings and schools.

She has kept up this momentum into 2025. During a House Oversight Committee meeting in January, Mace tried to corner former Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland with a question about defining a “woman.” It failed. The next month, she used an anti-trans slur during another hearing, and when the late Rep. Gerry Connolly called her out, she declared, “I don’t really care.” In November, according to Newsweek, she tweeted about bathrooms 326 times over 72 hours, a few days after McBride’s election victory.

But Mace isn’t just running on culture-war issues. In February, she stunned the House by accusing her ex-fiancé of rape, assault, and sex trafficking—naming him and other alleged abusers during a speech. She also directly criticized South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, accusing him of slow-walking the investigation. Wilson, now a GOP primary rival, announced his bid for governor in June.

The Republican field also includes Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Rep. Ralph Norman, one of the most right-wing members of the House. Gov. Henry McMaster is term-limited and will not run again.

At 47, Mace has been preparing for this moment for years. She first gained attention in 1999 as the first female cadet to graduate from Charleston’s Citadel military academy. In 2014, she ran a long-shot Senate campaign against Lindsey Graham, earning just 6%. She didn’t win, but she made herself known.

Trump later hired her to boost his 2016 South Carolina primary effort—at a time when few Republicans wanted to be seen with him. After a brief stint in the state legislature, she flipped a Democratic-held congressional seat in 2020.

Since then, Mace has cynically reinvented herself several times. She’s aligned with Trump, broken away from him, then rejoined when it suited her. She’s called herself a centrist on some topics, then embraced the far right. Throughout, she has prioritized her own interests.

Recent polls suggest she might enter the primary with a slight advantage, but there is no clear front-runner yet. With 2026 likely to be a challenging cycle for Republicans, this race could offer an early glimpse of what the post-Trump GOP will look like in the South—if that exists at all.

Trump’s demand the Smithsonian erase history is equal parts terrifying and pathetic

Posted on August 2, 2025 by Lisa Needham

If you’re planning a trip to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, make sure to check out “The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden,” which will teach you about all the presidents who were impeached or resigned in lieu of impeachment. So there’s Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and … huh, that’s it.

Yes, if you look for information on President Donald Trump’s two first-term impeachments, you won’t find it in this exhibit. The Smithsonian removed them in July.

The renowned museum told NPR it would put them back one day. Sometime in the future. It wouldn’t share a timeline.

Until that day, if it ever comes, the Smithsonian is a part of Trump’s rewriting of history, one that treats his presidency like an unvarnished success, a testament to the greatness of the man himself.

Though the administration very likely forced this removal, the Smithsonian spokesperson is still obliged to pretend this is just a normal thing, no big deal, just regular museum stuff where you have to roll back history 18 years, you know?

“Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance,” the museum said in a statement.

You see, they can’t include Trump’s impeachments because it’s just so much work to update things, per the administration’s statement to NPR: “A large permanent gallery like The American Presidency that opened in 2000, requires [a] significant amount of time and funding to update and renew. A future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments.”

That explanation might be a little less transparently bullshit if Trump’s twin impeachments hadn’t been included in the exhibit since September 2021.

If you ask the White House, they will explain to you that this is really all about returning America to its former glory and, of course, eradicating forbidden diversity. Per White House spokesperson Davis Ingle, for too long, the Smithsonian “highlighted divisive DEI exhibits which are out of touch with mainstream America,” and that the White House is “fully supportive of updating displays to highlight American greatness.”

It’s not just that the administration wants to remove negative history about Trump, though that is a driving force. It’s also about wanting the Republican Party, the federal government, and everyone else to display constant fealty to Trump. That’s why you see GOP proposals to put him on the $100 bill and on Mount Rushmore, to rename parts of the Kennedy Center after him and his wife, and to rename the Washington subway system the “Trump Train.”

But it also extends beyond Trump. They want to rewrite American history more broadly so that it panders to those like Trump and his ilk: white, straight, cis, conservative, rich. Vice President JD Vance has been empowered to purge museums of anything that doesn’t align with Trump’s view of American history as an unbroken success story. Trump’s team has demanded that museums and the national parks remove anything that’s supposedly divisive, which broadly translates to things that make white people sad.

