Jesuits say Olympians are more Christian than Trump and his ungodly lies

President Donald Trump holds up a Bible outside of a church in Washington, DC in 2020 (Image: Screengrab via C-SPAN / YouTube)

Matthew Rozsa

February 19, 2026

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump criticized America’s Olympic freestyle skier Hunter Hess as a “real loser” for criticizing his policies, but according to a prominent Catholic magazine, Hess and other anti-Trump Olympians are acting in the Christian spirit.

“Mr. Trump understands greatness differently from the U.S. athletes,” wrote Patrick Kelly, S.J., a contributor to the Jesuit publication America Magazine and an occasional Vatican consultant. “He has a very hard time admitting that he failed or made a mistake. He told the big lie that his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden was stolen, and he continues to peddle this lie up to the present.”

Trump repeatedly claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him even though Joe Biden’s victory has been repeatedly proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Before entering politics ,Trump accused the Emmy Awards of being rigged when he was snubbed for "The Apprentice." After losing the 2016 Iowa GOP caucuses to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Trump baselessly alleged fraud and demanded a second election. Throughout the 2016 campaign Trump declared he'd only accept the results if he won. After winning the Electoral College but losing the popular vote, Trump falsely blamed millions of illegal ballots, despite never finding evidence of that. In 2020, Trump preemptively undermined mail-in voting, declared victory prematurely on Election Night and falsely claimed votes were being "dumped" against him. In fact Biden won convincingly in both the popular vote (81.3 million to 74.2 million) and the Electoral College (306-232), the latter being the same margin Trump had won by in 2016. Trump nonetheless continues falsely claiming to this day that he won the 2020 election.

“Someone should read to him ‘Lost, Not Stolen,’ a 2022 report by eight conservatives (two former Republican senators, three former federal appellate judges, a former Republican solicitor general, and two Republican election law specialists),” Republican columnist George F. Will recently wrote for The Washington Post. “They examined all 187 counts in the 64 court challenges filed in multiple states by Trump and his supporters. Twenty cases were dismissed before hearings on their merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before hearings. Of the 30 that reached hearings on the merits, Trump’s side prevailed in only one, Pennsylvania, involving far too few votes to change the state’s result.”

Kelly, proceeding from the fact that Trump is lying when he says he won the 2020 election, explained that this lie is both sinful and socially harmful.

“It has now become part of the ‘organized lying’ in segments of his administration and among some of his allies,” Kelly wrote. “It was the rationale for the FBI. seizing sensitive voting records from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Ga., recently. If the president was able to admit that he lost to Joe Biden, he might be able to learn something from it and grow as a person and a leader. But the lying keeps him stuck where he is.”

Kelly then quoted the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says that “since it violates the virtue of truthfulness, a lie does real violence to another. It affects his ability to know, which is a condition of every judgment and decision. It contains the seed of discord and all consequent evils.”

He concluded, “Lying is destructive of society; it undermines trust among people and tears apart the fabric of social relationships (No. 2486).”

Kelly is not alone among prominent Christians to denounce Trump’s policies and actions as un-Christian. Describing Trump’s “might makes right” foreign policy as inconsistent with Christianity, former director of church and society at the World Council of Churches in Geneva Wesley Granberg-Michaelson wrote for the Christian publication Sojourners Magazine that Trump’s approach is in fact “narcissistic grandiosity.” Because Trump unilaterally invaded Venezuela, Granberg-Michaelson worried that he will soon go after Denmark (for Greenland), Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Iran, Nigeria, Syria and other nations he has threatened, as well as sabotage NATO and other world peacekeeping institutions.

"The ‘Donroe Doctrine,’ an egocentric name for reasserting U.S. primacy in Western Hemisphere, won’t geographically limit Trump’s military intervention to the continental neighborhood,” Granberg-Michaelson wrote. In response people of faith should “bear witness” as “our nation is on an unpredictable glide path with no guardrails."

"We should remember the strident biblical resistance to unaccountable power, including the divine warnings about the desire for kings (1 Samuel 8) and placing trust in chariots and horses (Psalm 20:7),” Granberg-Michaelson concluded. “The prophets continually challenged the pretense, pride, and self-serving power of rulers that fomented injustice and violated God’s intentions for the world. Jesus proclaimed a promised reign of God breaking into the world, undermining the false claims of the reigning empire. The power of might was subverted by the power of love."

Former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois recently wrote on his Substack that, instead of being Christians, Trump’s supporters act like they are in a cult.

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh wrote. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Then, despite Trump’s actions against Denmark, Venezuela and Iran, they still support him.

Walsh concluded, “And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters? What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

'Strident Biblical resistance': Religious leader urges Christians to oppose Trump

Donald Trump outside St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. on June 1, 2020 (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead/Flickr)

Matthew Rozsa

February 19, 2026

ALTERNET


A major Christian world leader is urging people of faith everywhere to engage in “strident Biblical resistance” against President Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

"Trump’s worldview was expressed transparently by Stephen Miller, his trusted deputy chief of staff," wrote Sojourners contributing editor Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, former general secretary of the Reformed Church in America and former director of church and society at the World Council of Churches. "After Venezuela, Miller explained that 'strength,' 'force,' and 'power' are the 'iron laws' that govern the world. It’s all a matter of transactional relations, where deals enriching the U.S. are obtained by force."

Arguing that “might makes right” is inconsistent with Christianity, which focuses on helping the poor and powerless, Granberg-Michaelson described Trump’s approach as “narcissistic grandiosity.” He also predicted that, because Trump has already unilaterally invaded Venezuela, the rest of the world should expect similar operations in Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Nigeria, Iran, Syria and elsewhere. Trump will also undercut NATO and other world peacekeeping institutions.

"The ‘Donroe Doctrine,’ an egocentric name for reasserting U.S. primacy in Western Hemisphere, won’t geographically limit Trump’s military intervention to the continental neighborhood,” Granberg-Michaelson wrote. He then argued that people of faith should “bear witness” to Trump’s un-Christian behavior as “our nation is on an unpredictable glide path with no guardrails."

"We should remember the strident biblical resistance to unaccountable power, including the divine warnings about the desire for kings (1 Samuel 8) and placing trust in chariots and horses (Psalm 20:7),” Granberg-Michaelson wrote. “The prophets continually challenged the pretense, pride, and self-serving power of rulers that fomented injustice and violated God’s intentions for the world. Jesus proclaimed a promised reign of God breaking into the world, undermining the false claims of the reigning empire. The power of might was subverted by the power of love."

Pointing out that democracy bases its theological rationale on institutional and personal accountability, and that these things cannot be reconciled with autocratic power, he argued that “shared systems of mutual constraint are required to protect the common good. But all of that can crumble.”

"We are facing modern expressions of ancient idolatry,” Granberg-Michaelson concluded. “Always, in such times, people of God are called first to faithfulness. Proclaiming ‘Jesus is Lord’ had direct political, as well as personal, meaning for those first called Christians. It does as well for us in our day. For if everything is Caesar’s, nothing is God’s."

Other religious people are also speaking out against Trump. Never Trump conservative David French, writing for The New York Times, warned that Trump-supporting Christians are abandoning their faith’s core tenet by eschewing empathy.

