Bill Maher: Yes, the DSA are a bunch of commies

Are We Witnessing a "Soft Secession"

“I actually think,” Rush Limbaugh told his many millions of listeners during the weeks between Donald Trump losing the 2020 election and his supporters’ assault on the Capitol, “that we’re trending toward secession. It can’t go on this way. There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life, theories of government, theories of how we manage our affairs.”

Twenty months later, on the day the F.B.I. seized thousands of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, The Times reported that “posts on Twitter that mentioned ‘civil war’ had soared nearly 3,000 percent in just a few hours” and “jumped again a few weeks later, after President Joe Biden branded Mr. Trump and ‘MAGA Republicans’ a threat to ‘the very foundations of our republic.’”

Days after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, then-Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene reiterated her push for legally splitting up the country: “I want a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it’s no longer safe for any of us.” Polls since 2021 by universities, YouGov and others have consistently found that a third or more of Americans said they expected a civil war during the next decade or so.

A national divorce — let alone a civil war — is, for now, the stuff of fiction. But while loose talk from rabble-rousers has distracted us, the nation has sunk, almost unnoticed, into an unspectacular yet profoundly strange new arrangement. It’s not yet a divorce; it’s more like a bitter, loveless marriage in which the parties stay technically but less and less enthusiastically united because splitting up is too complicated or dreadful or expensive.

...During the past two Democratic presidencies, many red states and counties declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries, prohibiting their police forces from enforcing some federal gun regulations. (The term was a trollish play on Democratic sanctuary cities, which did the same for federal immigration policies.) Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas took it upon himself to override federal immigration policy, deploying the National Guard to string the banks of the Rio Grande with coils of razor wire and ordering his troops to prevent federal border agents from helping migrants who got tangled in them. More than two dozen Republican governors endorsed the show of anti-federal strength.

Now that Mr. Trump is back in office, Democratic-led states and cities are getting almost as aggressive, overriding or ignoring federal and state policies they find objectionable. Local police departments aren’t cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many states passed laws to shield residents from prosecution if they are charged elsewhere with facilitating abortions, and several have stockpiled abortifacients in case federal law or regulations make them hard to get.

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What the Crackup of the Heritage Foundation Says About the Post-Trump Right

“You can never institutionalize the gut instincts of a great, heroic populist like Donald Trump, or Teddy Roosevelt, or Andrew Jackson,” Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, told me this spring. “But the point is that, moving forward, on the evening of Jan. 20, 2029, President Trump will have left the stage. We as conservatives have to answer the question, Where is this movement going? And what it can’t do — what it must not do — is go back to 20 years ago.”

The Heritage Foundation currently finds itself engulfed in an internal struggle that mirrors the one roiling the Republican Party: how to harness the energy unleashed by Trumpism without being completely overrun by its conspiracy- and nativist-minded elements, particularly among the rising generation that has known little else. Long accustomed to placing its experts in key positions in Republican administrations, as it did in Trump’s first term, Heritage presented its Project 2025 as just the kind of master plan an uncompromising second Trump administration would need to implement its agenda.

But once Trump took office, Heritage was instead pushed to the side. As it tried to work its way back into the center of power, the foundation was consumed by a vicious in-house conflict. An old guard of establishment experts saw themselves swamped by an influx of more radical, often younger conservatives eager to remake the institution for the post-Trump right in their image: terminally online, ruthless in fighting the culture wars and vehement in rejecting the dogmas of postwar conservatism.

A watershed moment came last October, when Roberts posted a video to X in support of Tucker Carlson, who had been widely criticized for inviting the 27-year-old white nationalist and antisemitic influencer Nick Fuentes onto his show. Condemnations flooded in from across the right, with several of Carlson’s closest allies breaking with him over his decision to turn his show into what one of them, the Israeli American philosopher Yoram Hazony, recently called “the leading clearinghouse for virulent antisemitism on the political right.” Roberts leapt to Carlson’s defense, denouncing the “venomous coalition attacking” Carlson and arguing that conservatives should “feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class” and the “bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda.”

