Progressives are Democrat Party's Future. Not the Stale Establishment Losers of 2024

Why is it OK for the Right-Wing Fascists and Racists, a.k.a. MAGA, to take control of the Republican Party whose establishment toed the line behind a criminal felon like Trump, and it is not OK for the Progressives to take over the Democrat Party?

DUMP THE ESTABLISHMENT DEMOCRATS WHO ARE REPUBLICANS IN DISGUISE

The challenge for the Democrats is to ensure that the Progressives remain focused on the issues that matter most to individual Americans. This is not an ideological battle. This is not capitalism versus socialism. This is about making this country work for its everyday Americans, hard working ordinary Americans who deserve gratitude for generating the wealth of this country that a few billionaires criminals like Trump have monopolized.

This election is about moving forward into the 21st century, embracing the inevitable change that is going on as we speak, and not fall into nostalgia for long gone defunct periods (1950s or even 19th century) that no one, not even the senile demented moron Trump, can resurrect.

Vote for Trump's minions this november is you want racism enshrined in the laws. 

Vote for MAGA this november if you think women should not work, should stay at home and make babies, and should be thrown out of the army. 

Vote for Trump's asskissers if you believe in the trickle-down economy whereby by making a few individuals super-rich you'd be helping millions of struggling Americans. Just look around you: The few billionaires are getting richer and richer while the vast majority of us are struggling to pay for gas and groceries. 

Don't miss the appended piece below about the imbecile Texan Ted Cruz who is trying to fool and scare Texans with typical right-wing fascist lies about what the Democrats are about, when in fact he and his MAGA-republican clones are the bigoted Christians, the real criminals, the real Jew-hating antisemites, and the highway robbers of America.

Check Ted Cruz's own history of adultery and decide for yourself if he represents a "good Christian White man". Just like the other Texan adulterer Ken Paxton.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cruz-denies-tabloids-adultery-allegations-blames-garbage-on-trump/2016/03/25/38c997d0-f2b1-11e5-85a6-2132cf446d0a_story.html

https://rollcall.com/2016/04/01/five-reasons-why-the-ted-cruz-sex-scandal-story-wont-go-away/

https://divorce.law/guides/news/ken-paxton-divorce-records-unsealed-adultery-allegations/
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Michael Moore Tells CNN He’s Begging for Progressives to Overthrow Democratic Establishment ‘Hacks’
Sean James
Wed, August 5, 2026 



Michael Moore is calling for progressive candidates to overthrow the Democratic Party establishment, citing a clash between the status quo and the changes needed for the party to succeed.

Michael Moore told CNN he is so disgusted by the same old flavor of Democratic politicians he is willing to get on his knees and beg — if his body would allow him to — for progressive candidates to come in and topple the party establishment.

The director was in a near frenzy on Tuesday night when he joined anchor Laura Coates to discuss the state of the Democratic Party and the primary in his home state of Michigan. Coates said there is an ongoing "battle" inside the party over what type of candidates will lead it moving forward, which she said is represented by the Senate primary race between Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and frontrunner Abdul El-Sayed (D).

"There is a clash between what people think is possible and what they think requires the continuation of some aspect of the status quo," Coates said, before asking, "Does there require a change in the establishment and in the way things are done to effectuate the changes you want to see?"

"If I could get on my knees and beg it would be for exactly what you said, because we are not going to win the other way," Moore said. "We lost that way in '24. It's not going to happen if we allow this to happen. We are in charge of this and we need to get busy right now."

He then said El-Sayed's anti-Israel views are a key selling point for him and many other Dem voters. Moore said the party needs to be more like El-Sayed, and less like Stevens.

"It's not about electability — let me tell ya, I've known Dr. El-Sayed for many years, I worked on his campaign for governor in 2018. Boy, we would be so lucky if he were our senator, representing us, and standing up for the people who are dying, dying every day over there," Moore said.

Moore added, "I will not support hacks — hacks in the Democratic Party who have led us to this Waterloo."

A moment earlier, the man behind Fahrenheit 9/11 railed against Kamala Harris and ex-President Joe Biden, accusing them of betraying young voters and liberals in 2024 in order to support Israel and what he framed as the country's murder spree in Gaza.

"All the young people in the '24 election are like 'I Don't want to die. I'm not gonna die. And we've got a Democratic president in that year who could not think of anything but to give an apartheid regime all the money they asked for to kill all the children they wanted to kill," Moore ranted. "And what did we do as Americans? 'Sure, take the money. Good for you, Joe.'"

He lamented the Dems being too pro-Israel lost the youth vote in 2024, as well the "Muslim and the Arab vote." Moore said the Dems can't make the same mistake again in 2028, or else there will be a "third Trump term."

El-Sayed had a 49.7% to 46.3% edge on Stevens with about 71% of votes counted by 12:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday morning.

Moore finished his interview by saying no matter what happens in his state's Democratic primary, the party establishment is going to be overthrown sooner than later.

"This will not stand. This will not continue," he said. "The youth of America are going to rise up."

The post Michael Moore Tells CNN He's Begging for Progressives to Overthrow Democratic Establishment 'Hacks' first appeared on Mediaite.

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Ted Cruz Revives Classic 'Crazy' GOP Talking Point In Unhinged Fox News Rant
Anthony Orrico
Wed, August 5, 2026


Ted Cruz Revives Classic 'Crazy' GOP Talking Point In Unhinged Fox News Rant


Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) channeled his inner Joseph McCarthy during a Fox News appearance on Tuesday, when he claimed many Democratic candidates want to cancel Christmas and Thanksgiving.

"They're crazy enough, yes, they want to cancel Thanksgiving, they want to cancel Christmas. Look, these communists hate America. They hate capitalism. (Abdul) El-Sayed is also an Islamist, as is (Zohran) Mamdani," Cruz told host Jesse Watters. "You see the green-red convergence, where the communists and the Islamists, they want sharia law, they hate Jews, they hate Christians, they hate capitalism, they hate America."

Despite the senator's comments, Mamdani and El-Sayed have made no suggestion of canceling any holidays and are not communists. El-Sayed, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, and Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, are both progressives.

Cruz was likely referring to past comments made by Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, who had suggested canceling Thanksgiving due to the holiday's ties to European colonialism and the genocide of Native Americans. Hong, for her part, has addressed these comments and seemingly tried to dismiss them.

"Thanksgiving is also a time that's incredibly painful for many people in our communities. And so I think there, I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views, but views can evolve," Hong told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Monday.

Faced with a possible blue wave in the midterm elections, Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have been painting people on the left as communists.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an authoritarianism expert and professor of history at New York University, explained in a series of social media posts how this move was straight out of the fascist playbook.

"...New party line is to associate Communists with every crime, every offense. Create a sense of Communist threat to justify a rightwing crackdown. Old playbook used with coups and Fascist takeovers," Ben-Ghiat said in one post.

Example of MAGA-Republican "Family Values": Max Miller Promotes Daughter's Genitals

Just like Trump and Hegseth, republican-GOP-MAGA criminals claim to uphold the so-called "Judeo-Christian Family Values", but then turn out to be bigots who perpetrate all sorts of crimes (sexual and otherwise) against families and decency, then blame decent hard-working immigrants for their own crimes.