"Now, let's talk about empathy," French wrote. "A year ago this month, I wrote a newsletter warning about a new trend on the MAGA Christian Right. Christian theologians and influencers had begun warning about the 'sin of empathy' or 'toxic empathy.' In books, essays, podcasts and speeches, prominent Christian influencers, ministers and theologians sounded the alarm that secular progressives were leading Christians astray by appealing to their emotions at the expense of their reason."

Yet the MAGA anti-empathy argument is not reasonable, as French pointed out, but rather an excuse to ignore how Trump’s actions cannot be made logically consistent with Christian teachings.

"Evangelicals are desperate to rationalize their support for a man who gratuitously and intentionally inflicts unnecessary suffering on his opponents," French wrote. "That's exactly how empathy becomes a sin….. Many in MAGA decided that cruelty was a virtue, decency a vice, and — worst of all — that empathy was a sin. Now, we live in the harsh new world they made."

Meanwhile Andrew Egger of The Bulwark, another conservative publication, bashed Trump for not believing he could do whatever he wanted morally because of his widespread support among the Christian right.

"He sees himself as Christianity’s Punisher, the guy who will blacken his own soul to do what must be done to protect the righteous," Egger wrote.

Christian conservative demolishes MAGA evangelical talking point

First Lady Melania Trump at an evangelical White House dinner on August 27, 2018 (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks/Flickr)

Alex Henderson

February 19, 2026

ALTERNET

In the past, the word "empathy" was hardly controversial among conservatives. President Ronald Reagan and Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) never used "empathy" as an insult. But in recent years, many far-right MAGA Republicans and evangelical Christian nationalists are attacking "empathy" as a major weakness — and when they accuse conservative or libertarian of showing "empathy," it is meant as an insult.

Never Trump conservative David French, in a biting February 19 column for the New York Times, cites Christian nationalists' anti-empathy arguments as a prime example of how twisted MAGA's view of Christianity is.

"Now, let's talk about empathy," French writes. "A year ago this month, I wrote a newsletter warning about a new trend on the MAGA Christian Right. Christian theologians and influencers had begun warning about the 'sin of empathy' or 'toxic empathy.' In books, essays, podcasts and speeches, prominent Christian influencers, ministers and theologians sounded the alarm that secular progressives were leading Christians astray by appealing to their emotions at the expense of their reason."

The conservative columnist continues, "The steel man version of their case goes like this: Progressives have turned Christians' soft hearts against hard truths. Progressives have persuaded all too many Christians that the suffering of, say, undocumented immigrants or women facing unwanted pregnancies should override their concerns about the economic and social costs of large-scale immigration, or their compassion for victims of crimes committed by immigrants, or their concerns about the plight of the unborn child."

But MAGA anti-empathy argument, French stresses, isn't promoting strength — it's promoting "cruelty" while demeaning a "vital human virtue."

"Given the sharp differences between Trump and every other Republican president of the modern era…. evangelicals are desperate to rationalize their support for a man who gratuitously and intentionally inflicts unnecessary suffering on his opponents," French laments. "That's exactly how empathy becomes a sin….. Many in MAGA decided that cruelty was a virtue, decency a vice, and — worst of all — that empathy was a sin. Now, we live in the harsh new world they made."

Family member reveals what Trump has told them about aliens

Thomas Kika

February 18, 2026

ALTERNET


As stories and rumors about what the U.S. government knows about UFOs and aliens are once again going viral, Lara Trump revealed during a podcast what she has heard about her father-in-law, Donald Trump's official plans regarding "extraterrestrial life."

Lara Trump, the wife of Eric Trump and one-time co-chair of the Republican National Committee, on Wednesday made an appearance on the New York Post's "Pod Force One" podcast, where host Miranda Devine pressed her about what the president has said about aliens and "unidentified aerial phenomenon." She claimed that, as far as her direct interactions, he has largely "played a little coy" about it.

"What's funny is, we've kind of asked my father-in-law about this, cause we're like, 'well, what do you know?'" Lara Trump said. "And he played a little coy with us. And so, that of course led us to believe, Eric and I were like, 'oh my gosh, if he won't even fully tell us, maybe there's more to it."

She added, however, that she has "heard kind of around" that Trump has told certain people that he has an address prepared discussing the topic, which might be given "at the right time."

"I think my father-in-law actually said it," she continued. "There is some speech he has that I guess at the right time he’s gonna break out, and it has to do with maybe some sort of extraterrestrial life."

Lara Trump's claims in the interview, for now, remain unsubstantiated. Despite mounting public interest, the federal government has only acknowledged "UAPs" as anomalous matters that it is aware of, and which might present a threat to national security, while stressing that it has no evidence that they are examples of extraterrestrial life.

Over the weekend, former President Barack Obama made headlines when he said in an interview with liberal content creator Brian Tyler Cohen that aliens are "real," while also stressing that they are not being held in Area 51. He later clarified in a post that this was merely his own personal opinion about the nature of the universe, not something based on knowledge he received as president.

Earlier this week, British writer and ufologist Mark Christopher Lee told Newsweek that he had heard a speech prepared for Trump regarding alien life, something that echoed Lara Trump's claim from Wednesday. He identified his source only as a "Washington insider," whose name he could not reveal.

"A Washington insider I have known personally and conducted business with – has repeatedly affirmed that President Trump has prepared a historic speech acknowledging extraterrestrial visitation and the existence of recovered non-human materials and craft," Lee wrote in an email to the outlet.

Astrologers think Donald Trump's destiny is tied to the eclipse

The Conversation

February 17, 2026 

The Moon crossed the Sun’s path on February 17, causing what is known as an annular solar eclipse. The Sun was not covered completely, but the Moon blocked enough of its light to leave a fiery ring. Unless you’re deep in the southern hemisphere, you won’t have noticed.

However, astrologically speaking, eclipses have effects regardless of who is watching. In astrology, an ancient tradition that lacks scientific grounding, eclipses are regarded as being powerful and politically significant celestial events. They are traditionally associated with the destiny of rulers – and some astrologers think Donald Trump is no exception.

Astrologers interpret the meaning of eclipses through horoscopes, celestial maps that locate the Sun, Moon and planets within the 12 signs of the Zodiac that encircle our solar system. During the eclipse, the Sun and Moon were at the edges of the sign Aquarius, a position astrologers associate with endings and shakeups.

This, alongside various other factors including Trump being born during a lunar eclipse in 1946, has led some astrologers to suggest that the eclipse could mark the start of a severe crisis for the US president – even his death.

Predictions like this come around fairly often, and Trump has outlasted many of them before. But these extreme forecasts follow a very old script. For thousands of years, eclipses have been treated as political events, read as omens about kingdoms and their rulers.

Bad omens

Eclipses have been connected with the fate of rulers since at least ancient Mesopotamia, around 4,000 years ago. Keen observers there, in what is now modern-day Iraq, kept lists of phenomena they believed were linked to specific outcomes.

“If a lizard gives birth in the walkway of a house, the household will fall” and “if a white partridge is seen in the city, commercial activity will diminish” are two examples. But one omen has long outlived the others: “if there is an eclipse, the king will die”.

