RFK Jr. and Pete Hegseth plant Army doctor at HHS to chase a COVID vaccine theory: report

Bennito L. Kelty
September 3, 2026

RAW STORY



U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attends a dinner hosted by U.S. President Trump in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 2, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has an Army doctor in his department investigating whether COVID vaccines killed troops.

According to a Thursday Politico article, Army physician Theresa Long testified in a federal court in Virginia that she is now working alongside Kennedy and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to examine whether service members died from COVID shots that were mandated under President Joe Biden in 2021.

Hegseth assigned her to serve as Kennedy's senior medical military adviser, a role at the HHS that had not surfaced publicly until now, according to Politico.

Long said in an August 14 deposition that she is reviewing whether 2,544 deaths among troops, figures reported to a federal vaccine-injury database but never verified, can be tied to the shot, Politico reported. She told the court she hoped to wrap up her research within roughly a year.

Kennedy, a longtime skeptic of vaccine safety, has repeatedly attacked the COVID vaccines, once branding them the "most deadly vaccines in history," Politico noted. Public health experts have said his characterization is false and warn it has pushed some Americans away from shots that can blunt the disease.

Much of Long's task centers on claims that the mRNA formulas from Pfizer and Moderna raise the risk of heart inflammation, according to Politico. However, a 2026 Pentagon report cited by Politico found that while myocarditis and pericarditis cases ticked up soon after vaccination, the effect was "not sustained over a 1-year period." The Pentagon report noted no deaths.

Long testified that she remained doubtful of the military's own data, which at one point appeared to show the vaccine performing extraordinarily well, according to Politico. She claimed that officials inflated the numbers until it "made it look like the vaccine had, like, cured everything," according to a transcript of her testimony reviewed by Politico.

She added that she knew of 28 people who died because of the COVID vaccine but was barred from saying more, Politico reported.

‘Outrageous’: Pentagon Secretly Working to Divert Billions From National Institutes of Health

“These funds were provided for lifesaving medical research, not as extra money for the Department of Defense,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro.


Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on April 30, 2026.
(Photo by Graeme Sloan/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Sep 04, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

US President Donald Trump’s Department of Defense is reportedly working to divert billions of dollars in federal funding from the National Institutes of Health to bolster the Pentagon’s budget as the administration wages a costly, destructive, and open-ended war on Iran.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top House Democratic appropriator, revealed late Thursday that the Pentagon—without notifying lawmakers or the public—signed an interagency agreement that could give the Defense Department “access to billions of dollars that Congress provided to NIH for critical biomedical research.”

Under the deal, which the Trump administration disclosed to Congress under pressure from Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, the Pentagon would pull funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose annual budget is around $7 billion. It is unclear whether NIH has signed the agreement.

“This secretive attempt to siphon research funds away from NIH is outrageous. The interagency agreement needs to be terminated immediately,” DeLauro said in a statement. “These funds were provided for lifesaving medical research, not as extra money for the Department of Defense. It is no secret that the Department of Defense is facing enormous financial pressure because of President Trump’s war of choice with Iran. But the Trump administration cannot make American patients, families, and scientists pay the price.”

“Circumventing Congress to divert money intended to help Americans who are exposed to HIV, influenza, tuberculosis, and other deadly diseases—and directing those funds to the Department of Defense—is beyond the pale,” DeLauro added. “DoD already has programs, funded by Congress, to research and develop medical countermeasures to chemical, biological, and nuclear threats, and does not need NIH funding to do so. The administration must provide Congress with a full accounting of how this interagency agreement was developed and exactly how much taxpayer money it is trying to transfer to DoD.”

Military spending accounts for roughly half of the federal discretionary budget, but the Pentagon in recent months has said it is facing a cash shortfall in large part due to the illegal war on Iran. The Pentagon has said publicly that the Iran war has cost the US around $37.5 billion so far, though the agency—which has never passed an independent audit—has not released a full accounting of the conflict, and experts say the figure is likely a gross undercount.

On top of pursuing an annual military budget exceeding $1.1 trillion, the Trump administration is pushing lawmakers to approve a $67 billion supplemental funding package to cover some of the Iran war’s costs.

“Trump chose to start a costly war with Iran after giving billionaires and big corporations trillions of dollars in tax breaks—and now wants American patients to unknowingly foot the Defense Department’s bills,” Leslie Dach, chair of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in a statement Thursday. “Not a single dollar Congress appropriated for life-saving disease research should go into the bumbling hands of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for any claimed purpose.”

A Trump administration spokesperson told The Hill that the Pentagon-NIH deal would “enable nimble multi-agency resources to collaboratively respond to public health emergencies, such as the recent Ebola outbreak.”

