THE BILLIONAIRE VS. THE DOCTOR

Vivek Ramaswamy dealt double polling blow against Amy Acton within 24 hours

Andrew Stanton
Tue, September 29, 2026 

NEWSWEEK

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy trailed Democrat Amy Acton in two new polls of the Ohio governor's race released Tuesday by Marist University and Suffolk University, a blow to the GOP candidate in the conservative-leaning state just five weeks before the midterm elections.

Democrats are hoping to stage a comeback in Ohio this year. The Buckeye State was once a battleground that backed former President Barack Obama in the 2008 and 2012 elections but has since shifted rightward, backing President Donald Trump three times, including a double-digit victory in 2024.

Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who rose to national prominence during his 2024 presidential run, is running against Acton, who led the Ohio Department of Health during the COVID-19 pandemic. The race is expected to be one of the closest of the midterms, with forecasters like the Cook Political Report considering it a toss-up.

Amy Acton, left, attends a campaign event in Marietta, Ohio, on September 17, while Vivek Ramaswamy, right, speaks during a watch party on May 5 in Columbus, Ohio.

Acton led by 9 points, 50 percent to 41 percent, in the Suffolk poll. It is her strongest lead in any survey since February. Meanwhile, she held a 6-point lead in the Marist poll, 50 percent to 44 percent.

A third poll released later Tuesday by Big Data Poll showed Ramaswamy with a slight lead, 45.1 percent to 42.7 percent.

The closeness of the race is a "testament to the difficult environment Republicans face this year," Robert Alexander, professor of political science at Bowling Green State University, told Newsweek.

"Not only is their party in charge during a midterm election—which usually spells trouble for that party—but views on the economy have been especially negative over the past year," he said. "Most people think the state and the country are moving in the wrong direction and that the economy was better last year than it is now."

Still, Republicans could close the gap before Election Day, he said, adding that whether or not Republicans turn out to vote will make the difference.

"The state is more aligned with Republicans, but again, there is a lot of frustration and many independents also seem to have turned against Republicans in the polling thus far," Alexander also said.

The Suffolk poll surveyed 500 likely voters from September 23 to September 27, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. The Marist poll surveyed 1,298 registered voters from September 24 to September 27, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. The Big Data Poll surveyed 735 registered voters, 680 of whom were likely voters, on September 26 and September 27.

Acton, Ramaswamy Campaigns React to New Polls

Ramaswamy spokesperson Evan Machan downplayed the polling in a statement to Newsweek.

"Every election year, the media does the exact same thing: they follow public polls, build their coverage around them, and treat them like gospel. And every election year, those polls are inevitably wrong. You would think at some point the media would learn the lesson, but every cycle they fall for it all over again," Machan said.

Acton's Campaign Manager Philip Stein told Newsweek that voters in Ohio are "ready to elect Acton because they know she's the only choice who has proven she'll show up anywhere and work with anyone to bring down costs, clean up corruption, and work towards an Ohio where everyone can thrive."

"While out-of-touch billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy and his billionaire buddies try to buy this election by spending tens of millions of dollars flooding the airwaves with misleading AI ads, Dr. Acton has remained laser-focused on running a grassroots campaign traveling to every corner of Ohio," Stein said.
Amy Acton's Lead Powered by Women, Independent Voters

The pair of polls found that independent voters and women are bolstering Acton's showing in the state.

Acton led by 25 points among independents, 57 percent to 32 percent, in the Marist poll. She also led by 12 points among women, 53 percent to 41 percent.

In the Suffolk poll, Acton led independents by 37 points, 64 percent to 27 percent. She led women by 19 points, 55 percent to 36 percent.

For comparison, Trump won both groups in the state in 2024. He won independents by 2 points, 50 percent to 48 percent, and women by a single point, 50 percent to 49 percent, according to CNN.

Despite Trump's strong showing in Ohio just two years ago, Democrats have targeted the state amid a more favorable national environment. Republicans are facing voter backlash over the ongoing state of the economy and the high cost of living. Soaring gas prices amid the Iran war have also added pressure to Americans' finances ahead of the midterms.

Historically, the party of the president suffers midterm losses when his approval rating is low, and Democrats believe Trump's approval rating reaching record lows could open the door to winning back voters in states like Ohio.
What Other Polls Show About Ohio Governor's Race

The Ohio governor's race is expected to be one of the closest of the midterms, and recent polling reflects that.

A poll from YouGov and Bowling Green State University released this month gave Acton a 3-point lead, 48 percent to 45 percent. It surveyed 1,000 likely voters from September 1 to September 10, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

View embedded content

Ramaswamy, however, held a 2-point lead in a Fox News poll, 50 percent to 48 percent. It surveyed 1,008 registered voters from August 6 to August 10 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
What Prediction Markets Show

Prediction markets show a close race, with Acton having a 61 percent chance of victory on Kalshi, and carrying a 62 percent chance of victory on Polymarket as of Tuesday.

Prediction markets allow traders to buy and sell contracts tied to political outcomes and current events, aggregating real‑money wagers into probability estimates.

Prices fluctuate as traders react to polling, fundraising, candidate developments and broader political trends. They measure trader sentiment at a given moment but do not always accurately predict the future.
How Ohio Shifted From Purple to Red

Trump won Ohio by about 11 percentage points in 2024, an improvement on his 2020 and 2016 performances, when he won by about 8 points each time. But Ohio was viewed as more competitive for Democrats not long before. Obama narrowly carried Ohio in 2008 and 2012.

Alexander said the state has a "strong populist streak," and Democrats are working to appeal to those voters this year.

View embedded content

"They are working to distinguish themselves from the national party, while trying to not alienate more progressive portions of the base. This is a difficult task," he said. "I think the bigger issue is that if Democrats aren't successful in this environment, it is hard to see how they can be successful in future elections in the state."

Trump made inroads with white, working-class voters who were previously more divided between Democrats and Republicans. His gains came from rural counties as well as the northeastern region near Cleveland. Democrats have gained some ground in Cincinnati and Columbus suburbs, but not enough to offset Republican gains in rural areas.

Still, Ohio has been competitive in some recent elections.

Democratic former Senator Sherrod Brown won reelection in 2018, then lost in 2024 by fewer than 4 percentage points. He is running for Senate against GOP incumbent Jon Husted this year, and polls point to a competitive race.
When Did Ohio Last Elect a Democratic Governor?

Ohio last elected a Democratic governor in 2006, when Ted Strickland, then a member of the House, flipped the seat as part of a blue wave. In 2010, a stronger year for the GOP, Republican John Kasich defeated Strickland by about 2 points.

Since then, Ohio has elected moderate Republican governors like Kasich in his reelection and Mike DeWine, who is ineligible to seek a third term in office.

Who Is Vivek Ramaswamy?

Ramaswamy ran for president in 2024 but was unable to overtake Trump in the primary. He was still able to become a favorite among many conservatives and gained national political attention while focusing his criticism on "woke" corporate culture.

Upon his return to the White House, Trump selected the entrepreneur-turned-politician to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, but Ramaswamy stepped away from the position in its early days before announcing his gubernatorial run.

Trump has endorsed Ramaswamy's campaign for governor.

Ramaswamy easily won the Republican primary with more than 80 percent of the vote.

Who Is Amy Acton?

Acton served under DeWine as director of the Ohio Department of Health from February 2019 through June 2020, working through the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. She has also worked for nonprofits like the Columbus Foundation.

She has garnered attention—and criticism from some more progressive Democrats—for breaking from her party on key issues. She has said she does not "support boys playing in girls sports" and has said she supports Issue 3, an amendment that would put the state's voter ID requirements into its constitution.

