Alternet: “The Times of London’s David Charter, the newspaper’s U.S. editor, ‘writes that when he asked Mr. DeSantis how he would handle American relations with Ukraine, the governor referred ‘to Biden being ‘weak on the world stage’ and failing at deterrence.’
“Mr. Charter pressed for more detail: ‘How would a President DeSantis handle the conflict in Ukraine?’
“DeSantis, it appears, grew irritated.
“‘Perhaps you should cover some other ground?’ the governor replied. ‘I think I’ve said enough.’
Alternet: Right-wing activist and lobbyist Matt Schlapp, the embattled chairman of the political organization that hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), avoided a reporter’s questions Thursday about a male Republican campaign operative’s sexual assault allegations against him, and ultimately was pulled away by his arm rather than face the questions.
The Independent’s Eric Michael Garcia tried to get Schlapp to respond to the claims by the man who at the time was an aide to the Herschel Walker campaign. He is reportedly suing Schlapp in a $9.4 million battery, defamation, and conspiracy lawsuit after the CPAC leader refused to admit to allegations he was “aggressively fondling” the man’s “genital area in a sustained fashion” while he was driving Schlapp to his hotel.
In the video (above), Garcia can be heard saying to Schlapp, ‘What’s your response to the allegation –’ but then a woman interjects, asking, ‘How’s your wife?’
“‘She’s great,’ Schlapp responds.
[Mercedes Schlapp was Trump’s director of strategic communications.]
“…At that point another man grabs Schlapp’s arm and pulls him away.”
“Will Republicans honor their campaign commitments to secure the border – yes or no? What I am seeing right now from my Republican colleagues does not give me faith that they will stand up in the breach as did those men who stood on the wall at the Alamo. I am tired of words!”
— Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), in a fiery speech on the House floor.
“Whether DeSantis would actually do more damage to American democracy in office than Trump could remains hard to say. Perhaps, perhaps not. But we should recognize that he is not putting himself forward as a critic of Trump’s authoritarianism. He is promising, on the contrary, to exceed it.”
Vice News: “If Ron DeSantis has his way, what his board did at New College will happen at every public university in Florida.
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handpicked board of trustees voted to shutter New College’s diversity, equity, and inclusion office on Tuesday, the latest step in its hostile takeover of the school and a harbinger of what Florida’s entire university system could look like in a few months.
“The board, which has a majority of DeSantis appointees, voted 9 to 3 to abolish the school’s Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence.
“Christopher Rufo, a rightwing education activist and one of DeSantis’ appointees to the board and [who singlehandedly made Critical Race Theory into fake issue], argued during the meeting that diversity efforts undermine fairness. ‘DEI goes against those principles because it restricts academic freedom, it degrades the rigor of scholarship, it treats people differently on the basis of skin color or other inborn identities,’ he said during the board meeting.
“DeSantis has sought to make an example of New College, a tiny liberal arts school with a mostly progressive student body that has a large LBGTQ community. Earlier this year he replaced most of the college’s board of trustees with right-wing loyalists who quickly moved to fire the college’s president, replace her with an ally, and push the liberal-leaning school hard to the right.”
Adam Serwer in The Atlantic: “A simple but obvious fact has been lost over the past few years, amid Trump’s direct attacks on the FBI, and liberal defenses of the FBI against those attacks: FBI agents are cops. Law-enforcement officers, including the FBI, have long been disproportionately conservative, but in the past few decades, like the rest of the nation, they have also become far more polarized by party, a reality reflected in the rhetoric and positioning of advocacy groups such as the Fraternal Order of Police. There are liberal and moderate cops, but they are not close to comprising a majority. Simply put, the FBI is full of people who would prefer not to investigate Donald Trump. He remains under federal investigation only because of his own inability to stop criming.”
From Trump’s “stolen election” lies, we can’t get no relief,
He carps on about stolen votes, but he never names the thief.
Somebody needs to tell this guy
Americans aren’t buying his lies,
And that he’s turned us into the United States of Disbelief.
“If you are committing fraud against the American people, all of us in public leadership should be trying to stop it and throw you in prison for enriching yourself off the American taxpayer.”
“We are done, Americans are done with endless conflict in the Middle East, spending trillions of dollars, American lives… this is insane and we have to call it for what it is.”
“The U.S. State Department announced on Monday that it has revoked more than 175,000 visas during President Donald Trump’s administration so far,” Fox News reports.
President Donald Trump is asking for $1,500,000 million for the military for next year. That’s close to $600 billion (adjusted for inflation) more than we were spending on the military in fiscal year 2025, before Trump took office, Alternet reports. This increase is huge by any measure. It comes to around $4,600 per household. It is around 8% of the total budget.
A new Emerson College survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%. President Trump holds a 39% job approval rating, consistent with the past two months, whereas his disapproval increased another point, to 57%.
A new American Research Group poll finds just 30% of Americans say they approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president and 67% say they disapprove.
Wall Street Journal: “Around 40% of voters in the 2024 election said the economy was their top issue, far outstripping any other matter. And those voters favored Donald Trump by 60% to 38%. Many say they were moved by his pledges to tame inflation, rebuild U.S. infrastructure, cut red tape and trim government waste. … About a year and a half later, more voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy than approve, 61% to 35%, an average of polls by the Cook Political Report found this month.”