Dach argued that no one should take the Trump administration “at its word about the military research they supposedly plan to fund with taxpayer money that was meant to find cures for diseases here at home.”

“Given Secretary Hegseth’s history of lying through his teeth about our national security and the fact this budgetary sleight of hand was reluctantly revealed to Congress, would anyone be surprised if these raided NIH funds were actually intended to buy more bombs?” Dach asked. “This backroom deal at the expense of public health needs to be revoked immediately, followed by a serious congressional investigation into the extent of and motives behind the Trump administration’s taxpayer money shell game.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Senate Democrats’ top appropriator, also called for the immediate termination of the agreement.

“As if canceling lifesaving medical research and clinical trials and firing cancer researchers en masse were not bad enough, the Trump administration is now trying to rob NIH of billions of dollars that Congress provided for medical research so that it can pad the Pentagon’s budget,” said Murray. “We cannot allow this administration to shred patients’ hopes of new, lifesaving cures and treatments so that President Trump and Secretary Hegseth can secretively fund their own priorities in defiance of Congress.”

'Beyond the pale': Pentagon caught trying to raid billions from disease research

Bennito L. Kelty
September 3, 2026  

RAW STORY


FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump listens as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a cabinet meeting at Camp David in Thurmont, Maryland, U.S., July 31, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer/File Photo

The Pentagon was caught attempting to divert funding for infectious-disease research to cover its own money woes, sparking outcry from a Democratic lawmaker.

According to reporting by Punchbowl News, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) sounded the alarm on Thursday by revealing that the Department of Defense is trying to divert billions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health.

DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said that the Pentagon is trying to "siphon" money through an interagency agreement with the NIH. She warned the agreement could give the Pentagon access to billions that Congress appropriated to the NIH's institute for infectious disease research.

"This secretive attempt to siphon research funds away from NIH is outrageous," DeLauro wrote in a statement. "The interagency agreement needs to be terminated immediately."

She also noted the Pentagon's money troubles, writing, "It is no secret that the Department of Defense is facing enormous financial pressure because of President Trump's war of choice with Iran." Punchbowl News reported that President Donald Trump is asking for $1.5 trillion in funding for the Pentagon, but the request "seems as murky as ever."

According to DeLauro, the Pentagon is trying to pull money from the NIH's leading institute for infectious-disease research, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"Circumventing Congress to divert money intended to help Americans who are exposed to HIV, influenza, tuberculosis, and other deadly diseases—and directing those funds to the Department of Defense—is beyond the pale," DeLauro wrote. "The administration must provide Congress with a full accounting of how this interagency agreement was developed and exactly how much taxpayer money it is trying to transfer to DoD."

The total budget for NIAID is about $6.6 billion, according to Punchbowl News. The interagency agreement between the Pentagon and the NIH doesn't specify exactly how much money the Pentagon can pull from that budget, a source told Punchbowl News.

The Pentagon didn't respond to Punchbowl News' request for comment.

Exposed: Trump's 'secretive' scheme to pilfer medical research funds

U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a meeting with travel executives in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 2, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Nick Hilden

September 03, 2026

ALTERNET

On Thursday, Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee revealed that the Department of Defense is attempting to divert billions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health to supplement the Pentagon budget issues caused by President Donald Trump's war with Iran. This is according to a report in which ranking member Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) revealed the effort, which has been undertaken "without notifying Congress."

According to the report, "DoD has signed an interagency agreement that could give the Department access to billions of dollars that Congress provided to NIH for critical biomedical research. These funds were provided to support research to develop treatments or cures for infectious diseases such as influenza, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, Ebola, and other dangerous pathogens." Trump-appointed officials at NIH disclosed the scheme only after being pressed for information by House Appropriations Committee Democrats.

“This secretive attempt to siphon research funds away from NIH is outrageous. The interagency agreement needs to be terminated immediately,” said DeLauro. “These funds were provided for lifesaving medical research, not as extra money for the Department of Defense. It is no secret that the Department of Defense is facing enormous financial pressure because of President Trump’s war of choice with Iran. But the Trump administration cannot make American patients, families, and scientists pay the price. Circumventing Congress to divert money intended to help Americans who are exposed to HIV, influenza, tuberculosis, and other deadly diseases — and directing those funds to the Department of Defense — is beyond the pale. DoD already has programs, funded by Congress, to research and develop medical countermeasures to chemical, biological, and nuclear threats, and does not need NIH funding to do so. The administration must provide Congress with a full accounting of how this interagency agreement was developed and exactly how much taxpayer money it is trying to transfer to DoD.”