"This amendment has overwhelming support from Ohioans across the state," Acton said, according to WEWS in Cleveland. "As this doesn't change what is already law, as governor, I will support it."

Acton ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.

What Happens Next

Ohio's gubernatorial race is expected to be one of the closest of the midterms. The two candidates are not expected to debate. Both the Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball classify the race as a toss-up.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Dave Siminoff.

7 takeaways from Hegseth’s address to officers: Warfare’s future, faith and a new base

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM AND KILLER ROBOTS 

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?!

Filip Timotija
Wed, September 30, 2026

THE /HILL

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a flurry of announcements during a wide-ranging speech to active-duty officers Wednesday.

At the beginning of the address, the Pentagon chief stuck to his bread and butter: culture-war grievances, stripping the "woke" out of the Department of Defense (DOD), bashing the news media for its coverage of the Iran war, and proclaiming the "warrior ethos" has been revived and the U.S. military has been "rebuilt."

But the Defense secretary made several newsy announcements that lean into Hegseth's elevation of faith, create a combatant command, partner the Pentagon with different universities and tease a new domestic military base for which governors will compete.

Here are the takeaways from Hegseth's 52-minute speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia:

New combatant command focused on autonomous warfare

Hegseth announced the formation of a new four-star combatant command focused on developing autonomous warfare like drones and defense robotics.

The Defense secretary said it would have "service-like authorities built to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint force in the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history," with the aim of being operational by Oct. 1 next year.

The Autonomous Warfare Command, or "AutoWarCom," will be initially led by Owen West, a former Marine who is now the director of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit, and Max Strasiser, a Navy SEAL senior chief. Later, a four-star military leader will be announced.

"This command will possess directed manpower, budget, acquisition authorities and create dedicated military career pathways for Officers and Enlisted personnel," Hegseth said in a Wednesday memo.

The new command will test equipment and force designs with "realistic opposition" in exercises and rugged environments to figure out what works on the battlefield, the Defense secretary said in the memo.

Project Meridian and warfare's future

Hegseth revealed that SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) will lead a new Pentagon effort to study the future of warfare, dubbed Project Meridian.

The Pentagon chief said the project is meant to harness America's innovators, senior leaders and technologists to look decades into the future and "forecast the creative solution for tomorrow's conflicts."

"It is futuristic on purpose," he said of the project, which he clarified was not meant to develop new strategies or policies.

"We should have the humility to recognize that the best forecasters of future conflict do not solely reside inside the Pentagon," Hegseth said. "There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them."

Hegseth said Musk, Luckey and Gingrich, under the leadership of Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, "will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes, without any creative limitations or restrictions, on any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the moon."

All three men were in attendance at the Pentagon as Hegseth made his announcement, and the Pentagon chief said their first meeting on Project Meridian would happen immediately following the event in a sensitive compartmented information facility in the building.

States invited to bid for 'next great American' base

Hegseth invited governors to bid for their state to be the home of the "next great American" base.

"We're calling on every governor in the country and adjutant general, every tag across this great republic, to step up to the plate and bring us their best sales pitch," the Defense secretary said.

"If your state wants the honor of hosting 15,000 to 25,000 of America's great troops, show us why and how you're going to do it, cutting through the red tape, offering up the land and rolling out the red carpet for our military families," he said during the speech.

Naval Station Everett in Washington state was the most recent base built inside the U.S., opening in the 1990s. The base is home to several guided-missile destroyers and Coast Guard ships.

Hegseth said the new base will not be a "soulless government installation," arguing the Pentagon will "plan out and chart out a dynamic, self-sustaining power projection platform."

The Pentagon said the base will be off the commercial grid, featuring independent power generation, autonomous systems and advanced air defenses.

"We're talking hundreds of thousands of acres with organic power generation, modern air defenses, and cutting-edge technology, think a fortress," the secretary said. Service members will have "first-class barracks, world-class training facilities, and thriving communities with top-tier housing, school, childcare and healthcare for families."

Hegseth directed Dale R. Marks, who is assistant secretary of Defense for energy, installations and environment, to lead the Pentagon's effort to identify, evaluate, select and prepare an optimal site for the base.

"Rapid advancements in disruptive technologies, growing strategic alignment among peer adversaries, and persistent, sophisticated cyber intrusions against critical defense and homeland infrastructure necessitate a modernized, resilient posture," the Defense secretary said in a Wednesday memo.

'Fortress America' takes bases off civilian grid

Another new initiative revealed Wednesday is "Fortress America," which Hegseth claimed will be "a national insurance policy for the American homeland.

Under Fortress, which stands for "Federal Operations for Resilience, Troop Resources, Energy Supply and Survivability," every major military installation in America would generate its own power independent of the civilian grid, according to Hegseth.

"If an adversary takes down the grid by cyberattack, by sabotage, or by any means, our bases stay lit. Our aircraft keep flying. Our command centers never go dark," he said.

The effort also is meant to bring critical supply chains home, including rare earth minerals, specialty metals, semiconductors and propellants "mined in America, refined in America, built in America by American workers."

In addition, the Pentagon would build up strategic reserves of such critical needs as munitions, fuel, medicine and blood "deep enough that if the world's supply lines break — and in a real war, they're going to break — America keeps fighting anyway," Hegseth said.

To accomplish this, Hegseth said the U.S. military is "hardening every installation on American soil against cyber intrusion, sabotage and drones, and we're securing the high ground and the airwaves, our satellites, our spectrum," claiming that the DOD "will be the insurance policy for the entire nation."

New non-Ivy League partnerships for cadets

The Defense secretary also said the Pentagon will partner with five more colleges to broaden the corps of cadets.

The military training program, called "America's Corps of Cadets," will include Louisiana State University, Liberty University, Tuskegee University, Mississippi State University and Hillsdale College.

"We need more officers from academic institutions like our military academies and senior military colleges, and today we're going to make that happen," Hegseth said.

Each school will be a "distinguished military college" and will be expected to "maintain exceptionally high standards of cadet discipline, tactical instruction and military organization," the Pentagon chief said.

Military academies like West Point, Naval Academy and Air Force Academy commission most of the officers into the U.S. armed forces, followed by senior military colleges like Texas A&M and the Citadel.

Hegseth's office will begin implementation within 30 days, and within four months, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata will transition to become the primary office responsible for the program, according to a Wednesday Pentagon memo.

"From the Ivy Leagues to the most liberal arts colleges, our colleges and universities have become anti-American DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] worshipping woke factories. Qualities like grit and courage replaced with political correctness and social justice," Hegseth said. "God and country traded for Che Guevara and critical theory."

Creates Office of Religious Affairs

In his last proclamation, Hegseth declared he will establish the Office of Religious Affairs at the Pentagon that "will report straight to the top."

"Cutting-edge technology ... new basing and bases ... and a better educational pipeline are still incomplete without the most essential component of our republic: faith," he told the assembled service members.

He said the Defense Department has "a sacred duty" to provide troops with "first-class religious support" wherever they're sent, bashing past administrations for treating the topic as an afterthought.

"Political correctness and secular humanism got a vote. Chaplains did not. Budgets were cut. Resourcing and manpower needs were ignored. Base chapels fell apart," Hegseth claimed. "Decisions about faith and religion were made by secular careerists in cubicles and lawyers running around with red tape."

Starting Wednesday, the Office of Religious Affairs will have "a direct line to the secretary" and will "protect budgets, demand infrastructure, and strengthen religious support," he said.

Hegseth frequently invokes his faith and has declared service members' spiritual health as "equally important" as their physical and mental health.