It used to feel like saying Trump wanted to memory-hole the history he doesn’t like was a bit of a stretch. These days, though, if anything, it may be an understatement.

Trump seeks to leave his gold-plated stain on the White House

Posted on August 1, 2025 by Lisa Needham

The second Donald Trump presidency is horrifyingly destructive, a bunch of end-times enthusiasts ripping the wire out of the walls, but have you considered that it is also persistently frivolous? Take for instance his $200 million ballroom addition to the White House, which he unveiled plans for on Thursday.

If you were wondering if this proposed addition will be a gilded palace as ugly as one of his homes or as his ongoing gold-plating of the Oval Office, the answer is yes: “Renderings provided by the White House depict a vast space with gold and crystal chandeliers, gilded Corinthian columns, a coffered ceiling with gold inlays, gold floor lamps and a checkered marble floor,” says CNN.

Even the rendering provided by the White House screams super-sized Mar-a-Lago ballroom, which is most definitely not a compliment.

An American flag flies in front of the White House on July 23.

Trump really does see himself as a master developer, a very special boy because he—and he alone—can build a ballroom.

“They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years, but there’s never been a president that was good at ballrooms,” Trump said on Thursday. “I’m good at building things and we’re going to build quickly and on time. It’ll be beautiful, top, top of the line.”

Truly, that is what the past occupants of the White House have yearned for, an ever-deferred dream that only Trump could fulfill.

Trump keeps saying that the $200 million cost will be borne by himself and private donors, and that it will be his “gift to the country.” The notion that outside donors will pay for this garish thing is supposed to sound better than taxpayer dollars being spent on it, but all it really highlights is this is just another way to bribe the president.

Indeed, Trump has created many opportunities for donors to line his pockets in the hopes of receiving favorable treatment. You could buy his stupid memecoin, which might’ve gotten you invited to a dinner with him. If you’re a media company, you could agree to settle a frivolous lawsuit filed by Trump in his personal capacity, and donate millions to his future presidential library.

Of course, the opportunity to make a teeny, little seven-figure donation to Trump’s inauguration fund in order to possibly avoid regulatory oversight has come and gone, so why not figure out a way to help “donate” to build America’s Ugliest Ballroom?

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on July 30.

The fact this is even top of mind right now is ridiculous. Trump has been busy tearing the government down to the studs for months, but now he wants everyone to focus on his alleged ability to create beauty, to transform a space. He doesn’t have that ability, literally or figuratively. What he’s demanding is a hagiography, a rewriting of history that, as prize-winning reporter Jonathan Capehart put it on Thursday, is a funhouse mirror, a pretense at patriotism that is quite the opposite.

“Unapologetic patriotism is incomplete if it doesn't allow for a mirror to be held up to America, her people, and her president—to hold them all accountable when they have strayed from her founding principles,” Capehart said.

The desire to gold-plate the White House, to fritter away time on building projects and the like, highlights how un-serious Trump is. Yes, he’s deeply serious about using the government to destroy everything he hates, but he’s got people for that now—a whole Cabinet full. But he can’t help but fixate on imposing his tacky stamp on the country and forcing us to stare.

It’s the same impulse behind the birthday military parade and apparently pressuring the Smithsonian to remove references to his two impeachments. His need for adulation—and gold leaf, apparently—is bottomless.

Here’s how the Supreme Court is helping Trump put judges at risk

Posted on August 1, 2025 by Lisa Needham

Federal judges are, by and large, a cautious lot, not given to dramatic public pronouncements or calling attention to themselves. But now that the judiciary is under a sustained attack from the Trump administration and allies, some judges are speaking out.

During a Thursday webinar presented by the newly formed Speak Up for Justice, a nonpartisan group working to defend the judiciary, a couple of lower court judges were forthright about the threats they’ve faced after ruling against the Trump administration.