As DeLauro suggested, it's been public knowledge that the Pentagon is running out of money for daily operations since reporting revealed the problem in July. The Defense budget has been strained by the war in Iran, which has resulted in the delay of base repairs, the reduction of training exercises, and other cuts. While Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has requested $67 billion in supplemental funds, Congress has yet to approve it, though it did just pass a stopgap bill that will fund essential security and defense programs through December 11. In the meantime, DeLauro's bombshell report suggests that the Pentagon is desperate to find money elsewhere.

According to Punchbowl News reporter Samantha Handler, "This is the kind of thing Approps Dems will surely be investigating/going after if Dems take the majority next Congress."

DINO

John Fetterman blew off paralyzed vets and children's hospital amid rightward drift: WSJ

Bennito L. Kelty
September 3, 2026 

RAW STORY


U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) looks on as U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) presides over a vote whether to hold Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in contempt for having invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to questions about the government's COVID-19 pandemic response during a July 29 hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 6, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard


Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) brushed off paralyzed veterans and a children's hospital while cash from a prominent conservative donor came in amid his rightward drift.

According to a Thursday report by the Wall Street Journal, Fetterman canceled on three paralyzed military veterans who traveled from rural Pennsylvania in June to discuss legislation on their care. He told staff he might have eaten something bad, The Journal reported.

Less than an hour after aides met the veterans in his place, Fetterman reportedly walked in looking fine and headed to Fox News to talk about Israel.

The Journal's reporting drew from more than a dozen former staffers and lawmakers, plus internal text messages. "Behind closed doors, the first-term senator shows little interest in doing the job beyond cultivating relationships with conservative media figures and advocating for Israel," The Journal wrote.

When an aide told him last September that officials from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia wanted to meet over Medicaid cuts, Fetterman texted back, "Well I'm not," according to messages reviewed by The Journal, which added that he was "convinced they just want free trips to DC."

The Journal described how Fetterman was once the mayor of the town of Braddock and a disciple of Bernie Sanders. He's increasingly aligned himself with Republicans, The Journal noted. He now polls better with GOP voters than Pennsylvania's Republican senator, Dave McCormick, per New York Times polling cited by The Journal. The drift has fueled speculation that he could switch parties, The Journal noted.

In July, filings showed that he took money from a prominent conservative donor, according to The Journal. When he was asked in March about a call Senate Democratic leadership was arranging, Fetterman texted, "I truly don't care," The Journal reported.

Fetterman didn't respond to The Journal's interview requests and walked away from a reporter at an Erie event last month. At the event, he defended his record by saying, "We have to work together."

Fetterman snubbed veterans and constituents to hang with Fox: report

U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., 

U.S., March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Matthew Rozsa

September 03, 2026

ALTERNET

A new report reveals that Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) snubbed disabled veterans and poor people, so he could instead pander to Republicans, right-wing media and pro-Israel groups.

"One morning in June, three paralyzed military veterans in wheelchairs from rural Pennsylvania arrived at the office of Sen. John Fetterman for a long-awaited meeting to discuss legislation that would improve their care," reported The Wall Street Journal's Will Hobson and Siobhan Hughes on Thursday. "Fetterman’s staff greeted them with bad news: The Pennsylvania Democrat had to cancel. He’d told his staff he may have eaten something bad and wasn’t feeling well, according to people familiar with the matter."

The Journal added, "Less than an hour after his staffers met with the veterans in his place, Fetterman walked into his office, showing no signs of illness. He had an appointment he didn’t want to miss, he told staff: an interview on Fox News to discuss Israel and the war in Iran."


This, said WSJ, was not the only notable Fetterman snub.

"In April 2025, veteran Pennsylvania state lawmaker Anthony Hardy Williams brought a busload of constituents to Washington from Eastwick, a poorer, flood-prone neighborhood in Philadelphia, to meet with their representatives in Congress and discuss Trump administration cuts to a grant program that had helped the area," Hobson and Hughes reported.


They continued, "Fetterman was the only one who refused to meet with them, Williams said in an interview. At one point, they saw Fetterman walking the halls and yelled, but he didn’t acknowledge them, according to Williams."

The Pennsylvania Democrat has repeatedly played footsie with Republicans, from accepting money from right-wing donors to vowing that he would not campaign against the Pennsylvania Republican who also represents his state in the Senate, Dave McCormick. He has also fixated on Israel as one of his main issues, vowing to leave the Democratic Party if it becomes "anti-Israel" and prioritizing concerns related to that nation's interests more than most other matters that come across his Senate desk.

Fetterman's pro-Israel positioning comes at a time when hate toward both Jews and Muslims is peaking in America. As The New Republic reported in July, “President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,. The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.” Similarly hate crimes toward Jews have been on the rise over the past few years.