With such high stakes, ancient astronomers invested in systematic observation, record-keeping and calculation to predict eclipses with ever-greater accuracy. This enabled the so-called “substitute king” ritual, where royals tried to avoid their fate by temporarily making someone else king until an eclipse passed.

The link between eclipses and the death of kings spread widely in the ancient world. Egyptian papyri show evidence of this belief, and Greek and Roman history is full of stories connecting eclipses with prominent deaths.

Roman historian Cassius Dio recorded a solar eclipse around the death of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, in AD14, during which “most of the sky seemed to be on fire”. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the death of Jesus is also marked by darkened Sun.

In the medieval period, when Arabic chroniclers recorded eclipses, they usually noted concurrent deaths of rulers. And in Europe, a solar eclipse in 1133 was so closely associated with the 1135 death of King Henry I of England that it became known as “King Henry’s Eclipse”.

Premodern rulers often hired astrologers to interpret their birth charts – the horoscope cast for the moment they were born. Ideally, the astrologer would pick out an aspect of the chart they could say justified the ruler’s leadership and foretold a long and prosperous reign. This was useful astrological propaganda.

But rulers were less happy when astrologers did this without authorisation – especially if they forecast illness or death. Astrologers were expelled from ancient Rome on numerous occasions for doing just that.

In his book, Lives of the Caesars, Roman historian Suetonius recounted the fate of an astrologer called Ascletarion (or Ascletario). Ascletarion’s predictions of the Emperor Domitian’s imminent downfall in the first century AD prompted the angry emperor to order his execution.

More than 1,400 years later, an astrologer in Oxford was executed for predicting the death of the reigning English monarch, Edward IV. And in 1581, Queen Elizabeth I of England made it a felony to use horoscopes to predict her death or her successor.

Similarly in France, royal pronouncements in 1560, 1579 and 1628 prohibited astrological predictions about princes, states and public affairs. Around the same time, astrologers in Italy got into serious trouble for predicting the deaths of popes.

This was not just a matter of anxiety on the part of rulers. It was also a question of maintaining public order and political stability. State powers were concerned with the ability of astrological predictions to cause general chaos and even prompt protests and rebellions.

They were right to worry. In a time when astrology was taken very seriously, predictions could cause collective panic. During the so-called wars of the three kingdoms, a series of conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in England, Scotland and Ireland, astrologers’ radical political predictions about the fate of the English monarchy fed revolutionary sentiment.

One of these astrologers, Nicholas Culpeper, published predictions of the downfall of all European monarchies on the basis of a solar eclipse in 1652.

Astrology left the world of universities and political courts in the 17th century, but astrologers did not stop making political predictions. In 1790s London, an astrologer called William Gilbert predicted the death of King Gustav III of Sweden. His prophecy was fulfilled a few months later.

And after his attempted assassination in 1981, the then-US president, Ronald Reagan, asked astrologer Joan Quigley whether she could have predicted it. She said yes. Quigley worked for the Reagans for many years, and claimed that she provided advice not just on personal affairs but also on matters of the state, including the best timing to make political announcements.

Although astrology is no longer counted as a science, it remains a player in contemporary politics. Whether or not eclipse predictions come to pass is almost besides the point. Historically, what made eclipses politically dangerous was the speculation often attached to them.

Michelle Pfeffer, Research Fellow in Early Modern History, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for POLITICAL ASTROLOGY

New research shows high-IQ men reject conservative politics: report

A supporter of President Donald Trump in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 23, 2023 (Image: Shutterstock)

Adam Lynch

February 18, 2026 

ALTERNET

PsyPost reports a new study is revealing that average-intelligence men have a more conservative mentality, while gifted men and women tend to be more varied.

The study, “Exploring exceptional minds: Political orientations of gifted adults,” authored by Maximilian Krolo, Jörn R. Sparfeldt, and Detlef H. Rost, sought to discover if distinct political patterns emerge when comparing gifted adults to a control group of average intelligence.

The exhaustive multi-decade study began by administering more than 7,000 third-grade students standardized intelligence tests to measure reasoning abilities and the speed at which students processed information. Administrators then identified a group of gifted students with an IQ of 130 or higher and a control group of non-gifted students.

Six years later, when the students were in the ninth grade, the team tested them again to confirm their IQ and rule out a fluke test or lucky streak. Then, roughly 35 years after they were first identified, researchers sent them surveys to assess their political orientations.

“Specifically, non-gifted men scored higher on conservatism than gifted men,” reports PsyPost. “The non-gifted men were more likely to endorse values related to tradition and strict social order. Gifted men were less likely to hold these traditional conservative views.”

Researchers noted the difference among the women in the study was not so obvious, however, with gifted and non-gifted women both showing similar levels of comparatively lower conservatism. The divergence, reports researchers, was unique to the male participants.

“The team interpreted the findings through the lens of cognitive flexibility,” reports PsyPost. “They suggest that non-gifted men might rely more on traditional perspectives when processing complex social issues. This reliance could lead to higher conservatism scores.”

On the other hand, researchers believe gifted men may possess greater cognitive flexibility, which allows them to more easily process diverse perspectives. Consequently, they may be less inclined to adhere to rigid traditional norms.

Gifted adults appear to be as politically diverse and moderate as the rest of the population, but researchers say the “one notable exception” regarding non-gifted men’s preference for conservatism warrants further investigation.

The study relied on self-reported beliefs retrieved through surveys, however. And while honest reporting is assumed, researchers say it is possible that respondents sometimes describe themselves “differently than their actions might suggest.”

Trump supporters' extreme views driven by personal insecurity: research

Attendees pray during AmericaFest, the first Turning Point USA summit since the death of Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. December 20, 2025. REUTERS/Cheney Orr

Adam Lynch

February 17, 2026

ALTERNET

PsyPost reports that a new study published in the journal Advances in Psychology suggests that White people who personally perceive themselves as ranking at the bottom of the racial economic hierarchy or “tied” with Black Americans were the most likely to support President Donald Trump.

Previous research identified a phenomenon known as “last place aversion,” where people fear being at the very bottom of a social hierarchy — and Trump voters apparently feel the sting of smallness more acutely than others, whether or not they are actually at the bottom rung of the ladder

Surprisingly, researchers found that these attitudes were not driven by actual poverty. 

The researchers controlled for objective indicators of socioeconomic status, such as income and education levels. They found that belonging to the “last place” profile predicted Trump support and anti-DEI attitudes regardless of how much money or education the participant actually had.

“We … [expected] a subset of non-Hispanic, white Americans who feel ‘last place.’ That said, we expected this profile to be more likely among working class individuals,” Cooley told PsyPost. “However, perceiving oneself to be ‘last place’ was not associated with the lowest objective income nor the lowest objective education among the White Americans in our samples.”

The United States currently exhibits a significant racial wealth gap with economic statistics consistently showing that the average white family holds considerably more wealth than the average Black or Hispanic family. But despite this reality, surveys indicate that many white Americans feel they are “personally falling behind” in terms of status without realistically weighing the resources at their disposal.


“This line of research was motivated by recent political trends among some white Americans, including support for DEI bans, alignment with alt-right ideology, and endorsement of political violence in pursuit of political goals (e.g., January 6th),” said study authors Erin Cooley and Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi, associate professors of psychology at Colgate University and the University of Virginia, respectively. “Many of these attitudes are not only extreme but also anti-democratic, raising questions about how such views can coexist with identities centered on being ‘most American’ (e.g., white nationalist belief systems).”