Roberts later apologized to Heritage staff for his choice of words, which some had criticized as playing into antisemitic tropes, and for having “let down this institution.” But when I asked him about the video, he insisted that it was Heritage’s job to figure out how to bring together a coalition that can win elections and exercise power effectively. Roberts, who is 52, projects a friendly, confident energy. He was wearing a fitted blue suit along with alligator-style cowboy boots, in keeping with his years as president of Wyoming Catholic College. Before taking over at Heritage in 2021, his pitch to the board of trustees, according to The Dispatch, was that he could marry the conservative movement’s new populist ethos with a traditional institution like Heritage. “You can’t have a governing coalition if you’re saying, I’m not even going to talk to people who occasionally listen to a podcast by someone who’s a total goofball,” he went on, referring to Fuentes. “That doesn’t mean that we endorse what that person says. We endorse trying to convince these people of what’s right, and what isn’t right.”

Many employees and experts at Heritage appeared to disagree with the premise that such people belonged in their coalition, and especially that anyone was trying to set them right. Longtime Heritage employees told me that the people they usually collaborated with in congressional offices, circuit courts, foreign embassies and other institutions no longer wanted to be publicly associated with Heritage and what they perceived as its fidelity to Carlson. In a resignation letter later made public, Josh Blackman, a legal scholar who had for years been working on a new edition of “The Heritage Guide to the Constitution,” said the volume’s contributors pulled out of an event promoting the book and refused to sign copies. Judges who had spoken at the foundation, Blackman wrote, said “they would no longer affiliate with Heritage.”

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On the Dangers of One Party Rule

...But what if we don’t actually have a competitive two-party system? What if our nation actually has two one-party systems, instead? And if the United States has two one-party systems, then that means that each way they turn voters are confronted with the arrogance, stagnation and corruption that almost always disfigures single-party rule.

The best illustration of this reality is found in state government “trifectas.” That’s the term for a state where one party controls the governor’s mansion and both houses of the state legislature. As of this month, there are 23 Republican trifectas and 16 Democratic ones. That leaves 11 states with divided governments.

Republicans may govern more states, but Democratic states tend to be more populous. As a result, a roughly equal percentage of Americans live under total red or blue rule. As of January, 39.1 percent of Americans lived in blue trifecta states, and 41.5 percent lived in red trifecta states, which means that less than 20 percent of the population lives in a divided state.

Combine trifecta state control with aggressive partisan gerrymanders, and you have exactly the situation in Congress that my colleague Tom Edsall described this week: “An overwhelming majority of House members run in districts that are safe in the general election, where the only threat to an incumbent is from a more ideologically extreme challenger in the primary.”

Another way of putting it is that the other side is so weak in so many states and congressional districts that politicians can build entire careers without having to appeal to voters on the other side of the aisle.

For example, even in a year of remarkable public discontent, in which the House may well change hands, the vast majority of members of Congress are completely safe. The Cook Political Report lists 186 districts as solid Republican and 182 districts as solid Democrat. There are only 18 tossup races. If you add in the 20 races that merely lean in one direction or the other, that gives you a grand total of 38 competitive races in a 435-member House of Representatives.

As a result, one-party politicians are often born in the parties’ bases and inept at reaching anyone even a few inches to their ideological right or left. In fact, the very effort to reach out to the opposition is usually interpreted as weakness, a misguided compromise against an uncompromising foe.

The art of compromise vanishes before our eyes. After all, generations of politicians now come from the roughly 80 percent of the country where compromise is almost always unnecessary. Compromises are internal only, as the party negotiates with itself. The opposition might as well not exist.

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UK Prime Minister Under Pressure to Quit

LONDON, June 20 (Reuters) - Britain's Observer newspaper said Prime Minister Keir Starmer was expected to resign on Monday and set ‌out a timetable for his departure, though a government source said Starmer remained focused on getting on with the job of governing.

The threat to Starmer's position, which has been building for months, increased sharply on Friday when his rival Andy Burnham won a seat in parliament that would allow him to ​launch a formal leadership challenge.

The Observer report said Starmer was discussing the matter with his wife at his Chequers country ​residence before making a final decision, but that senior Labour figures expected a clear statement on ⁠his future as early as Monday.

However, a government source said Starmer remained focused on his job and pointed to previous statements ​he has made to that effect.

The British leader said on Friday he would fight any challenge to his leadership and urged Labour not to tear ​itself apart with infighting.

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Graham Platner, Ken Paxton and Political Hypocrisy

If you want to know just how unprincipled — and how unabashedly hypocritical — politicians and their supporters can be, consider how Democrats would respond if Graham Platner were a Republican.