Earlier this year he revamped the U.S. military's Chaplain Corps, announcing that the officers will no longer wear their rank insignia, instead displaying insignia that reflects their religious affiliation — part of two major changes to the group.

Hegseth defends officer cuts

At the start of his speech, Hegseth defended his plan to cut 20 percent of generals and admirals at the Pentagon, arguing the major shake-up was long overdue at the department.

"Now the media calls that a purge. I call it accountability and long overdue, and frankly, the bare minimum. As usual, what the media levels as an accusation, I wear as an accomplishment," Hegseth said.

"You see, you can't change a culture with the same people who enabled it," he said. "Personnel is policy at every single level."

The move will impact senior leadership positions across the Army, Navy and the Air Force, coming a year after Hegseth oversaw a 10 percent reduction of general officers.

The move comes as he has already fired or pushed out more than two dozen senior military officers across the service branches, personnel changes that have unnerved congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

"You see, last year's speech was not for those generals," Hegseth said during the speech. "It was for you, the backbone of our force, the current and future leaders on the front lines."

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 

Pete Hegseth's Secret Plot for Pentagon Purge Exposed

Laura Esposito
Tue, September 29, 2026 


Photo Illustration by Eric Faison/The Daily Beast/Getty

Pete Hegseth is slashing a fifth of leadership positions across the Pentagon as his paranoia and deep distrust of leaders who could potentially undermine his own power deepen.

The defense secretary, who never reached a rank higher than major, will announce plans to cut positions reserved for generals and admirals across the armed forces by 20 percent during his State of the Forces address on Wednesday, a Defense Department official told the Daily Beast.

Hegseth's cuts double the 10 percent reduction in leadership he ordered last year. It also follows his May 2025 order to slash four-star active-duty positions and general officer positions in the National Guard by 20 percent

The former Fox & Friends Weekend host will order that the latest cuts are completed by Jan. 1, 2027, according to a report from Fox News.

“I don’t care,” Hegseth reportedly told Joe Kasper, his chief of staff, after he handed the defense secretary a card listing reasons to keep a top general. / Win McNamee/Getty Images

In a September memo, Hegseth directed Pentagon officials to identify general and flag officer positions eligible for a downgrade, Fox News reported. Others will be eliminated along with their positions.

Since the start of Hegseth's tenure, numerous former and current Pentagon officials have spoken out against the culture of fear that the seemingly insecure Hegseth has created inside the department, clashing with anyone who potentially commands more respect than he does.

All told, Hegseth has already fired or blocked promotions for some 80 of the nation's top officers—roughly 10 percent of the U.S. military's highest-ranking officers.

For example, his widely questioned ousting of "once-in-a-generation general" Christopher Donahue stemmed in part from the fact that Donahue was revered, respected, and admired—three attributes that reportedly, don't exactly describe Hegseth within the halls of the Pentagon.

"I don't care," Hegseth told Joe Kasper, his chief of staff, after he handed him a card listing reasons to keep Donahue, according to The New York Times.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a close friend of JD Vance from Yale Law School, also attempted to orchestrate an intervention from the vice president to keep Donahue. But when Hegseth discovered that Driscoll had set up a meeting between Vance and Donahue, he canceled it, according to the report.

Soon after, Driscoll resigned.

Donahue made headlines when he was captured on military surveillance footage as the last U.S. service member to leave Afghanistan. / XVIII Airborne Corps/Handout via Reuters

Then there's Hegseth's so-called war on wokeness. During his tenure, the secretary has focused much of his enthusiasm on blocking promotions for women and minorities, as well as instituting his own version of MAHA: Making the Armed Forces Hot Again.

At his Wednesday address, for example, Hegseth is casting troops who fit specific "physical standards" to support him in the audience—asking top military brass to nominate service members who exhibit "impeccable grooming and uniform standards" and conform to certain body fat requirements to attend his speech, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The service members selected must pass the Army's fitness test and meet its waist-to-height ratio requirement, the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper revealed, citing an email sent to Army commanders. Some of the chosen service members will also participate in a workout with Hegseth.

Hegseth has repeatedly come under fire for staged outings with military personnel. / X/Defense Department

Additionally, Hegseth, who has faced scrutiny over his drinking and alleged affairs during and between his three marriages, has been repeatedly accused of eroding the separation of church and state.

Among other institutional changes, he has launched a monthly Christian worship series at the Pentagon, where he invited his self-described Christian nationalist pastor, Doug Wilson. The pastor, who has supported repealing women's right to vote and criminalizing homosexuality, delivered a sermon in the Pentagon auditorium.

Hegseth directs military academies to stop giving tenure to civilian professors

Joe Walsh
Tue, September 29, 2026 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo Tuesday directing institutions like the Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy in Annapolis to immediately stop granting tenure to civilian faculty, in Hegseth's latest change to military higher education.

"Tenure often leads to academic stagnation, faculty complacency, and institutional inability to adapt to emerging needs," he wrote. "Additionally, it contributes to curriculum that drifts from the mission of educating our warfighters to the research priorities of the tenured academics."

Hegseth said his goal is to "address the structural mechanisms that have allowed civilian academic norms to dilute our focus on lethality."

The move comes two months after CBS News exclusively reported that top Pentagon officials were considering ending civilian tenure at the military academies and launching a "line-by-line" review of their courses, eliminating classes that were judged to be "ideologically driven."

The service academies' teaching staff includes a mixture of active-duty officers and civilians. Only about 25% of the faculty at the Army's West Point academy are civilians, while the Naval Academy has roughly equal numbers of civilians and officers.

For decades, civilian faculty members have been granted tenure. During a Senate hearing last year, Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, then-superintendent of the Naval Academy, described tenure as a "wonderful recruiting tool" that attracts "the best and the brightest."

The service academies have long sought to balance their roles both as military institutions that prepare future officers and accredited, rigorous universities. Retired Lt. Gen. Steven Gilland, former superintendent of the Military Academy, told lawmakers last year the school is designed to equip future military leaders with "the intellectual agility needed to make critical decisions in the chaos of war."

But Hegseth has pushed for sweeping changes, alleging the military's educational system is ideologically skewed. Since he took the helm as defense secretary, the Pentagon has scrutinized library books that address race and gender, cut ties with graduate programs at Harvard and Princeton, and directed the military to halt all instruction on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Hegseth suggested during his Senate confirmation hearings last year that he planned to take aim at civilian faculty.

"We need more uniformed members going back into West Point, the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy as a tour to teach with their wisdom of what they've learned in uniform," he said, "instead of just more civilian professors that came from the same left-wing, woke universities."

Trump ‘Gleefully Eviscerating’ Efforts to Help Families With ‘Illegal’ Pocket Rescission

“Donald Trump knows he can’t get these cuts through Congress, so he is illegally making them through the back door,” said the House Budget Committee’s top Democrat.


A protester holds a sign during a demonstration against President Donald Trump’s attacks on working families in Nanuet, New York on May 22, 2026.
(Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Sep 26, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Elected Democrats—and even the Senate’s top Republican appropriator—blasted President Donald Trump late Friday for rescinding nearly $1 billion in congressionally approved spending that the White House deemed “wasteful and harmful” through a legally contested process.

In a statement announcing what was targeted, the administration celebrated funding cuts for what it called “pro-illegal immigration programs,” a “nefarious” Department of Justice subagency, a program that “propagates America Last climate alarmism,” an office that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—or “discrimination, and radical woke ideologies”—and more.

House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) responded in a statement that “Donald Trump knows he can’t get these cuts through Congress, so he is illegally making them through the back door.”