Although Fetterman has equated criticizing Israel's government with hating all Jews or all Israelis, Brandeis University historian Jonathan Sarna told AlterNet in March that it is wrong for so many Americans to blame all Jews for the actions of Israel's government, observing that "if you wouldn't equate criticism of the President with hating America, there is no reason — and indeed it is wrong and wicked — to do so with regard to Israel.”

Trump triggers "frightening sign" as billions in gold flee New York vaults: expert

Bennito L. Kelty
September 3, 2026 

RAW STORY


U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while hosting a dinner in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 2, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Fears that President Donald Trump could freeze foreign assets are driving billions in gold out of New York's vaults, an economics journalist warned.

In a Thursday article for The Bulwark, economics editor and columnist Catherine Rampell described the gold retreat as a signal of how far U.S. relationships, in particular with its European allies, have deteriorated.

"In a frightening sign of just how much trust has been lost between the United States and its erstwhile allies, billions of dollars of gold reserves are being repatriated or otherwise moved out of Trump's reach," Rampell wrote.

The Dutch central bank announced on Wednesday that it had moved roughly $12 billion in gold, most of it held in New York, to vaults in London, Rampell noted. France's central bank recently sold about $15 billion in bullion stored in New York and replaced it with bars kept in Paris. Germany and Italy, which are the second- and third-largest holders of gold reserves behind the U.S., have spent the past year weighing whether to bring theirs home too, Rampell added.

The concern is less that Trump would seize the gold than that he might freeze it, Rampell explained. Washington and its allies did the same with Russia's reserves after the invasion of Ukraine, she pointed out.

A German member of the European Parliament, Markus Ferber, warned that the risk is impossible to dismiss, she noted.

"Trump is erratic, and one cannot rule out that someday he will come up with creative ideas how to treat foreign gold reserves," Ferber said, per Rampell.

Rampell admitted the scale of the fear caught her off guard.

"It hadn't really occurred to me that investors might be diversifying away from U.S. dollar-denominated assets because they also feared losing access to them," she wrote.

The nervousness has built during a string of Trump moves, including his "Liberation Day" tariffs, his threats to annex Greenland, his push to take "golden share" stakes in private companies, and his stated wish to personally inspect Fort Knox, according to Rampell.

Because gold sits inside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Trump's campaign to control the Federal Reserve feeds fears that foreign reserves could be next, Rampell wrote. A representative of Germany's Taxpayers Federation put it bluntly, she noted.

"It's our money," the representative said. "It should be brought back."

'I am not the Lorax': Judge unloads on Trump golf plan in bizarre hearing

Matthew Chapman
September 3, 2026 

RAW STORY


U.S. President Donald Trump holds a golf ball at Trump Turnberry resort in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 27, 2025. REUTERS/Phil Noble

A hearing in a lawsuit over President Donald Trump's renovations to the East Potomac Golf Links went off the rails almost immediately on Thursday.

According to Politico legal affairs analyst Kyle Cheney, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes "[made] clear she's not 'parks and rec' and doesn't want to police the administration's management of trees at East Potomac golf course," adding, "I am not the Lorax, I do not speak for the trees."

Reyes, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, also made references to Alanis Morissette, "a random caller demanding her removal from the bench," and the apocryphal legend of first president George Washington cutting down a cherry tree in his youth, Cheney remarked.

Historic preservation groups sued the Trump administration for the renovations to the site intended to turn it into a championship course, citing problems including the chopping down of trees on the property. The Trump administration "says the recently chopped trees were dead, invasive or hazardous," according to Cheney.

Experts have flagged an unusual legal strategy from Trump's team, where they are essentially trying to argue that any issues with the project are "speculative" and therefore invalid grounds for a lawsuit, right up until the project is actually complete and any suit would be a moot point.

The project has already run into a number of logistical challenges, including land subsidence and water issues.

Trump’s golf course takeover runs into major new roadblock

President Donald Trump on his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course on July 28, 2022 (Image: Shutterstock)

Thomas Kika

August 31, 2026 

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump's plan to take over a Washington D.C., golf course has run into a major new roadblock, with NOTUS reporting that locals have staged new protests to bring attention to the situation.

Over the weekend, according to the report, "Cyclists, anglers, joggers and bird-watchers" took to the East Potomac Park to stage a protest against Trump's planned makeover of the park's Golf Links on Hains Point, part of his broader effort to reshape D.C. to his own liking. The proposed work is reportedly set to begin on September 1, with local park attendees and preservationists claiming that several trees have already been removed.

"Wearing shirts with slogans like 'Save Hains Point' and holding signs with phrases such as 'Fore the People, Not the President,' dozens of people represented the activities — and communities — that could be at stake if Trump’s plans move forward," NOTUS explained. "The rally was organized by the Washington Area Bicycle Association and Save East Po, a grassroots coalition aimed at protecting the area. It took place at the park’s southernmost tip, not far from where a tree-removal crew was working Saturday. At least six trees around the golf course were removed by National Park Service employees. Several dozen others had been taken out in the days before the rally, alarming activists and preservationists."