U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell, an Obama appointee, revealed that, after blocking President Donald Trump’s catastrophic funding freeze, he received 6 credible death threats, along with more than 400 threatening voicemails.

He played one during the webinar, with the caller saying, “How dare you try to put charges on Donald J. Trump,” and, “I wish somebody would fucking assassinate your ass.”

Similarly, after U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship ban, he was swatted as a result of someone anonymously telling the police that Coughenour killed his wife.

From the bench, Coughenour has been forthright about Trump’s actions.

“It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain,” he told Justice Department lawyers.

Yes, much of this stems from the Trump administration’s near-constant attacks on judges, often whipped up by Trump personally. There’s also the willingness of congressional Republicans to go along with it, including some of Trump’s more ardent supporters introducing bills calling for the impeachment of judges who rule against him.

But the Supreme Court, particularly Chief Justice John Roberts, is also at fault.

Rather than squarely addressing the fact that these threats overwhelmingly come from the right and are driven by the president, Roberts has instead offered vague, anodyne statements.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” he said in one statement.

Yes, that’s all Roberts had to say after Trump personally called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the Trump administration to return the planes of deportees heading to El Salvador—an order the administration defied.

The Trump administration has now filed a misconduct complaint against Boasberg for private comments to his judicial colleagues, in which he expressed concern about the administration defying court orders.

The problem isn’t just that Roberts is wishy-washy about these threats, speaking about them without ever mentioning Trump by name or acknowledging that his actions are the foundation for the attacks. But he has also joined the other conservatives on the Supreme Court to give Trump whatever he wants, constantly overturning lower court rulings.

These days, separation of powers is indeed for suckers.

Top House Republican will never stop investigating Biden

Posted on July 22, 2025 by Lisa Needham

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer is the Energizer Bunny of investigating former President Joe Biden. His newest plan of attack is to examine Biden’s judicial appointments, pardons, and executive orders and, if any were signed with an autopen, they are “in jeopardy of being declared null and void in a court of law.”

While Comer has enough juice to go forever, his tireless nature doesn’t make up for the fact that his ideas wouldn’t survive the scrutiny of a 10th-grade civics class. Comer can examine everything Biden ever wrote or signed or didn’t sign, and none of those things would mean that Biden’s judicial appointments could be undone. The only method to remove judicial appointees is the same as to remove Donald Trump: impeachment.

During a softball appearance on Fox News, Comer was asked if he was looking into Biden’s judicial appointments and said he was investigating “everything that was signed with the autopen, especially in the last year of the Biden presidency.” While Comer was not explicitly asked about Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, his whole “null and void” comment came right after a segment focusing on her.

It’s sheer buffoonery on Comer’s part to call Biden’s use of an autopen “the biggest scandal in the history of American politics.” Since Comer also thought that Trump’s insurrection was no big deal and Democrats had an “obsession with partisanship” in impeaching him, he has a peculiar idea of what constitutes a scandal.

Equally buffoonish is Comer’s attempt to explain when it’s totally cool to use autopens or digital signatures and when it is the greatest threat to the Republic imaginable. But Comer had to give it a try, given that NBC News found he used a digital signature on letters and subpoena notices related to the Biden probe—a signature inserted by someone other than Comer.

But that’s fine because Comer always signs “legally binding subpoenas” with a wet signature, and how dare you compare that to the “unauthorized use of an autopen” in the Biden White House. Unauthorized by who, James?

Comer is also stuck with the fact that the Department of Justice approved the use of autopens in 2005, and Trump has admitted to using them as well. Nonetheless, Comer is soldiering on, insisting that if Biden didn’t have knowledge of executive orders signed with his name, it raises an issue of whether those orders are legal. Comer has floated this idea for a while now, telling Fox News last month that if Biden didn’t know about the orders, “then I think the Trump administration could get them thrown out in court, and then Trump would be able to execute his agenda a whole lot easier.”