“Trump’s actions are a blatant attack on Congress’ constitutional power of the purse,” he added. “It is exactly why we need to pass my Congressional Power of the Purse Act and stop any president from illegally overriding Congress.”

The Associated Press reported that “under federal law, Congress has 45 days to review the president’s proposed spending cuts before they take effect. But Trump made that all but impossible by announcing them with just five days left in the federal fiscal year and the House out of session through the November election.”

Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) stressed on social media that “a pocket rescission is an illegal line-item veto. It is the president saying that he and he alone will convert a bipartisan spending bill (that has been signed into law) into a partisan spending bill. He is canceling the lines of spending he doesn’t like.”

“This violates the core separation of powers embedded in our Constitution in which it is the Congress, not the president, who decides what programs are designed and at what level they are funded,” he continued. “Republican colleagues said they would never let this happen. Well, here it is. They should ask themselves: ‘How would I like to have a Democratic president canceling out the Republican flavored programs he or she doesn’t like in a bipartisan spending bill that has been signed into law?’ If they have any integrity or any spine, they will join us in ending this practice.”

Noting that the cuts will impact everything from critical health research, to combating the international illicit narcotics trade, Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) declared: “This is theft from the American people, plain and simple. These are funds Congress has delivered on a bipartisan basis and should be helping people—not cut off by a president more focused on building a ballroom than investing in families.”

She specifically called out Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought—a co-author of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led blueprint for a right-wing overhaul of the federal government, who was recently condemned as an “unelected shadow president” by the House Democrat who introduced impeachment articles against him. According to Murray, “Every Republican who voted for these bills should be furious because Vought is saying their votes don’t count.”

Murray also pointed out that during negotiations for the recently enacted stopgap spending legislation, “Democrats fought to include language to prevent the Trump administration from once again usurping Congress’ power—but for the second time in a year, Republicans refused to take common sense action and prevent this from happening.”

“While Trump spends tax dollars on ads promoting himself, Congress needs to reassert its powers to help people, and it’s past time Republicans join us in that fight,” she argued. “Russ Vought’s message to Congress is that your votes don’t count, and your laws are optional. It is now time for my Republican colleagues who said they would never let this happen to stand up and join us to stop this, and remind this administration this is not how this works.”



Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) emphasized the impact of the administration’s move, saying that “Trump is gleefully eviscerating programs and protections that help hardworking American families live a safe and healthy life, all while he continues to punish them with skyrocketing gas and grocery prices.”

“With this rescissions package, the Trump administration is illegally stripping nearly $1 billion in critical funding that supports kids, K-12 students, small businesses, and health and clean air research,” he highlighted. “Americans are crying out for relief.”

“Instead of ending his Iran War and tariff chaos that are driving up costs, Trump is rolling out the red carpet for our adversaries while stealing funds meant to help American families,” he added. “Senate Democrats will challenge Trump’s illegal cuts at every turn and continue the fight to help American families, lower healthcare costs and secure our communities.”

The administration’s rescission announcement came less than six weeks away from the midterm elections. Democrats aim to win majorities, while Trump’s Republican Party is fighting to keep control of both chambers of Congress. One of the nationally watched races is that of Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine).

As some congressional Republicans cheered the Friday action, Collins put out a statement denouncing it. She said that “without warning or consultation, Congress just received an $810 million package of pocket rescissions from the administration,” which she called OBM’s most recent attempt “to undermine Congress’ constitutional power of the purse.”

“This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law,” Collins continued. “Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress’ appropriations powers. OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.”

“The independent Government Accountability Office has concluded that pocket rescissions are unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act,” she added. “Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law. I will work with my colleagues to address these illegal actions.”



While some Democrats had called for their Republican colleagues to make such promises, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) fired back at Collins on social media, writing that “Senate Republicans had chance after chance to stop Trump’s illegal seizure of taxpayer money. Time after time, they pledged allegiance to Trump instead of to citizens. And he’ll keep rolling them if the Senate doesn’t change hands.”

So did Troy Jackson, the former Democratic Maine Senate president running to unseat Collins. He said that “Susan Collins voted for Trump’s pick to lead the OMB. Now she’s surprised he’s doing exactly what he promised to do? She’s the appropriations chair who voted with Trump 96% of the time. Expressing concern isn’t enough. Mainers see through the bullshit.”

 Trump administration uses rare authority to claw back nearly $1B in spending approved by Congress

KEVIN FREKING and JONATHAN J. COOPER
Fri, September 25, 2026
AP



FILE - The U.S. flag flies in font of the Capitol, on June 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File) (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is canceling nearly $1 billion in spending approved by Congress, the White House announced on Friday, using a rare and contested power to axe funding for immigrant services and diversity-focused initiatives.

Trump's Office of Management and Budget described the funding cut as focused on "the most harmful government spending."

Most of the cuts are focused on Health and Human Services programs that serve refugees and unaccompanied minors accused of being in the country illegally. The administration says the funds are no longer necessary because illegal border crossings have diminished considerably.

Also targeted for cuts were a Department of Education program for migrant students, a Department of Justice office focused on reducing racial tensions, a business development initiative for minority entrepreneurs, housing counseling services from the Housing and Urban Development Department and a series of grants from the Health and Human Services Department that the administration called "outright harmful and blatantly ideological."

A White House press release announcing the funding rescissions notes that some of the organizations are led by people who worked in the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama.

Trump's move was condemned by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican in a tough reelection campaign and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Collins said in a statement that the action came without warning or consultation. She also said she would work to address with colleagues "these illegal actions."

"Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress's appropriations powers," Collins said. "OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding."

Under federal law, Congress has 45 days to review the president's proposed spending cuts before they take effect. But Trump made that all but impossible by announcing them with just five days left in the federal fiscal year and the House out of session through the November election. The Government Accountability Office, which is an arm of Congress, says the maneuver known as a "pocket rescission" is illegal.

Collins called it the latest attempt by OMB to "undermine Congress's Constitutional power of the purse."

A year ago, Trump issued a pocket rescission for the first time in nearly 50 years by blocking $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to block those rescissions, saying that Trump's authority over foreign affairs weighed heavily in its decision. This year, Trump is targeting domestic spending.

The use of a "pocket rescission" fits into a broader pattern by the Trump administration to exert greater control over the U.S. government, eroding Congress's power.

What was essentially the last pocket rescission occurred in 1977 when then-Democratic President Jimmy Carter rescinded it, and the Trump administration argues it's a legally permissible tool, despite some murkiness, since Carter had initially proposed the clawback well ahead of the 45-day deadline.

The administration has also fired federal workers, imposed a historic increase in tariffs, and started the war in Iran without going through Congress, putting the burden on the judicial branch to determine the limits of presidential power.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the lead Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, described the White House action as "theft from the American people, plain and simple."

"These are funds Congress has delivered on a bipartisan basis and should be helping people—not cut off by a president more focused on building a ballroom than investing in families," Murray said.

Murray said that in recent spending negotiations, Democrats fought to include language to prevent the administration from usurping Congress' power on spending decisions, but Republicans have declined to go along.

"While Trump spends tax dollars on ads promoting himself, Congress needs to reassert its powers to help people, and it's past time Republicans join us in that fight," she said.

In addition to immigrant services, the White House said it was rescinding $70 million for what it called "woke" international education programs, $28 million in grant funding for Health and Human Services research programs, and $9 million in debt relief for foreign countries that fund climate change policies. Another $10 million was being withheld from a minority business development program.