The tool researchers used to assess personal status was a box measure called the “Perceived Self-Group Hierarchy.” Participants viewed a diagram representing a status ladder based on money, education, and job prestige, and they were asked to place markers representing themselves, white people, Black people, Asian people, and Hispanic people onto this ladder.

Researchers found a consistent link between this “last place” profile and specific political views.


“White Americans who fit this profile reported the highest levels of support for Donald Trump throughout the campaign season. They also expressed the strongest intention to vote for him. When surveyed the day after the election, this group was the most likely to report having cast their ballot for Trump,” PsyPost reports.

This same group of insecure white people also showed “the strongest opposition to DEI programs, favoring policies that would ban such initiatives in universities.” Additionally, they showed higher alignment with alt-right ideologies, agreeing more frequently with statements such as “White people are generally under attack in the U.S.” and “The government threatens my personal rights.”

THE EPSTEIN CLASS

How Britain's right wing is benefiting from the Epstein scandal

(REUTERS)

The Conversation 

February 22, 2026

The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office will heap yet more pressure on the beleaguered government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.


Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest over allegations he passed government documents to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein comes directly on the heels of the resignation of Peter Mandelson, Starmer’s ambassador to the United States, due to his own alleged associations with Epstein.

The fallout from the scandal is hugely damaging to public trust in both the political establishment and institutions in the United Kingdom, including the royal family.

Trust in the royals already declining

It’s hard to separate the fate and popularity of the royal family from the institutions of British governance because they’re very much part of it.

The monarchy, specifically the Crown, is part of the British constitution. The monarch gives assent to all legislation that’s passed by parliament (in other words, he or she has to sign it for it to pass). While that might seem like a rubber-stamping exercise and that the monarch is a mere symbol in British politics, King Charles and, in slightly different ways, Queen Elizabeth II certainly have had their political preferences.

And despite the impression you get during royal occasions like weddings, funerals and coronations, the royals don’t enjoy unanimous support in Britain. In fact, public support has been declining in recent years, especially among the young.

In an Ipsos survey released this week, just 47% of Britons said they had a favourable opinion of the royal family on the whole (a seven-point decline from November). And just 28% of Britons believe the royal family has handled the allegations against Mountbatten-Windsor well, compared to 37% in November.

Importantly, there’s been a long-term trend of steady decline in support for the monarchy since 1983, when the British Social Attitudes survey first asked about this.

More broadly, and in common with many other liberal democracies, there is a pervasive sense the Epstein scandal is more evidence of the existence of a self-serving, corrupt elite making good for itself and harming others, while many people in the “left behind” and “squeezed middle” of society are struggling.

Politically, this perception adds further fuel to the notion that the inequality between the rulers and the ruled has become unjustifiable. Something has to change.

Pressure mounting on Labour

Starmer’s Labour government was already deeply unpopular before Mandelson’s alleged ties to Epstein were revealed. Now, it has entered some sort of permanent crisis mode.

Mandelson was one of the key figures behind the so-called “New Labour” project associated with the leadership of Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1997–2007.

New Labour has a dual legacy in British politics. On one level, it was the most electorally successful Labour government ever. But that electoral success seemed to come at the expense of a clearly defined sense of what a Labour Party stood for. Key players like Mandelson courted wealthy backers and moved Labour to the centre of British politics to, not unreasonably, win elections.

As such, many Labour supporters started to drift away from the party and towards other, at times diametrically opposed, political parties. In Scotland, this benefited the pro-independence parties. In England, it benefitted the radical-right Reform UK.

Reform has precious little governing experience, but that is its appeal. Its radical messages are finding traction with a large number of voters, many of whom formerly supported Conservative or Labour.

So in this context, when Mandelson, an already divisive figure, was named ambassador to the US in the belief he could help manage President Donald Trump, Starmer’s political gamble to reinstate him to a public role backfired.

Reform could ultimately benefit

The British government’s travails represent another gilt-edged opportunity for Reform UK to capitalise on the unpopularity of Starmer, Labour and politics more broadly. But there is a risk for Reform, too.

Radical-right parties tend to place a great emphasis on the figure of the leader. For Reform UK, this is Nigel Farage.

Farage has had an incredible impact on British politics, especially since Brexit. But Farage, a former merchant banker, is also part of this global elite, despite pitching his politics at the “left behinds”. He has spent years courting Trump’s friendship. So, while there are no allegations against him related to Epstein, the public anger towards elites in general may eventually rebound on Farage, too.

Reform UK, however, is positioning itself successfully as an alternative to the two major parties in the UK, and could form a minority government at the next UK-wide elections in 2029.

The Conservative Party has shot its bolt as a result of its 14 years in government. And Labour came to power more as a rejection of the Conservatives than an endorsement of its policies. It has thus far excelled in failing to meet these low expectations, to Reform’s benefit.

Excluding a by-election in February, the first major political test will be local government elections in England, and elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd in May. A poor Labour showing will quite possibly lead to a leadership challenge against Starmer, whose government seems incapable of stemming the rise of support for an emboldened Reform.

A boost to republicanism

“Unprecedented” is an over-worn term. However, the arrest of a member of the royal family is the first in England since 1647 (it didn’t end well).

Prince William is still very popular. But there could still be very serious consequences for support for the monarchy in the various nations of the United Kingdom.

There isn’t the same sort of support for republicanism in England as there is in Australia, where republicans can de-legitimnise the king as a “foreign” monarch. Although this argument is made by republicans in Northern Ireland, English republicanism needs to be driven by some other sentiment.

And the Epstein crisis could be it, given it is drawing attention to gross inequality and damaging entitlement. It’s hard to see where exactly all this will end up, but it is quite possible this will give the greatest boost to anti-monarchical sentiment in England for some centuries.

It is important not to forget the women and girls who were victims of this rich man’s cabal. Yet, one great harm of the Epstein scandal in Britain is the further damage done to trust in institutions of governance and the boost it provides for the illiberal critics of what seems like a decaying order.

Ben Wellings, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

OPINION

Bannon's crusade to expose gays in the Catholic church didn't die with Epstein

"War Room" host Steve Bannon in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 30, 2024 (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Michael Signorile,

 The Signorile Report 

February 22, 2026 

Frédéric Martel, the author of the 2019 international bestseller, “In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy,” told me over the weekend about the time he was invited to lunch by Steve Bannon, who asked him to come to Bannon’s palatial Paris hotel suite shortly after his book was published.

“I didn’t know why he asked me to come,” he said.

The meeting was arranged via one of Martel’s right-wing Catholic sources who was allied with Bannon. Martel, a journalist who covers the far right in Europe and is working on a new book focused on it, certainly had a professional interest in meeting Bannon.

“It was at the Hotel Bristol,” he explained to me by phone from Paris, “in a suite that costs 8,000 euros per night.” Per the exchange rate at that time, that would have been about $8950 per night. Forbes reports suites at the hotel begin at $3200 per night and go up to as high as $46,000 per night.

It was June of 2019. And he was surprised about what Bannon wanted from him.

