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, September 03, 2026
100+ Civil Society Groups Condemn Trump Attack on Democratic Establishment Think Tank
“We stand with the Center for American Progress, not in agreement with every view they hold, but in steadfast support for their rights to voice those views freely and without political retribution.”
Neera Tanden, nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget, testifies at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Budget Committee on February 10, 2021 in Washington, DC. Tanden helped found the Center for American Progress. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker-Pool/Getty Images)
A diverse coalition of around 150 organizations on Tuesday collectively spoke out against US President Donald Trump’s recent attack on the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with ties to the Democratic Party establishment.
The Republican president, through one of his lawyers, threatened to sue the center last month over its July report concluding that there was no evidence his deployment of the National Guard in Washington, DC did anything to reduce violent crime.
“Since our nation’s founding, the rights to free speech, association, and the press have been the bedrock on which American democracy has thrived,” begins the coalition’s statement, spearheaded by Nonprofits Together. “We reaffirm, as has each generation before us, our unqualified commitment to the First Amendment and its foundational protections.”
“In so doing, we stand in strong solidarity with the Center for American Progress (CAP), a nonpartisan think tank, and its right to publish expert analysis on the impact of the Trump administration’s—or any administration’s—policies,” it continues. “The free exchange of ideas—including ideas that are inconvenient to those in power—is critical for Americans to understand the nature and impact of the actions of their government.”
Trump’s legal attack on CAP is just “the latest salvo in the administration’s ongoing efforts to suppress the speech of organizations that challenge their policies, defend the rule of law, and protect civil rights and vulnerable communities,” the coalition noted.
Stressing that there are often disagreements “even within think tanks,” the coalition warned Tuesday that attempting to silence sources of information “degrades our free exchange of ideas, and risks leaving only distortions in the public square.”
“This is infinitely more damaging to our democratic ideals when done for purely political purposes,” the groups argued. “There are few issues more fundamental to the First Amendment than the right of an independent organization to publish evidence-based analysis of a government policy and how it is or is not working.”
“This is not about ideology or partisanship,” the organizations continued. “This is true regardless of who is in power, and who is issuing public critiques of that power. We stand with the Center for American Progress, not in agreement with every view they hold, but in steadfast support for their rights to voice those views freely and without political retribution.”
CAP was founded in 2003 by John Podesta, who has served in various roles under former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. The center’s current president, Neera Tanden, has also worked for key party leaders. In response to Trump’s threat last month, she emphasized that the think tank “is an independent, nonpartisan research organization, and our work is grounded in rigorous, evidence-based research and analysis.”
Blasting the threatened lawsuit as “baseless” and “a transparent attempt to silence us,” Tanden pledged that “we will neither cower nor bend in the face of it.”
“In America, profound disagreements over public policy are resolved through robust public debate, not through threats or intimidation,” she added. “Independent data, evidence, and analysis are essential to that debate. Efforts to silence independent research because its findings are unwelcome by an administration or president should alarm every American.”
The Twin Tragedies of the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace A year ago, the Trump administration abruptly terminated 40 years of conflict resolution work by the US Institute of Peace and confiscated its building. Renamed the “Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace,” it became the home for his nascent Board of Peace, which appears to be floundering in its attempts to bring peace to Gaza.
US President Donald Trump’s name is seen recently placed on the outside of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) building headquarters on December 3, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Established by Congress in 1984, with legislation signed by Ronald Reagan and funded annually by Congress, the United States Institute of Peace, or USIP, was a well-respected, authoritative, independent, officially nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, until it was eviscerated by President Donald Trump early last year.
Its purpose was to promote conflict prevention and resolution worldwide and to provide analysis, research, and training in diplomacy, mediation, and peace-related activities. In 2011, the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs wrote that USIP “helped to build the conflict management and resolution field, both as an area of study and as an applied science.”