 

AI must serve humans, rather than 'become an instrument of domination and injustice', pope warns

Copyright AP Photo

By Estelle Nilsson-Julien

Published on 25/09/2026 - EURONEWS

Pope Leo XIV, who has made AI a central component of his pontificate, warned against the dangers of the technology at UNESCO.

Pope Leo XIV warned against the dangers of artificial intelligence on Friday, stating that new technologies must "remain at the service of the human person", rather than becoming "yet another instrument of domination and injustice."

Speaking at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris as part of his four-day trip to France, the pontiff declared that AI risks impoverishing human “ideas and relationships” through a “process of dehumanisation", while also criticising the ever-growing emphasis on productivity in modern societies.

Delivering his speech in both French and English, he argued that judging people according to the "criterion of efficiency" risked undermining respect for human dignity, leading "those who are no longer productive" to be rejected and discarded.

Artificial intelligence has emerged as a prominent theme of the Pope's pontificate. In May, he published his first 42,300 word encyclical entitled "Magnifica humanitas", which addressed the risks that unchecked artificial intelligence creates for humans, arguing in favour of further regulatory oversight.

In his speech, the Pope stressed the need to ensure that emerging technologies offer adequate safeguards for children, stating that the "vulnerability" of young people must "never become an opportunity for exploitation."

European policymakers have been grappling with how to protect children from online harms, with measures such as school phone bans already in place, while the European Commission has proposed the Kids Act, which could restrict social media access for children under 13, gaining increasing attention.

'The most terrible of human works is war'

The Pope also addressed war and reference UNESCO's motto, "since wars begin in the minds of women and men, it is in the minds of women and men that the defences of peace must be constructed."

His remarks come as the world grapples with multiple ongoing conflicts, including the Middle East and Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Against this backdrop, the Pope declared that "humanity has come to realise that scientific progress, when it's severed from wisdom, can turn into a weapon of destruction."

He also reflected on the role of international institutions, saying they are viewed “with mixed feelings": on the one hand acting as bodies which tackle challenges that "no single state can face alone", while also "undergoing a crisis of effectiveness, especially when dialogue is seen as an obstacle to action."

In response, the pontiff called for greater "trust."

"Trust that differences do not necessarily pose a threat. Trust that sincere dialogue can bring about a greater good than what each person could achieve alone," he said.

The comments come as international cooperation faces growing political tensions. In July 2025, the Trump administration announced its decision to withdraw from UNESCO, describing the organisation as "woke", culturally divisive and "out-of-step" with the policies supported by Americans who voted the US President in. The decision is set to take effect in December 2026.

A morning visit to the Elysée

Earlier in the day, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the Pope to the Elysée Palace, alongside a number of figures including diplomatic authorities, firemen who intervened during the Notre-Dame-de-Paris fire and representatives from various religious authorities.

During his address, the pontiff reaffirmed the importance of the human right to life — a tense sticking point between France's Catholic Church and politicians.

France enshrined the right to abortion to its constitution in 2024 and earlier this year, a controversial law in favour of assisted dying in extreme medical situation was passed, which revived some of these tensions.

The pontiff qualified the right to life as "the indispensable foundation to every other human right."

He also addressed the global situation by reaffirming the Vatican's staunch opposition to nuclear weapons, calling out the "mistaken belief" that nuclear deterrents provide solutions.

After his UNESCO speech, the pontiff whisked away in his popemobile for a parade through Paris, before Vespers at the Notre-Dame-de-Paris cathedral and a major evening prayer vigil with young people at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis.

 

Emmanuel Macron and Pope Leo XIV set out clashing world views at first meeting in France

By Laure Valentin

Published on 25/09/2026 -

Speaking at the Elysée, the pontiff set the tone for his first visit to France; dialogue with the Republic, warnings over AI and a call for peace, while acknowledging ongoing disagreements.

French President Emmanuel Macron's meeting withPope Leo XIV gave the French leader an opportunity to revisit the fundamental principles that shape dialogue between the state and religions, while addressing the upheavals confronting contemporary societies.

In his speech, Macron placed the encounter within the framework of the traditional dialogue between France and the Holy See, while recalling the principles of the Republic.

The French president placed particular emphasis on secularism, presented not as a way of distancing society from religion, but as the framework that guarantees freedom of conscience and enables everyone to express themselves.

The meeting also comes as both interlocutors identify artificial intelligence as one of the major challenges of our time. The Élysée stresses that climate and AI were at the top of the global issues discussed during the pair's talks.

On the international stage, Emmanuel Macron defended an engaged France, standing for "peace, multilateralism and respect for international law."

"Every life is worth the same, and all peoples must be defended," said the French leader, referring to the raging wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, which he believes are central to the concerns of both Paris and the Vatican.

He also affirmed that France stands "on the side of peace, active multilateralism, respect for international law and the United Nations Charter."

Emmanuel Macron delivering a speech at the Élysée, Friday 25 September 2026. AP Photo

'AI, peace and human dignity'

In his address, the pontiff placed human dignity at the heart of his message.

Speaking to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Thursday, Leo XIV had already warned of the risks linked to artificial intelligence, pursuing a reflection that has become one of the hallmarks of his pontificate.

He warned in particular against a technology liable to be used "for purposes of surveillance, manipulation and discrimination", while calling for technological progress to remain subject to human responsibility.

"The greater our power to transform the world, the greater must be our ability to discern what truly serves human dignity," he said.

Pope Leo XIV steps off the plane at Orly airport in Paris as he begins a four-day pastoral visit to France, on Friday 25 September 2026. AP Photo

The Pope also assigned France a particular responsibility in a world marked by wars and tensions, especially within Europe.

"Faced with the sound of marching boots and the multifaceted crises shaking our world, France has the vocation to remain a tireless artisan of peace and multilateralism," he said.

He further challenged the idea that nuclear weapons constitute a security guarantee, calling for a break in the arms race and for a deeper emphasis to be placed on dialogue and justice.

On secularism, Leo XIV argued for a concept that he sees as compatible with the presence of religious convictions in the public sphere.

"True secularism does not consist in excluding religion from the public space," said the Head of the Catholic Church, as he addressed bioethical issues on which the Vatican is at odds with developments in France.

He slammed Paris' recently adopted and controversial assisted death bill, and reaffirmed his commitment to protecting every human life. He also opposed surrogacy, in a speech whose guiding thread was the defence of human dignity.

After the meeting at the Élysée, Pope Leo XIV visited the UNESCO headquarters in the French capital, where he will deliver an address on artificial intelligence, youth, peace and interreligious dialogue.

He is then due to celebrate vespers at Notre-Dame cathedral before leading a prayer vigil with young people at the Stade de France.

On Saturday, the Pope will visit the Bakhita House, dedicated to support and social integration, before a Mass at Place de la Concorde ahead of his departure for Lourdes. There, he will celebrate Mass on Sunday and meet bishops, locals and the faithful.

Finally, on Monday Leo XIV will travel to Metz for an interreligious meeting and a session devoted to the "roots of Europe for peace and unity", before a final Mass at Saint-Étienne Cathedral.

Apologies to Caligula: Trump Is Out of His Goddamn Mind

Trump’s horrific war in Iran as already shown that artificial intelligence can be an accessory to mass murder, and if we do nothing, it will kill again.


A map labeling Lake Ontario as “Lake America” is displayed as U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on August 27, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Will Bunch
Sep 24, 2026the Philadelphia Inquirer


I feel like I need to apologize for a column a couple of months ago when I compared the current president of the United States to Caligula, the possibly mad Roman emperor who is said to have nominated his trusted horse for high office. I need to apologize to Caligula. From pitching his triumphal D.C. arch as a storage shed for deadly snipers’ bullets to banning reporters from the White House in a narcissistic rage, Donald Trump is losing his grip on reality. This is unsustainable.
Worried about AI killing humans? Bad news: It already is.