Platner, the Democrats’ nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine, has spent weeks answering questions about his past. By now, you probably know at least some of the story. During what he describes as a dark period in his life after military service, he had a Nazi tattoo emblazoned on his chest — which he maintained for nearly two decades. He has acknowledged inappropriate relationships with women. He has made insulting comments about military heroes and said things about Black Americans that, at the very least, demonstrated remarkably poor judgment.

Now ask yourself a simple question: What would Democrats be saying if Platner were a Republican?

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Fox News: Disapproval of Trump hits new high

Voters are increasingly pessimistic about the economy and President Trump’s handling of key issues, while a majority opposes continued U.S. military involvement in Iran even as most believe the U.S. is winning the war. That’s according to a new Fox News national survey.

Affordability continues to dominate the political landscape.

Fifty-eight percent flag the cost of living as their top economic worry, up from 50% in February. This eclipses other issues, such as government spending (16%), jobs (8%) and tariffs (8%).

More than three-quarters also say the economy is in bad shape (77%), worse than last month (73%) and a year ago (71%). Only 23% rate it positively, the lowest in more than a year. 

The pessimism is personal too. A slim majority of voters (51%) say their family’s finances are worse now than two years ago. Before the 2022 midterm elections, 44% said the same. 

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See also...

Trump approval among Republicans at new low

Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice leaves Democratic Party over antisemitism concerns

A Pennsylvania state Supreme Court justice said Monday he is leaving the Democratic Party over what he sees as a rise in antisemitism from mainstream party figures.

Justice David Wecht, who was elected to the court as a Democrat in 2015, said in a statement he is switching his party affiliation to independent due to an “acquiescence to Jew-hatred” becoming “disturbingly common among activists, leaders and even many elected officials in the Democratic Party.”

“I can no longer abide this. So, I won’t,” Wecht said. “I am no longer registered within any political party.”

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For Frustrated G.O.P., Redistricting Fight Turns to Florida and the Courtroom

Frustrated Republicans looked Wednesday to rebound from another setback in a nationwide redistricting chess match, as the high-stakes contest turned to Florida and the courtroom.

A Democratic victory on Tuesday in Virginia, where voters approved a change to the state’s House map that could give the party up to four more seats in the midterms, left Republicans with little to show for a tit-for-tat they started last year in Texas at the urging of President Trump.

Republicans are holding out hope that Virginia’s top court might reverse Tuesday’s result. And they are eying a chance to gain ground by redrawing the House map in Florida, where they control the governor’s office and hold supermajorities in the Legislature. But there is growing doubt in the party about its broader strategy.

“The two sides spent hundreds of millions dollars to get back to where they started, and in general, it’s turned out to be a net loser for Republicans,” said C. Stewart Verdery Jr., a Republican consultant.

Read the rest here.

Meanwhile, the Democrats...

In California Democrats could lock themselves out of the ballot for the governor's race.

And in New York, they are playing dirty in the governor's race. 

Ten Years Ago Donald Trump Promised to Eliminate the National Debt. It Has Doubled.

Ten years ago today, Donald Trump said he would pay off the national debt in the span of just eight years.

That did not happen. Instead, the gross national debt has doubled since that day—from about $19 trillion to over $39 trillion. Much of that additional borrowing has taken place during Trump's five-plus years in the White House.

The gap between Trump's outlandish promise and the brutal fiscal reality of the past decade is not just a political gotcha. It's also an apt illustration of how far and how fast the debt has spiraled. And it's a painful reminder of a missed opportunity that Americans will be facing for a long, long time. The bill for these 10 years of fiscal profligacy will be coming due long after Trump has finally departed from the political scene.

But it's a story that starts, as everything in politics seems to these days, with Trump.

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At CPAC a Generational Divide Over Iran

GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) — A generational divide over the Iran war surfaced Thursday between older attendees and their political heirs at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, as the group’s leaders pleaded for unity in a challenging midterm election year for Republicans.

Younger conservatives spoke of disappointment and even “betrayal” over President Donald Trump’s launch of strikes against Iran, saying in interviews with The Associated Press that the president’s actions run counter to his many pledges to oppose foreign entanglements.

Meanwhile, older conservatives were looking past Trump’s campaign criticism of military action to topple foreign regimes, arguing the war in Iran is a pragmatic act forced by threats to the United States.