The lesson from these two tragedies—the demise of the US Institute of Peace and the likely failure of the Board of Peace—is that voters must, in the future, avoid electing someone to a position of great power who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
One month after assuming office for the second time, on February 19, Trump signed an executive order calling for the elimination of USIP. The next day, USIP was contacted by a representative from the newly established “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), set up by Trump under Elon Musk—allegedly to reduce government expenditure, but actually to eliminate institutions that Trump and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 didn’t like. In a virtual meeting a few days later, USIP’s president-CEO and lawyer explained to three DOGE representatives that the institute was an “independent, nonprofit corporation outside the executive branch.”
When, on March 8, USIP’s president learned that DOGE had inquired about the status of the organization’s security arrangements, its lawyer contacted DOGE to explain that unauthorized personnel would only be admitted to the building with a valid court-issued warrant.
On March 14, all Biden-appointed members of USIP’s Board of Directors were fired by Trump. Three ex-officio members—Marco Rubio; Pete Hegseth; and Peter Garvin, president of the National Defense University—remained on the board.
The same day, a representative of DOGE and a State Department official arrived at USIP and requested entry, but were denied. That evening, two DOGE members arrived with FBI agents and a directive signed by Rubio, Hegseth, and Garvin to remove the president, naming a new acting president. They were again denied entry, with the USIP lawyer declaring the directive illegal.
The next day, the lawyer learned that two FBI agents had visited the home of USIP’s security vendor to discover how to gain physical entry to its headquarters; it was later reported that they threatened the vendor by warning that, if he didn’t comply, he would lose all government contracts. The lawyer contacted the FBI agents to inform them that all inquiries about USIP should be directed to him. Subsequently, the FBI also contacted USIP’s chief security officer to discuss the institute’s security procedures and threatened that he was the subject of investigation by the Department of Justice into denied entry.
Later that day, the US attorney for the District of Colombia Criminal Division Chief called the USIP lawyer, requesting access to the headquarters by Rubio and Hegseth to inspect records and books. The lawyer said he would provide access with a written request. The US attorney informed him that there was suspicion that USIP was engaging in criminal behavior. He also said that representatives would be sent to USIP headquarters the next day and that they would criminally investigate anyone who obstructed access.
USIP then suspended its security vendor’s contract, and its chief security officer deactivated the vendor’s staff badges and retrieved all physical keys except a master. But the next day, four security vendor employees arrived at USIP HQ and attempted to enter the building. They were ultimately admitted, but informed by the lawyer that they were trespassing. The chief security officer called 911 and reported them as intruders.
Armed Metropolitan Police officers then arrived at the USIP HQ and escorted the chief security officer, the USIP lawyer, and other staff from the building and turned the building over to DOGE.
It was later reported that DOGE’s physical occupation of the building led to thousands of dollars in damage, leaving the facility in disarray and littered with drugs and cockroaches.
The building and USIP’s assets were transferred to the General Services Administration and Office of Management and Budget Director, Russell Vought (who was involved in Project 2025) signed off on the transfer. On December 3, 2025, the State Department had “The Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace” inscribed on the outside of the building. The Formation of Trump’s Board of Peace
The first phase of the plan began before the BOP was formed and involved the initial withdrawal of Israeli troops to agreed-upon deployment lines (although this did not hold and almost daily ceasefire violations ensued). It also involved the return to Israel by Hamas of all living hostages, as well as the remains of those deceased. This was followed by the release by Israel of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including remains of those deceased. Humanitarian aid was gradually reintroduced by UN agencies and their partners, although needs continue to be extensive and restoration of basic services is far from complete. The Rafah border crossing was also reopened, although sporadically closed again.
On January 15, 2026, Trump announced the formation of a Board of Peace whose charter (drawn up by his administration) named Trump as its chairman for life and gave him extensive unilateral powers over the board. In his usual self-congratulatory style, he wrote on Truth Social, “I can say with certainty that it is the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place.” He added that it “would be the most consequential international body in History.”
In the future, the pursuit of international peace and security must be left to the United Nations, which represents the entire world; is backed by the force of international law; and has extensive experience.