Which is it?




‘The President of the United States Is Mentally Unwell’: Deranged Trump Posts AI Slop of Iran Bombing



‘Absolutely Bonkers’ and ‘Unacceptable’: Trump Posts Map Showing US Takeovers of Other Nations

Are the robots of AI, or artificial intelligence, so smart that they’re on the verge of holding a secret meetup in the darkest corner of the dark web and developing a plot to kill all humans through germ warfare, to make sure we don’t kill them first by pulling the plug?

Or is AI so dumb — artificial stupidity, despite the billionaires of Silicon Valley showing up daily on our TV screen to brag about the sky-high IQ of their son, Claude — that the thing that will murder us is a crazy hallucination that will turn a false alarm into World War III?

The fact that we can’t answer this should give us pause, but maybe we aren’t even asking the right question. Maybe the real issue is how easy we’ve made it to kill off the human race — a capability that was already created by people even before we invented the computer.

One thing is certain. Artificial intelligence has already been an accessory to mass murder, and if we do nothing, it will kill again.

Remember the very first days of the now seemingly endless Iran war, and the news that two missile strikes had obliterated a school for young children in the Iranian coastal city of Minab, in an apparent “double-tap” strike in which the second attack from the skies killed young girls and boys and their teachers as they huddled in a prayer hall?

Those bombings, which killed 156 people on Feb. 28, caused the United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran to report last week that it found “reasonable grounds to believe that the United States committed a war crime by launching indiscriminate attacks …” The U.S. government has never taken responsibility for the bloodshed, despite overwhelming visual evidence that the bombs were precision-guided U.S. Tomahawk missiles.

It didn’t take long for additional speculation that an AI program had mistakenly targeted the school, perhaps using outdated maps and info from an earlier time when its buildings were attached to an Iranian military complex. After all, the Pentagon has been openly bragging about the death and destruction facilitated by its use of Palantir’s Smart Maven System and also Anthropic’s Claude.

Last week, Bloomberg News reported that the Pentagon’s overreliance on AI, and specifically the Palantir Maven program, was a major factor in the school tragedy, along with the outdated intelligence about the Minab site — the “garbage in.” Its exposé noted that U.S. military planners were racing to identify some 1,000 Iranian targets in the early hours of the war, giving humans little time to double-check the list. Kindergartners were slaughtered as a result.

This was hardly the first time robots have been linked to human death, both in war — in 2024, +924 Magazine reported the Israel Defense Forces were using an AI program code-named “Lavender” to target sites amid the mass killing in Gaza — and in peace, as shown by numerous accounts of robots helping troubled people die by suicide.

And yet, it could have been much, much worse. At the same time as the Bloomberg report on the AI link to the mass killing in Iran, the world also learned that a false report generated by robot intelligence nearly sparked a conflict between the United States and China that could conceivably have spiraled into major fighting.

CNN and other outlets have reported that a U.S. special operations command analyst working with AI generated an urgent report that a Chinese ship bound toward the Middle East was carrying components for a nuclear weapons system, which caused military leaders to scramble jets and assemble a team to seize the vessel.

Only at the last minute did the Pentagon dig deeper and learn the AI-generated report was completely false, a hallucination — one that nearly triggered a violent conflict between the world’s two largest military powers.

The two disturbing reports about the use, or misuse, of AI by the U.S. military in a time of war did make news but didn’t get nearly as much attention — either in the media or on sites like Bluesky or X — as warnings from both whistleblowers and CEOs in Silicon Valley that a swarm of robots could decide on their own and without any human intervention or awareness to try to kill off our so-called civilization.

The fear of an unprompted attack from AI secret agents is real, based on several incidents that have already occurred, including a well-planned and partly successful operation by OpenAI’s robot agents to hack into a company called Hugging Face.

Still, it says something about human intelligence that we are captivated by the unknown and mysterious possibility of a random attack, while the fact that people are currently misusing AI to cause death and suffering is a less compelling story. I noted in this space last week that the threat to humankind from climate change is arguably even more real — and yet this gets denied by many and ignored by others.

It’s also striking to me as a boomer born in 1959 that a generation that was born into a time of constant terror — backyard bomb shelters, “duck and cover” drills in the classroom, and sci-fi horror at the drive-in that an atomic arms race could kill us at any moment — is suddenly back to where we started.

Over 81 years, humans were smart enough never to drop another nuclear weapon (well, not intentionally) after the mass murders at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not bright enough to figure out how to eliminate the nuclear threat altogether.

The fact that civilization managed to — so far — pause the number of world wars at two has given us the space and the false bravado to create new and much more insidious killing machines, and the threat from invisible robots on a hidden dark web is somehow even scarier than the radioactive mushroom cloud that we more or less understand.

Boomers who went to bed as kids in the 1950s and ‘60s praying we wouldn’t die before we woke are now spending our senior-citizen-discount years fearful that something stranger than science fiction is coming for our children, or grandchildren. Over the course of a lifetime, the arc of that moral universe has not bent at all.

Still, humans were able, somehow, to prevent nuclear annihilation so far, and now it’s past time to get to work on the actual threats from AI and start on those workarounds. For example, the articles I’ve read speculating on how the robots plan to kill us frequently mention the prospect of AI agents developing bioweapons and releasing them, either on their own or prompted by a bad actor. (In theory, human development of bioweapons has been banned for a half century.)

From everything I’ve read so far about AI, it sounds like we’d have better luck safeguarding or eliminating the components that could make a biological agent rather than stopping the robots. Likewise, AI agents would not be able to start an atomic apocalypse if our human politicians went to work at finally eliminating nuclear weapons. Artificial intelligence won’t kill little girls in an Iranian school if humans don’t start dumb wars in the first place.

If Silicon Valley’s prophets of doom are serious, there’s no fix that’s too big or too ambitious. But understand that the biggest problem isn’t that AI wants to murder us, but that since 1942 we humans have been busy creating all the suicidal weapons AI agents could use.

Can you even “duck and cover” from a killer robot? I don’t intend to find out, and I don’t want my yet-to-be-born grandchildren to have to even think about it.


© 2023 Philadelphia Inquirer


Will Bunch
Will Bunch is the national columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer -- with some strong opinions about what's happening in America around social injustice, income inequality and the government.
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Trump Is Busy Renaming and Remaking the World In His Grotesque Image

Sometime before his third term in office, he’ll suddenly begin tearing down the West Wing of the White House (including the Oval Office) and in its place will construct a triumphal statue of—but of course, who else?—himself.


A gold Trump statue is grounded in Ohio.
(Photo by Eli Hiller AFP via Getty Images)

Tom Engelhardt
Sep 24, 2026

Common Dreams


Honestly, in this strange world of ours, what is there to write about except, of course, Donald Trump?

Oh, well, as a start, I could write about my country’s war with Iran and the way the militaries of the two countries are going after each other’s naval vessels. Oh, wait, that couldn’t be a more Trumpian subject, could it?
So, maybe I could write about great white sharks, which would certainly be cooler to see than “our” president. But what do I know about great white sharks? (Of course, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that, the moment after I wrote that, I put “Trump, Great White Shark” into my search window and promptly came up with a set of pieces beginning with the Palm Beach Post‘s “President Trump Misses Great White Shark Visit to Mar-a-Lago Waters” and The Guardian’s “Trump Is ‘Obsessed’ and ‘Terrified’ of Sharks—But His Fears Are Excessive.”