Comer: "If we can find information that would lead us to believe that Joe Biden had no knowledge of those executive orders being signed in his name, then I think the Trump administration could get them thrown out in court, and then Trump would be able to executive his agenda a whole lot easier."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-06-01T15:05:17.476Z

Quick, someone tell Comer how a president can undo an executive order issued by a former president. There’s literally nothing easier, as all it requires is the president to issue an order saying the previous executive order is now revoked. Whatever Comer perceives is preventing Trump’s success, it isn’t Biden’s executive orders.

Were Comer to do some digging, he might find a president who didn’t know what he was signing. Unfortunately for Comer, that president is Trump.

Trump openly admitted he either doesn’t know what he’s signing or is letting someone sign things in his name. Trump signed the proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove Venezuelan migrants in secret, but when asked by reporters about Judge James Boasberg’s criticism of that, Trump said, “I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it,” and that “other people handled it.”

It’s not entirely clear if that was meant to be an admission or just a self-inflicted wound incurred when Trump threw Secretary of State Marco Rubio under the bus: “Marco Rubio’s done a great job. And he wanted them out, and we go along with that.”

Comer’s well-worn path is also being trod by Ed Martin. Martin was once Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., until it became clear that Martin was too unhinged even for Senate Republicans. Martin is now the pardons attorney at the Department of Justice.

Right after getting his new gig, Martin said his top priority was to review Biden’s pardons. Unlike Comer, Martin doesn’t think Biden’s use of an autopen is the issue, but nonetheless told ABC News, “the Biden pardons need some scrutiny. I do think we’re going to take a hard look at how they went and what they did and if they’re, I don’t know, null and void, I’m not sure how that operates.”

One doesn’t need to be a failed U.S. attorney appointee to know that, as with judicial appointments, there is no mechanism to reverse a pardon. Martin knows this, and Comer does too. But pretending they don’t is red meat for the Trump base, and that’s what they really care about.

Retired Supreme Court justice gripes about the hot mess he helped create

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Lisa Needham

Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is very concerned about what is happening with the courts, you guys. No, he didn’t have anything to do with it. Why do you ask?

Kennedy’s remarks came during his Thursday speech at a forum titled “Global Risks to the Justice System—A Warning to America.” He was one of several speakers, including judges from countries where authoritarian crackdowns threatened the independence of the judiciary.

The bravery of those judges most definitely did not rub off on Kennedy, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan. In the face of repeated and ongoing attacks on the judiciary by President Donald Trump and his administration, the best Kennedy could do was praise judicial independence, as if that exists on the nation’s highest court any longer.

In this Oct. 8, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump watches as retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, right, ceremonially swears-in Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, left, in the East Room of the White House. Kavanaugh's wife Ashley is second from right with daughters Margaret, left, and Liza.

“Judges decide issues which have political consequences, but they don’t decide in a political way,” Kennedy claimed. “We have to honor the fact that judicial independence does not mean judges are put on the bench so they can do as they like—they're put on the bench so they can do as they must.”

Come on, Tony. Your cute little deal with Donald Trump in 2018, where you personally lobbied him to choose your former clerk Brett Kavanaugh to succeed you, was step two in Trump’s transformation of the court into a conservative grievance machine, following on the heels of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation the previous year.

You were perfectly aware that opposition to abortion was one of Trump’s litmus tests for Supreme Court nominees—he even campaigned on it. You were also perfectly aware that many of his lower court picks during his first term openly held anti-LGBTQ+ views. Trump explicitly chose judges because they would rule “as they like” instead of ruling “as they must.”

Indeed, when judges do rule as they must, and Donald Trump doesn’t like it, he attacks them personally. He called for Judge James A. Boasberg to be impeached after he blocked the administration from deporting Venezuelan immigrants.