When will the American people learn?

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Abuse Accusations Against Republican Congressman Somehow Get Worse
Malcolm Ferguson
Tue, August 4, 2026 

Republican Representative (Ohio) Max Miller has been accused of sharing pictures of his daughter’s genitals, adding to the disturbing allegations of abuse against him.

Republican Representative Max Miller—accused of holding a gun to his wife's head, scalding her with boiling water, and breaking his two-year-old daughter's collarbone—has now been accused of sharing pictures of that same daughter's genitals. This would be considered Child Sex Abuse Material, adding yet another disturbing allegation to Miller's plate.

It seems that Miller inadvertently shared the picture on Sunday while using Dropbox to upload police reports, recorded conversations, medical records, and a 20-minute indignant video denying his ex-wife Emily Moreno's abuse allegations.

"The first time Miller shared the folder, it contained private images of Miller and Ms. Moreno's daughter and left her name unredacted. At least one of those images could be considered Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) because the daughter's genitals appear to be visible," Moreno's lawyers wrote in a letter to Miller's legal team on Monday.

"We write to demand an explanation about how this occurred," the letter continued. "Whose idea was it to share this intimate image of the child? Why did your firm share it? Did you or your firm vet the images before sharing them? Did anyone? Who? Who removed the images from the second folder and why? Was it because someone realized that it was ill-advised (and in the case of the potential CSAM image, illegal) to share these images with the world?"

This news is the latest domino to fall for Miller. On Sunday, Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, Miller's ex-father-in-law, finally came out against Miller, saying he needed "serious psychological help," and calling on him to step down from Congress and abandon his current reelection campaign.

"He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter," Moreno wrote on X. "If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them."

Then on Monday, Miller received a restraining order from his ex-girlfriend, former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. And that same day, President Trump—who was initially supportive of Miller—reportedly called him directly to tell him that "things aren't looking good" for his campaign.

Miller continues to deny virtually every accusation his ex-wife has made, even as the Dropbox release that allegedly included his daughter's genitals also shows him describing throwing boiling water on Emily as a "playful incident" and her alleging that she found needles next to his bed, which he did not deny.

Miller, who worked for the presidential campaigns of both Marco Rubio and Trump in 2016, remains in office and continues to run for reelection, as the vast majority of his Republican colleagues have displayed extreme cowardice by either ignoring the situation entirely or supporting him. Miller has made it abundantly clear that he has no plans to step down. As of now, he will face off against Democrat Brian Poindexter in the general election for his House seat. The GOP has until Wednesday to replace him on the ballot.

Donald Trump did reach out Max Miller to warn him that his candidacy is in jeopardy. In a phone call, Trump told Miller that "things aren't looking good" for the November midterms.

Yet, the president defended Miller while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office earlier Monday. "It's a very sad thing. I know Max. He's a good person. I mean, I've always thought he was a very good person, and I'm gonna let the families figure that out," Trump told the press.

The president alluded to knowing the family very well. Before running for office, Miller was a Trump White House aide. Miller married Emily Moreno, his now ex-wife, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in 2022, and received the president's official endorsement for Congress that same year.

Moreno has accused Miller of assaulting her, throwing a pot of boiling water on her, holding a gun to her head, and breaking their two-year-old daughter's collarbone. Last week, Moreno filed for a new restraining order against her ex-husband, alleging that he'd physically grabbed one of her attorneys and used a profane slur.

In a statement Sunday, Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, Emily's father, said that Miller should "not serve in the House of Representatives ... As he has admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help. He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter," Moreno wrote on X.

Miller was dealt another blow Monday night when his ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, filed a temporary restraining order against him.

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MEANWHILE, Pete Hegseth's wife is managing the Pentagon and the Iran War alongside her husband. Talk of neoptism and cronyism. Hegseth himself is a drunkard alcoholic, a womanizing adulterer, twice divorced because of his dissolute lifestyle, who claims to have been "personally" saved by Jesus.

Jennifer Hegseth’s Pentagon portfolio expands in new and unusual ways
Steve Benen
Tue, August 4, 2026


Jennifer Rauchet, the wife of Pete Hegseth, sits behind him during his Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14, 2025.

A few months ago, when I put together a tally of the number of Fox News veterans who have joined Donald Trump's team during the president's second term, I counted 25 people — enough to field a full football team, offense and defense, with a few additional folks on the bench. But at the time, I only included Fox employees who had appeared on air.

If we include Fox News veterans who worked as producers at the network, the list grows to include folks like Jennifer Rauchet Hegseth, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's third wife, whose portfolio at the Pentagon appears to be growing. The Hill reported:

President Trump signed an executive order on Monday to form a new commission focused on improving the lives of military spouses and families and addressing the challenges they encounter.

The new commission, called the President's Military Spouse Commission, will be chaired by Jennifer Rauchet, the wife of the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

There's certainly nothing wrong with keeping a president informed about the interests and needs of military families, and if all goes well, the commission may very well serve a worthwhile purpose.

But what's surprising is the scope of Jennifer Hegseth's role within the administration generally and the Defense Department specifically.

Just two months into Pete Hegseth's tenure, for example, The Wall Street Journal reported that the defense secretary brought his wife "to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed." The article added that a secretary "can invite anyone to meetings with visiting counterparts, but attendee lists are usually carefully limited to those who need to be there and attendees are typically expected to possess security clearances given the delicate nature of the discussions."

A month later, we learned that Pete Hegseth used his personal phone to send highly specific details about an imminent U.S. military strike to a 13-person Signal group chat, which also included his wife.

A week later, The Washington Post reported:

Jennifer Hegseth on multiple occasions has informed her husband's staff of media interviews he planned to do, underscoring a belief among some officials that she wields outsize influence over certain Pentagon operations. Typically, such responsibilities fall to dedicated media-engagement professionals employed by the Defense Department, not the secretary's wife.

She met with potential political appointees as the Trump administration scrutinized people for positions at the Pentagon, two people familiar with the issue said. The role effectively had her conducting job interviews, they said.

What's more, she also serves as a senior adviser to the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-oriented think tank created five years ago.

If there's ever been a defense secretary's spouse with a portfolio like this one, I'm not aware of it.

Even his Own MAGA Appointees Can't Ignore Trump's Failures and Criminal Endeavors

It's never his fault.

The man-child running the United States hired one of his corrupt mafiosi friends to line the bottom of the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial with a blue color lining, without going through the legal bidding process.

His mafioso friend did the job with cheap substandard material which began cracking and peeling within barely a week of its installation. The substandard material also turned out to be food for an invasive type of algae, and the Reflecting Pool became like more like a disgusting murky pond.

The dumbass criminal in the White Outhouse wouldn't accept responsibility for hiring a sleazy shady business. So he had his private police arrest a couple of tourists who happen to be around the pool and witnessed the cracks, and demanded that the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, his own MAGA lowlife Jeanine Pirro, prosecute those tourists for "vandalism".

Obviously, however lowlife and sleazy is the Jeanine Pirro might be, she could not successfully blame the tourists for what Trump and his jackass friend did to the pool. She had no evidence whatsoever.