Trump invited some 60 countries to join his BOP, including Israel, although no sub-Saharan African country was invited. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initially refused because invitations had not been coordinated with him and he disapproved of invitations to Türkiye and Qatar. After further discussion with Trump, Israel agreed to join—along with 27 other countries. More than half of those invited, however, declined, concerned that its new charter was an attempt to establish a “Trump-dominated alternative to the United Nations” and could undermine the role of the UN and other multilateral organizations. Countries that agreed were appointed for a three-year term with those wanting lifetime membership required to contribute $1 billion.
It was also announced that Bulgarian Nikolay Mladenov, the former UN special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, would become director-general of the board and high representative for Gaza. As well, General Jasper Jeffers, was appointed commander of the planned International Stabilization Force.
After the signing, Jared Kushner made a presentation of plans for a “New Gaza,“ using AI-generated slides, showing gleaming skyscrapers, deluxe hotels, and luxury villas lining Gaza’s Mediterranean shoreline, ”reserved for coastal tourism.“ Entirely new cities with multistory apartment buildings for Palestinians were also shown, as well as schools and hospitals, with sports facilities and parks breaking up industrial complexes, data centers, and advanced manufacturing facilities, as well as a new airport and port.
Kushner’s presentation was in stark contrast to the current reality of Gaza, where 2 million Palestinians live in tents and bombed-out buildings, amid 90,000 tons of rubble, with vastly insufficient food, water, electricity, fuel, healthcare, and medicine. The plans, which seemed more suited for wealthy tourists than for poor Palestinians, apparently had no Palestinian input and were coordinated with an Israeli real estate billionaire (later invited by Kushner to be on the BOP’s Gaza Executive Committee). They also seemed totally out-of-touch with the current or past crowded demographic situation in Gaza and appeared designed to enrich opportunistic developers.
The first and only meeting of the BOP was held on February 19 at the newly named Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, designated as the seat of the board. There have been no further meetings—presumably, because Trump has been consumed by his war with Iran which he initiated nine days later.
A National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) was also formed of Palestinian technocrats under BOP supervision, led by Dr. Ali Shaath, a civil engineer from Gaza who held senior roles in the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority. But the NCAG has not been able to enter Gaza, because the ISF meant to disarm Hamas and secure parts of Gaza has not materialized—so it remains in Cairo, unable to exercise any authority in Gaza.
Until now, Israel has refused to agree to the road map, arguing, in contradiction to the road map’s prescription for a phased Israel Defense Forces withdrawal from the parts of Gaza where Hamas disarmament has been completed and verified, that it won’t withdraw its troops at all until Hamas has totally disarmed everywhere.
There is, of course, always the possibility that things will change, if Trump can persuade Netanyahu to comply, or if the upcoming Israeli elections change the situation. But for the moment, things appear deadlocked.
There are also questions about BOP finances. When Marco Rubio recently requested that Congress transfer $50 million to the BOP from the State Department budget for international organizations (from which it has not yet paid its 2026 UN dues), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md), ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, called for Rubio to “answer basic questions about the board’s structure, funding, and oversight, nine months after its creation.“ In a confronting letter that can be read here, they write: We thus have a profusion of questions about this mysterious operation: What is the Board of Peace? Is it a public or private entity? International or domestic? Is it registered as a corporation in the United States or abroad? What kind of corporation is it—for-profit or not-for-profit? Who controls the funds in its J.P. Morgan bank account? In what countries are those accounts located? Who will audit those funds and conduct oversight of the Board? What does President Trump intend to do with this vast slush fund while he is in office—or after he leaves? Can anyone assure Congress that billions of dollars from US taxpayers and foreign governments will not be flowing into the pockets of President Trump, members of his family, corrupt or incompetent contractors or business partners, or political allies and foot soldiers of the President?
The bottom line is that realizing the aspirations of the Comprehensive Plan with BOP oversight is an exceedingly tall order, given the utter devastation of Gaza, its infrastructure, and its people—and the extremely fraught political difficulties of getting Israel and Hamas to adhere to what they have agreed. Implementation of this process has been incremental, slow, and is at a virtual standstill. Although members of the NCAG have begun work in Egypt, they have not been able to deploy to Gaza. Although some funds have been pledged, most have not materialized. The same is true for pledges of ISF troops.
