Month: January 2026

We Don’t Want This War

Buck Banks

70%

A CBS News poll last month found that 70% of Americans oppose U.S. military action in Venezuela and that only 13% believe the country is a major threat to the United States. A YouGov poll found that only 20% of American adults support using military force to overthrow Nicolas Maduro. And an important point from Dan Pfeiffer: “Trump’s biggest political problem isn’t just that this war is unpopular. It’s that it’s yet another massive, time-consuming distraction from the thing he was elected to do: lower the cost of living.”

Next Up — Cuba?

Buck Banks

“I think Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about, because Cuba is a failing nation right now, very badly failing nation. It’s very similar to Venezuela in the sense that we want to help the people in Cuba, but we want to also help the people that were forced out of Cuba and living in this country.”

— President Trump said his administration will likely discuss the situation in Cuba, which he described as a “failing” nation, the Miami Herald reports.

Ex-RNC Spokesman: GOP Is Trying to Bury Jack Smith’s Testimony

Pensito Editors

“They’re obviously trying to bury this. It doesn’t take a political communications expert to let you know that. … But, look, this is the kind of thing that can’t really be buried. It’s going to come out no matter what day of the week, no matter what hour of the day. You can try all you want, but I mean, this was … the special prosecutor who hasn’t spoken much at all publicly: Jack Smith. And anything that he says will be newsworthy. He was prosecuting, and he believes he was going to be able to indict and convict the current sitting president of the United States.”

– Tim Miller, Bulwark host and former Republican National Committee spokesperson, on MS NOW

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Our Fascist Idiocracy: Republicans Attempt to Bury Jack Smith’s Devastating Testimony

What we have always known is clear - Trump should be in prison, not the White House

Jon Ponder

Parker Molloy: House Republicans released the 255-page transcript of Jack Smith’s closed-door deposition on New Year’s Eve. You know, the day when absolutely nobody is paying attention to the news. The day when political operatives dump things they don’t want people to see.

Funny how that works.

Smith testified before the House Judiciary Committee on December 17th, spending an entire day answering questions about his investigations into Donald Trump. Republicans had been demanding this testimony for months, framing it as part of their “weaponization” investigation. They got what they asked for. And then they released it when America was busy watching the ball drop.

The Independent: During the testimony, Smith offered a confident assessment of the integrity of his work and his team’s chances of securing a conviction, had they been allowed to go to trial. The former special counsel, who resigned shortly before Trump took office, told lawmakers that the Republican was “by a large measure” the person “most responsible” for the alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results and the January 6 Capitol riot that marked its stunning conclusion.

“These crimes were committed for his benefit,” Smith said. “The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit.”

The testimony also highlighted the complicated role Republicans played in the final moments of the 2020 campaign. Smith said much of his office’s conspiracy case rested on evidence from GOP allies, who included senior lawmakers serving in legislatures such as Michigan and Arizona, people who saw firsthand how the Republican was allegedly “preying on the party allegiance of people who supported him.”

“Our case was built on, frankly, Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party,” Smith said. That same loyalty didn’t extend back from Trump to his top allies, Smith continued.
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