It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, April 16, 2026
One 'festering' issue predicted to sink GOP as analyst flags problem 'bigger than Trump'
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), with U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), and Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), speaks to reporters while Senate Republican leaders hold a press conference following their weekly policy lunch as the partial government shutdown continues, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 7, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
The Republican Party has a problem on its hands that is bigger than anything President Donald Trump is currently doing, a political analyst has claimed.
David Pakman believes recent comments from Marjorie Taylor Greene and former GOP representatives, including Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, highlight the problem with current reps. Greene, a once-prominent ally of Trump and the MAGA movement, commented on the alleged cognitive decline of Trump in a recent interview.
In a clip shared by News 4 Tucson, Greene said, "I really think that his [Trump's] mental capacity needs to be examined. His rhetoric has been shocking to many Americans and people around the world."
A separate appearance on CNN earlier this week from Greene had the GOP ex-rep, who resigned from Georgia's 14th congressional district in 2026, criticize Trump for a Truth Social post.
Trump, referencing Iran in a post to Truth Social on April 7, wrote, "...a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." Greene reposted the comment, adding, "25th AMENDMENT!!!"
The 25th Amendment provides a temporary transfer of the President's powers to the Vice President. This transfer can be made by the President or on the initiative of the Vice President, with the backing of a majority of the cabinet.
Greene added, "I think we have to truly question the mental stability of any President who threatens to wipe out an entire civilization of people. That would include all the innocent people in that country who have nothing to do with the war.
"Especially after President Trump said this was about freeing the Iranian people from the Iranian regime. For him to call to wipe out an entire civilization of people, it's absolutely wrong."
Pakman believes the change in rhetoric from one of "Trump's most ardent defenders" is a sign the GOP must be vocal about their opposition to the President.
He said, "This is way bigger than Trump. It exposes the Republican Party as happy with a system in which they know better, but they don't say a word. They just allow it to continue festering and perpetuate itself. Every once in a while, somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Adam Kinzinger, or Liz Cheney, breaks rank and they say the quiet part out loud.
"Whether it's about Trump's authoritarianism or the cognitive stuff, they are seen as the exception. Now, they may not be the majority of Republicans, but there are a lot of Republicans who believe the exact same thing because they see the exact same thing."
ANTI-D.E.I.
MAGA backlash sees Army yank tribute to Purple Heart senator who lost both legs in Iraq
U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) speaks to reporters following the Democrats weekly policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
The U.S. Army shut down an entire network of official social media accounts this week after a post celebrating Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Purple Heart recipient who lost both legs in combat, drew backlash from a pro-Trump veteran online.
The "Soldier for Life" program, which connects veterans and their families to employment, healthcare and retirement resources, posted a tribute to Duckworth's military career as an Army lieutenant colonel and Iraq War veteran. Within 24 hours of a former Army paratrooper criticizing the post on X, it was deleted.
Chase Spears, a former Army paratrooper and veteran of the war in Afghanistan, criticized Duckworth, calling her 'one of the most brazenly hostile partisans to have worn the uniform,'" NOTUS reported Wednesday.
“There are so many warriors worthy of being praised, men and women who didn’t sell their souls along the way. But this is who @SecArmy Dan Driscoll’s Army continues going out of its way to pay homage to,” Spears wrote on X.'
Shortly after, the Soldier for Life Facebook page was locked down.
Driscoll, Trump's Army secretary, ordered all Soldier for Life accounts shuttered after the negative online reaction, a Department of Defense source familiar with the decision told The Hill. An Army spokesperson insisted the move was "simply a circumstance of the Army handling routine Army business," citing a December memo requiring accounts not managed by qualified personnel to be deactivated.
Duckworth, who served more than two decades in the Army Reserve and Illinois Army National Guard before retiring in 2014, lost both legs in 2004 when her Black Hawk helicopter was shot down over Iraq.
During Driscoll's confirmation hearing, Duckworth pressed him to pledge he would refuse illegal orders from the Trump administration and ultimately voted against confirming him. She has also called for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's resignation.