“He said during the lunch that he wanted to make a movie about my book,” Martel explained, noting that he “wouldn’t have ever given that [permission] to Bannon.” But he offered Bannon a more polite truth. “I don’t have the rights to the book [for a film],” Martel said he told Bannon, as his publisher had already sold those rights.

That was the end of the discussion on the book, and Martel was perplexed because, as he explained, the book is “probably the most pro-Francis” book, and Bannon, a Catholic “traditionalist” connected to all of the most extreme radical right elements of the church, was working with his allies to take down Francis because of his progressive reforms and his criticism of populist right-wing governments, including Donald Trump’s.

“In the Closet of the Vatican” exposes the hypocrisy of a church hierarchy built up over many decades—including under the virulently homophobic Pope Benedict—which included many powerful closeted gay priests, monsignors, and cardinals who were publicly working against gay rights while privately leading lives counter to their pronouncements and harmful actions.

While exposing all of that might bring down some of the very people on the Catholic right Bannon was courting—many inside the church itself, among the clergy and the hierarchy—he clearly didn’t see the nuance. Bannon is all about chaos and destruction, and was laser-focused on hurting Francis’ leadership and influence. He asked his good friend Jeffrey Epstein for help in his project.

In the Epstein files there are thousands of text message exchanges between Bannon and Epstein, as Bannon sought the help of Epstein—a true globalist within the uber-wealthy elite—to promote his faux populist, supposedly anti-globalist movement across Europe.

As CNN reports:

Bannon had been highly critical of Francis whom he saw as an opponent to his “sovereigntist” vision, a brand of nationalist populism which swept through Europe in 2018 and 2019. The released documents from the DOJ appear to show that Epstein had been helping Bannon to build his movement.


Bannon, after being pushed out in 2017 as Trump’s national security adviser, was living in Rome, traveling to Paris, London, and throughout Europe, and asking Epstein to connect him to powerful people. Epstein offered the use of his jet and homes for Bannon’s travels, while Bannon offered media training and advice for Epstein to grotesquely help clean up the convicted pedophile’s reputation. And Bannon recorded many hours of interviews, 12 hours of which have been released among the files, for a documentary film he was making on Epstein, the aim of which no doubt was to promote a media makeover for Epstein.

Epstein’s jet, per the files, was unavailable when Bannon asked if he could use it to fly from Rome to Paris in one instance, but there is evidence in the files that Bannon stayed at a grand apartment where Epstein was living near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on that trip. Epstein invited Bannon to stay in a March 29th, 2019 text; Bannon said he was “Enroute,” and then Epstein texted someone else the next morning: “Steve Bannon is here with me.”

Bannon’s spokesperson told The New York Times that Bannon didn’t stay there (and that he never stayed at Epstein’s homes or flew on his plane) and decided to stay at a hotel instead. But the Times noted the spokesperson didn’t provide a receipt. My question would have been, even if that’s so, who paid for the hotel—again, Bannon’s spokesperson didn’t show the Times any receipt—and was it in fact the lavish Hotel Bristol, the same place where he met Martel later in June? After all, per the files, Epstein did offer to pay for a charter flight for Bannon when Epstein said his jet was unavailable. (There’s no indication as to whether he did or didn’t pay for a charter flight.)


Around that same time, Bannon expressed to Epstein his interest in making Martel’s book into a film and having Epstein fund it as executive producer.

“Have you read ‘in the closet of the vatican’ yet,” Bannon wrote, to which Epstein appears to reply ‘yes,’ amid chats about getting Bannon connected to global players.

“You are now exec producer of ‘ITCOTV’ (In the closet of the Vatican),” Bannon continued. “Will take down (Pope) Francis.The Clintons, Xi, Francis, EU – come on brother.”

It’s not clear whether Epstein was taking seriously the idea of the film—which Martel had already told Bannon was not going to happen—but Epstein, on April 1, 2019, did email himself “in the closet of the vatican,” and later, in June of 2019, he sent Bannon an article headlined, “Pope Francis or Steve Bannon? Catholics must choose.”


The two were planning to meet in New York weeks later, on the first weekend of July. But on July 6th, 2019, Epstein would be arrested on sex trafficking charges in New York. On August 10th he’d be found dead in his jail cell. And obviously no film was made.

Bannon continued in his war against the pope, but a split developed that very summer of Epstein’s arrest and death between Bannon and some of his far-right allies. Cardinal Raymond Burke, an angry American MAGA foe of Francis’ (whom Francis would eventually kick out of his massive Vatican apartment, in 2023), had collaborated with Bannon in an organization working against Francis, Dignitatis Humanae Institute, a Rome-based think tank that aimed to create a “populist academy” in a monastery in Trisulti, Italy.

But Burke broke with Bannon in June of 2019, after he learned that Bannon wanted to make a film out of Martel’s book. Martel had gone public about his lunch with Bannon, and it didn’t sit well with Burke, who is portrayed in an entire chapter as a scheming and unrepentant nemesis of Pope Francis.

Burke and many of his allies in the church had much to fear about any film outing prominent homophobic closet cases in the church, bringing the book to a much wider audience. Burke put out a statement, resigning from DHI, where he’d collaborated with Bannon:

I have been made aware of a June 24 LifeSiteNews online article…entitled ‘Steve Bannon hints at making film exposing homosexuality in the Vatican’…
I do not, in any way, agree with Mr. Bannon’s assessment of the book in question, Furthermore, I am not at all of the mind that the book should be made into a film.


But other Bannon compatriots would later appear to draw both on the information in Martel’s book and on his research methods. In “In the Closet of the Vatican,” Martel discusses gay dating and sex apps like Grindr, Scruff, and Tinder, and how prevalent users were in and around the Vatican, even carrying out his own experiments with his researchers, using Grindr and other apps.

“According to several priests, Grindr has become a very widespread phenomenon in seminaries and priests’ meetings,” Martel reports in the book.

It may be a coincidence, but two years later, in July of 2021, in a story I covered extensively, a right-wing Catholic site here on Substack, The Pillar, used geolocation data from Grindr to force the resignation of Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, the General Secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

As I wrote at the time, the right-wing editors of The Pillar:
“obtained” geolocation data of Grindr interactions from his phone — even claiming to have located him in a bathhouse in Las Vegas at one point — over a period of time going back to 2018.
And then they went to the Catholic bishops with the information — dates and times of Burrill allegedly connecting with various men on Grindr, and locations, including the bathhouse. Soon after, the USCCB announced Burrill had resigned because of “impending media reports alleging possible improper behavior.”


There was much speculation about where The Pillar got its funding and also about who purchased the geolocation information for it—information that would cost a lot of money. Grindr had previously sold information to third parties for advertising purposes (and stopped after it was criticized), believing there was no identifying information. But as I explain in my piece of the time in depth, technology experts say there’s a way for that identifying information to be found, and there’s no guarantee that third parties don’t turn around and sell geolocation data to more nefarious entities.