The report continued: "The Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, said in a statement that arborists are doing routine maintenance, 'with selective removal of hazard trees, non-native invasive trees, and declining and dying trees that cannot be brought back to good health through any degree of intervention.' But WABA Executive Director Elizabeth Kiker said she’s concerned that the three-day removal operation was 'the beginning of them tearing this entire space out and building it to be something that is not for the public.' Kiker said she and some other attendees watched a few of the trees being cut down."

"Maybe they were ailing, but boy they sure didn’t look like it," Kiker told NOTUS.

A lawsuit attempting to halt Trump's plan for the public golf course is currently "stalled" in court. The specific construction plans and a tree removal list have not been disclosed by the administration. Kiker said that the National Park Service disclosed to them that construction is not moving forward on Tuesday, but added that, "We are still watching very carefully."

“We want to see the trees that they’re planning on cutting down — they won’t release that,” Save East Po founder Alex Rosen told NOTUS. “There’s renderings of what the future golf course is going to look like, but they won’t release that. There’s clearly plans that exist right now, but this administration is acting without any semblance of transparency, and that’s the problem.”

A philosopher predicted Trump’s surreal new strategy 75 years ago

Robert Reich

August 31, 2026

ALTERNET

I still come across people who believe Trump won the 2020 election, that the attack on the U.S Capitol on January 6, 2021, was an act of patriotism, that Trump’s subsequent indictments and felonies were Biden’s work, that most immigrants are criminals, that Democrats are evil, that Jews are trying to replace white Christians born in America, that Muslims can’t be trusted, that a significant amount of voting is fraudulent, that we’re winning the war against Iran, that the economy has never been as good, that climate change is a hoax, that Canada poses a threat to the United States and it’s only fair for Lake Ontario to be renamed Lake America.

To label these people “deluded” is to overlook an entire world created by Trump and his assistants, Cabinet secretaries, “spokespeople,” other political appointees, Republican enablers in Congress and state legislatures, and billionaire accomplices in the media (Musk, Murdoch, Pichai, Bezos, Zuckerberg, the Ellisons) — all of whom have reinforced Trump’s “artificially fabricated insanity,” as the philosopher Hannah Arendt once termed the technique of totalitarian tyrants.

Google, for example, just updated its Maps application to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.”


(It’s already relabeled the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”)

Totalitarian movements, Arendt wrote, succeed not by convincing people of a specific lie but by creating a consistent, logical fictional world that defies ordinary common sense and human experience.

Which raises the questions that a growing number of Americans are asking: Is Trump insane? Are those who believe Trump’s artificially fabricated world insane? Are they making the rest of us insane?

I remember during the Biden administration when a panel of medical experts — the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — recommended that doctors screen all adult patients under 65 for depression and “anxiety disorders.” The advisory group said the guidance was intended to deal with a rise in mental health disorders that were going undetected and untreated.

The advice highlighted the extraordinary stress levels that have plagued Americans in recent years, especially since Trump and his enablers and accomplices have come to power. Lori Pbert, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, who served on the task force, called mental health disorders “a crisis in this country.”

But maybe we need to stop thinking about anxiety and depression as “disorders” and start regarding them as rational responses to a society that’s become ever more disordered under Trump, and to an economy that’s been leaving so many behind.

Sane Americans are outraged by Trump’s continuous lies, terrified by his attacks on our democracy, upset by his arbitrary renaming and rearranging of our reality, angry about his brutality toward immigrants in our communities, and furious at his encouragement of homophobia, transphobia, and racism. They’re also concerned about the soaring costs of living and growing insecurity of jobs.

Let me be clear: Trump is out of his gourd. He’s losing all connection to reality. His lies are becoming more brazen. His statements about Canada, his war in Iran, the economy, and immigrants, all increasingly bizarre.

But his MAGA movement is just about over. His polls are in the cellar. Many of his followers now see through his lies. “It is in the moment of defeat that the inherent weakness of totalitarian propaganda becomes visible,” Arendt wrote. At such point, the followers of tyrants “quietly give up the movement as a bad bet.”

Yes, of course, we need better access to mental-heath care. We also need better wages, more job security, and stronger safety nets.

Perhaps even more important to the mental well-being of most Americans, we need an administration and media that don’t promote artificially fabricated insanity but that consistently and reliably tell Americans the whole truth.