Pete Hegseth uses Bible story to whine about 'garbage' press coverage of his war
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a press briefing in the Pentagon Press briefing room, following the announcement of a two-week ceasefire in the Iran war, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 8, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth once again used a Pentagon press conference to complain about the reporting on the Iran war that is trapped in a stalemate, claiming the straight reporting on Donald Trump's attack on Iran has been “garbage.”
He then claimed he attended church last Sunday with his family and heard a sermon about the Pharisees that reminded him of the persecution of Jesus Christ –– then comparing them to the US press.
After boasting about the US efforts in the Middle East, the terse Hegseth pivoted to what has become a regular feature of his press availabilities.
“We urge this new [Iran] regime to choose wisely,” he stated before adding, “Speaking of choosing wisely, a note to the press, to the press corps. To the American media, I just can't help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage you cannot resist pedaling. Despite the historic and important success of this effort and the success of our troops, sometimes it's hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on. It's incredibly unpatriotic.”
“This past Sunday, I was sitting in church with my family, and our minister preached from the book of Mark, the third chapter,” he claimed. “And in the passage, Jesus entered a synagogue and healed a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees came to watch, and as the scripture reads, they came to see whether he, Jesus, would heal him or he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him.”
“You see, the Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,” he added. “But their hearts were hardened even though they witnessed a literal miracle. It didn't matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held council against him how to destroy him.”
“I sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees,” he stated. “Not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors … The hardened hearts of our press are calibrated only to impugn. I would ask you to open your eyes to the goodness, the historic success of our troops, the courage of this president, and this historic moment for a deal that could end the Iranian nuclear threat.”
Pentagon 'preparing for something much bigger' after string of military conflicts: analyst
Members of the media raise hands to ask questions, as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a cabinet meeting REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump's administration may be preparing for further conflicts after the Pentagon received a briefing to boost weapons production, a political analyst has warned.
Pentagon officials were privately briefed by the Trump administration last month, according to Heather Delaney Reese. Further investigation from the Wall Street Journal found that admin heads had also approached US manufacturers about playing a larger role in weapons production.
The WSJ found that, "The Pentagon is interested in enlisting the companies to use their personnel and factory capacity to increase production of munitions and other equipment as the wars in Ukraine and Iran deplete stocks. Discussions started before the war in Iran, the people said."
This lines up with Reese's claim that the Trump admin has a much bigger plan that could potentially begin once the Iran war is deemed to be over. Reese wrote in her Substack, "By late March, the Pentagon had signed framework agreements with defense contractors to put the military on what it called a 'wartime footing.'
"And now it isn’t just pressuring defense contractors. It’s reaching beyond the defense industry entirely, asking the companies that build our cars to start building our bombs. That is not what a country does when a war is almost over. That is what a country does when it is preparing for something much bigger.
"The United States is deploying more than 10,000 additional troops to the Middle East before the end of April. Roughly 6,000 aboard the USS George H.W. Bush carrier group, and another 4,200 from the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
"These reinforcements will join the approximately 50,000 U.S. personnel already operating in the region, bringing the total to roughly 60,000 American service members and giving U.S. Central Command three aircraft carriers in theater."
Reese went on to suggest that Trump is contemplating further conflicts to continue his image as a wartime president.
"Maybe he is manufacturing a global conflict so he can play wartime president, surround himself with generals, and demand the kind of loyalty and worship that only crisis can produce, like he saw in those old movies," Reese wrote. "Maybe he saw what war did for other leaders’ approval ratings and thought he could replicate it, only to find that it doesn’t work when you start the war yourself and the whole world knows it.
"Or maybe this was always the plan. The Heritage Foundation. The Project 2025 architects. The defense contractors who stood behind him at the White House. They didn’t build this infrastructure for a man who wanted peace. They built it for expansion. And Trump didn’t just go along with it. He reveled in it."
Congress could breach Trump's 'sad reality' if president issues pardons: analyst
Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri and former federal prosecutor, believes Trump may dangle pardons in front of compliant officials, but proceeding with such pardons would open him to investigation.
Bowman explained to Slate's Shirin Ali that the promise itself could be a legally dubious position for Trump, let alone carrying out the pardon.