It will be exceedingly difficult for a new organization without full-fledged international support and clout, and without sufficiently experienced staff to know what approaches are most effective in peace building, creating new governance structures, and carrying out disarmament. At the moment, the whole endeavor looks more like a slow-motion train wreck than the effective implementation of a viable peace process.
As Mladenov warned at an August 26 meeting of the Security Council, called to discuss the obstacles—if the ceasefire is allowed to collapse, “There will be no road map to return to, there will be no administration to deploy, and there will be nothing left on the ground to rebuild... It would be a point of no return for everyone.”
The lesson from these two tragedies—the demise of the US Institute of Peace and the likely failure of the Board of Peace—is that voters must, in the future, avoid electing someone to a position of great power who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and who has the hubris to create his own half-baked, cobbled-together international Board of Peace to try to resolve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, allegedly in the hope of being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize—just like Barrack Obama.
Trump has even implied that somehow the BOP could replace the UN, saying, “Well, it might.” But what he doesn’t understand is that the legal foundations of the two are totally different. “The Security Council derives its authority from the UN Charter, a treaty ratified by UN Member States that explicitly assigned it primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. That mandate was conferred collectively by the international community and cannot be replicated.” Also, there is the question of binding authority: “UN Member States are obliged to carry out decisions of the Security Council. The Board of Peace has no comparable mechanism.”
Thus, in the future, the pursuit of international peace and security must be left to the United Nations, which represents the entire world; is backed by the force of international law; and has extensive experience in preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and post-conflict peace building.
In the case of Israel, however, the UN has been effectively sidelined, since the Israeli administration, and even much of the Israeli public, harbor a deep antipathy for the UN because of its past condemnation of Israeli behavior, which is nearly always vetoed by the US in the UN Security Council.
This means that the Comprehensive Plan and the BOP are “the only game in town.” Given that winter is on its way and 2 million Palestinians who are already in grave danger will once again be exposed to its ravages, it leaves one hoping against hope, in spite of major concerns about the BOP, that there is some way to salvage the Comprehensive Plan, so that the tremendous suffering by the people of Gaza can finally be lessened.
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. Full Bio >
The People’s Arms Embargo
Palestine Action, the direct-action network founded in the UK in 2020 by Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard, is built on a simple theory of change: If governments won’t stop arming Israel, activists will go after the companies that do it for them.
Activist Greta Thunberg joins the protest outside the offices of Aspen Insurance and holds a sign saying, “I support Palestine Action Prisoners I oppose Genocide” on December 23, 2025 in London, England; the activists targeted the company due to its alleged business relationship with the Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems. (Photo by Martin Pope/Getty Images)
For nearly three years, foreign ministries in Washington, London, and Brussels have debated arms embargoes on Israel in committee rooms, largely without result. Meanwhile, a much less formal network of ordinary people has been trying to accomplish the same goal from the ground up—one factory gate, one shareholder register, and one pension fund at a time.
Palestine Action, the direct-action network founded in the UK in 2020 by Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard, is built on a simple theory of change: If governments won’t stop arming Israel, activists will go after the companies that do it for them. Its central target has been Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, which supplies the bulk of the drones, munitions, and surveillance equipment used in Gaza and the West Bank.
But the network’s real innovation is how it maps the entire supply chain—not just Elbit’s factories, but the banks that hold its shares, the recruiters that staff it, the cleanroom contractors that service its subsidiaries, and the local landlords who rent it space. Every link has become a pressure point.
How the Network Actually Works
Palestine Action isn’t a single organization so much as a constellation. Its hub-and-spoke structure includes a UK core, plus franchises, affiliates, and offshoots that have adopted its name, its tactics, or both. These affiliates include Unity of Fields, formerly Palestine Action US, and sympathetic cells in Canada, France, and Germany.
A war sustained by a transnational arms and finance network, in other words, is being contested by an equally transnational, but far more improvised, citizen network.
Tactics range widely. Some are the kinds of action that make headlines: blockading factory entrances, occupying rooftops, spray-painting military aircraft. Others are quieter and far more replicable by an average person—researching a company’s supply relationships, showing up to a shareholder meeting, filing a public-records request on a pension fund’s holdings, or simply refusing to bank with an institution that finances the war.
