Year: 2026

Slotkin Digs In Against DOJ

Buck Banks

“I did this to go on offense. And to put them in a position where they’re tap dancing. To put them in a position where they have to own their choices of using a U.S. attorney’s office to come after a senator.”

— Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is refusing to voluntarily comply with a Justice Department investigation into a video she organized urging U.S. military members to resist “illegal orders” — escalating a dispute that President Trump has publicly pushed, the AP reports.

Two-Thirds Say ICE Has ‘Gone Too Far’

Buck Banks

65%

A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll finds 65% of Americans said Immigration and Customs Enforcement has “gone too far.” President Trump’s overall approval rating remains low at 39%, with 56% disapproving, and a whopping 51% strongly disapproving. That’s the highest Marist has seen in its polling since it started asking how strongly respondents approve or disapprove of presidents dating back to 2017.

The End Was Baked In When Bezos Bought the Washington Post

Buck Banks

“I finally concluded that I could provide runway—financial runway—because I don’t think you can keep shrinking the business. You can be profitable and shrinking. And that’s a survival strategy, but it ultimately leads to irrelevance, at best. And, at worst, it leads to extinction.”

— Jeff Bezos, quoted by the New Yorker, in 2013, on why he purchased the Washington Post.

It’s Twilight for the Washington Post

Buck Banks

“It would be nice if some other billionaire would buy the Post from Bezos. But that’s not going to happen as long as we live in an authoritarian context, because owning a media company is not safe unless you are a supplicant to the regime. … All of which leaves us in a bad place. The free market will not save the Post, because its owner is immune to market signals. Politics will not save the Post, because so long as Republican voters demand authoritarianism, no one can own a media outlet without taking on outsized risk. As sad as it is to admit, the Washington Post is beyond help.”

— Jonathan Last