He said, "I mean, that’s a sad political reality, but it doesn’t change the constitutional law of impeachment. Is it an abuse of the pardon power to pardon the past conduct of your criminal co-conspirators or to promise pardons for the commission of future crimes? Is that impeachable? Of course it is.
"That being so, Congress certainly has the power to investigate, if that’s what the president’s doing. Congress today, if it wanted to, could investigate the uses and promises to use the pardon power of the president.
"Now they won’t do it, of course, because both chambers of Congress are controlled by Republicans. However, Democrats, if they gain a majority in either or both houses, I think it’s incumbent on them to investigate this pretty unapologetically. They should investigate these potential criminal misuses of pardon power as part of their oversight authority and through their power to inquire into impeachable conduct."
Administration insiders told Zeteo's Asawin Siebsaeng that officials such as Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth fear the midterms will put them in grave danger of impeachment.
"Some of them have told me they’ve noticed a growing trend of Democratic politicians making public calls for aggressive prosecutions of Trumplanders in the future — a trend one Trump aide privately lamented as 'kind of worrisome,'" he wrote.
"And a significant number of senior appointees working in Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon, in Stephen Miller’s White House, and in so many other departments and crime-laboratories of the Trump-Vance administration do not think that federal pardons will be enough."
Strategic partner blows up Trump's claim about peace talks coming after 34 years
Counter-protesters hold a banner with an image of U.S. President Donald Trump on it, on the day of a rally marking Al-Quds Day and opposing the war on Iran and Lebanon outside the U.S. consulate in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 14, 2026. REUTERS/Laura Proctor
Lebanese officials directly contradicted President Donald Trump's breezy suggestion that its leader would speak with Israeli leadership.
The 79-year-old president announced on Truth Social that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun would speak Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying they were "trying to get a little breathing room between Israel and Lebanon. It has been a long time since the two leaders have spoken, like 34 years," but Lebanese officials told Reuters that would not happen anytime soon.
"Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun will NOT hold a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the near future, three Lebanese officials told Reuters on Thursday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said leaders of both countries would speak," reported Reuters correspondent Hümeyra Pamuk.
Two of the Lebanese officials said their embassy in Washington had notified the Trump administration before a call between Aoun and Secretary of State Marco Rubio that their president would speak to Netanyahu, according to Middle East Eye.
GOP senator says Republicans don't deserve majority: 'Hell, we ain't done anything'
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) argued that there was a "good chance" of Republicans losing the midterms because they "ain't done nothing" while having control of Congress.
The Benny Show/screen grab "Everything that goes on up here, Benny, is about, oh, we got to get reelected," Tuberville told MAGA influencer Benny Johnson on Wednesday. "We got to keep the majority. Well, h---, we ain't done anything in the majority. Why should we keep majority?"
"We've gotten one bill passed, and that was President Trump pushing and pushing and what took us 18 hours to get Republicans to vote for, 18 hours straight on the Senate floor," he continued. "And it's embarrassing that we're up here and we're raising money to continue to the same people being up here. It's just nonsense. It's really nonsense."
Tuberville offered a stark warning for Republicans.
"We lose this next election, which we got a good chance of doing after not busting the filibuster," he said. "They'll bust it the very first day over here. And you're getting ready to see a third-world country on speed dial. It'll go very, very fast."
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, flanked by attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, arrives for his criminal trial at the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, NY on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. Jabin Botsford/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Friends,
Speaking at a January 6 retreat for House Republicans, Trump stated, “You gotta win the midterms ‘cause, if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.”
This was before Trump’s agents murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, before the Justice Department released more Epstein files, before Trump’s disastrous war in Iran, before Trump threatened death to the entire Iranian civilization, before a gallon of gas hit $4 or more, before other prices also began rising because of the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, and before additional price hikes associated with Trump’s tariffs had kicked in.
It was also before Trump’s polls slid to record lows, before the MAGA faithful began complaining that Trump had betrayed his promise to avoid foreign entanglements, and before a slew of special elections in which Democratic candidates have won Republican districts (and even when they didn’t win, lost by far smaller margins than Trump won by in 2024).
Until recently, I thought impeaching Trump and convicting him in the Senate was a pipe dream. I was concerned that even talk of impeachment at this stage might distract attention from the affordability crisis brought on by Trump and could even fortify Republican charges of Democratic “extremism.”