This second track has produced some of the most durable wins. In 2026, for instance, Urbana, Illinois became the first Illinois city to bar its pension investments from the top 100 global arms producers; Burbank, California divested from Caterpillar and Honeywell after a local coalition campaign; and the state of Maryland’s pension fund sold off 85% of its Israeli bond holdings—about $62 million—after more than a year of sustained pressure. None of those campaigns required anyone to climb a fence.
None of this has stopped the war. But it has made doing business with Israel’s arms industry measurably more expensive and more reputationally toxic, which is precisely the mechanism that sanctions and embargoes are supposed to achieve when foreign ministries won’t act.
The Safety Question
In July 2025, the UK government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization under the Terrorism Act 2000, making membership or expressed support punishable by up to 14 years in prison. A High Court panel ruled in February 2026 that the ban was disproportionate and unlawful, noting that only a small fraction of the group’s actions met the legal definition of terrorism, and that ordinary criminal law was already available to prosecute any violence. The government appealed, and in June 2026 the Court of Appeal reversed that ruling and upheld the ban. More than 1,600 people have been arrested in the UK simply for expressing support for the group since the proscription took effect, and four activists convicted only of criminal damage at an Elbit factory were sentenced on the basis of a “terrorist connection.”
That is a genuinely severe legal environment, and it is specific to the UK. Direct action involving property damage or blockades carries real prosecutorial risk anywhere, including the United States, where Unity of Fields and similar groups are not proscribed but individual activists can and do face criminal charges for actions like the 2023 blockade of Elbit’s Cambridge, Massachusetts office.
The boycott, divestment, and shareholder-pressure (BDS) track—writing to a pension board, organizing a bank boycott, supporting BDS-endorsed campaigns—carries none of that risk and remains fully legal free speech and civic organizing in the United States and most of Europe. The two tracks get conflated constantly, including by the UK government itself, but they are not the same thing. This kind of conflation is exactly what makes proscription such a blunt instrument: it criminalizes a banner alongside a blockade.
One Person Still Matters
Much of this network’s actual leverage comes from single, unglamorous decisions. Huda Ammori didn’t wait for a government to act; she and a handful of others started a campaign against one company in 2020 that has since reshaped how a much larger movement thinks about supply chains. The Boycat app, the closest thing the BDS movement has to an official target list, exists because someone decided that consumer choice needed better information, not more slogans. A single city council member willing to bring a divestment resolution to a vote in Urbana did something no protest outside a factory could: moved actual pension dollars.
None of that required anyone to risk a UK terrorism charge. It required deciding that a supply chain is not too complicated, or too far away, to trace and interrupt.
A war sustained by a transnational arms and finance network, in other words, is being contested by an equally transnational, but far more improvised, citizen network. The citizen network’s most effective tool so far hasn’t been confrontation, it’s been documentation. Knowing exactly which bank, which pension fund, which subcontractor is implicated—and saying so publicly and persistently—has moved more money than any single blockade. This tactic is the most likely one to still be legal, and successful, in the near future.
Macela Carmo Dos Santos Macela Carmo dos Santos is a multilingual humanitarian advocate and patient care coordinator based in New York. She holds a degree in foreign trade from Brazil and a BA in psychology from Queens College, CUNY, and previously served as vice president of development at IMPACTability, a youth empowerment NGO. She writes on humanitarian issues at macelasantos.com. Full Bio >
Wednesday, September 02, 2026
Marveling Trump slaps his name on his latest masterpiece
Taylor Farms products are displayed for sale, amid reports of slumping consumer confidence in lettuce and other fresh produce during the current cyclosporiasis outbreak that has sickened thousands across the U.S., at a grocery store in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 24, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
Federal health officials say they are confident that all iceberg lettuce linked to a nationwide cyclospora outbreak has been removed from U.S. markets, even as the case count from the summer-long outbreak continues to rise.