So she announces she is dropping the case against the tourists. Imagine, Pirro is a very devout MAGA imbecile who kisses the ground on which Trump walks. And now her Mafia MAGA boss is angry at her for dropping the case.

It really doesn't get any worse than this.

This is how this criminal felon is allowed to run the country, make money over the backs of the American people by cheating, wage wars and kill thousands of people.  

By the way, Pirro is of Lebanese descent, which explains in part her atavistic corruption and her tendency to follow dictators and strongmen.
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Trump doesn’t fire Pirro at White House meeting hours after saying she ‘choked’ over Reflecting Pool case
Alayna Treene, Kaitlan Collins, Kristen Holmes, CNN
Tue, August 4, 2026


US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, on April 27. - Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg/Getty Images/File

President Donald Trump, who has said US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro "choked" over the Reflecting Pool vandalism case, did not fire his longtime ally during an afternoon White House meeting, nor did she offer her resignation, multiple sources told CNN.

Trump had been considering removing her after the Justice Department concluded that the problems with the pool stemmed from a flawed renovation rather than vandalism, two people familiar with his thinking told CNN earlier Monday. The president spent the weekend fuming about that decision, one of the sources said, noting he has been "furious" with Pirro — frustration he later voiced publicly in the Oval Office.

"I was disappointed in Jeanine Pirro. Really disappointed in Jeanine Pirro," he told reporters at unrelated event. "She folded like an umbrella."

Later that afternoon, Trump met at the White House with both Pirro and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a person familiar with the meeting told CNN. Others were also present at the meeting.

The Reflecting Pool case has put the two Trump appointees at odds in recent days. In a court filing last week, Pirro's office directly blamed other federal agencies, including the Interior Department, for not being forthcoming with information about the bungled renovation. Burgum, meanwhile, has stood by Trump's allegations of vandalism.

The Justice Department acknowledged in its Friday court filing that the president's $14 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool was "hasty and botched" and said it was dropping the criminal case against former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the landmark.

Part of Trump's anger over the filing was that it "blindsided" him, a senior administration official said. "The president did not know beforehand that she was going to do that," they said.

CNN reached out to Pirro's office and the Justice Department for comment about Trump considering removing her. The White House directed CNN to the president's prior comments on the filing and did not comment on the substance of that reporting.

However, Trump made his displeasure with Pirro, a former Fox News host, known on Monday.

"Frankly, I think she choked, because the judge was really vicious. Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department, and I guess she choked," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump and Pirro also spoke by phone on Saturday about the court filing. Their conversation "wasn't pretty," said one of the sources, who was read out on the call.

Pirro told Trump it was the career officials in her office that were responsible for the filing, another source said. A longtime prosecutor who oversees prosecutions in DC Superior Court signed the court filing asking to dismiss the case on Friday.

In addition to the Saturday call, Pirro has spoken with Trump multiple times about the situation.

Trump on Saturday publicly criticized the move, posting to Truth Social: "I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don't know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM."

Pirro argued in her filing that the Department of Interior "provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case."

"Had DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment," it read.

Despite those accusations, the president has not been angry with Burgum, the sources said, and he continues to believe that vandals are responsible for the damage to the Reflecting Pool. Burgum dismissed Pirro's argument in a social media post on Saturday, saying, "The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool."

However, internal communications CNN received through FOIA requests between the National Park Service — which oversaw the project under the Department of Interior — and DC Water from March through last month make no mention of any vandalism as the department was planning to drain the pool.

Trump had said the pool would need to be drained to make repairs caused by the alleged vandalism — yet an email from NPS acknowledged as early as July 1 that the pool would need to be drained due to algae. The agency also weighed whether to dye the pool water; in the past, the water has been dyed black to help reflect better.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have dropped cases against three more individuals previously charged with destruction of property at the Reflecting Pool, according to DC court filings. The three faced fines up to $1,000 and a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

Hearn, who previously pleaded not guilty to the felony charge in DC's Superior Court, has legal options that could unearth more embarrassing details on how his case was handled. The judge hasn't officially dismissed Hearn's charges as of Monday afternoon, and his lawyers are expected to file a response to Pirro's request to dismiss the case this week.

"Nothing is off the table," said Michael R. Bromwich, an attorney representing Hearn.

Among his options: referring the prosecutors involved to a bar disciplinary authority; asking inspectors general to look at the conduct of the Justice Department and Interior Department; filing lawsuits; seeking more of the grand jury record documenting the prosecutors' presentation of the indictment; and asking the judge to dismiss the case so it cannot be brought again. Pirro's office has so far sought only to dismiss Hearn's charge without prejudice, meaning prosecutors wouldn't be barred from attempting to revive the case later.

This headline and story have been updated with additional reporting.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz, Sunlen Serfaty, Casey Tolan, Kevin Liptak and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed to this report.

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For more, see: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-disappointed-jeanine-pirro-dropping-reflecting-pool-vandalism-case/

Enraged Zionists Viciously Attack Arab Bus Driver in Jerusalem.

Ask the Zionists who reject an independent Palestinian State: What plans do you have for the 5 million Palestinians who live under your occupation?

Answer: Silence.

Why? Because the Zionists can't say publicly that they want to "eliminate" the Palestinian population by all the tools of ethnic cleansing, the same tools they used to create Israel in the 1940s: Terror, demolish homes and villages, killing and culling, downgrade living standards....

How else can you have a "Democracy for Jews only"?
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'When I came to, I tasted blood': Jerusalem bus driver attacked by teenagers, loses four teeth
Hodaya Ran AND EFRAT FORSHER AND Miriam Sela-Eitam
Updated Sun, August 2, 2026


Passengers walk in and out from a public bus at the entrance to Jerusalem, on August 1, 2022; illustrative. (photo credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)

An Arab Superbus driver in Jerusalem was beaten unconscious by a group of [Jewish] teenager [terrorists] while stopped at a red light, resulting in serious injuries.

Police opened an investigation into a Saturday incident where an Arab Superbus driver was beaten unconscious by a group of [Jewish] teenagers while stopping for a red light at the Ramot intersection in Jerusalem.

While the bus was stopped, several young people began banging on the sides of the bus. When the driver opened the window to see what was going on, he was struck repeatedly, causing him to lose consciousness, lose four teeth, and suffer facial injuries.

The driver remained unconscious for several minutes, and [when] he came to he heard the [Jewish] teenagers continuing to threaten and curse him.

He managed to drive away from the intersection and contacted the police before being evacuated to the hospital to receive medical treatment.

"I had only just started my shift," said M., the driver who was attacked. "I heard loud banging on the side of the vehicle. I had only just opened the window when I was hit with tremendous force.

M., the bus driver who was attacked by a group of teenagers, August 2, 2026. (credit: Koah LaOvdim, VIA WALLA)

"I may have been unconscious for about two minutes. When I came to, I could taste blood in my mouth. All around me there were curses, shouting, and faces filled with hatred. Why? I do not know. I had simply started my shift."

"I panicked and drove through the intersection, but I apparently was still not fully conscious, and I felt that I was losing control. Luckily, I managed to park the bus," he said. "I do not want to think about what could have happened had there been passengers on board."