No longer.
The president of the United States is stark-raving mad. He’s a clear and present danger to America and the world. The American public is beginning to see it.
We’ve got to do whatever we legally can to remove him from office. The 25th Amendment would be useful if Trump’s Cabinet and key advisers had any integrity, but they don’t. They’re ambitious, unprincipled traitors.
Which leaves impeachment.
You may be skeptical. After all, he’s already been impeached twice, to no avail. How can the third time be the charm?
Because it seems likely that Democrats will retake control of the House and the Senate in this fall’s midterm elections (unless Trump prevents free and fair elections).
And because it’s also possible that there will be enough votes in the Senate starting next January to convict Trump of impeachable offenses and send him packing.
I understand how difficult this may seem. Both times Trump was impeached in the House, he was saved by the Constitution’s requirement that two-thirds of the Senate (67 senators, assuming all 100 are present) convict in order to remove a president.
The highest Senate vote count against Trump came in 2021, and it was 10 votes short of the constitutional requirement. Fifty-seven senators, including seven Republicans, voted to convict him of inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. It was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in U.S. Senate history, but it still fell well short of the 67 votes needed to convict Trump.
So why do I think it’s possible now? Because public sentiment has swung further against Trump now than it was in 2021. And it’s likely to swing even further against him, because he’s going out of his mind at a rapid rate.
The way to accomplish this is to defeat enough incumbent Republican senators who are up for reelection in 2026 to create a Democratic majority in that chamber, totaling some 54 votes, and pressure at least 13 Republicans up for reelection in 2028 to vote to convict him.
That’s not impossible. In the upcoming midterms, it’s likely that Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins will be replaced by a Democrat (either Janet Mills or Graham Platner). I also assume that former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper will replace Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who’s retiring.
And I’d like to believe that the good people of Ohio will see the light and reelect Sherrod Brown over Jon Husted, the dullard who was appointed to fill the remainder of JD Vance’s term.
James Talarico could take the Texas Republican Senate seat now occupied by John Cornyn. In Alaska, I’d put odds on Mary Peltola defeating incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan. In Nebraska, assume that Dan Osborn prevails over incumbent Republican Senator Pete Ricketts. And so on.
Republican senators last elected in 2022 who will be on the ballot in November 2028 include some who are vulnerable because they’re in swing states, such as North Carolina’s Ted Budd and Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson; or are in states that could be competitive, such as Indiana’s Todd Young; or are vulnerable to internal party shifts, such as Louisiana’s John Kennedy and South Carolina’s Tim Scott.
Those vulnerabilities mean that their constituents could push them to vote to convict Trump in an impeachment, or else threaten to vote against them in 2028.
So it’s possible to get the 67 Senate votes, my friends. And it’s absolutely necessary that we try.
The vast No Kings demonstrations should be considered a prelude to targeting enough Republican Senate incumbents and open races to flip the Senate this fall, and pressuring Republicans up for reelection in 2028 to do their constitutional duty.
Now is the time to show the size and intensity of America’s commitment to removing Trump from office, for the good of us all.
Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org
Veteran diplomats stick a knife in Kushner and Witkoff negotiations: 'They get an F'
U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference after meeting with representatives from Pakistan and Iran as Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, Special Envoy for Peace Missions, listen, on Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Islamabad, Pakistan.. Jacquelyn Martin/Pool via REUTERS
Donald Trump's Iran negotiations are collapsing under the weight of incompetence with Middle East experts openly dismissing the negotiating team of Manhattan real estate developers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, saying they're completely out of their depth on one of the world's most complex geopolitical stages.
According to interviews with Time, diplomats are unanimous in their assessment: the team lacks the fundamental understanding necessary to navigate Middle East complexities.
"Iran and the U.S. under [Trump son-in-law] Kushner and Witkoff? Failure. They get an F in diplomacy," observed former U.S. State Department Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller.
Their track record speaks for itself, Miller explained as he pointed to Kushner and Witkoff's failed Russia-Ukraine negotiations and their stalled efforts between Israel and Hamas as evidence of unrelenting incompetence. "While even the most experienced negotiators would face steep challenges in such conflicts, Kushner and Witkoff failed to convey to either side the sense of urgency that a desirable deal was within reach—an essential condition for pushing negotiations forward."