Almost two years after The Pillar’s actions, in March of 2023, The Washington Post indeed revealed that it was wealthy Catholics on the far right, the people in the same circles as Bannon, who paid for the geolocation data that The Pillar had “obtained.” They also sent the information to Catholic bishops:
A group of conservative Colorado Catholics has spent millions of dollars to buy mobile app tracking data that identified priests who used gay dating and hookup apps and then shared it with bishops around the country.
The secretive effort was the work of a Denver nonprofit called Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal, whose trustees are philanthropists Mark Bauman, John Martin and Tim Reichert, according to public records, an audio recording of the nonprofit’s president discussing its mission and other documents…
…The Post has seen copies of two different reports presented to bishops. One is from the Renewal group to a diocese and the other is the one that the Pillar presented to the USCCB about Burrill. The information in both is mostly about Grindr, although the reports also say they have used data from other gay dating apps Growlr, Scruff and Jack’d, as well as OkCupid.


Reichert is a former GOP congressional candidate. Jayd Henricks, executive director of the group Reichert and his rich buddies founded and which bought the geolocation information it gave to The Pillar, had, like Bannon, been a fierce critic of Francis.

All of these men are aligned in efforts against church reforms, whether working together directly or not. Hendricks has written for the orthodox World Catholic Report, which has also written glowingly about Bannon and his “populist nationalism” effort in Europe, describing it as “renewed appreciation for the nation-state and national sovereignty—and growing suspicion of the managerial elites in Washington, London, and Brussels.”

It’s not a stretch to believe that the Colorado wealthy right-wing Catholics got their ideas on using Grindr to help bring down church leaders from the attention brought to “In the Closet of the Vatican.” Nor is it a stretch to believe that they even worked directly or indirectly with fellow traveler Bannon, who was very much focused on the book and who had by then lost the convicted pedophile billionaire he was hoping would bankroll weaponizing the ideas within the book in the way The Pillar outrageously did.

Epstein files reveal ties to Catholic conservatives' anti-Francis campaign

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — The newly released Epstein files show that Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon discussed opposition to Pope Francis, including a move that Bannon claimed would ‘take down Francis.’

Former White House senior adviser Steve Bannon, second from left, in the East Room at the White House on April 12, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Claire Giangravé
February 11, 2026

RNS


VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Newly released files by the U.S. Department of Justice show that convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein and former Trump aide Steve Bannon discussed strategies to undermine Pope Francis, revealing how the Vatican was viewed as a geopolitical pressure point by Epstein’s network of political and financial leaders.

In text messages between Bannon and Epstein from June 2019, Bannon seems to suggest that Epstein was an executive producer of a documentary film that never got made, based on a 2019 book by French journalist and researcher Frédéric Martel, “In the Closet of the Vatican.”

“Will take down Francis,” Bannon writes about the film. “The Clintons, Xi, Francis, EU — come on brother.”

Martel’s book delves into the culture of secrecy and hypocrisy regarding homosexuality at the Vatican. When it was published, the book galvanized conservative outrage because it included claims stating that 80% of Vatican clergy are gay.
RELATED: Cardinal Cupich says feds stopped priests, demanded citizenship proof

Martel told Religion News Service that he had several meetings with Bannon, who told Martel that he “loved” the book. The two met in Paris, in the penthouse suite of the Hôtel Bristol, where Bannon first floated the idea of adapting the book into a film. “He told me that he would like to do a movie about it,” Martel said, adding that “he was very enthusiastic.”

Martel clarified that he never accepted Bannon’s offer and never received any payment from him, as his French publisher controlled the rights to the book. Martel said he had no contact with Epstein.


A text thread between Bannon and Epstein including reference to Pope Francis that was released as part of the larger collection of Epstein files. Screenshot

Bannon’s interest in Martel’s book was enough to lead U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke to cut ties with the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, a conservative Catholic organization that Burke felt had become too identified with Bannon. “I am not at all of the mind that the book should be made into a film,” Burke wrote in a letter dated June 25, 2019.

The correspondence between Epstein and Bannon took place at the height of concerted conservative efforts to oppose Francis, who had signaled his openness toward LGBTQ Catholics and divorced or remarried Catholics and who expressed concern for migrants and the environment in his public statements and written documents.

Overall, Francis had shifted the church’s tone from his immediate predecessors’ emphasis on enforcing doctrine, toward inclusion. The 2014-15 Synod on the Family, a meeting of Catholic bishops in Rome, broadened the church’s views on family life and ended with an apostolic exhortation that preached about “a church of mercy.” In its wake, conservative cardinals — including Burke — issued a challenge, known as a dubia, to Francis’ teaching.

The dissent reached its climax when the former papal representative to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, published a scathing public letter accusing Francis of covering up the abuse by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

“There’s a clear concerted campaign among a number of traditionalist figures and institutions to bring down Francis in the name of some sort of ‘purification,’ which culminates in the Viganò letter,” said Francis biographer Austen Ivereigh, who said the connections revealed in the Epstein files were an interesting new element. “What obviously is clear, though, is that they had formed an alliance of sorts.”

Emails between Bannon and Epstein dating to 2018 lament the Vatican’s push against xenophobia, racism and populism, as well as the Holy See’s relationship with China.

Epstein is often dismissive toward the papacy and Francis in the released correspondence. When Francis visited the U.S. in 2015, Epstein noted that the pope was staying near Epstein’s residence in New York. “I thought id invite him for a massage,” Epstein wrote in an email to his brother, Mark Epstein, followed by lewd remarks.

Jeffrey Epstein also seems to have had an interest in the Vatican’s finances. He was familiar with the book “Who Killed God’s Banker?: A 30 Year Investigation” by Edward Jay Epstein, detailing the financial structure of the Institute for Works of Religion, commonly referred to as the Vatican bank. In particular, the book comments on the 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, after which its president, Roberto Calvi, was found hanging from a noose under London’s Blackfriars Bridge.

In an email to Epstein in August 2014 about blockchain and digital currency, the Italian cybersecurity researcher Vincenzo Iozzo pointed to “the Vatican and Monaco” as small sovereign states that could be “viable” grounds for experimentation. “You said you like great hacks — selling companies and/or big western countries a currency that doesn’t actually exist is probably the ultimate hack in the world,” Iozzo wrote.

At the time, Francis had launched a major effort to reform the Vatican’s troubled and often opaque finances and appointed Cardinal George Pell to lead the newly formed Secretariat for the Economy. Francis also closed thousands of suspect accounts by non-Vatican City citizens.

An FBI report included in the DOJ’s release includes a source who claims that an Italian cybersecurity figure described as “Epstein’s Hacker” may have held a Vatican City passport.

The Data Lords Are Taxing Our Water and Power to Build Their Castles

Data center dukes and barons appropriate land and resources while indirectly taxing the middle and lower class through higher utility bills.

In this handout provided by Amazon, a technician works at an Amazon Web Services AI data center in New Carlisle, Indiana on October 2, 2025.
(Photo by Noah Berger/Getty Images via Amazon Web Services)

John F. Wasik
Feb 22, 2026

Common Dreams


Data centers are the modern equivalent of feudal castles. They dominate the landscape, consume resources, and aggregate power. Unlike medieval barons, though, today’s data dukes don’t live in their castles. Their “court” is in Washington and Silicon Valley, but they expect their local vassals to pay tribute through higher utility rates, water, and electricity consumption. A data center complex is being built near my home. I feel like my village is being colonized.