The bright dividing line emerged in conversations with a dozen participants on either end of the age spectrum who gathered for the annual meeting of conservatives, being held outside Dallas. That split could reflect flagging enthusiasm for Trump among some younger voters, a potentially troubling sign for Republicans heading into midterm elections and for the conservative movement as it looks to build beyond Trump’s tenure.

“We did not want to see more wars. We wanted actual America-first policies, and Trump was very explicit about that,” said Benjamin Williams, a 25-year-old marketing specialist for Young Americans for Liberty. “It does feel like a betrayal, for sure.”

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Wealth Taxes & Flight... It's Complicated

This is a very good examination of a hot button topic.

In the News 02-15-2026

Noem boasts of Trump administration ensuring ‘we have the right people voting’ ahead of midterms

Grand juries take on growing importance amid Trump’s legal retribution campaign

In South Texas, the GOP immigration hard line is now political kryptonite

Top British and German military chiefs press ‘moral’ case for rearmament

European allies ‘frustrated’ by UK defense paralysis 

122 Years Ago Today "Remember the Maine!"

Alexei Navalny was killed by Russia with frog toxin, 5 European governments say

Trump’s Trade Policy Is Teaching Partners Washington Can’t Be Trusted

How Virginia's top court might decide Democrats' gerrymandering fate

Virginia Democrats are moving forward with plans to gerrymander their way to four more congressional seats — but they need help from the state’s top court.

After a lower court blocked Democrats’ efforts to amend the state Constitution and redraw federal congressional lines ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, the Virginia Court of Appeals requested the Virginia Supreme Court weigh in.

That puts the fate of the map — and potentially congressional control after the 2026 midterms — in the hands of a group of justices that observers say can be hard to predict.

Political and legal experts in Virginia agree the state Supreme Court is not overtly ideological, with many describing it as “small-c conservative,” leaning heavily on tradition and precedent rather than handing down ideologically right-wing rulings. And many observers say the court is wary of wading too heavily into political fights. But this time, it’s unavoidable.

“It’s kind of a state Supreme Court tradition to stay away from political matters whenever they can. They like to leave the legislating to the legislature. So this is going to be a really interesting test of that tradition,” said Carolyn Fiddler of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, who attended William & Mary Law School in Virginia and worked in state politics.

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Demanding Political Loyalty, Trump's DOJ Struggles With Staffing

Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, hung an online help wanted sign for federal prosecutors last weekend that perhaps explained why so many valuable Justice Department staff members have left, and why so few candidates want in.

Assistant U.S. attorneys are not typically recruited, as Mr. Mizelle sought to do, by a former federal employee who asks potential candidates to send a private message to his X account. Nor have they been asked in the past to prove political or ideological fealty.

“If you are a lawyer, are interested in being an AUSA, and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda, DM me,” wrote Mr. Mizelle, a fierce Trump supporter who remains close with Justice Department leaders and senior officials in the West Wing.

Mr. Mizelle was acting as a private citizen expressing his own views. But the post reflected the prevailing sentiment inside the department — that Mr. Trump has the right to hire only those willing to execute his agenda. It also highlighted the dynamic that appears to be contributing to the very staffing shortages Mr. Mizelle tried to address.

The intermingling of law enforcement and political goals has made the department, long a magnet for platinum legal talent, an unappealing landing spot, according to current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The number of applications is down significantly from previous years, officials said, even as Trump loyalists have publicized vacancies through official and unconventional channels. Some of those applying are generally not as qualified as those who sought the position in the recent past, they added.

A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to specific questions, but said all of the department’s actions reflected Ms. Bondi’s February 2025 memo requiring all employees to “zealously advance, protect and defend” the interests of Mr. Trump in his role as the nation’s chief executive.

The White House has exercised extraordinary control over the Justice Department, with prosecutors pressured to investigate and prosecute the president’s enemies, all in the name of reversing purported politicization under Democrats.

Applications for vacant slots in U.S. attorneys’ offices, once apolitical questionnaires, now often include requirements to weigh in on Mr. Trump’s policies.

“How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?” read one of the queries on an application for a job in the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, whose ranks have drastically thinned after the killing of two protesters in Minneapolis spawned an exodus of prosecutors.

“Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired,” reads another.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene: 'MAGA was a lie.'

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said President Trump’s Make American Great Again slogan was a “lie,” saying his first year back in office was focused on obliging wealthy supporters.