If you’d like Google to return to naming it Lake Ontario, I urge you to open Google Maps on your computer or mobile app and sign in, then click or tap the menu icon (three lines) or your account profile picture in the top corner, select “Edit the Map” or “Your opinions about Maps,” type your feedback explaining that the lake should remain designated Lake Ontario, and click Send. You might do the same for the Gulf of Mexico.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

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Hannah Arendt The Origins Of Totalitarianism : Hannah Arendt :...

hannah-arendt-the-origins-of-totalitarianism · Identifier-ark · ark:/13960/s23nx3z0jgm · Ocr · tesseract 5.3.0-3-g9920 · Ocr_detected_lang · en ·...

Trump resorts to punishing those who tell the truth about his many failures

Thomas Kika

August 31, 2026   

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump's list of failures continues to grow, and as a new analysis from MS NOW argued, he has now resorted to seeking punishments for those who tell the truth about his unpopularity.

In a piece published Monday morning, Steven Benen, a longtime contributor to the network and producer for host Rachel Maddow, discussed Trump's recent demand that his FCC Chair, Brendan Carr, investigate NBC and anchor Kristin Welker after comments she made about him having a "mixed" endorsement record in the midterms so far. Trump accused this of being "purposeful inaccuracy" that ought to be investigated.

“How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves?” Trump posted to Truth Social on Friday. “Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment... The Press is a Disgrace to our Nation, and I hope that Chairman Brendan Carr, and the fine people of his Commission, will take this Threat to our Country very seriously.”


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Benen called this demand from Trump "brazen nonsense," and highlighted how ridiculous the anger seemed given that Welker's comment only came "in passing during a live shot on NBC’s local D.C. affiliate." He further argued that the post from the president "reflects an inherently authoritarian worldview — one in which media professionals are supposed to fear federal investigations for telling the public the truth."

He also highlighted a follow-up post Trump made on Sunday, accusing the media of using "fake polls," which just so happen to be the ones in which his approval and popularity are faltering.


"The missive came five days after the Republican concocted a deeply weird conspiracy theory alleging that the national surveys conducted by major independent news organizations, universities and research institutions have been secretly being coordinated by Democratic officials, as part of a fiendish and undisclosed plot to make GOP voters feel discouraged," Benen detailed. "There are, according to the president’s same pitch, a series of undisclosed polls that paint an entirely different picture about public attitudes, but that we’re apparently not allowed to see for reasons Trump hasn’t explained."

He added later: "Time will tell whether Carr and his colleagues take the president’s directives seriously, but let’s not miss the forest for the trees: Confronted with data showing his broad unpopularity, Trump can either (a) change course; (b) accept the fact that his presidency lacks public support; or (c) pursue investigations into journalists and independent entities that have dared to present him with information he doesn’t want to see or hear. The fact that he’s choosing door No. 3 isn’t surprising, but it does offer a timely reminder about his twisted perspective."

The US Supreme Court is trembling over the next election

(REUTERS)

Joe Conason

September 01, 2026 

ALTERNET

With its latest ruling on the Trump administration's attempt to seize control of the midterm election, the Supreme Court's right-wing majority once again advertised its contempt for democracy and the Constitution. By allowing the president to proceed with his bureaucratic war on mail balloting -- even as many states are about to send those ballots to voters -- the court majority not only violated the constitutional stricture against federal control of elections but threatened to impose partisan meddling and White House chaos on the democratic process.

While the high court has yet to deliver a final decision on the Trump executive order at issue, the majority bestowed an undeserved legitimacy on the president's openly stated and nefarious plan to derail an election that appears certain to deliver a negative judgment on him and his party.

The court's action, although temporary, raised the deepest concern about the intentions of Chief Justice John Roberts and the "conservative" bloc (whose version of conservatism no longer extends to upholding legal precedents or constitutional norms).


Americans rightly worry that the court will allow or even encourage President Donald Trump to deny voting rights, intimidate voters, and tamper with balloting, if only because the court majority has so relentlessly expanded his authority and exempted him from ordinary oversight.

In one decision after another, they have awarded him the powers and immunities of a monarch in a casual manner that would have made the founders retch.


Indeed, the majority has consistently lent its authority and reputation to his dictatorial ambitions, while increasing the power of the wealthy in politics and diminishing or eliminating the protections afforded to society's least powerful groups. Making many of these bad decisions worse is the justices' recent habit of issuing important rulings on the "shadow docket," unsigned and unexplained, which undermines their integrity and shields them from criticism. It is hard to know how to evaluate a decision when no logic or law is offered to undergird its validity.

It would not be unlike the Roberts right-wingers to upend this election with a shadow docket ruling, a cowardly maneuver they have adopted in more than two dozen cases since Trump returned to the White House -- and ruled in his favor in more than three out of four.