Data Centers have huge moats, which indirectly consume vast quantities of water, electricity, and land. I’d like to know—in addition to utility rate impacts—what their carbon footprint is over time. Yet, like a lot of non-tech-engaged citizens, I have more questions than answers.

“Unmitigated data center growth puts the public at risk of large cost increases, from higher utility bills to public health costs to climate impacts,” according to a recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a national nonprofit advocacy group. In Illinois alone, where I live, the UCS estimates that electric utility rates could soar:

“From 2026 to 2050, data center load growth will increase electricity system costs in Illinois by $24 billion to $37 billion, or 15% to 24%.”

“Based on current trends, data centers will account for up to 72% of electricity demand growth in Illinois by 2030.”

“Overall electricity demand could increase by more than half by 2035. Data centers will still account for up to 65% of that growth by 2035 as electrification of other sectors starts to play a bigger role.”

Data Centers typically have voracious electrical and water demands. They need huge amounts of electricity to power their citadel of computer servers and water to cool them. According to an analysis by CLC JAWA, the local water agency for Lake County, the proposed Grayslake data center near my home will use up to 1.6 billion (giga) watts of electricity in its first phase. When completed, the first phase will use about 50,000 gallons of water daily, which is roughly equivalent to an average-sized health and fitness club.

Worse yet, since there are no national or state regulations on data centers, their power consumption could increase the burning of fossil fuels (mostly coal and gas)

Yet the demand for water in the “T5” Grayslake data center around the corner from my home will spike when it pumps water into its “closed-loop” (recirculated) cooling system. Filling up that system—what the operators call a “flush and fill”—will require an estimated 3.2 million gallons over several days. Keep in mind that’s treated Lake Michigan water, which is not billed at a higher rate for industrial use. Will that outsize water consumption raise rates for residential water users? That’s not clear, although the combined water and power usage will be enormous for a 470 acre-complex (approved by the local village board) with up to 10 million total square feet in less than 20 buildings.

Worse yet, since there are no national or state regulations on data centers, their power consumption could increase the burning of fossil fuels (mostly coal and gas). That means more pollutants and greenhouse gases flowing into our atmosphere. At the very least, local residents need more detailed information on utility and environmental impact.

Across the border in Wisconsin, there’s been an outcry over lack of information on data castles. Meta, the holding company that owns Facebook and Instagram, has proposed a complex as big as 12 football fields in a city with a population of 16,000, reports Wisconsin Watch. It’s 1 of 7 major proposed data centers in Wisconsin that are worth more than $57 billion combined. Local governments in the Dairy State, though, which already has 40 data centers, have been reluctant to disclose details.

There’s also been pushback against data centers in New York state, where a tough data center law is being drafted. At least 19 have been cancelled in Michigan. Although action this year is unlikely, a stricter federal data center bill called the “Power for the People Act (S. 3682) was filed in the US Senate. The bill is supported by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Citizen’s Utility Board in Illinois.

Back in Illinois, legislators and environmentalists are mobilized. Gov. JB Pritzker announced a two-year pause on data center tax breaks in his recent budget address. In the Illinois General Assembly, the introduction of the POWER Act would set some guardrails on water use and environmental impact. It’s being sponsored by Prairie Rivers Network and the Clean Jobs Coalition.

The Illinois General Assembly is also considering data center regulation this year. “By requiring data centers to supply new carbon-free electricity resources,” the UCS report notes, “Illinois can protect other electricity consumers and stay consistent with its clean energy goals, while at the same time seeking improved federal policies.”

Data Center operators are concentrating their expansion in Great Lakes states because that’s where the water is: They need fresh water to cool their hot, thirsty servers. According to a new study by the University of Virginia:
At the end of 2024, the Great Lakes region was hosting approximately 20% of all US data centers and had 500+ operational facilities. By 2030, Illinois and Ohio together will account for about 50% of regional sites, and planned and under construction facilities will increase by 42% regionally. More than 95% of data centers are located in large or medium metro counties, anchored by Chicago, Columbus, New York City, and Minneapolis.

Unlike the legendary story of Robin of Locksley, who robbed the rich to give to the poor, data center dukes and barons appropriate land and resources while indirectly taxing the middle and lower class through higher utility bills. Yet these “reverse Robin Hoods” don’t do this on roads winding through dark forests. They do it in plain sight during daylight, although they hate the transparency of sunlight and community activism.

Stop Tyrant Trump’s Lawless Attack on the Regulations Keeping Us Safe

Trump deserves Impeachment and Removal from Office. Congress should act now, before more Americans die, get sick, or are injured from the destruction of long-established, critical protections.


US President Donald Trump speaks alongside coal and energy workers during an executive order signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House on April 8, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Ralph Nader
Feb 21, 2026

Common Dreams


“Deregulation” is an antiseptic word loved by the giant corporations that rule the people. In reality, health and safety “deregulation” spells death, injury, and disease for the American people of all ages and backgrounds. This is especially so with the deranged dictates from the Tyrant Trump, who is happily beholden to his corporate paymasters, who are making him richer by the day.

President Donald Trump’s mindless deregulation mania got underway in January 2025 with his illegal shutting down of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which has saved lives in poor countries—by providing food, water, medicine, etc.—for a pittance. USAID spends less in a year than the Pentagon spends in a week. International aid groups predict that the ongoing cuts could lead to 9.4 million preventable deaths occurring in poor countries by 2030 unless the vicious and cruel, unlawful Trumpian shutdown is reversed.

It turns out Trump was just warming up for his illegal violence against innocent American families in both blue and red states. He has abolished requirements for the auto industry to limit its emissions and maintain fuel efficiencies. The result: more disease-bearing gases and particulates into the lungs of Americans, including the most vulnerable—children and people suffering from respiratory diseases.

Trump wants to roll back the regulations that would require auto company fleets to average 50 miles per gallon by 2031. In 2024, the US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said its proposed vehicle fuel economy standards would save Americans more than $23 billion in fuel costs while reducing pollution.

Rather than faithfully execute federal laws, and ensure the well-being of the people, Dictator Donald is using his position and time in the White House to enrich himself and to get his name on anything he can get away with.

Month after month, Trump is illegally reducing or shutting down lifesaving programs without the required congressional approval. One of his major targets is the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This month, his puppet EPA head, Lee Zeldin, celebrated the elimination of lethal greenhouse gases from the EPA’s regulatory controls. Zeldin and Trump are in effect telling Americans, “Let them breathe toxic air.” Plus, more climate catastrophes.

Smothering wind and solar projects while boosting the omnicidal polluting oil, gas, and coal production is another way Trump is exposing people to sickening gases and particulates. A corporate cynic once joked, “No problem, you can always refuse to inhale.”

Trump’s treachery toward coal miners, whom he praises, is shocking. He cut the funds for free testing of coal miners’ lungs, often afflicted with the deadly black lung diseases that have taken hundreds of thousands of coal miners’ lives over the past century and a half. We worked to pass the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, to control the levels of coal dust causing this disease, but Trump is unraveling it by cutting law enforcement. The Trump administration says it is “reconsidering” the long-awaited proposed silica control regulations. More unnecessary delay. In 2024, Politico reported that “Mine Safety and Health Administration projects that the final rule will avert up to 1,067 deaths and 3,746 silica-related illnesses.”