Racist violence [by Jews] against Arabs must end, MK warns

MK Jafar Farah (Hadash), who also serves as director of the Mossawa Center for Arab Citizens' Rights, slammed the attack as being "part of a dangerous reality in which incitement, racism and violence flourish and are legitimized and sometimes even encouraged from on high."

"The criminals who attacked the driver felt they had a tailwind and believed that even if they were caught, there would be someone who would take care of them," Farah said. "A direct result of a coalition and government that incites hatred, instead of fighting it."

"The way to stop racist violence must go through the police who understand that their job is to maintain public safety, not to please a criminal minister, through a justice system that sees Arab lives as equal and, first and foremost, by replacing the racist and evil government, whose damage is seeping everywhere."

Farah called on the "Jewish public to join the important struggle against racist violence."

Crossing a red line against public transportation workers

Itay Cohen, head of the transportation division at Koach LaOvdim, an Israeli labor union organization, condemned the incident.

"Another line has been crossed in the violence against public transportation workers, and only the driver's quick thinking prevented a disaster," Cohen said. "What would have happened if, following this attempted lynching, he had struck a private vehicle?"

"We welcome the work of Jerusalem's mobile security unit, but it is unacceptable for only three mobile security guards to be responsible for addressing violence on buses."

"We call on the company's management to cooperate with us and immediately provide police with the footage of the attack. We are engaged in a labor dispute over this issue, and we will not compromise on the safety of drivers and inspectors."

Superbus also condemned the attack in its own statement on Sunday.

"Superbus views last night's attack in Jerusalem with the utmost seriousness and strongly condemns all acts of violence against public transportation workers," it said. "The company is fully cooperating with Israel Police and law enforcement authorities in order to apprehend the attackers and bring them to justice as quickly as possible.

"Company representatives have been supporting the driver with care and on an ongoing basis since the attack, and will continue to support him and his family until he makes a full recovery. Superbus will continue to do everything in its power to ensure the safety and well-being of its drivers and passengers."

Trump Organization and Money Laundering

 

Capital One says it closed Trump Organization's accounts after anti-money laundering probe

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump gives thumbs-up as he walks to board Marine One following his arrival aboard Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey, U.S., July 31, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer/File Photo · Reuters

Sun, August 2, 2026 at 2:18 AM GMT+3 2 min read

By Kenrick Cai

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Capital One Financial hit back on Friday against a lawsuit over its decision to close the Trump Organization's bank accounts years ago, stating that it did ‌so after a review by anti-money laundering experts.

The disclosure marks the first time a bank has ‌formally tied money laundering concerns to U.S. President Donald Trump's family business. Capital One is seeking to dismiss the case by casting doubt on ​claims of illegally debanking — or denying services on religious or political grounds — the Trump Organization.

What previous legal battles involved Trump and banks?

Why did Capital One close Trump Organization's accounts?

How has Trump's administration responded to alleged debanking?

What are the Trump Organization's allegations against Capital One?

The Trump Organization and Capital One did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Capital One has never accused the Trump Organization of illegal money laundering. But Friday's filing argues that "documents and Plaintiffs' own allegations make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs' accounts for anti-money laundering ("AML") reasons. The ‌closures were the result of months of ⁠analysis and a careful review by Capital One's AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance."

Capital One gave notice of its plans to close more than 300 Trump-affiliated ⁠bank accounts in March 2021. The Trump Organization and Eric Trump, the president's son, filed a lawsuit in March 2025 in a Florida federal court, alleging the accounts were closed because of Capital One's "woke" beliefs and its desire to benefit from the ​political ​mood after the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. ​Capitol.

'MISGUIDED' ALLEGATIONS: CAPITAL ONE

The federal court in Miami ‌has tossed two complaints in the Capital One case, but gave the plaintiffs opportunities each time to submit an amended complaint. Capital One said that the latest version, filed in July, "suffers from the same fundamental flaws as their prior two pleadings."

Capital One said in Friday's filing that the Trump Organization's allegations of political pretext were "misguided" and "based on cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context" of documents submitted to the court.

"The transaction patterns identified by Capital One are among ‌the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance," the filing ​said.

Since the start of Trump's second term, his administration has put ​pressure on some large banks, echoing conservative complaints ​that the institutions are deliberately targeting the political right.

Trump signed an executive order in August ‌2025 barring discriminatory debanking. In January, Trump filed a ​suit against JPMorgan Chase on ​the same grounds, underscoring the fraught policy environment Wall Street is navigating during the president's second term.

In 2019, during his first term, Trump sued Capital One and Deutsche Bank in an attempt to prevent them ​from sharing financial records with Congress as ‌part of a probe led by Democratic lawmakers. Anti-money laundering professionals at Deutsche Bank reportedly flagged ​a set of transactions, but executives ignored them; Deutsche Bank denied the report at the time.

(Reporting ​by Kenrick Cai; Editing by Sergio Non and Rod Nickel)

Saudi Arabia Nuclear?

The Saudi flag is pure Islamist ideology - A sword and the "shahada". 

Saudi Arabia is an Islamic theocracy, even if clerics do not run the place directly.

16 of the 19 mass-murdering hijackers on September 11, 2001 were Saudis.

Saudi Arabia began exporting Islamic ideology to the West some time in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Funding religious schools, teaching the Arabic language of the Koran, building mosques, dispatching fundamentalist preaching imams...

All the Islamic terror movements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries were largely funded and encouraged - even if indirectly - by Saudi Arabia and the smaller Emirates like Kuwait and the Emirates.

If this has changed somewhat, it is to the credit of a modernizing ruler, Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS), who has ambitions to liberalize the country. 

But how far can he go without alienating the deeply rooted religious ethos of the country, its powerful clergy and the religious establishment?

Brief episodes of "modernization" in very conservative countries have been known to happen. But they've generally failed at recruiting its people and its elite into the movement. For instance, Turkiye's Mustafa Kemal Ataturk forced his country to convert from an Arab-Eastern to a European-Western character some 100 years ago (banned the hijab, changed the Arabic script of the Turkish language into a Latin-alphabet-based script, etc.) and the country made headway into liberalism for a while, but has since regressed back into Islamism.

For all practical purposes, Saudi Arabia may be in the midst of such an attempt by MBS, but will it succeed? What chances are there for a falling out between the ruler and his conservative people? How long can he keep convincing them that liberating women will not lead to what they deem a copy of a "decadent" West?

True that Saudis have been made very fond of all (bad) things American: Driving gas guzzlers, eating fast food, succumbing to the violence served to them through American "culture" (Hollywood movies etc.). 

And now, with the US having brandished an equally Islamist Iran as a scarecrow to compel the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs to keep tugging at Mother America's dress for protection, the Americans are proposing to sell Saudi Arabia nuclear power, supposedly for civilian purposes. We've heard that song before in countries with radically anti-Western cultures: Nuclear power begins civilian but eventually grows into military. 

What if some day in the not-so-distant future, the regime in Saudi Arabia changes hands from a liberalizing MBS to someone more conservative and nostalgic of Islamist ideology? Could the world be pondering decades from now why did the US export its nuclear knowledge to the Saudis? Could the Saudi Arabia of today become the Iran of tomorrow?