Everyone should understand that if the Supreme Court majority intercedes now to sway an election that may bring Democratic control of both houses of Congress, they are indulging a gross conflict of interest to protect themselves. No longer can these justices be regarded as disinterested umpires. The Republican justices in particular -- specifically Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and the chief justice himself -- must dread the advent of a Democratic Senate that will investigate their festering conflicts of interest.


The grossly unethical payments and benefits accepted by Thomas are by now notorious. But how many Americans are aware of the disbarment complaint now pending against Roberts before the District of Columbia bar? Evidence delivered by a whistleblower to support that complaint shows that Jane Sullivan Roberts, the chief justice's spouse, earned more than $10 million between 2007 and 2014 as a "legal recruiter" for a headhunting firm for elite firms that had appeared before the high court hundreds of times.

Roberts failed to recuse himself from cases argued by lawyers who firms had remunerated his wife's company -- and mislabeled her commission income from that outfit as "salary."

After Business Insider published the whistleblower documents three years ago, Roberts amended his public disclosure to reveal the commission deal and also admitted for the first time that he owned equity in his wife's subsequent employer -- information he had omitted in three previous filings.


How would a Democratic House and Senate confront the shifty characters who now adorn the top bench? Congress might consider and perhaps enact judicial reforms requiring the justices to meet the minimum ethical standards enforced in the lower federal courts. While those standards at present don't apply to the Supreme Court, Democrats have vowed to take up court reform as a top priority should they win in November.

Be assured that the justices have heard about that promise. Do not doubt that the court's majority fears a season of terribly embarrassing and possibly ruinous scrutiny could be just over the horizon.

Invisible coup: Shadow-docket decision just handed Trump Congress' power

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito (L) and Clarence Thomas on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Sarah K. Burris

September 02, 2026

ALTERNET

Law school professor and Supreme Court analyst Leah Litman is warning that the Supreme Court's decision about the construction of the White House ballroom reflects a serious misunderstanding of the Constitution's separation of powers.

Writing for The Atlantic on Wednesday, Litman explained that the problem is not that the federal courts temporarily blocked the project. Instead, it's that the president allegedly used taxpayer money for a White House construction project without authorization from Congress. Trump announced in 2025 that he would build the ballroom using full donations and that was why he didn't need to ask for permission from Congress. Then he failed to raise enough money to pay for new structure.

Under the Constitution, Congress has the "power of the purse," dictating all spending authority over not merely the federal government but also over federal property, including the White House. Litman contends that the Court treated “the federal government” as if it were synonymous with the president, overlooking Congress’s separate constitutional role.


The unsigned shadow-docket decision from the high court called the ballroom something that "the federal government" started. It's not accurate, Litman argued. Trump’s executive branch initiated the work, and Congress never authorized it.

It's all part of the "unitary-executive theory and the accompanying expansion of executive power" that the Supreme Court has supported previously.


"This theory maintains that all executive power resides in the president, and that Congress cannot limit the president’s exercise of that power," wrote Litman. "Yet these days, the president, occasionally with the Court’s blessing, is claiming to possess legislative powers too. That is the case when the president declines to spend funds that Congress has obligated or when the president decides to spend funds that Congress has not authorized. Under the Constitution, Congress, not the president, has the power of the purse. Nevertheless, the unitary-executive theory unites all government power in the president, paving the way for an executive unbound by law."

When the Supreme Court tried to claim the lower courts all made a mistake, they tried to use the "doctrine of standing, which maintains that a plaintiff challenging the government’s actions must show that they have been injured by the actions they are contesting."

The National Trust for Historic Preservation challenged the demolition and construction, alleging violations of federal law and a lack of congressional approval. It challenged the standing, but said that the building could continue while the matter worked its way through the courts.


Broadway lawyer Michael C. Dorf penned his own column attacking the Supreme Court's "standing" argument, made the doctrine all the more difficult for citizens and organizations to meet. The far-right justices held that a historic-preservation advocate’s interest in seeing the White House before its East Wing was altered wasn't enough for a lawsuit.

Chief Justice John Roberts and the Court’s three Democratic appointees dissented, saying precedent dictates that people can suffer legal harm even when the government's action impairs something they have a particularized professional, aesthetic, or personal interest in observing.

The idea that an individual must "use" a place to have standing makes no sense for historic structures, whose central value is often visual, cultural, and symbolic, Dorf said.


Litman argued that these "standing" requirements could make congressional statutes effectively unenforceable. If neither affected citizens nor preservation organizations can challenge allegedly unlawful executive action, it may be unclear who can enforce the legal limits Congress has enacted, she explained.

Her final point was the argument that somehow Trump would suffer “irreparable harm” if lower courts blocked the project. Stopping potentially illegal conduct can't logically count as "injuring the president." Litman compared the ballroom case with another recent shadow docket decision, like the birthright citizenship case. Both matters are clearly outlined in the Constitution, but the Supreme Court's attempt to shield Trump's actions from judicial review while diminishing Congress’s ability to make enforceable laws doesn't hold water, she asserted.