More than 11,000 people have been sickened this summer in an outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms of Mexico, CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell reported. Nearly 500 have been hospitalized, and two people have died — a rare outcome for cyclospora infections. Both deaths occurred in Michigan, which has emerged as the epicenter of the outbreak.
"It's pretty incredible when you see when you see that spike there in Michigan," said CNN's John Berman, reacting to her reporting. "Yeah, that's just an incredible spike."
The recall was issued July 17, and the lettuce's sell-by dates ran through Aug. 3. The most recent reported illness began Aug. 15, and the Food and Drug Administration says it remains confident that all recalled product has been pulled from shelves. Officials are urging anyone who still has Taylor Farms iceberg lettuce that expired around that date to discard it.
Illnesses in Michigan peaked in early July, before the recall took effect, but new cases continued to be reported into early August. Tirrell noted that cyclospora symptoms can take up to two weeks to appear after exposure, and it can take as long as six weeks for a case to be confirmed and linked back to the outbreak, which helps explain the lag in reported illnesses. The outbreak has now been tied to 20 states, with the Midwest hit hardest.
Food safety experts say the contamination has been isolated specifically to Taylor Farms' shredded iceberg lettuce, and that consumers should not stop eating produce more broadly.
The Trumpadministration is shutting down two of the three U.S. Department of Agriculture research projects dedicated to studying cyclospora after Congress defunded them earlier this year, according to Politico.
The third is being moved from Maryland to Iowa this fall as part of USDA reorganization, but every scientist studying the parasite has declined to relocate, and the upheaval is expected to hamper food safety research as public concerns mount.
'Whoa!' Bottom drops out for Trump as decisive midterm voting bloc flees in droves
The decisive voter bloc in this year's midterm elections has dramatically shifted away from President Donald Trump and the Republican Party on the issue that helped elect him, according to CNN's Harry Enten.
In August 2024, independents trusted Trump over then-Vice President Kamala Harris on inflation by 12 percentage points, a margin Enten described as a key factor in Trump's victory. That advantage has since collapsed, and Trump's net approval rating on inflation among independents now stands at 64 points underwater – marking a swing of 76 points in a little over two years.
"Whoa!" Enten said. "You don't see changes like this. But the key issue that got him elected, now he's way down there in the Gulf of Mexico.
A similar reversal has occurred at the party level. In August 2022, ahead of that year's midterms, independents trusted Republicans over Democrats on inflation by 27 points, a margin that helped the GOP retake the House, but independents now say they trust Democrats more on the issue, by 18 points — a 45-point swing from four years ago.
Enten said such large shifts in voter trust on a single issue are unusual, and noted that the change matters because inflation remains the top concern for independent voters heading into November.
According to the data presented, 38 percent of independents named inflation as their top issue, followed by 14 percent who cited the broader economy and 10 percent who pointed to the conflict with Iran, which Enten said is also closely tied to economic concerns. Combined, more than half of independents identified inflation or the economy as their most pressing issue.
Gas prices, a visible driver of inflation concerns, may not offer Republicans relief before Election Day.
Enten said the combination of persistently high gas prices and the sharp erosion of trust on inflation, the very issue that fueled Republican gains in both the 2022 and 2024 elections, could pose a significant risk for the party in this year's midterm contests, given how central the issue clearly remains to independent voters' concerns.
GOP Senate alarms blare as Trump now in 'serious trouble with farm country'
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND). (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr)
Republican senators are increasingly convinced the battle for Senate control will be decided in the Midwest, and that agricultural voters angered by tariffs, fuel costs and beef imports could hand Democrats the majority
Democrats need a net gain of four seats to flip the chamber, and strategists say that becomes attainable if they capture Republican-held seats in Ohio and Iowa while holding Michigan, then find a fourth seat in North Carolina or a longer-shot state, reported Politico.
"He's in serious trouble in farm country," Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said of President Donald Trump. "He being Trump — and Trump is us. I'm not very optimistic."
Farm-state Republicans point to a combination of tariffs, expensive diesel and fertilizer, and administration moves to ease tariffs on imported beef as driving frustration among agricultural voters who have historically backed the party.
Cramer said the beef issue in particular has infuriated producers. "The one ag producer making money for a change and you shrink his revenue," he said.