"You accept the notion that a successful negotiation, if you have urgency, is based on finding some balance of interest between the parties. If you want out of this, I think they're going to have to come up with something that allows the Iranians to say they won something," he elaborated.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey David Satterfield outlined what actual competent negotiations require, telling Time, "Not only does the U.S. need to make clear what its goals were, and to know internally where it was prepared to concede, and where it was not prepared to concede, where the line would be held, the red lines, but to have a realistic sense of what the other side was bringing with it."
A grasp of nuclear diplomacy also brings a whole new level of complexity.
Former senior State Department official Robert Einhorn warned that "the negotiator at the table has to think about how the domestic audiences will affect the outcome. And I think the negotiator on a nuclear issue is more constrained by his or her government bureaucracy and by public opinion."
The deepest problem is systemic: Trump surrounds himself with yes-men incapable of honest counsel, which Miller identified as Trump's fatal flaw in personnel selection:
"There is a discussion in which the president's advisors talk truth to power and basically say to him…'You've got the ultimate control. But if you're going to do this, this is exactly what is likely to happen. And in my judgment…if you do this, you might fail.'"
But such candor requires advisers willing to risk consequences. "Trump had four secretaries of defense in his first term. He had six national security advisors [during his two terms]. They know what happens if they embarrass the president or they become a problem."
'Blasphemous': Franklin Graham ripped for defending Trump's Jesus image 'with Satan'
Franklin Graham attends UN global call to protect religious freedom meeting at UN Headquarters in 2019. (Shutterstock.com)
Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham faced backlash after defending President Donald Trump's decision to post an image of himself as Jesus.
"I do not believe President Trump would knowingly depict himself as Jesus Christ—that would certainly be inappropriate," Graham wrote on Thursday. "I'm thankful the President has made it very clear that this was not at all what he thought the AI-generated image was representing—he thought it was a doctor helping someone, and when he learned of the concerns, he immediately removed the post."
"There were no spiritual references—no halo, there were no crosses, no angels. It was a flag, soldiers, a nurse, fighter planes, eagles, the Statue of Liberty, and I think this is a lot to do about nothing," he added. "There is so much ill-intended speculation. I think his enemies are always foaming at the mouth at any possible opportunity to make him look bad."
"Franklin Graham making excuses for Trump posting himself as Jesus is one of the worst things I've seen," Greene wrote. "Trump posted his blasphemous picture with Satan added above him, the original picture had a soldier."
"Franklin Graham of all people, who is frequently at the WH and with Trump, should be leading Trump to be a Christian, NOT telling other Christians that Trump did nothing wrong when he committed blasphemy," she continued. "Trump knows what he is doing. He knows what he posted. He knows how to manipulate his followers. And he's not sorry, he never apologized. Instead he lied, and said he was a doctor, which is also absurd."
"Pay attention to ACTIONS, not words that tell you what you want to hear."
Donald Trump takes a question at Trump National Doral Miami in Miami, Florida. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
A former Fox News host revealed a "scary" truth Wednesday underpinning President Donald Trump's latest shocking social media post during an interview on CNN.
On Sunday, Trump posted and then deleted an artificial intelligence-generated photo of himself appearing as Jesus Christ healing a sick man in bed. The photo also included pictures of military troops, the Statue of Liberty, and the American flag. The post sparked outrage among political analysts and observers, prompting Trump to eventually remove it.
Trump has since defended posting the picture, arguing that he didn't recognize the Christian iconography and that he thought it made him look like a doctor.
Gretchen Carlson, who left Fox News in 2016, told "Erin Burnett OutFront" that the post was a sign of a deeper issue.
"There's a deeper meaning here with him, because he's continuing down this storyline, because some of his supporters do think of him as a savior of sorts," Carlson said. "And so, now he's continuing to push that imagery out there."
"I think it's a little scary, quite honestly, that we're to a point now where just three weeks ago, his spiritual advisor called him Jesus, and there was no admonishment of that," she added. "Now he's continuing down this path. Where do we end up with this?"