John Roberts stuns with dissent as Supreme Court rules for Trump’s ballroom

Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Nick Hilden

August 31, 2026   

ALTERNET

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump can move forward with the construction of his much-demanded White House ballroom. The opinion was split 5-4, with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts siding with his liberal counterparts in opposing the ballroom. According to Roberts, "The President ordered the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make way for a new, privately funded state ballroom in its place. Construction of the ballroom has proceeded apace for the better part of a year. That construction is likely unlawful."

As NBC News explains, "The court, divided 5-4, granted an emergency request filed by the Trump administration, blocking lower court rulings that would have put the aboveground portion of the project on hold. This followed an interim decision along similar lines issued by Chief Justice John Roberts on Aug. 21. The legal challenge was brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which argued that the president did not have unilateral authority to proceed with construction. In the unsigned ruling, the court said that the trust likely does not have legal standing to bring the underlying lawsuit. The court did not reach any conclusion on whether Trump has authority to carry out construction without congressional approval."

“Today, we do not pass upon the legality of the government’s East Wing project. We conclude only that, based on the submissions before us, the government is likely to prevail in showing that the Trust lacks ... standing to challenge the project in federal court,” the court declared.

This technicality emerged from the unusual nature of the original lawsuit. According to NBC, "The trust’s claim for standing hinges on a declaration made by member Alison Hoagland, a preservationist who lives in Washington and serves on the organization’s board of trustees. Hoagland regularly walks by the White House, adding that she would 'suffer both professional and personal injuries, including to my aesthetic, cultural and historical interests, if a ballroom of the proposed form and scale were constructed.' The Supreme Court majority concluded the court had never found legal standing in such a situation before."

"Barring another lawsuit," noted Washington Post White House reporter Dan Diamond, "Trump poised to get his ballroom."

According to the Hill, "In recent days, the Trump administration has insisted the ballroom is now too far along to stop construction. The Justice Department indicated in its Supreme Court filings that the project is 65 percent complete, with a concrete-and-steel structure already stretching five stories deep and 70 feet high." A report by the Washington Post released on Friday, however, suggested that the White House may be dramatically inflating that number.

Trump’s fear of smart people explains absolutely everything: biographer

U.S. President Donald Trump reacts on the day of delivering remarks at Rockland Community College in Suffern, New York, U.S., May 22, 2026. REUTERS Kylie Cooper

Matthew Rozsa

September 03, 2026 

ALTERNET

In his 1513 political treatise "The Prince," Italian philosopher and statesman Niccolò Machiavelli wrote that truly great leaders surround themselves with the best and brightest advisers they can find. Indeed, he famously summed up his perspective by saying that “the first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.” More than four centuries later, a Republican president named Dwight Eisenhower was rumored to have privately made a similar observation, reportedly saying that "the greatest leaders are the ones smart enough to have people smarter than them around them."

By contrast, according to a journalist with multiple inside sources into President Donald Trump's White House, America's current chief executive has the different philosophy — he surrounds himself with incompetence.

"Speaking on the Inside Trump’s Head podcast, Trump biographer Michael Wolff said, 'This is not a secret,'" reported The Daily Beast's Erkki Forster on Thursday, describing a conversation between Wolff and co-host Joanna Coles. Wolff pointed to Trump's Secretary of Defense, telling Coles that “Pete Hegseth is a... blithering incompetent... yes-man, a suck-up, a man who... knows nothing, and no logic would say he would know enough to run the military-industrial complex."

He added that Hegseth's "primary qualification is that he was... a weekend television co-host. So what in the name of God would he know about running... the United States military... at a moment... in which we are in the middle of a, basically, a revolution in terms of munitions, logistics, and supply.”

Wolff concluded, “Pete Hegseth is in this job because Donald Trump is intimidated by competence. It’s not just that he doesn’t want to be bossed around by people; it’s that he can’t deal with people who know things because—for the obvious reason—because he doesn’t know things.”

This is not the first time Wolff has observed that Trump seems to actively avoid smart people. In August he observed that “he’s filled the administration of the second term with unqualified people, morons of one variety or another, because he can’t have people who are clearly smarter than he is.”

Similarly-famed entrepreneur and investor Jason Calacanis said earlier in September that Presidential Rule No. 1 should be "don't start a never-ending war in the Middle East. Americans have PTSD from them. Presidential Rule No. 2: it's the economy, always has been. Leadership Rule No. 1: Surround yourself with competent people who tell you uncomfortable truths – not sycophants or loyal incompetents. The sycophants will do you in every time. Never get high on your own supply.”