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Does Saudi Arabia want to develop nuclear weapons? Here’s what history can tell us
Ibrahim Al-Marashi, IE University; California State University San Marcos
Sat, August 1, 2026



The US-Saudi nuclear deal was announced in the midst of what has, as of 2026, become America's Third Gulf War. The news broke just as Saudi Arabia and the US launched air raids against Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, in retaliation for alleged drone attacks directed Saudi Arabia's oil facilities.

The future details of a deal – which would allow for exports of US civilian nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia – remain uncertain. However, past events raise the question of whether Riyadh would ever use such a program to eventually develop nuclear weapons.

A range of historical factors have discouraged nuclear proliferation in Saudi Arabia, but this has changed over the last decade with the rise of two leaders: Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, who came to the throne in 2015, and US President Donald Trump – both in his first term from 2016 to 2020, and during his second term and ongoing war against Iran.

In 2010, I wrote a chapter entitled "Saudi Petro-Nukes? Riyadh's Nuclear Intentions and Regime Survival Strategies". In it, I argued that, historically, Saudi Arabia had signalled no interest in a civilian nuclear program, let alone the possibility of developing a nuclear weapons program. This was because of two major factors: US pressure, and Saudi Arabia's position in the world economy.

US pressure

In 2003, on the eve of America's war to eliminate Iraq's alleged nuclear program, news emerged of Iran's clandestine nuclear facilities. Policymakers presumed that the Islamic Republic's program would spark a regional nuclear arms race, and that Saudi Arabia, its regional rival, would develop its own nuclear arsenal to deter Iran.

Saudi Arabia has long had the financial means to invest in a nuclear program, whether civilian or military. However, it lacked the domestic physical resources and scientific infrastructure to develop such weapons. It is also a signatory to the UN Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

However, Saudi Arabia only signed the NPT after purchasing almost 50 CSS-2 missiles from China in 1988, when its previous request for a ballistic missile purchase from the United States had been rejected. Washington's ire over the Chinese missiles led to US pressure for Riyadh to sign and ratify the NPT, and to never seek nuclear warheads for the missiles.

This precedent has informed Saudi decision-making since then, with the assumption that the same American stance would dissuade Riyadh from pursuing nuclear weapons in the future.

In any case, since the second world war, implicit American security guarantees to Riyadh offered a far safer and more robust deterrent to external aggression than a nuclear arsenal ever could. However, wavering US support for its allies in Europe mean those guarantees may not be as iron-clad as they once were.

The economic factor

Saudi Arabia is a rentier petrostate dependent on oil revenues from a global market, and it is the world's swing producer of oil as part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). This means it has economic relations with nearly every major world power, including the US, the EU, China, and Russia.

A Saudi nuclear program would have brought a volatile element into the equation that make it unattractive to the foreign investors that drove its growth.

This is in contrast to Iran, a country that, while also a petrostate, is more self-sufficient than Saudi Arabia. Iran has endured US sanctions since the 1979 Revolution, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has even found ways to benefit under sanctions. As of 2026, the IRGC are now the de facto ruling elite, and dominate Iran's economy. Saudi Arabia's ruling elite, by contrast, has always had a vested interest in stable, dependable international trade.

In the past, a Saudi nuclear program would only have threatened the Kingdom's scrupulously internationalised economy, and its reputation for stability and pragmatism.

Muhammad bin Salman's nuclear ambitions

While Saudi Arabia has historically had little need to pursue nuclear weapons, events over the last ten years suggest that this position could change.

The 2015 Iran nuclear deal signalled a US desire to coexist with Iran under the Obama administration. It was also the product of Saudi King Abdallah's pragmatic regional policy. When Abdallah died in 2015, he was succeeded by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman – a very different leader who did not share his predecessor's practical outlook.

The Crown Prince almost immediately intervened in Yemen's civil war in 2015.

He also intensified the regional cold war with Iran. In March 2018, he publicly declared that Saudi Arabia would develop a nuclear bomb if Iran did. In November 2018, he announced a project to build the kingdom's first nuclear research reactor.

In January 2019, revelations of a missile-making facility in Saudi Arabia served as evidence of a critical first step that Saudi Arabia was seeking nuclear weapons. While not relating to nuclear weapons themselves, the missiles would give Riyadh the capability to manufacture a long-range delivery system for nuclear warheads.

In February 2019, the US Congress's House Oversight and Reform Committee released a report alleging that members of the Trump administration sought to expedite the transfer of American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, a possible law violation.

The report has since been taken down, but the officials involved included General Michael Flynn, who briefly served as Trump's national security adviser before being fired in February 2017, and Thomas Barrack, the chairman of Trump's inauguration committee, who is now Trump's envoy to Syria and Iraq.

Finally, in September 2019, two Saudi Aramco oil facilities, Abqaiq and Khurais, were attacked by a salvo of drones and cruise missiles, allegedly at the behest of Iran via militias in Iraq or Yemen. The Trump administration did nothing to prevent this attack, nor did it aid in any further punitive actions, leading Riyadh to question American security guarantees. The US withdrawing military support from its European partners will only deepen Saudi doubts.

All of this means that, in the aftermath of the 2026 war, Saudi Arabia will have a renewed interest in developing civilian – but not military – nuclear infrastructure as a latent deterrent against Iran.

Nevertheless, recent event show that such a program would not deter attacks by non-state actors – such as the Iraqi militias or Yemeni Houthis – that can attack the Kingdom. While these groups form part of Iran's Axis of Resistance, they allow the Islamic Republic to claim a vitally important degree of plausible deniability.

Now posting occasionally at reduced frequency

Like in America, Australian White Trash Descendants of Criminals Claim the Land is Theirs

This asshole of a white trash descendant of convicted criminals deported by the English colonial crooks has the gall to tell other immigrants to "go back to their country". Like the American MAGA white trash morons of Trump, they all pretend to forget they were once also immigrants - a couple of generations removed - who may have arrived illegally.

The English colonial crooks have pilfered the world's resources during their Empire and mistreated the peoples whose their countries they brutally invaded. 

Australia doesn't belong to this white trash racist imbecile. It belongs first to its aborigines people who were massacred and displaced, just like the American white trash morons who genocided the native American people and herded them into reservations. 

Yet they have the gall to claim the land is theirs. 

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New Zealand foreign minister in racism row with Chinese ambassador
Thu, July 30, 2026


Populist NZ First leader Winston Peters told an Australian lawmaker of Chinese descent to "go back to your own country" (Brendan SMIALOWSKI)

New Zealand's top diplomat Winston Peters drew the ire of Beijing's ambassador in Wellington on Thursday after telling a lawmaker of Chinese descent to "go back to your own country".

During a debate about New Zealand's response to the Covid pandemic on Wednesday, populist NZ First leader Peters was asked by China-born Green Party member Lawrence Xu-Nan: "Are you vaccinated?"

In response, Peters said the lawmaker, who was born in the Chinese city of Tianjin but grew up in Auckland, had "come here five minutes ago".

"Go back to your own country. That's where they lie like a flatfish, but they don't lie like that here," Peters said.

"This is called a democracy, unlike what you're used to. Go back to where you've come from, you loudmouth."