“I think people are realizing it was all a lie. It was a big lie for the people. What MAGA is really serving in this administration, who they’re serving, is their big donors,” Greene said in a Wednesday interview with radio personality Kim Iversen. 

“The big, big donors that donated all the money and continue to donate to the president’s PACs and donate to the 250th anniversary and are donating to the big ballroom,” she added.

The former Georgia representative recently resigned from Congress, after airing concerns over the future of health care premiums and the war in Gaza, citing fractures within the GOP and falling out with Trump and MAGA, despite years of loyal support for the president.

On Wednesday, she said the people who truly benefit from backing Trump are financial benefactors, telling Iversen: “Those are the people that get the special favors. They get the government contracts, they get the pardons, or somebody they love or one of their friends gets a pardon.”

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One of the world’s best universities has been captured by trans-obsessed zealots

I came to Cambridge because I wanted to learn how to think, not what to think: how to weigh arguments, test premises, spot evasions and follow a thought wherever it leads, even when it becomes uncomfortable. I did not come to be preached at, or for slogans. I expected the university – which for generations has jostled for position as the best in the world – to be a place where everything was up for discussion. Although I had long-held settled views on the sex-gender debate, they were not something I dwelt on.

That changed over the Easter holidays last year, when I attended a talk featuring the writers Julie Bindel and Helen Joyce. I met women that day who changed the course of my life. Not because they proselytised, or demanded loyalty, but because they spoke plainly, without fear. It became impossible to remain comfortably disengaged. I read Joyce’s book – Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality – and returned to Cambridge with it, as well as Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls. Both women, as well as Bindel, have been pilloried (that’s putting it mildly) for stating the truth: that biological sex and women’s rights must trump gender identity.

Back in college, I showed the books to a friend. I had been self-censoring on this subject for some time: trimming sentences and avoiding questions. I believed that a careful, private introduction to these ideas would be safe. I was wrong. Soon after, I was systematically ostracised by people I had considered close friends. Many told me they could no longer speak to me because of my views. I was branded a Terf (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) and the word was scratched into the board on my door. I was told that buying books written by bigots was morally equivalent to being one. Argument was unnecessary; association enough to convict.

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Democrat wins solidly red Texas Senate seat in special election upset

Democrat and machinist union leader Taylor Rehmet won the special election Saturday to represent a solidly red Texas Senate district that President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024, a stunning upset that injected a fresh and urgent sense of a panic into the GOP from the Texas Capitol to the White House heading into November’s midterm elections. 

With ballots tallied from all but a handful of voting centers, Rehmet had 57% of the vote, besting the 43% for his GOP opponent, conservative activist Leigh Wambsganss, who vastly outspent Rehmet as Republicans including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick mounted a furious funding push in a bid to tilt the election in their favor in the final days. 

Patrick, the Senate’s powerful presiding officer, had raised alarm bells about the race and urged Republicans to turn out — as did Trump, who posted three separate get-out-the-vote messages on social media in the 48 hours preceding the election.

The win will be short-lived for Rehmet, a first-time candidate who will serve out the roughly 11 months remaining in the term of Republican Kelly Hancock, who vacated the seat to become Texas’ acting comptroller. But the outcome serves as a warning shot for Republicans that will likely embolden Democrats as they angle for other red-leaning seats across Texas — and the country — in November. 

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Thom Tillis Compares Noem to Dolores Umbridge, Stephen Miller to Grima Wormtongue

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) compared Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller to fictional villains on Friday, calling them both a “sycophant” as tensions rise over the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.

“A sycophant is more than just a ‘yes-man,’” Tillis wrote in a lengthy post on social platform X. “It refers to someone who acts excessively servile toward someone important in order to gain an advantage.”

He added, “They aren’t just being nice, they are using excessive flattery, often insincerely, to get what they want, whether that’s a promotion, social status or favor.”

The senator compared Miller to Grima Wormtongue from “The Lord of the Rings,” who is an adviser to a king. 

“He uses whispers and false flattery to control the King’s decisions, all while secretly serving Saruman,” the North Carolina Republican continued in his post. “He is a classic example of a sycophant who uses his position to poison a leader’s standing for his own benefit.”

Additionally, the senator compared Noem to Dolores Umbridge from “Harry Potter,” calling her a “bureaucratic sycophant.”

“She is terrifyingly sweet while she is around those she considers her superiors and she sucks up to authority to gain the power she needs to bully those ‘beneath’ her,” he said. 

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