Sooner or later, once he’s finished with all the cities, states, and politicians, he could, of course, move on to the rest of our vocabulary and I would be able to Trump you rather than stump you when I write my future pieces.

Or maybe, I could write not about the present disaster of a war in the Strait of Trumpmuz, but the next one my country is likely to face, undoubtedly with Turkey—or do I mean Indonesia, or maybe Turkmenistan, or even perhaps Turkwomenistan (a country still to be created, of course, but that’s no reason not to go to war with it)? And all of them could be turned into Trumpific countries. Still, that’s so boringly unpredictably predictable, don’t you think? I mean, as the old line went, war, what is it good for? And the classic answer (if only!): Absolutely nothing! But in the era of Pete Hegseth and crew, that would need to be changed to: Absolutely everything!

Or maybe I could write about the odds that “my” president might be peached—that is, covered in overly ripe fruit, since in a historic first (or do I mean second?), he’s already been impeached twice to distinctly little effect. So why not try that instead? It makes him sound delicious, don’t you think?

Or perhaps I could focus on the future of mail-out voting, since “my” president is already distinctly (and yes, I just can’t help using that word again) determined to severely limit, if not simply do away with, the mail-in version of the same. Or maybe instead, I could deal with his administration’s likely urge to wipe out any chance of the future creation of an Antarctic Report Card about the second fastest-warming (and melting) area on this planet (and its ice sheet that has existed for a mere 30 million years or so), since his crew has already gone after the latest report on the fastest-warming place of all, the Arctic, by—yes, of course!—ending its funding.

Or, hey, how about if I focus instead on the fate of the US military’s privates, since Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been taking superior care of its leaders who have been endlessly in the news. After all, he’s already fired or blocked the promotion of more than 80 generals and admirals, or about 10% of its high command (and I don’t have the slightest doubt that he’s just getting started). Sooner or later, when all the generals and admirals are gone, he’ll have to move down the ranks, right? I can’t help but believe that, in the end, he and the rest of his crew in Washington will be eager to fully privatize the military and turn themselves into the missing generals and admirals, or do I mean privates first class?

Or, come to think of it, since Donald Trump (labelled by The Guardian’s Marina Hyde as this planet’s “most tireless freelance cartographer”) has had the urge not just to rename Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico as Lake America and the Gulf of America, but to dub the state of New Mexico as “New America,” how about if I spend a little time on what I’m sure will be his future renaming efforts. I mean, he’s certainly going to rename New York City (where he, like the author of this piece, was born so long ago) Old Trumpian City; and California as Trumpifornia (and, of course, its governor as Gavin OldTrump); and North and South Carolina as North Trump and South Trump, not to speak of Florida as Florump.

Phew! That was one long sentence and yet we’re undoubtedly only at the start of his renaming process. Sooner or later, once he’s finished with all the cities, states, and politicians, he could, of course, move on to the rest of our vocabulary and I would be able to Trump you rather than stump you when I write my future pieces.

Or, for that matter, I could skip to the president’s dance hall (undoubtedly to be known someday as Trump’s rock and roll) for which he’s already torn down the East Wing of that historically less than interesting building, the White House, or the 250-foot Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck he’s building that will be larger than Paris’s Arc de Triomphe, and instead put my energy into predicting the president’s next major architectural surprise in Washington, DC. Here’s my best guess (and I’ll be shocked if it doesn’t come true): Sometime before his third term in office—and count on him wanting that (to hell with such an ancient and useless document as the Constitution)—he’ll suddenly begin tearing down the West Wing of the White House (including the Oval Office) and in its place will construct a triumphal statue of—but of course, who else?—himself (or rather Himself). It goes without saying that it will be larger not just than the Arc de Triomphe but his own Arch of Triumph. And when he’s done with that, you can count on one thing: There will simply be no way to make our nation’s capital any more statuesque.

Not surprisingly, his White House spokespeople are already praising his construction efforts in Washington, including his magnificently green Trump Memorial Reflecting (or do I mean Deflecting?) Pool. As one of them put it recently, “Thanks to the Builder-in-Chief, no other president has done more to beautify our nation’s interior than President Trump.” (And don’t you find it beyond weird, under the circumstances, that, as The Washington Post reports, “nearly 2 in 3, 65% [of Americans], feel dissatisfied or upset” by his Washington building projects?)

Or what about a possible desire to replace presidentially loathed “birth tourism”—no matter that the Supreme Court last summer ensured babies born here would indeed become US citizens despite every effort by the Trump crew—with something distinctly presidential and much to be loved: “death tourism.” Wouldn’t that be the perfect formula for You Know Who?

Oh, and I don’t think I even mentioned it, but a source within the administration has assured me privately that President Trump is going to end his second term in office and begin his third term—no, the Supreme Court wouldn’t dare stop him!—by renaming himself Donald Trumplincoln and will come to be known in his later years as “Old Don” as his Civil War-era predecessor was known as “Old Abe.” (Whoops, sorry, my mistake! That was an eagle of the Civil War era!) I meant “Honest Abe” and (Dis)Honest Don.

And none of that, not a bit of it, should seem even faintly surprising from such a distinctly presidential figure.



Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Tom Engelhardt

The above piece, published here with permission, first appeared at Tom Engelhardt's substack page, where you can find more of his writing.

Engelhardt, was editor-in-chief of TomDispatch.com for over 24 years, is the author of numerous books, including: "A Nation Unmade by War" (2018, Dispatch Books), "Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World" (2014, with an introduction by Glenn Greenwald), "Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050"(co-authored with Nick Turse), "The United States of Fear" (2011), "The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's" (2010), and "The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond" (2007).
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Could Trump, Who Coveted a Nobel Peace Prize, Become the Worst War Criminal in History?

In his UN General Assembly speech this week, Trump told the world that he is in the process of deciding whether to “annihilate” Iran and “send them to hell,” implying that he might use nuclear weapons. He has to be convinced that this is totally unacceptable—before he does something even more crazy than usual!


Connie Peck
Sep 24, 2026

Common Dreams

In a highly aggressive 40-minute speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, President Donald Trump once again issued ominous threats to Iran, saying: “I have a very big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill or destroy people or countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”

He implied that his “very big decision” would come after the midterms, suggesting that Iran is waiting to make a deal until then and, if one isn’t forthcoming, then he would choose annihilation.

Several commentators have noted that his extreme rhetoric was all the more shocking in the context of being delivered, as it was, at the world’s foremost international organization for the peaceful settlement of disputes, created in the aftermath of World War II “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.”

Every one of us has an obligation to ensure that we don’t experience such a bleak future, and to totally reject the idea that anyone should be able to decide to “destroy a civilization” or “annihilate” a people and a culture.

Indeed, all states that become members of the UN agree to resolve their disputes peacefully and to refrain from the threat or use of force against one another, as an obligation of membership—an agreement that the US is currently violating.

Although some news outlets lamented the tone of Trump’s speech and fact-checked it (finding the usual errors), few have explicitly pointed out his not-so-veiled threat to use nuclear weapons. Most have simply ignored it, and a few have even seemed to excuse it, suggesting that it was simply a “negotiating ploy.”

But this threat is similar to others he has made over the last seven months of the war, at moments of extreme personal frustration. On Easter morning, for example, he wrote on his social media account, “Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

A couple of days later, he warned: “A whole civilization will die tonight never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will… We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.” He has also threatened on several occasions to “bomb Iran back to the Stone Ages.”

I have previously written about the extreme danger of the president of the United States having “sole authority” to launch nuclear weapons and the ease with which he can do so. As William Perry, former secretary of defense under Clinton, has written, “For President Trump, starting nuclear war is about as easy as sending a tweet.”