In his mass firings of federal civil servants, Trump has included the ranks of federal safety inspectors for meat and poultry plants (USDA), for occupational health and safety (OSHA), and specialized areas like you would never imagine—such as nuclear security. Tyrant Trump worsened the potential danger for workers and communities by firing most of the inspectors general—again illegally—who are the powerful watchdogs over federal departments and agencies. Many inspector general positions are still vacant.

In terms of short and long-run perils, Trump’s attacks on scientific research and discovery to reduce or prevent diseases would be enough to give him the grisly record for knowingly letting Americans die. The assault on vaccines, including for contagious diseases, is staggering, led by RFK, Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services.

RFK, Jr. becomes more extreme by the day. His actions go way beyond any legitimate skepticism of the drug companies. He is going along with officials in states like Florida who are about to ban children’s vaccine mandates, even for polio, measles, and whooping cough. He has severely slashed, without congressional authority, budgets for basic and applied science programs underway at universities and other public institutions. His salvos are resulting in the reduction of families getting their children vaccinated, who, if contagious, could infect their classmates. The so-called powerful medical societies have not risen to their optimal level of resistance to what is fast coming, a green light for epidemics—starting with the resurgence of measles now underway in places like South Carolina.

The crazed Menace-in-Chief wanted to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its rescue responses to hyper-hurricanes, floods, and giant wildfires. He recklessly says the states can handle the carnage from such disasters. The real reason is that he doesn’t want to be held responsible for failing to properly respond to such disasters. Remember the criticism of George W. Bush’s response to Katrina?

Again, with Trump, it is all about him, feeding his insatiable MONSTROUS EGO, rather than saving American lives. Recently, tragic events have forced him to reconsider. He is bringing back some of the experts and rescuers he fired from FEMA earlier last year.

Rather than faithfully execute federal laws, and ensure the well-being of the people, Dictator Donald is using his position and time in the White House to enrich himself and to get his name on anything he can get away with—the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the US Institute of Peace, the US Treasury Department’s relief checks during Covid-19, the federal investment accounts, special visas, and a discount drug program. (See the February 16, 2026, article in the New York Times by Peter Baker titled, A Superman, Jedi and Pope).

Chronically lying; threatening violence against his opponents and people abroad; slandering anyone he feels like via the compliant mass media, including journalists and editors; and generally wrecking America as a serial law violator, Trump deserves to be told, “YOU’RE FIRED.” (This was his favorite TV show catchphrase). Trump deserves Impeachment and Removal from Office. Congress should act now, before more Americans die, get sick, or are injured from the destruction of long-established, critical protections under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

SEX , RACE AND CLASS

MAGA rep rails against 'tone deaf' GOP senator — in defense of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

David McAfee
February 21, 2026 

RAW STORY


Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). (Shutterstock)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) Saturday saw an unlikely person jump to her defense in a feud with a GOP senator over the weekend.

It started with Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican, attacking Ocasio-Cortez and her past bartending experience.

Kennedy said, "The congresswoman is kind of like Vice President Kamala Harris, but with more bartending experience."

That didn't sit well with MAGA lawmaker Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. She said, "I don't agree with a lot AOC does and I can debate with her on it but to knock her or anyone for being a bartender is not a 'hit,' it’s tone deaf."

She went on to say, "Plenty of people don’t come from political pedigree. There are plenty of people who go through school etc. and are hardworking Americans and they have the right to run for office. Shoot, half of DC spends its time in bars and love the bartenders."

She concluded, "NO TAX ON TIPS AND NO TAX ON OVERTIME is FOR the service industry workers. Focus on calling out McConnell for BLOCKING THE SAVE ACT. THATS A WIN! @SenJkennedy."

For her part, Ocasio-Cortez responded to Kennedy by saying, "My having been a waitress makes me 1000x more qualified to govern on behalf of working people than whatever lifelong politician nonsense you’ve swung from your whole career."

"Why should working people vote for you if this is what you think of them?" she asked.

As Dem Voters Seek a ‘Fight’ With the Superrich, AOC is Now Their Favorite Candidate: Poll

“An unmistakable majority wants a party that will fight harder against the corporations and rich people they see as responsible for keeping them down,” wrote the New Republic’s editorial director.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, U.S. representative for New York’s 14th congressional district, speaks at a Townhall panel on populism at the 62nd Munich Security Conference on February 13, 2026 in Munich, Germany.
(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Feb 15, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Democratic voters overwhelmingly want a leader who will fight the superrich and corporate America, and they believe Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the person to do it, according to a poll released this week.

While Democrats are often portrayed as squabbling and directionless, the poll conducted last month by the New Republic with Embold Research demonstrated a remarkable unity among the more than 2,400 Democratic voters it surveyed.

This was true with respect to policy: More than 9 in 10 want to raise taxes on corporations and on the wealthiest Americans, while more than three-quarters want to break up tech monopolies and believe the government should conduct stronger oversight of business.

But it was also reflected in sentiments that a more confrontational governing philosophy should prevail and general agreement that the party in its current form is not doing enough to take on its enemies.

Three-quarters said they wanted Democrats to “be more aggressive in calling out Republicans,” while nearly 7 in 10 said it was appropriate to describe their party as “weak.”

This appears to have translated to support for a more muscular view of government. Where the label once helped to sink Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) two runs for president, nearly three-quarters of Democrats now say they are either unconcerned with the label of “socialist” or view it as an asset.

Meanwhile, 46% said they want to see a “progressive” at the top of the Democratic ticket in 2028, higher than the number who said they wanted a “liberal” or a “moderate.”

It’s an environment that appears to be fertile ground for Ocasio-Cortez, who pitched her vision for a “working-class-centered politics” at this week’s Munich summit in what many suspected was a soft-launch of her presidential candidacy in 2028.



With 85% favorability, Bronx congresswoman had the highest approval rating of any Democratic figure in the country among the voters surveyed.

It’s a higher mark than either of the figures who head-to-head polls have shown to be presumptive favorites for the nomination: Former Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Early polls show AOC lagging considerably behind these top two. However, there are signs in the New Republic’s poll that may give her supporters cause for hope.

While Harris is also well-liked, 66% of Democrats surveyed said they believe she’s “had her shot” at the presidency and should not run again after losing to President Donald Trump in 2024.

Newsom does not have a similar electoral history holding him back and is riding high from the passage of Proposition 50, which will allow Democrats to add potentially five more US House seats this November.

But his policy approach may prove an ill fit at a time when Democrats overwhelmingly say their party is “too timid” about taxing the rich and corporations and taking on tech oligarchs.

As labor unions in California have pushed for a popular proposal to introduce a billionaire’s tax, Newsom has made himself the chiseled face of the resistance to this idea, joining with right-wing Silicon Valley barons in an aggressive campaign to kill it.

While polls can tell us little two years out about what voters will do in 2028, New Republic editorial director Emily Cooke said her magazine’s survey shows an unmistakable pattern.

“It’s impossible to come away from these results without concluding that economic populism is a winning message for loyal Democrats,” she wrote. “This was true across those who identify as liberals, moderates, or progressives: An unmistakable majority wants a party that will fight harder against the corporations and rich people they see as responsible for keeping them down.”