The comments sparked a rare intervention from Chinese ambassador to New Zealand Wang Xiaolong.

Wang said on X on Thursday that while he preferred to stay out of domestic politics, "suffice it to say, sometimes, a statement says more about the person that makes it than anything or anybody else".

Peters fired back at Wang, saying his comments had "proven my point".

"We live in a democracy that includes free speech and rights -- those two values that other certain countries not only limit, but do so with force," Peters said on X.

"If that offends the pearl clutchers and the communist shills labelling it as 'dangerous' -- welcome to New Zealand".

It's not the first time Peters and his party -- seen as kingmakers in New Zealand's fractured political system -- have received criticism for racist comments.

Earlier this year Peters' deputy Shane Jones criticised New Zealand's free trade deal with India as risking a "butter chicken tsunami".

Last year Peters and Jones were forced to back down after the deputy yelled "send the Mexicans home" at Mexican-born MP Francisco Hernandez during a debate.

Peters had followed up that comment by telling Hernandez and Xu-Nan to "show some gratitude" for being in New Zealand.

ICE-GESTAPO is Definitely Racist. Latinos and Hispanics: Beware Trump's Mermaid Song

I am not surprised. I didn't need to learn that the racist brutes of ICE-GESTAPO use racist language among themselves. They have already proven it by their actions.

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ICE agents used racial slurs to refer to Latinos, videos and texts appear to show
ARMANDO GARCIA
Wed, July 29, 2026


STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images - PHOTO: Ice Police agents - Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Close-up of POLICE ICE marking on the back of worn by a trio of DHS police officers at the scene of an incident.

Federal immigration agents carrying out enforcement operations in Los Angeles last summer used racial slurs to refer to Latinos, body camera footage and text messages released in court filings appear to show.

The ACLU of Southern California included blurred and redacted body camera footage and forensically recovered text messages as part of a motion for preliminary injunction seeking to end what they call federal agents' pattern of "race-based profiling" when conducting stops as part of the Trump administration's ongoing immigration crackdown.

"Yeah, just plug us in wherever you see some tonks and we'll jump out," one agent can be heard saying in a video released in court.

"Tonk" is considered to be a derogatory term used by agents that denotes the sound an immigrant's head makes when struck by a baton or a flashlight.

"There was a guy, I'm pretty sure he's wet he was just sitting in that minivan," an agent can be heard saying in another video, using a term that is allegedly a shortened version of a slur to refer to Latinos.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond when asked by ABC News if using slurs violates its policies, instead saying that "our agents are focused on protecting the American people -- not entertaining performative outrage."

"Where is the media's outrage for Angel families who lost a loved one to illegal alien crime?" the DHS spokesperson said.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit last year on behalf of several individuals, including U.S. citizens, who were stopped, questioned, and in some cases detained by immigration agents in the Central District of California.

U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order barring stops based solely on the basis of race, but the Supreme Court later lifted those restrictions.

"This filing should shock the conscience," Mayra Joachim, deputy director of immigrants' rights at ACLU SoCal, said of the new court documents. "Evidence gathered from the government has confirmed what our communities have known all along: immigration officers are flagrantly violating the law by detaining people without justification and often primarily because of the color of their skin."

In addition to body camera footage, ACLU attorneys filed copies of text message chains between agents.

"Some of these people are stupid. Why would you post on social media that you're wet," one agent asked, according to the filing.

"Btw tonks everywhere selling food for the 4th festivities in long beach right now," another added later, per the filing.

Trump is not Napoleon or Caesar. He's More like Peter III of Russia or King John of England

Some of the supreme morons at Fox News think that Donald Trump is the modern day equivalent of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Napoleon, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, the Caesars, Alexander the Great, Tamerlane...the so-called "Great Men" of history.

This might be fine for Hollywood horse manure. The rulers listed above were all sanguinary mass murderers who invaded and conquered much of the known world around them at the time.

Trump has neither conquered nor invaded, not because he can't, but because he's a coward. Plus, he's an idiot. The rulers listed above were, despite their savagery, smart individuals. If Trump wants to deservedly be compared to these brutes, he ought to invade Iran. Instead, he fires from a safe distance like all cowards do.

If I were to compare Trump to historical figures of his "moronic caliber", I'd think of morons like Roman Emperor Nero who is often cited by Trump critics and historians, because of his authoritarianism, idiocy, narcissism, and disregard for democratic institutions. Rome was burning under Nero's watch - Trump's men were ransacking Congress under Trump. Nero blamed the Christians for burning Rome, Trump blames immigrants for every one of his own faults. 

Other major Trump mirrors include Tsar Peter III of Russia and King John of England who were incompetent. Just like Trump idolizes other brutal enemy dictators because he envies their power (his power being checked by the residual democracy that perseveres in the US), Peter III idolized his enemy, Frederick the Great of Prussia. Too bad Melania is a bimbo blonde, for Peter III was overthrown by his own wife, Catherine the Great, after a brief reign. King John lost significant French territories, faced excommunication, and was forced to sign the Magna Carta after alienating his nobles.

I'd compare Donald Dumb to such other incompetent imbeciles as Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy who allowed Benito Mussolini to rise to power and failed to resist the Nazi invasion in 1943. Another "summit" of ineptitude is Charles VI of France, who, like Trump, was mentally ill. Just as Trump thinks he is made of gold, Charles VI believed he was made of glass.

Roman emperor Caligula also deserves to serve as a model for Trump because of his cruelty and and erratic behavior, with a penchant for disturbing sexual conduct. Trump has been cruel to every human being, American or otherwise, who is not a white Anglo-Saxon protestant male Christian. Erratic is a perfect attribute of Trump who frequently changes his mind and lies about it. Trump's suspected pedophilia could elevate him to the level of Caligula.

Finally, all the brutes of history listed above were young and capable, unlike the senile old geezer Trump whose stupidity during his younger years made his transition into senility so smooth that imbeciles like Fox and the MAGA peasants don't even notice. Birds of a feather... His MAGA sheep are much more comfortable with the Idiot-in-Chief because they are like him, suffering an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the more intellectually savvy Democrats. No wonder that, on the scale of educated Americans, the MAGA herd consists of people who barely finished high school while the more educated (with college degree and advanced degrees) vote for Democrats. Which explains Trump's targeting of the best universities in the US (Harvard, Columbia...). In essence, one could argue that Trump's MAGA movement is a modern-day peasant Jacquerie against the intellectual elites. Anyone who is capable of critical thinking is more likely to stray off the herd and be ostracized by Trump and his imbeciles.

So, to my friends at Fox and the MAGA universe: Stop comparing Trump to great men and to the Messiah. Those "great men", excluding meek and mild Jesus, were all savage bloodthirsty warmongers. Trump is more a warmonger by proxy: He's so stupid that he is easily led by people with ulterior motives who push him into futile and unwinnable wars. Unless he leads a full-fledged invasion of Iran, I'd keep Trump in the category of the Dumbest and Most Cowardly Rulers in History. He picks on smaller and weaker countries (Venezuela) but doesn't dare confront his real enemies like Russia and China. 