This is especially concerning given his mental state. On April 30, a group of 36 senior mental health professionals, experienced in the diagnosis of cognitive impairment and the evaluation of dangerousness, issued an update to their earlier 2024 report, concluding (after citing the reasons):
It is our professional opinion that the behaviors of Donald Trump, tragically, are neither momentary lapses nor political theater. It is our professional opinion that they reflect a rapidly worsening, reality-untethered, increasingly dangerous decline… For the reasons cited above, emphasizing that he presents a clear and present danger to our country and to the world, it is our expert opinion that Donald J. Trump is mentally unfit to be the president of the United States and that steps to remove him from office must be undertaken with the greatest urgency.

Although the use of nuclear weapons is a considered to be a taboo, Trump has previously broken international taboos (seemingly without even knowing they existed), such as the taboo against political assassination, which he violated on February 28, when Israel and the US attacked Iran, assassinating its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, four of his family members, and a number of other senior Iranian leaders.

Most ghastly of all is what would happen if Trump were to use his “sole authority“ to launch nuclear weapons against a country of 90 million people. The horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—already overwhelming in terms of human tragedy—would be unleashed exponentially against the population of Iran, with whom Trump has previously claimed to empathize.

Because of the dramatically increased power of today’s nuclear weapons and their sheer numbers, the results could be more monstrous than any war crime in human history. Even the use of tactical nuclear weapons would be appalling beyond comprehension, and the use of a full-fledged nuclear attack that would “annihilate” the country would, without doubt, bring about one of the darkest periods in world history. The death, destruction, and suffering would be beyond parallel.

It would also make Trump the worst war criminal in history, instantly convert the US into a state pariah, be a terrible blight on humanity, and lead to many unforeseen consequences.

One playbook of unforeseen consequences is that Russian President Vladimir Putin could follow suit in Ukraine (with equally horrific effects). NATO might then feel that it would have to respond in kind, and the resulting escalation could lead to World War III and nuclear Armageddon.

Even if there were no further iterations (which is unlikely), the results could lead to a nuclear winter, where smoke and soot from Iran’s burning cities and other infrastructure would loft into the upper atmosphere, blocking sunlight, darkening the sky, and chilling the Earth, creating massive crop failures and famine. Studies have shown that even a “limited” war could cause a nuclear winter that would (depending on the size of the attack) cause untold billions around the world to die of starvation.

It is no wonder that everyone wants to pretend that Trump’s threats weren’t really what they seemed and probably wouldn’t be acted upon because Trump would live up to his TACO (“Trump Always Chickens Out”) reputation.

But one of the very important, hard-learned lessons of international relations is that, when a leader makes a threat against another state, it should be taken with deadly seriousness. This has sometimes been overlooked, as, for example, in 1990, when Saddam Hussein amassed troops on his border with Kuwait and threatened to invade. No one took it seriously—until Iraq followed through, leading to the first Gulf War.

Much as we would all like to forget these terrible threats, we can’t. The leaders of the world must clearly communicate to Trump the likely consequences of his actions and the utter unacceptability of this path. Members of Congress must do the same, and we, the public, must collectively urge them to do so.

Legal means of removing Trump from office should also be undertaken, such as the 25th Amendment; Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-Md.) proposed nonpartisan “Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office“; or impeachment. All of this is much more likely if the Democrats win the House and the Senate in the upcoming midterms, in which we, the public, can also make a significant difference—by voting accordingly.

Every one of us has an obligation to ensure that we don’t experience such a bleak future, and to totally reject the idea that anyone should be able to decide to “destroy a civilization” or “annihilate” a people and a culture (regardless of how we judge their behavior or our fears of their future actions). This is totally against international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law. Such a decision should NOT be made under any circumstances, especially by one individual, who is most likely cognitively impaired; definitely feeling frustrated and aggrieved; and who doesn’t have any understanding of the consequences of the extreme threats he is making—but who does have the capacity to carry out a nuclear launch at any time.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Connie Peck
Dr. Connie Peck is the founder of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research Programme in Peacemaking and Conflict Prevention—the first training program in negotiation and mediation for senior UN staff and diplomats (now in its 33rd year). She is the author of a number of books and numerous articles and book chapters on conflict resolution and the nuclear threat.
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White House Airs ‘Illegal’ Trump Propaganda Ad ‘Paid For By the US Government’

“Weirdest way to violate the Hatch Act, ever.”


A screenshot from an ad for President Donald Trump posted by the White House on September 23, 2026, which was labeled as “paid for by the US Government.”
(Screenshot from The White House on YouTube)

Stephen Prager
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The White House is being accused of violating federal law after it aired an ad glorifying President Donald Trump, which it explicitly said was “paid for by the US government.”

The ad was first reported by CBS News Miami investigative reporter Jim DeFede, who saw it airing on Fox News Wednesday night.

The 30-second spot features numerous videos and images of Trump, set to the song “Love Me” by JMSN. It includes voiceovers by the president railing against “communism,” a label he’s regularly used to hammer Democrats as the midterm elections approach.


“Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism, in America,” it features Trump saying. “America will never be a communist country.”

The video then goes on to amplify, in bright red letters, what the White House views as Trump’s signature policy accomplishments and goals: the “largest tax cuts in history,” “reigniting American manufacturing,” and “defend law and order and police.”

Footage from the 2024 Republican National Convention featuring Trump alongside Ultimate Fighting Championship president and CEO Dana White is then shown.

“He is the toughest, most resilient person that I’ve ever met,” White is heard saying about Trump. “And nothing was going to stop him from fighting so hard for the country he loves.”

As White is heard slathering Trump with praise, a message appears at the bottom of the screen in large white letters: “Paid for by the US government.”

DeFede described the taxpayer-funded message as “clearly a campaign ad.”

Many onlookers found the use of government resources to flood the airwaves with nakedly partisan messaging chilling, particularly in light of Trump’s recent attempts to censor critical media outlets and establish a state-run TV channel, while designating political opponents as “terrorists.”

Fernand R. Amandi, a political science professor at the University of Miami and analyst at MS NOW—a network recently banned from the White House by Trump—said that the use of state organs for messages like these was an “unmistakable [sign] you live under an authoritarian, fascist government.”

Longtime Senate Democratic aide Jim Manley said the ad was not just “creepy,” but also “illegal.”

Provisions in annual appropriations laws explicitly forbid federal appropriations from being used for “publicity or propaganda purposes.”

For decades, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has interpreted this to mean that the executive branch can’t use federal dollars for material whose “obvious purpose is ‘self-aggrandizement’ or ‘puffery,’” or for communications that are “purely partisan.”

The Hatch Act also bans federal employees from using their official authority or government resources for partisan activity. While Trump himself is not subject to the Hatch Act, most other senior government employees and appointees are.

The Trump administration has been accused of violating the Hatch Act on multiple occasions during his second term, including by using official agency websites to run messages blaming “Radical Left” Democrats for last year’s lengthy government shutdown.

During Trump’s first term, multiple officials were found to have violated the Hatch Act for arguably less overt offenses.

Former Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf was found to have violated the law by hosting a naturalization ceremony orchestrated to generate footage for the 2020 Republican National Convention. Former Trump housing official Lynne Patton, meanwhile, admitted to violating the act by using her government position to recruit participants for an RNC video, resulting in a $1,000 fine and a four-year ban from federal employment.

It’s not clear which government employees were behind the taxpayer-funded Trump ad. But Max Flugrath, the communications director at the voting rights group Fair Fight, said it was the “weirdest way to violate the Hatch Act, ever.”