Democratic candidates say they're hearing similar frustration on the trail. Josh Turek, running for Senate in Iowa against Rep. Ashley Hinson, has described conditions facing farmers as a second farm crisis. Adam Hamilton, a former pastor challenging Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas, said many Republican voters are reluctant to criticize Trump directly but expect their senators to push back on policies hurting them.
Iowa, which Trump carried three times but which hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 2008, is considered a bellwether for whether the discontent extends beyond reliably blue territory. Republicans are also watching unusually competitive polling in Kansas, Nebraska and parts of the South, along with Maine and Alaska, states with economies tied closely to trade and fuel prices.
Adding to the frustration is the hundreds of millions of dollars sitting in GOP-aligned groups, much of it controlled by Trump, that officials say hasn't been deployed to help endangered incumbents. Republicans have privately complained the president is focused more on personal priorities than defending the party's majorities.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she has urged Trump to reconsider his approach toward Canada, a major trading partner for border states. "I would remind him that Canada is our friend, our closest ally and our biggest trading partner," Collins said, adding that damaging that relationship would hurt Maine and other states along the border.
Republican strategists have compared the environment to 2006 and 2018, both rough midterms for the party in power, with uncertainty over which precedent fits this November.
Internal revolt as 'nuts' Apple execs appease Trump: 'There is not a soul who is for it'
Apple executive Tim Cook speaks with Donald Trump (Photo via Leah Millis for Reuters) Apple executives' decision to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" on its Maps app is setting off a firestorm inside the tech giant, with employees furious that leadership caved to President Donald Trumpout of fear of his wrath, according to a new report.
Employees are furious that the company is rolling over because of higher-ups' fear of the wrath of President Donald Trump who demanded the name change in an executive order, media watchdog Status reported Wednesday.
The controversy intensified after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum appeared on Fox Business on Monday, telling host Maria Bartiromo, "I know that the president reached out to Apple directly, so I'm sure that we may be seeing that change coming up soon to Lake America."
According to Oliver Darcy at Status, "While Apple had likely always planned to update its map to reflect the executive order—it had, after all, also swapped Gulf of Mexico for 'Gulf of America'—Status has learned that executives at the company were irked by Burgum’s comments. By disclosing that Trump had personally phoned Cupertino, the White House had framed any decision Apple made as one in which it 'was capitulating to the president’s demands.'"
Inside the company, Status reported it would be difficult to find a single employee who genuinely supports the change.
"There is not a soul who is for it," one person familiar with the matter told Darcy, adding that "everyone considers it f-----g nuts."
Still, Apple's leadership and most of its rank-and-file are described as "resigned" to these kinds of concessions under Trump's second term, understanding "that Trump will f--- with the company if the company doesn't do what he wants," the person said.
The dispute over Lake Ontario's name has become one of the more visible flashpoints in Trump's escalating trade dispute with Canada, whose officials have mocked the renaming effort as absurd. Like Google's version, Apple's change applies "only to Maps for users located in the United States." Canadian users and much of the rest of the world still see the lake listed under its original name.
Susan Collins' re-election bid haunted by exposed Oath-Keeper hire
U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) walks in Capitol Hill, as Republican lawmakers struggle to pass U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax bill, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 30, 2025. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Republican Sen. Susan Collins' hold on her Maine Senate seat is slipping as Democrats pounce on her ties to a member of the far-right Oath Keepers organization.
It's been one headache after another for Collins as she fights to defend a seat targeted by Democrats for a November flip, the Daily Beast reported Wednesday.
Now she is about to face questions about her hiring of Piscataquis County Commissioner Wayne Erkkine, 81, as her town chair in Greenville, which "puts him in charge of grassroots campaigns and voter outreach."
According to the report, Erkkinen's name popped up in the Oath Keepers' leaked membership rolls of more than 38,000 names and has been identified by the Anti-Defamation League as a member of the group behind the January 6 Capitol attack.
Erkkine told the Beast he quit "years ago," before the riot, claiming, "It wasn't what I thought it would be.