At least 11 judges have had their families threatened with violence after they ruled against the Trump administration. Many of the threats occurred over at Elon Musk’s Nazi bar, X, where Musk himself amplified some of them. High-profile Trump supporter Laura Loomer shared a photo of Judge Boasberg’s daughter, alleging that she was helping undocumented gang members and calling for Boasberg and his daughter to be arrested and his entire family to be deported. James Boasberg was born in California to U.S. citizens, so the deportation demand is equal parts chilling and weird.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour faced both a bomb threat and a swatting incident after he ruled Trump’s birthright citizenship order was unconstitutional. During his speech, Kennedy fretted that “Judges must have protection for themselves and their families. Our families are often included in threats” without ever acknowledging who is whipping up those threats.

Congressional Republicans have attacked judges on every front. They’ve called for the impeachment of judges who block Trump’s illegal actions. The Senate tried to get a provision in the Big Beautiful Bill restricting lower courts from issuing preliminary injunctions against the government unless the plaintiff posted a bond equal to whatever the government said were its costs and damages from not being able to do illegal things right away.

Whenever conservatives want to both-sides the threats to the judiciary, they have literally one example: At a 2020 rally outside the Supreme Court, Sen. Chuck Schumer called out Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and said, “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You will not know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Roberts immediately issued a statement quoting Schumer and saying that “threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.”

But when Trump relentlessly attacks the judiciary, including routinely defying court orders, and elected officials call for judges to be impeached, the best Roberts could come up with was, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

This is equally as mealy-mouthed as Kennedy’s comments that the judiciary should stand for the rule of law and “we must always say no to tyranny and yes to truth.” Notably absent is any mention of who is attacking the rule of law. Notably absent is any mention that the rule of law went out the window when the conservative majority granted Trump immunity. Notably absent is any mention of who is saying yes to tyranny and no to truth.

Kennedy doesn’t deserve praise or a cookie for these vague statements. If he genuinely cared about attacks on the rule of law, he would need to challenge his former colleagues. He would need to challenge Trump, the man he cut a deal with to get Kavanaugh a lifetime appointment. He would need to say that the threats of violence against judges only occur when they rule against the administration. He would need to call out the ceaseless attempts by GOP elected officials to knee-cap the courts.

Kennedy is not going to do any of those things, but he’s probably going to continue to make a lot of high-minded speeches. Feel free to ignore him until he tells the truth.

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Justice Department sues this state’s federal bench in wild new escalation

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Alex Samuels

In an unprecedented and dangerous move, the Department of Justice has sued all 15 federal judges in Maryland—a sweeping retaliation against a court order that temporarily halts deportations.

At the center of the legal firestorm is a May 21 order from Chief Judge George L. Russell III, which bans federal officials from deporting immigrants who file habeas corpus petitions in Maryland until at least 4 PM on the second business day after filing.

The goal, Russell wrote, is to prevent rushed removals that deny immigrants a fair hearing, especially after business hours or on weekends, when proper review becomes logistically impossible.

“The recent influx of habeas petitions concerning alien detainees … filed after normal court hours and on weekends and holidays has created scheduling difficulties and resulted in hurried and frustrating hearings,” the order reads.

Russell cited the All Writs Act and a 1966 Supreme Court precedent that gives courts limited power to preserve jurisdiction while they review urgent matters.

But the Trump administration isn’t backing down. In a broad legal challenge, the DOJ argues that Russell’s standing order illegally grants blanket relief to all immigrants without considering individual cases and unlawfully restricts the president’s authority to enforce immigration laws.

“A sense of frustration and a desire for greater convenience do not give Defendants license to flout the law. Nor does their status within the judicial branch,” DOJ attorneys wrote.

The DOJ is asking the 4th Circuit Court to assign a judge from outside the Maryland district to hear the case, claiming that all 15 judges have an inherent conflict of interest since they are all named as defendants.

Legal analysts say this move is without recent precedent.

“It’s extraordinary. And it’s escalating DOJ’s effort to challenge federal judges,” Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola, told The Associated Press.

Speaking to The Washington Post, J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge, was more blunt.

“It is reckless and irresponsible and yet another direct frontal assault on the federal courts of this country,” he said.