Jeffrey Epstein's Toxicity Spreading like a Virus

They all revolved around models and vulnerable young women. They're all dying by "suicide". The Epstein stench has touched so many. Trump's Iran War will not make us forget his own "wonderful-secrets" friendship with the pedophile.

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Epstein-Linked Model Recruiter Found Dead Near Paris
Jaelani Turner-Williams
Mon, July 27, 2026


Image via Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Model recruiter Daniel Siad, who was closely associated with Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead at his home in Paris, with an autopsy pending to determine the cause of death.

Daniel Siad, the model recruiter whose name appears more than 2,000 times in the declassified Department of Justice Epstein files, was found dead at his home outside of Paris this week.

According to CNN, French deputy public prosecutor Marie-Céline Lawrysz of the Nanterre Judicial Court confirmed in on Wednesday (July 22) that Siad's body was found Monday evening at his home in Colombes, a north-west suburb of Paris. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

Siad, 69, was an acquaintance of child sex offender and banker Jeffrey Epstein for roughly a decade. Siad was under investigation by French prosecutors specializing in human trafficking and faced allegations of rape and other offenses.

Following Epstein's 2008 conviction on sex crimes, Siad continued associating with him and invited him to fashion events. The model recruiter told CNN in June that he "trusted" Epstein, who died by suicide in an Manhattan jail in August 2019, and believed that he was a "professional person."

"I never heard anything from anyone I introduced to him who came back to me that they had a bad situation," Siad told the network.

Former Swedish model Ebba Karlsson, who accused Siad of raping her when she was 20 years old in France in 1990, filed criminal allegations of rape and human trafficking against him in Paris earlier this year, per Al Jareeza.

"It's very frustrating. He was very close to be arrested. We worked so hard for this, trying to have justice," Karlsson told AFP.

Over more than 10 years, Siad allegedly arranged for Epstein to meet international models to find candidates of sexual exploitation. In a 2018 email exchange, Siad told Epstein he was hunting for a "good looking young assistant."

After sending a photo and describing the woman as being "very polite" and having "potential," Epstein replied that the woman was "too old."

Siad's lawyer, Ménya Arab-Tigrine, maintained that her client was innocent in a statement.

"If he died of a heart attack, the unbearable waiting, the pressure and the anxiety he suffered every day will have had something to do with it," she said.

Siad is the second individual from the modeling world with documented alliance to Epstein that has died suddenly in France. Jean-Luc Brunel, a prominent modeling agent who was also connected to Siad, died by suicide in prison in February 2022 while awaiting trial on charges of raping minors, which he had denied.

Top US Scientist on Trump: Rambling, Crazy, Desperate, Bumbling, Incompetent, Idiot, Obnoxious...

With his signature blend of scientific acumen, candor and integrity, Dr. Anthony Fauci became America’s most unlikely cultural icon during the COVID-19 pandemic. A world-renowned infectious disease specialist and the longest-serving public health leader in Washington, D.C., he has overseen the U.S. response to 40 years’ worth of outbreaks, including HIV/AIDS, SARS and Ebola. Dr. Fauci is one of America's most dedicated scientists and public servants. 

Contrast Fauci's contributions to science and to making the US the leading scientific country around the world, with the ignorant, illiterate, criminal felon, pedophile billionaire Donald Trump. 

American scientists: For Trump's persecution of Fauci, the entire scientific establishment in the US should go on strike and bring to a halt all scientific and technological advances in the country. 

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Fauci expressed disillusionment with ‘rambling, crazy’ Trump in journal
Martin Pengelly
Mon, July 27, 2026


Dr Anthony Fauci looks on as Donald Trump speak to reporters following a meeting of the coronavirus taskforce at the White House on 7 April 2020.Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Diary entries released by a Republican senator in an attempt to damage Anthony Fauci also show the former top US government science adviser's growing disillusionment with Donald Trump in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, branding the president "rambling", "crazy", "desperate", "bumbling", "incompetent", "an idiot", "a true embarrassment", "totally nuts" and "truly an obnoxious adolescent".

From the earliest days of the crisis six years ago, Fauci noted in his journal challenging interactions with the publicity-fixated Trump. On 27 February 2020, amid the first stirrings of public alarm, he wrote of a surprise late-night call, in which the US president "wanted to chat about the coronavirus situation in general".

For "about 20-25 minutes", Fauci wrote, he "encouraged [Trump] not to underplay the seriousness of the situation since if it turns out bad, it would look like he is covering up. I even spoke to him from a political standpoint that his chances for re-election might be more damaged if he downplayed the potential spread of virus in the USA than if he said we may face serious problems and even if the Stock Market goes down further, he was at least honest and the country would respect him for it.

"I thought that he heard what I said, but the next day, he again underplayed it."

By 14 March, in the thick of the first Covid shutdowns, Fauci is bemoaning Trump's fixation on "the fluff of ratings and publicity. And so he wants us to do 2 press conferences/day – one in AM and one in PM … We now will have no time to do work."
'A true embarrassment'

On 22 May, Fauci wrote that Trump is "getting out of control in pushing to open up the country and get the economy back before election day. He is desparate [sic]. This is all about re-election."

That proved correct. In October 2020, Fauci wrote: "As the [presidential] election nears, the cases increase and surges are inevitable as we enter cooler weather. Trump is on the campaign trail spewing nonsense. He is really out of control. A true embarrassment."

By March 2021, having watched Trump attempt to retain power despite electoral defeat in a way that reminds him "historically of Hitler", Fauci writes: "He is truly an obnoxious adolescent."

Fauci's diary entries read as raw source material for reporting on the pandemic and its politics. He admitted to being a source himself, and worried about being suspected as a leaker, but wrote in late May 2020: "Had long conversation on 'background' with [Washington Post reporter] Bob Woodward who is writing a book on the early response to Covid in the USA. I provided him with some history of our response in early January and into February. Will tlak [sic] more with him tomorow [sic]."

The release of Fauci's diaries was orchestrated by Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky, who has long voiced skepticism about the Covid-19 response Fauci led, accusing him of needlessly shutting down the country while covering the supposed truth that the virus was human-made, and that US-funded research contributed to its creation. Fauci has consistently said the virus originated in animal-to-human transmission, the generally accepted theory.

The two men have clashed before. At a hearing in January 2022, for example, Fauci told Paul his attacks put him in danger, "kindl[ing] the crazies out there and I have threats upon my life, harassment of my family and my children with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me". Fauci also charged: "You are making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain."

Paul and Fauci will square off again on Wednesday, at a hearing for which Fauci, 85, was compelled to appear. Paul has said he will "make sure Fauci answers for his dangerous decisions and the consequences they had for millions".

In the rightwing press, coverage of the Fauci diaries has focused on his notes about his rise to global fame amid the Covid response, particularly about meeting celebrities or appearing on TV and in the press. The singer Joan Baez and actors Julia Roberts and Sean Penn are among names prominently noted.

Fauci does seem to have been proud of his newfound celebrity. On 13 July 2020, his relationship with Trump rapidly souring, he turned to his diary.

"Major, Major show of support for me for multiple and varied sectors," he writes. "Most peo[p]le expressing outrage that the trump administration woud [sic] be so bumbling and incompetent to try to discredit the most credible scientist in the world."