Nonetheless, his ties to the Collins campaign has reportedly given Democrats "fresh ammunition," by linking the embattled GOP lawmaker to extremists who took part in the assault on Washington, D.C., as part of a Trump-inspired insurrection.
'Palpable fear': Overlooked story flagged as Trump 'holds a gun' to federal workers' heads
An official portrait of U.S. President Donald Trump hangs in the Hall of Nations at the Kennedy Center, which the Trump administration argued in a court filing could eventually face demolition if major repairs are not undertaken, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 26, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Fear has grown so suffocating inside federal agencies that whistleblowers now feel they have a "gun to their heads," former Trump Homeland Security official Miles Taylor warned this week, saluting a U.S. Postal Service employee who braved that climate to expose the administration's rushed effort to police the nation's mail ballots in defiance of a court order.
The complaint, released Tuesday by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), warns that the Postal Service built an "untested" barcode system to carry out President Donald Trump's order restricting voting by mail. As designed, the whistleblower said, if a single barcode in a batch of 10,000 ballots fails to scan, the entire batch is bounced back to state officials, potentially stopping millions of ballots from reaching voters. Work began in June and continued despite a court injunction, according to the disclosure, which was prepared with Whistleblower Aid.
The revelations set off alarm among election lawyers and Democrats days ahead of mail voting for the November midterms. A federal judge has temporarily blocked Trump's order, which 23 states and Washington, D.C. are challenging in court. The White House disputed the whistleblower's account, with spokesperson Lauren Bis calling the software "neither complex nor unique," and USPS said it is "carefully reviewing" the concerns.
For Taylor, the missed story was the person who stepped forward.
"The fear is palpable inside federal agencies," he wrote in a Tuesday essay for his anti-Trump group Defiance, which has partnered with the nonprofit representing the whistleblower. He pointed to a Partnership for Public Service survey in which the share of federal employees confident they could report wrongdoing without retaliation fell from about 75% to roughly 22% since Trump returned to office. Taylor also noted the administration has fired at least 17 inspectors general and floated a governmentwide gag rule that critics have said would silence potential whistleblowers.
Taylor himself blew the whistle on Trump years ago, and said the disclosure is already bolstering the legal fight against the mail voting order.
"Somewhere out there in America, a public servant looked at a plan to sabotage your vote. Over their own self-doubt and the daunting consequences of self-sacrifice, he or she decided their oath to the Constitution mattered more than their own safety. That’s what saving a democracy actually looks like, friends. It’s rarely the famous people swinging their fists at the dictator. It’s almost always someone like this," he concluded.
Trump’s 'hilarious' new gold desk phone sparks swift backlash: ‘The dumbest stuff’
U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright delivers remarks to reporters about the Trump administration's support for coal energy production, flanked by West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 4, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump’s flashy new desk phone sparked stunned and mocking reactions after it was spotted Wednesday inside the Oval Office.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins shared a photo captured by Fox News correspondent and pool reporter Peter Doocy. The black Cisco phone features gold-colored trim, the presidential seal and an image of the White House. The words “THE PRESIDENT” appear above the keypad, while “Donald J. Trump” is written underneath.
“Our taxes are being spent on the dumbest stuff,” Vanity Fair special correspondent and “Fast Politics” host Molly Jong-Fast wrote.
British infectious disease physician Dr. Neil Stone added: “This phone is hilarious.”
“Americans can’t afford to gas up their cars, but they’re paying for the President to get a gold-plated new phone,” wrote J.J. Abbott, a Pennsylvania-based media strategist.
Other users mocked the phone's resemblance to a toy.
“Fisher-Price really knocked it out of the park with this one,” the popular X account @aintscarylarry posted to its over 100,000 followers.
Democratic strategist Chris D. Jackson accusedTrump of wasting money on “frivolous” items, while political commentator Kevin Walling summed up his reaction in one word: “Priorities!”
Reuters correspondent David Shepardson confirmed to his social media followers that the phone was manufactured by Cisco.
“I've asked all the major US phone companies who gave @POTUS the phone,” he wrote, later adding, “The phone companies don't make handsets -- this is from @Cisco.”