The legal action appears to be the latest and most extreme salvo in the Trump administration’s ongoing war with the judiciary over immigration. And it didn’t take long for Democrats to sound the alarm.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore called the suit an “unprecedented effort to intimidate judges and usurp the power of the courts” and accused the Trump administration of “turning our Constitution on its head.”

Luttig says the administration helped create the chaos initially by rushing to deport immigrants en masse without proper notice or hearings. The Supreme Court recently ruled that one such group had a right to challenge their removal before being deported.

But that hasn’t stopped Trump officials, who have continued to lash out at judges who rule against them and openly question the courts’ authority to intervene.

Attorney General Pam Bondi clarified the Trump administration’s position in a statement on Wednesday.

“President Trump’s executive authority has been undermined since the first hours of his presidency by an endless barrage of injunctions designed to halt his agenda. This pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand,” she wrote.

President Donald Trump has criticized adverse rulings before—at one point calling for the impeachment of a federal judge who ordered for deported immigrants to be returned to the United States. While impeachment is unlikely and would require Senate conviction, it was enough to prompt a rare public rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

“Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” he warned.

The Maryland bench, especially, has been a thorn in Trump’s side. Judges like Paula Xinis have forced the administration to reverse wrongful deportations. Others, like James K. Bredar, are overseeing lawsuits filed by Democratic state attorneys general who are challenging mass firings of federal employees.

And in a year marked by sweeping executive actions, Maryland judges have blocked key Trump policies related to immigration, transgender health care, and civil service rights. Of the 15 judges in the district, 13 were appointed by Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

But legal scholars warn that the lawsuit could break long-standing norms between the executive and judicial branches.

“The president and his attorney general will continue their ruthless attack on the federal Judiciary and the Rule of Law until the Supreme Court of the United States at least attempts to stop them,” Luttig warned. “Until now, the Supreme Court has acquiesced in the president’s war, while the devastating toll on the Federal Courts and the Rule of Law has mounted by the day.”

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Trump’s Fox News addiction is reportedly behind Iran attacks

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Oliver Willis

Over the weekend, on orders from President Donald Trump, the U.S. attacked three Iranian nuclear sites, inserting itself into Israel’s conflict with that nation.

Leaders like Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York quickly noted that the military action was done without the authorization of Congress, called it a “grave violation of the Constitution,” and said it was grounds for his impeachment. (Trump has already been impeached twice, more than any president in history.)

The incident is the latest in a long line of Republican leaders pushing bombing campaigns on shaky legal and moral ground.

A B-2 bomber arrives at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on June 22.

Now new reporting indicates that what appears to have pushed Trump into attacking Iran was his most influential adviser: Fox News.

The New York Times reports from sources close to Trump that in the days leading up the action he was glued to Fox. “The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved,” the outlet noted.

Since Israel’s latest attacks on Iran, Fox News has gone into pro-war overdrive. For instance, on last Tuesday’s edition of “Fox & Friends,” which is known to be Trump’s favorite show on the network, co-host Lawrence Jones baselessly claimed, “If we ever even got into a conflict with Iran, it would be over within two days, if that.”

Similarly, a delegation of hawkish activists pushing for U.S. military intervention in Iran visited Trump at the White House on June 4. They were led by conspiracy theorist Mark Levin, host of the Fox News weekend show “Life, Liberty & Levin.”

Fox News was one of the major sources of propaganda in favor of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The network hyped then-President George W. Bush’s administration’s falsehoods about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction and links to the 9/11 attacks. In the aftermath, the war killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and thousands of American military service members. There were no weapons of mass destruction.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, shown on June 22.

Trump is obsessed with Fox News and has hired at least 23 former Fox staffers to be in his administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has been out in front on the Iranian bombing campaign, is the most prominent former Fox host in the Trump Cabinet. Other figures, like Attorney General Pam Bondi and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, were also Fox News talking heads.

Fox was also instrumental in Trump becoming a major political figure. When President Barack Obama was in office, Fox frequently hosted Trump to promote the racist “birther” conspiracy theory that falsely claimed Obama was not a native-born American citizen.