Joe Manchin Finally Out of the Closet: He's a Half-and-Half Republican & Democrat Hybrid

Joe Manchin is like water: Odorless, tasteless and colorless. He's a Passe-partout politician  with the skin of a chameleon. With Fetterman and Sinema, they form a fraternity of unprincipled, uncommitted fence-sitters who wait to see where the wind blows before acting.

Whenever the country is ripe for change, the weak-in-the-knees refuse to move forward. They always emerge as "independents" during election cycles, which is a cop-out way to avoid making any commitment.

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CNN

Joe Manchin reenters the political orbit with a new independent experiment
Patrick Svitek, CNN
Fri, July 24, 2026

Sen. Joe Manchin enters a caucus lunch on Capitol Hill, in July 2024. - Kevin Mohatt/Reuters/File

At 78, Joe Manchin is stepping back into politics.

A year and a half after leaving office fed up with the major parties, the former West Virginia senator is launching a new effort, the Independent Leadership Council, to recruit and support independent candidates across the country.

"We're not trying to start another party," Manchin told CNN in an interview with his daughter, who's also leading the council. "We're trying to get a person who can be committed to – and totally committed to – being an independent with an independent voice. They can vote with Democrats and Republicans when they're right and speak out against them when they're wrong."

Manchin kicked off the effort Thursday by convening candidates in West Virginia. Attendees include California Rep. Kevin Kiley, a former Republican running for reelection as an independent; Seth Bodnar, an independent candidate for Senate in Montana; Todd Achilles, an independent candidate for Senate in Idaho; and Michael Bridgford, an independent candidate for the House in Iowa. The group is also eying races in Alaska and Washington.

The initiative comes at a time of deepening disillusionment with both major parties, and as a record high 45% of American adults identify as political independents, according to a Gallup poll released earlier this year.

Advocates for independent candidates believe they have more momentum than in recent memory. In several states, independent candidates for Congress are attracting significant funding and the attention of their opponents from major parties. And with both chambers so closely divided, the Manchins believe an independent lawmaker can wield tremendous influence in the next Congress.

"It doesn't take too many to say, 'C'mon, people, get your act together,'" Manchin said. "They can bring them to their knees and make people understand, 'This is crazy.'"

The Manchins said the summit will serve as an opening dialogue with the candidates, but if they decide to support them, they could campaign for them in person, raise money for them and help organize on the ground in their districts. If they can help even one candidate get elected in November, the father-daughter duo think they can have an impact on the next presidential election.

"Our hope is that this is kind of our pilot, experiment, trying to prove it can be done," Heather Manchin, a former pharmaceutical executive, said, "and then I think Katie bar the door if it can be done."

Other people involved in the new group include Adam Brandon and Seth Cohen, who are both senior advisers at the Independent Center, a nonprofit that advocates for independent voters. Brandon is the former head of the conservative group FreedomWorks, while Cohen is the former chief impact officer at Forbes Media and an advocate for voting rights.

Manchin's disillusionment

The effort may be Joe Manchin's biggest political project since he retired from the Senate in January 2025. Fed up with the extremes in both major parties, he spent his final months in office as an independent after serving as a Democrat for decades.

Since leaving the Senate, Manchin has published a book, promoted his daughter's centrist political nonprofit, Americans Together, and continued to make appearances in Washington. Last month, he joined a panel discussion on the national debt at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, where the moderator was one of his former colleagues, Republican Rob Portman of Ohio.

"Manchin is sometimes a Democrat, sometimes an independent, sometimes a Republican," Portman said at one point. "I just don't know quite where he is today."

"I don't either," Manchin quipped.

Manchin, a frequent critic of the progressive left, is concerned about the rise of democratic socialists who've been winning Democratic primaries across the country, suggesting it's a product of a party "without a national figure." But he said Republicans are still too beholden to their extremes as well and argued open primaries would address the broader issue.

"When they have closed primaries, what they were able to do is hijack the system," Manchin said, bringing up the recent New York primary where candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, did well. "They've been able to outperform in a closed system."

Surveying the current Senate, Manchin lamented what he described as a lack of deal-makers in his mold. He said he was unsure which senators there now are telling their colleagues: "C'mon, guys, let's go talk. Sit this down. Let's work this out."

"That bothers me," Manchin said.

One of the more independent-minded Senate Democrats these days is Sen. John Fetterman, whose frustrations with his party have raised the possibility he could leave it. Asked if Fetterman should become an independent, Manchin said the Pennsylvania senator "needs to do what John's comfortable doing." But he suggested Fetterman, a onetime critic of Manchin, was from a different political mold.

"He's for all the hardcore Democrat issues that I wasn't for," Manchin said.

While Manchin weighed a presidential run in 2024 with the centrist group No Labels — and says he misses his many "friends" in the Senate — he no longer seems interested in running for office.

"I don't see me getting back into the fray, I really don't," he said. "I think I've tried it for 42, 43, 44, years and been fairly successful at working with people on both sides and bringing people together. Now I'm trying to help people around the country that want that same outcome."

An independent moment

Instead, Manchin is deepening his work for independent politicians during a moment when they have a new champion in Congress and viable candidates across the midterm map.

In California, Kiley is seeking reelection as an independent for an open seat in a Democratic-leaning district after a wave of mid-decade redistricting. Kiley, who continues to caucus with Republicans, faces Democrat Richard Pan in November's general election.

In an interview, Kiley said he wants to be part of building more infrastructure for independents like himself and is "very happy" to be working with Manchin.

"He's someone who demonstrated during his time in office that he was willing to go against both sides when necessary to serve his constituents," Kiley said. "[There are] plenty of policy issues where we came out in different ways, but that's OK. We need more people like that who are independent-minded."

Despite the optimism around independent candidates in the midterms, they continue to face significant structural challenges, such as gaining ballot access and fundraising without a built-in network, as well as hurdles unique to their own races. In Montana, Bodnar is locked in a standoff with Democratic nominee Alani Bankhead who has resisted pressure to drop out and give the former University of Montana president a more direct matchup against GOP nominee Kurt Alme.

That happened in Nebraska, where Democratic Senate nominee Cindy Burbank ended her campaign to give Dan Osborn, who is running again as an independent after a strong 2024 showing, a clearer field against GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts. And in Alaska's only congressional district, independent Bill Hill's fortunes recently rose after his most serious Democratic opponent, pastor Matt Schultz, dropped out and endorsed Hill.

Hill, a commercial fisherman and former superintendent of his local school district, is part of a crowded field running in an all-party primary on August 18 for the seat currently held by Republican Rep. Nick Begich

During a recent interview in Anchorage, shortly after returning from a week on his boat fishing salmon in Bristol Bay, he outlined a varied political history. He said he has voted for Republicans Sen. Lisa Murkowski and the late former Sen. Ted Stevens. Hill said he supports abortion rights — a largely Democratic position — but is also "pro-Second Amendment because firearms are an important tool for my subsistence lifestyle."

"Like most Alaskans, I don't fit into a neat little political box," he said, noting that nearly two-thirds of Alaska voters are not registered with either major party. "I've been a lifelong independent, and I wouldn't run otherwise."

This story has been updated with additional information.