The feedback loop between Fox and Trump is consistent. The network even had to pay out a $787 million legal settlement to Dominion Voting Systems after Fox pushed Trump’s lies that he had won the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden.

Now Trump has pushed America into military strikes, seemingly based on the skewed coverage and baiting of Fox News, with more death and destruction likely to follow.

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Elon Musk tries to kiss and make up with Trump

Posted on June 11, 2025 by Alex Samuels

Just last week, Elon Musk accused President Donald Trump of having deep ties to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Now Musk is trying to be friends again.

After a spectacularly public breakup, the tech billionaire issued an early-morning semi-retraction, sort of apologizing for going scorched-earth on the president.

“I regret some of my posts about President Donald Trump last week,” Musk wrote. “They went too far.”

He didn’t say which posts crossed the line—and honestly, there’s no shortage of contenders.

As Trump threatened to strip Musk’s companies of their government contracts and subsidies, Musk fired back with a veiled threat that he’d outlast Trump politically, suggested the president should be impeached and replaced by Vice President JD Vance, and warned that Trump’s tariffs would “cause a recession in the second half of this year,” and claimed, “Without me, Trump would have lost the election.”

Oh, and Musk also accused the Trump administration of covering up the files around Epstein in order to protect the president.

“[Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” Musk posted. (That one’s since been deleted.)

President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speak to reporters from a Tesla vehicle on the South Lawn of the White House on March 11.

Musk is clearly trying to revive their once-close alliance. In recent days, he’s also shared Trump’s Truth Social posts about the brutal immigration raids and subsequent protests in Los Angeles, and he’s even nodded along to a post suggesting the two are “stronger together.”

Maybe Musk saw the public wasn’t exactly rallying to his side in the breakup. Perhaps he realized he still wants those government contracts. Or maybe the pressure from Trump’s inner circle finally got to him. Who knows.

What’s not clear is whether Trump wants him back.

On Friday, Trump mostly brushed off the drama, telling CNN, “He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem.” But by the time Musk’s retraction dropped, Trump’s tone had softened.

In a brief interview with the New York Post on Wednesday, Trump said he thought Musk’s apology was “very nice.”

“I thought it was very nice that he did that,” he said, though he dodged whether he was ready to make up.

And in a previously recorded New York Post podcast released Wednesday, Trump said he didn’t blame Musk for anything but was “disappointed” in him.

Will Trump ever forgive Musk?

“I guess I could,” the president replied in the interview, though he quickly pivoted. “My sole function now is getting this country back to a level higher than it’s ever been.”

Trump also walked back earlier threats to yank Musk’s federal contracts or probe his immigration status—attacks egged on by Steve Bannon, an informal Trump adviser and a loud critic of Musk.

Steve Bannon exits court in New York on Feb. 11.

Notably, Bannon isn’t letting it go. He’s publicly urged Trump to launch multiple investigations into Musk, starting with whether the world’s richest man is an “illegal alien.”

He “crossed the Rubicon,” Bannon said of Musk on Friday. “There’s no going back.”

This week, Bannon ramped things up even more, calling for a special counsel to investigate Musk over alleged drug use, referencing a report from The New York Times that claimed Musk was using while working closely with the administration.

“Pull the security clearance for the drugs, temporarily,” Bannon said. “Investigate the whole drug situation.”

The whole meltdown traces back to when Musk’s role in the administration ended. Once the face of Trump’s push to slash spending and gut the federal workforce, Musk turned on his old boss fast, calling Trump’s signature domestic bill a “disgusting abomination.” From there, the spat spiraled into wild accusations and personal jabs.

There’s some chatter that the recent protests in Los Angeles might’ve prompted Musk’s attempted truce, since immigration is one of the few issues he and Trump still largely align on. Musk’s been echoing Trump’s talking points on the protests, seemingly trying to show they’re still ideologically synced.

Still, trying to make peace with someone you just accused of being involved with a sex offender says more about Musk than anyone else.

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